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

[Duelle]

Post abby, I WHOLE HEARTEDLY agree with you. Pre-abby I call BS

All Abyssea did is bring to light a lot of the balance and design issues that plagued the game since Zilart and the job revamp. The mistake was not so much abyssea content itself, but the simple fact that nothing was done to address the issues. What has been attempted since has been too little, too late.

Once again, you like many other posters in this thread are pointing out everything I already know but NONE OF THAT makes me wanna play another class over another.

That's not a problem with game design, and more an issue with what you're looking for in particular.

Honestly? Not even a little bit. That piece of gear would take years to obtain. 6 mo to level your first job was pretty typical. Most people wouldn't have full Homam (for example) until years after when they started. Or Byakko's Haidate until they have been farming sky for months.

Design at the time favored stuff taking forever to get anything done. That said, XI got away with a lv75 cap for as long as it did because almost everything introduced at higher levels was basically swap pieces or inventory+1 pieces. That's not good design in the long run between wasted art assets and inventory issues. Both of which XI suffered from.

Not to mention strenuous grinds for stuff in general don't reward anyone, and instead make them think along the lines of "thank god I don't have to do that ever again". Atma farming is pretty much giving people that mindset as well because it follows exactly the same principle.

You don't remember organising skill chains and magic bursts?

You mean back when the only two skillchains everyone cared about was Distortion and lv3 Light? And lol at you if you couldn't take part in either.

And were phased out of general gameplay by the players themselves at the first chance that they got.

Setting up SATAs

Oh, that thing that got abandoned the moment SA Viper Bite stopped doing ridiculous damage on IT++ targets. Oh and then was expected of DRKs since they could do THF's job better than they could at 60+.

BRD maintaining 4 or 5 song rotations?

Spamming the same four/five songs out of how many that BRD had access to?

Samurais and Blue Magics Self-SC'ing?

Surprise surprise, 2 out of 20 jobs could self-SC. 3 if you count DRG but that was only possible with /SAM and Spirit Surge.

Your examples aren't exactly stellar displays of good combat design.