Honest question: If every player/class/job is equal,who is unique? (Gameplay topic)

[Destain]

Hmm... I feel like you don't play all the jobs and are making a large generalization based on a 2nd hand perception. you dont seem to have played all of or... Any of these jobs in end game.

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...acter/2233242/

[Scootaloo]

Having skills that are too unique and powerful will cause a mindset where certain classes are left out of fights altogether.

And that's a bad thing? And it also boils down to situations and preference as well. So what if someone prefers the WAR to the PLD for one type of fight? There are plenty of other battles that they can bring they're PLD into that they'll be of use for. In a game where grinding to level 50 is as easy as breathing, I hardly find it that bad to give classes a more unique skill set that makes them more useful in one fight to another class. If the player can't take about 1 hour out of each day to grind about 5-10 levels for the job they wanna run the place in, then that's their fault, not the player's or the game's design.

[Pantz]

And that's a bad thing? And it also boils down to situations and preference as well. So what if someone prefers the WAR to the PLD for one type of fight? There are plenty of other battles that they can bring they're PLD into that they'll be of use for. In a game where grinding to level 50 is as easy as breathing, I hardly find it that bad to give classes a more unique skill set that makes them more useful in one fight to another class. If the player can't take about 1 hour out of each day to grind about 5-10 levels for the job they wanna run the place in, then that's their fault, not the player's or the game's design.

Yes.That is a bad thing. Not everyone wants to play all classes. There is no reason to punish them by creating situations where the class they love to play is left out of an instance. Giving a player a choice and forcing them is two different things.

You don't punish players for not playing all classes. You reward them for playing all classes.

You don't punish new players for not having all classes maxed with great gear. You reward those that played long enough to max all classes and have great gear on all of them.

And also, not everyone has the time to play the game every single day. By the time they can grind out each class, they are already going to miss out on a lot of content.

[lvlagmarink]

1. They are really different with each other, you can call it situational.. It's sorta in inverse mechanic.. MNK vs. DRG, BLM vs. SMN..
Monk is situational when you need to dodge aoe which sometime fall on the back of a mob, monks will lose dps in bootshine and truestrike but when monk is on certain form, you can deal DoT and it wont screw the rotation, unlike in dragoon which only need 1 initiate skill to put into position and the rest can be applied from every side, monk can buff attack with rotation while drg need flank side for heavy trust..
Blm has burst ranged attack, unlike summoner which rely in dot.. This will make summoner less useful in mob that needs quick kill like gaol in titan, but being easier in acquiring damage since it's just keeping dot intact..
Bard is just the middle job.. I dont find it's dow support (army paeon) to be really useful, but foe requiem is very useful in giving magical attack buff..

[lvlagmarink]

2. Paladin and warrior dont actually generating same hate as far as i tested it in warrior, uncombo butcher>overpower>flash>tomahawk in term of generating hate.. Then again paladin's def buff reduction from shield oath makes mitigating damage easier, while warrior needs to time up inner beast on large scale attack every 5 wraths for only 5s, but since warrior have access to both overpower and flash, warrior will have easier hate generating..

[lvlagmarink]

3. Whm is old fashioned healer, while scholar is mainly keeping barrier healer..
4 &5. Well equipments are cosmetics~ I meet some people who actually prefer to craft rather than going to raid, and that means this game offer both enjoyment for warlover with peacelover..
So in conclusion, it really depends on the players, there are just some specific jobs which one can be easily mastered, while it's harder to master another.. I'm just better mainly in dow job, because i just like to move around and dont like to see cast time.. And in dungeons, i'd prefer warrior with easy hate generating but would choose paladin for single target raid for easier mitigating damage and party demand. in twintania, if i missed inner beast during death sentence, it would be wrecked without stoneskin and barrier, timing is everything.. But when i'm using paladin, i can even watch and relax the fight.

Tldr.. Screw 1000 chars limit.. I'm gonna post one liner for now on..

[Scootaloo]

Yes.That is a bad thing. Not everyone wants to play all classes. There is no reason to punish them by creating situations where the class they love to play is left out of an instance. Giving a player a choice and forcing them is two different things.

You don't punish players for not playing all classes. You reward them for playing all classes.

You don't punish new players for not having all classes maxed with great gear. You reward those that played long enough to max all classes and have great gear on all of them.

And also, not everyone has the time to play the game every single day. By the time they can grind out each class, they are already going to miss out on a lot of content.

For starters: How is that punishing them?

It's THEIR CHOICE if they want to level the job or not. If they don't want to grind the job(which is cake to do) then they don't have to, no one is forcing them to. Also, your assuming EVERYONE will have a certain expectation for a certain run, only elitists hold these types of ideals and I pity ANYONE who runs with that lot.

Secondly, no one is expecting every player to have every class maxed out with all the best gear, even as the game is now, I've ran with people who barely have ilvl80 and often less and they do just fine as any other class with ilvl90+. Once again, only elitists have those types of expectations.

Thirdly, sure, not everyone has time to play every single day but its not like if you miss 2-3 days out of the week grinding your job that the ex runs are suddenly going to stop the next. Now if you miss weeks on end and are unable to play most days out of the month, then maybe the player should reconsider where they should put their money since its essentially being wasted.

and even in that scenario, if the player has that little time to do anything to begin with, they're going to miss out on newly released content anyways since they don't have the time to tome grind or dungeon grind for the better gear to survive in most end game content anyways.

[LineageRazor]

For example your PLD and WAR suggestion. In a fight with a powerful aoe that is hard to heal, people will want PLDs only. In a fight that needs more dps, people will want WARs only. Having skills that are too unique and powerful will cause a mindset where certain classes are left out of fights altogether.

Actually, one of the things I find nice about this game are the ways that they've added synergy between jobs. Bringing two WHMs or two SCHs is almost always inferior to bringing one of each: the SCH's shields mitigate damage, and the WHM's power heals quickly patch up after the attacks that manage to get through those shields.

WAR and PLD have similar synergy - for example, Rage of Halone's STR down effect assists WAR tanks as much as it does PLD tanks.

For DD jobs, BRDs benefit from DRG's Disembowel. SMNs and BLMs (and DDing WHMs and SCHs, for that matter) benefit from BRD's Foe Requiem. It's pretty rare in the game that there's any instance where "throw as many as possible of Job X at it" is the best solution. No 17-BLM Divine Might fight in this game (FFXI reference for one particularly infamous abuse of this type)! I'm not saying that it never, ever happens, but it's pretty rare. The classes are pretty well-balanced.

[Seiryuukishi]

The fights themselves will do the restricting. Main blm? Doing an AOE heavy fight? Be prepared to have your damage gated because of movement. Boss hits like a freight train? Save those defensive cooldowns for the big ones or in the case of warrior comboing alot of storm's path. Monks have to deal with keeping GL3 up as long as possible. Lose it and dps drops significantly. Some fights force you to lose the stacks. Dragoons are jump management. Weaving them properly into combos or using them as the situation dictates with up to 3 minute cooldowns gates them. Summoners have to manage DOTs and pets especially when pet is in obey and has to be positioned. All have pros and cons. Bards are the most situational aware dps because of ballads. They have to stop, cast a ballad, then open fire again. Sometimes in unfavorable conditions. I won't speak for healers.

[Pantz]

For starters: How is that punishing them?

The fact that they can't join a party just because they don't like playing a certain class or don't have a certain class? Sure they have a choice to level but if you are forcing them to level a certain class just because a certain fight demands that class to be used only, that isn't a choice. That's forcing. And that's punishing.