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

[Bixby]

Just had a thought on another contributing factor.

The rotations in this game, for the most part, are invariant on their own. There are a few exceptions (BRD and BLM have meaningful procs that spice up their rotations, for example), but for the most part, each job's rotation is locked in. The next button you push is usually determined by some kind of timer. BRD feels very different to me just because that's not the case: I don't know for sure which button I'm pushing next until it's almost time to push it. With every melee class, I don't just know the next button, I know the order I'm pushing them in basically indefinitely, barring encounter mechanics.

For most jobs, the only way moment-to-moment skill decisions are varied is by encounter mechanics, not anything within the job itself.

[BreathlessTao]

An interesting topic for sure...

Something similar I've been wondering myself since day 0. Not so much one job being almost a carbon copy of the other, but rather the customisation (...lack thereof) of the individual jobs. Summoner 1 is always going to go through the same rotations as Summoner 2. WHM 1 will always try to conserve mana and be careful about Medica II just as WHM 2. MNK 1 will always going through the same combos in the same order as MNK 2. And so on. Get the picture? Some minor differences, maybe, but that can (and will) be usually chalked up to a botched rotation - lack of skill ("you're such a noob!") or a mistakenly pressed button. From what I can remember, in 1.0 CON sure could have a little custom flavour to it with the elemental adjustments at least. It was nice, imo.

As for crafters...they are useless. Save for 50+ gear (also crafter/gatherer, because dungeon loot is unquestionably better for DoW/DoM), which then is the flipside of the coin, requiring ridiculous materia overmelds for each and every piece, which in turn requires ridiculous amount of investment to get there. And some glamour gear and furniture which again require ridiculously overmelded gear to craft. Kinda meh. :/

[Kiara]

Hi All,

While there are differences between all jobs, I get what Scootaloo is asking on a macro level. Aegis and Bixby bring up some great points, which many of us brought up during Beta (and even back in 1.0 during Yoshi P's takeover):

Because a proactive meat shield and a reactive meat shield are both meat shields. They both have access to an ability that puts you top of the hate list instantly. They both generate threat through a hate rotation, they both have damage reducing abilities, they both have an "oh-shi..." temporary 'invulnerability'. Evasion or debuff tanks are very different animals.

There are no support classes.
There are no gambler classes.
No pure crowd control classes.

Yes, it will mean certain classes are left out for certain content. The trick to dealing with it is a) level more than one class. b) not have one type of content provide the out-and-out BIS equipment.

I'm not so sure it's all about job design. Encounter design plays a significant part in the feeling of flatness, too.

Some of each job's uniqueness gets watered down by encounters not really requiring anything in particular. Back when HM Ifrit wasn't laughably overgeared (and Eruptions hit harder), you could work out a stun rotation if you didn't have a PLD to stunbot. In T1, you got to play around with BRDs & PLDs & MNKs for silencing, depending on what you had.

I'm sure there's some of this going on in Coil 2 now (SMNs kiting?), but outside of that, almost every encounter is the same. Your role in the fight is encompassed almost entirely by your role in the party list: tanks tank, DPS DPS, healers heal. Everybody dodges. It's sort of a Catch 22 between a lack of unique utility skills and a lack of need for unique utility skills.

On a macro level, I definitely see the noble goal that Yoshi P wanted to make sure all Damage Dealers were "balanced" and did the same Damage over the course of a fight (at least that's what he hoped).

But in doing so, if fundamentally every single DD does exactly the same amount of damage, what really sets them apart?

Animations, VFX Flashiness, but on some level they're sort of equalized / homogenized.

For example, the Elemental Wheel: In many Final Fantasies and other RPGs, there is a role where Elements are meaningful (Fire vs. Ice, Lighting, Earth, Wind, Water, etc.), but Yoshi P's reasoning for removing the Elemental Wheel from 2.0 was that he didn't want one class (Black Mage) to be required in a fight or have too much of an advantage.

The irony is that for his desire to ensure a perfect, balanced game, 2.0 STILL ended up with "Tiers" and it's not balanced. Black Mage ended up being the bottom of the barrel for damage and he had to up their damage to make them relevant. And this is AFTER removing a unique aspect (Elemental Wheel) from the game.

Ultimately, is there room for more diversity? Something that really makes each Job standout from each other more (like a Final Fantasy Thief job that does a Sneak Attack + Trick Attack to do massive Backstabbing Damage, and transfers Hate to whatever target they did a SA+TA on?).

Is there room for unique Jobs and totally unique play styles like Cyan from Final Fantasy VI (III on SNES)?
http://www.finalfantasykingdom.net/6snesskill7.php


Or Relm (the little artist):
http://www.finalfantasykingdom.net/6snesskill12.php


Or a Strago (Blue Mage)? Learning various Enemy attacks and applying them to battles:
http://www.finalfantasykingdom.net/6snesskill11.php

Perhaps the diversity or uniqueness comes out in a True Party Combo System that Yoshi P got rid of, like Chrono Trigger's TRIPLE TECH system? Where up to 3 Party Members contribute to a cool, unique devastating attack that's unique depending on the combination of Jobs?

http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Tech

Thanks.

[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.

[Prototype909]

Only jobs with true difference in terms of role while in party content are Scholar and White Mage (One cannot effectively do what the other one does, Scholar will never be as good as AoE healing/Party Health management as White Mage. White Mage will never be as good as single target health management as Scholar.). Everything else fulfills the same role + one or two things that happen differently which lead to the same result. Even Black Mage which is supposed to be "The AoE job" has arguably some of the best if not, the best single target DPS in the game since the buffs went through and before that was the worst in that category.

The only other time we even had a situation close to the current difference between Scholar and White Mage was 2.0 release Warrior vs. Paladin where Warrior was basically excluded from content because SE's vision for it failed to pass their own content design in the eyes of many players (Also you needed Silences for ADS which Paladin had).

Ultimately I think a lot of the 'sameness' debate could be alleviated if SE had just added support classes from the get go, the holy trinity feels passable now because there are so few jobs but I think that as more jobs are added we may see more discontented posts such as this. I hope that once the amount of jobs added expands SE realizes that the addition of support roles could do a lot to spice things up.

[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.

[Exstal]

ｔｌ；ｄｒ　OP can't tell the difference between classes so they need to be changed

[Keyln]

I will look forward to the tank after that crosses fingers for Evasion tank

The problem with evasion tanks is that they tend to be incredibly broken. They're either completely useless, or they're too powerful, and no one else will use any other tank.

[Aegis]

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.

What I had in mind was more a tank with very little in the way of enmity generatign skills but with, say, a passive -60% damage taken trait (or abilities to that effect). The challenge isn't reducing damage, it's staying ahead of the DPS. This would involve the DPS helping by deliberately reducing their outgoing DPS. This would be hugely problematic in burn phases, which is part of the challenge. This could be made easier by the introduction of:

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."

I Think we're both thinking the same thing, but coming at it from the opposite sides. I believe the design philosophy needs to change so we can have these. You (seem to) believe that these things can't be introduced because the design philosophy will not change.

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)

This doesn't sound like a problem to me. I want there to be instances where classes aren't wanted and instances where they are in high demand. I want this because this is what makes your job feel different.

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

Same thing. I want them to change their philosophy.

Pure Support Class - No complaints

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

Again, I want them to change it back to how it used to be! No resistance to debuffs, or at least much less of it and only on special mobs.

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.

Agreed, but I have faith in their balancing skills, kinda.

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

I mean tanks that mitigate damage by blinds, slows, paralyzes, stops. Think Time Mage tank.

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.

I think the ability to drain over your own HP (Think XI DRK's Drain II) for a limited time might do this.

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.

Agreed. The plus side is, I've seen at least three fundamental changes of the global mechanisms in this game (probably up to about 10 depending how picky you are about the definition). So I do still hold out some hope.


Like I mentioned, I think we both have more or less the same viewpoint on these classes (which I was just spitballing, not putting any real thought into). They're interesting in theory, but would require changes to fundamental game rules.

The difference is I want those changes.

ｔｌ；ｄｒ　OP can't tell the difference between classes so they need to be changed

To be fair, if someone playing the game can't tell the difference, perhaps they need to be made more different?