Remaining Niches to Fill?

[Ryans]

I don't think the zodiac weapon quest line is going into 3.0. It wouldn't be practical to have the best weapon continue through expansions because it would discourage new players.

[MartaDemireux]

While the FF series does in fact have quite the roster of jobs I don't think it's very reasonable to expect all, or even most, to make an appearance as a job. SE even has shown that they believe in this by excluding Thief, one of the most common jobs, as it would be redundant to Rogue/Ninja. The same can be said about the lack of Ranger and the presence of Archer. Some jobs simply already exist but as a class.

Examples of jobs already present:

*Disclaimer: I'm not saying it's impossible to add some of these just that their aspects are present.

Thief - Rogue - Blantly told us that Rogue is the evolved Thief.

Ranger - Archer - Just about every ability is shared with Rangers from past games.

Geomancer - Conjurer - Cleric Stance, especially should level caps add Quake/Tornado/Flood

Viking - Marauder - sea pirates, defensive.

Berserker - Marauder/Warrior - Berserk, Wrath concept

Time Mage - Exists in THM/ACN/SCH (Quick, Hastega, Teleport/Warp, MP Shield, Extend, Slow, Slowga, Heavy)

Beastmaster - Potentially Summoner as the reason for its inclusion was "we need a pet job" creating the feel that "pet jpb" is what they consider the niche and without consideration for a physical variant.

Puppetmaster - See Beastmaster

Red Mage - Every class due to cross-classing for the jack of all trades master of none aspect.

Also do remember that we will be getting level cap increases which will bring new class skills, traits and job skills. While those abilities likely won't change the gameplay of each class/job it's not unreasonable to assume that some aspects touched upon in the current classes/jobs won't be expanded upon. What I mean by this is that the current WAR couldn't function so well with its self-heals and lack of straight mitigation so they changed it so it can compete with PLD. It does retain some self-healing though and that could be expanded upon in future level cap increases.

[Zoeila]

a level cap increase isnt enough in a game where levels come so easy

[MartaDemireux]

a level cap increase isnt enough in a game where levels come so easy

I'm not sure what that has to do with this topic. That's by design. Yoshi wants a quick leveling pace so newcomers can join their friends in endgame ASAP. He came out and said this in an interview around launch. Leveling isn't meant to be what keeps you playing FFXIV like it was in pre-Abyssea FFXI. Grinding Atmas, learning a new dance, waiting on RNG for your coil drops and weekly lockouts/tome caps are (i.e. the stuff after you reach max level).

My point behind mentioning the level cap increase is to remind people existing jobs will likely see new abilities that expand upon their existing niche. People mention a self-healing tank but Warrior proved that doesn't work at 50 cap. 10 more levels could likely show MRD/WAR getting more self-healing abilities or traits that enhance existing ones further. Edit: Or in addition Paladin may gain more effective use of equiping Cure as a cross-class ability.

[silentwindfr]

a level cap increase isnt enough in a game where levels come so easy

like it was said countless times before... the game didn't start with ARR, a lot of the legacy player had already level 50 character (if not all the class/jobs to 50 for some), if the leveling was long, the new player and the legacy player will had a big difference and the new player and legacy will haven't mix together. it's a choice we can condamn, but i think it was the right choice, it don't means that the new level we be easy to get...

[Kio]

The biggest role completely absent from the game is a dedicated support role. They're too afraid to have a job that can't be self reliant but I feel that this is a play style that would suite some customer's style regardless if they can solo or not.

[MartaDemireux]

Again, adding an entirely new role, such as pure support, would require a rehaul of the entire system in place. Dungeons will need rebalancing to account for this addition as well as each class to make sure that no one class can be overpowered when paired with the support (or in contrast no one class is too underpowered to meet DPS checks). It's a massive undertaking to do this. That's not even taking into account that this role wouldn't be able to complete solo main story missions or level from 1-15 when DF unlocks in the current game.

This is why support is a sub-set of abilities to (primarily) DPS in this game. BLM, WHM and SMN are crowd control with sleep, knockback, blind, heavy and Titan-Egi. BRD, WAR, MNK and DRG are party buffers with their ability to boost the damage others deal (War boosts WAR/PLD, MNK boosts MNK/BLM/SMN/SCH/WHM (should they be in an a position to auto-attack between casts or are utilizing the melee-SMN approach), DRG boosts DRG/BRD, BRD boosts SMN/BLM/SCH/WHM). BRD is the regenerative support for MP and TP.

If having a support role is make it or break it for you there are other games that have this inclusion that share a lot in common with FFXIV as it is.

A niche is different than a role. A niche is something that can be added within the confines of the trinity. Like the reasoning for adding Rogue/Ninja is the niche of sneaky melee dps utilizing poisons and dual-wielded blades was absent.

[TessaJalloh]

Evasive counterattacking tank
Physical ranged Spike damage
Physical ranged mass DoT
Magic based tank
Melee party support (thinking Red Mage style, with elemental weapon buffs, stuns, slows, binds, etc)
Hp sacrificing/stealing DPS (dark knight baby!)

i'm sure there's plenty more that could be thought of.

[Dhex]

Niches to fill - what about a game with multiple play-styles covering all of the classic Final Fantasy jobs and not settling for less due to some arbitrary reasoning.

How's that for a niche Yoshi-P?

[Xatsh]

the lack of job types in this game is a symptom of worrying to much about balance and simplicity.

It is an example of why we cannot have interesting jobs and something more then I punch things, I get punched by things, I heal things.

The lack of complexity is a great error in game design. Sure the game is ultra balanced, but everything is more of the same. Just constant rotations if you are a dps. 123 spam if you are a pld with the occasional buff. Or spam heal if you are a healer. Only job that has actually somewhat duel functionality is Sch if the Sch actually dps and has gear with enough acc on it to do it.

SE needs to not worry about ultra balancing. Just make sure everything can be beat with everything and nothing is absurdly op, if 1 job is slightly better then another in 1 fight who cares.