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

[NorthernLadMSP]

While I agree it's good to have variety in the jobs, I really don't feel they're too similar. I actively play both WHM and SCH, and BLM and SMN. They're very different. I also play BRD, it's very different as well.

Like people have already stated, too many differences leads to people being left out. Remember back when everyone was farming Brayflox HM speed runs for Myth? The ONLY DPS jobs people wanted were BLMs and BRDs. Just last night, I saw a Party Finder for Levi EX that specifically stated "no monks." Exclusion is not a good thing in a game like this.

[Aegis]

Crafters are the only ones that can Affix materia to these items. You NEED to have a crafter to Maximize the potential and that crafter has to match the type of item as well as the Level Requirements of the materia.

But not to, y'know, actually craft.

While I agree it's good to have variety in the jobs, I really don't feel they're too similar. I actively play both WHM and SCH, and BLM and SMN. They're very different.

But not as different as, say, WHM/SCH and DNC. A healer that generates its cures by being in melee combat, doesn't require MP and can't be silenced. When you look at it from that perspective, WHM and SCH are fairly similiar. To be fair, of all the roles currently in the game, the healer role does, to me, seem to have the widest difference.

I also play BRD, it's very different as well.

BRD is not anywhere near as different as it could have been. It could have been a support class as it has been in all FFs rather than a DPS with a couple of support abilities.

Like people have already stated, too many differences leads to people being left out. Remember back when everyone was farming Brayflox HM speed runs for Myth? The ONLY DPS jobs people wanted were BLMs and BRDs. Just last night, I saw a Party Finder for Levi EX that specifically stated "no monks." Exclusion is not a good thing in a game like this.

Sometimes you have to accept that some classes will get left out of some content. Fortunately this game encourages you to level multiple classes. As long as a class isn't left out for most content and the BIS doesn't exclusively come from one content (*cough* Coil *cough*) then it's not as bad as you're worried it will be.

Ask someone who levelled PUP to 75 in XI, they got left out for loads of stuff, but it was hella fun anyway.

[NorthernLadMSP]

But not as different as, say, WHM/SCH and DNC. A healer that generates its cures by being in melee combat, doesn't require MP and can't be silenced.

BRD is not anywhere near as different as it could have been. It could have been a support class as it has been in all FFs rather than a DPS with a couple of support abilities.

I never played XI, but I heard dancers were really fun. I would love if they added dancer as the next healer class. I would eat that up in a heartbeat.

As for bard, they may not be all they could be, but you have to admit they're very different than other classes. They're the only class that can restore MP and TP for the whole party. They're the only class that can buff the magic damage of every caster in party. They're also the only class that can run around (and at a ranged distance) all of the time, while still attacking at full force.

[polyhedral]

They're the only class that can restore MP and TP for the whole party. They're the only class that can buff the magic damage of every caster in party. They're also the only class that can run around (and at a ranged distance) all of the time, while still attacking at full force.

Yet, from my experience, they just like to run around pew pew pewing. Double WHM out below half MP, RUN FOREST RUN. SCH having to raise too many bodies and out of MP, RUN FOREST RUN.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Yet, from my experience, they just like to run around pew pew pewing. Double WHM out below half MP, RUN FOREST RUN. SCH having to raise too many bodies and out of MP, RUN FOREST RUN.

LOL, hey now I wasn't defending all the bad ones out there. Just pointing out the qualities a good one can bring to a party.

[Aegis]

As for bard, they may not be all they could be, but you have to admit they're very different than other classes. They're the only class that can restore MP and TP for the whole party. They're the only class that can buff the magic damage of every caster in party. They're also the only class that can run around (and at a ranged distance) all of the time, while still attacking at full force.

The MP and TP regaining abilities are something that's rarely used, particularly TP.

Once the Gun class, which was originally slated to be released in 2010, is released, I imagine it won't be the only class that can run around while DPS'ing.

Again, this comes to a question of scale.

Think more outside the box:

Tanks with low threat, but high survivability.
DPS that can transfer hate.
A melee DPS with cast times that root them in place.
A healer that can damage themselves or party members to cure others (lol, imagine a Raise that required the player to use *all* their HP)
A pet job where the player does very little damage and their pet will die to a couple of hits, but does massive damage.
A pure support class
A pure debuff class (debuff resistance/immunity on bosses kinda negates this, though)
Evasion Tanks
Debuff Tanks
Drain Tanks
A DPS that does more damage the more enmity they have.

I'm pretty sure you could find examples of all these kinds of classes in older MMOs.

[Prototype909]

Tanks with low threat, but high survivability.
DPS that can transfer hate.
A melee DPS with cast times that root them in place.
A healer that can damage themselves or party members to cure others (lol, imagine a Raise that required the player to use *all* their HP)
A pet job where the player does very little damage and their pet will die to a couple of hits, but does massive damage.
A pure support class
A pure debuff class (debuff resistance/immunity on bosses kinda negates this, though)
Evasion Tanks
Debuff Tanks
Drain Tanks
A DPS that does more damage the more enmity they have.

I actually like a lot of these ideas but let me take a moment to pick them apart just to see what your responses would be

Tanks with low threat, but high survivability - The game is presently centered around aggro being generated at a very specific, pre-designed level where holding it should never really be in question. If you're suggesting that the tank be forced to do something akin to FF XI's Paladin aggro rotations which were ability centric rather than weapon skill centric then you're playing a very cautious game of cooperation with your DPS where you're going to be entering periods of lull where you may not be generating any aggro at all relative to your DPS in certain periods of time (I also have to question how effective your cooldowns/abilities would really be if they're being used to gain aggro rather than survive hits). Though you could mitigate this by actually making your weapon skills be what generates your defensive cooldowns rather than abilities. I dunno I'm skeptical about this.

DPS that can transfer hate - Due to the way aggro skills work (Or Paladin's entire rotation basically which consists of only 3 abilities) this class is basically wholly unnecessary, aggro is not a problem in 99% of encounters because it's not particularly designed to be one. In FF XI you could actually challenge your tank's "aggro rotation" by doing Beastly DPS and seeing if they could hold on, not really the case in this game because holding aggro isn't designed to be a "test". The only way this job works if you create other specialized roles for it to work with, which is sort've against the design philosophy of the game which is very much "Insert round shape into round hole, insert square shape into square hole, etc."

Melee DPS with cast times that root them in place - Given the fact that so many AoEs in this game originate or exclusively target around the boss/enemies and people already die in swarms while Dragoon Jumping this could be potentially disastrous, but it also could be fine since we already sort've have the precedent in Dragoon (Though the combination of lots dodging PLUS cast times might destroy their DPS in some encounters whereas something like Turn 8 might make them godly).

Pet job where the player does very little damage and their pet will die to a couple of hits, but does massive damage - Goes against SE's philosophy of "It's hard so we won't do it". Other than that it's fine

Pure Support Class - No complaints

Pure Debuff Class - No complaints but basically impossible to implement for the reason you brought up

Evasion Tanks - Break the game when they're strong (ie can dodge a lot), are worthless when they're weak (when they don't dodge). The best mitigation in the game is not taking damage which is what dodging is.

Debuff Tanks - We sort've already have this? Kinda.

Drain Tanks - They already sort've tried this with 2.0 Warrior and failed really bad before reworking it to resemble Paladin. Not sure how round 2 would go or differentiate itself from current Warrior. Drain tanks are strong in prolonged battles because they get their HP back over time and can recover from small sustained damage on their own. The problem is in this game 100% of the time when you die it's because you didn't properly mitigate the one big hit, Landslide, Death Sentence, Ravensbeak are all examples of this. The Drain tank has to not only recover after the big hit, they need to find a way to actually survive through it to begin with.

DPS that does more damage the more enmity they have - See my comments on Tanks with low threat, but high survivability and DPS that can transfer hate.


Jobs like these worked in older MMOs like FF XI because the game wasn't designed around the "Square shape into Square hole" mentality. I don't see how most of them could work in the game's current approach without some global mechanic changes which is unlikely.