Quote Originally Posted by RiceisNice View Post
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Well to be honest I would have to really think hard about the balances between the job, keeping them at least somewhat even, while changing them around but keeping them in their spot. I'd like to be able to account for everything that would work with FFXIV. But well for me, at least based on our current job system style, I expected say, Gladiator to play like Paladin, then when advancing to Paladin gaining a new mechanic to make them function a little different where you could really feel that you changed your job, like say, (yes this is completely unbalanced and pointless) Paladin having a way to throw up a slight regen mechanic by playing a certain way or something.

Now as far as the WoW example, I actually know exactly what you mean and well, the point isn't to make it so unique that it has no place in endgame, the point is to just make it deviate from its base in a meaningful way. We are at the point in MMO's where there are clear character archetypes, and back in the day this just wasn't the case, so classes wound up more unique because we didn't have a standard of say "this is what makes a class a rogue/thief" the standard evolved over time from, they steal, to they use daggers, they dual wield, they do all of those things, they stealth, attack from behind, and now we have essentially a basic mold of what makes a scout type character what it is.

Like let's take a look at a basic class versus a class that has deviation for a moment from FFXIV itself.

Gladiator - You generate hate, you get hit, you pop a cool down, you do it all over again, and nothing changes when you change your job either, except you can wear holier looking armour.

Scholar- As an Arcanist your base is a DPS with healing utility, fully capable of healing in low level content, changing to scholar you get 2 different sets of pets, a new type of heal and a new style of management you didn't need to do with carbuncle. Scholar really stands out in FFXIV because it deviates quite a bit from its base as a healer by being a different type of healer and Adlo,Succor, Sacred Soil, Eos , Selene, along with the ability to throw out some half decent DPS really makes it pop out as non-standard while still being basic enough to understand just by reading skill descriptions.

But, as far as I'm concerned there are a huge amount of jobs that can be included into FFXIV, this version is barely a year old and still trying to grow and flesh itself out. With or without a rework, our current basic classes do have a place within the game, a couple of job patches down the line we might have tanks that are hard to play but very rewarding, but we'd still want a beginner friendly tank like Paladin for newer players to tanking. We already sort of saw this where players who had a hard time on Monk or Dragoon switched to Bard or another role because reacting, doing positions, managing a really needed buff, those things weren't fun to them or they felt they couldn't do it.

Now going by what I said I do really believe Summoner should be reworked to be different at least. There should be a basic DoT class, but there should also be a basic pet class or the pet mechanic of summoner should at least be fleshed out more.

Sorry to stray from the point a bit. Anyway all in all I believe there is no need to stray from basic in the case of current classes, because basic has a place, in 3 years when endgame is full of complex yet powerful classes, people will need to start somewhere, and all of these basic jobs are perfect for someone just starting out and even for a seasoned vet , if they enjoy just playing the class for what it is. Moving forward however, I do believe we can add a different level of difficulty or get a little out of the box with mechanics without making anything too silly. The real idea behind making a class unique from its base archetype is fleshing out what makes that archetype fun to begin with then challenging the player to perform, while blizzard just added resources to classes or changed specs(waaaaaay too much)up a bit. I feel like that's not really the right way to do something. But I will say that even though Rogue was a basic scout class, the combo points, and the energy made it stick out a bit from other scouts I've played in the past. That system didn't really change it much from it's base idea, but it made me as a player feel more interactive with my class and have something different to manage than when I usually play my thieves. That's why I see Monk as a step in the right direction, it's basic, but it has a mechanic that challenges the player to play Monk like a Monk. There could of been more to it. But for the sake of a game expecting plenty of new players. I'd love for these first classes to be what eases them into more difficult and less basic ones later on.

TL;DR : Sometimes complexity for complexity's sake isn't needed, while I personally wish the classes were a bit less basic, I'm very much okay with them being that way, as new players and players who don't want complex jobs do deserve to have classes to play. I'm sure we will get jobs that are pretty unique later on, we've only just finished our 1st year of 2.0 after all and we already have something like Ninja coming out, with classes like scholar and warrior already in the game. Basics are the fundamentals of everything your class will do, so you just need to make that a fun and unique experience for the player, even if at the end of the day it's still something basic.