The Balance

[Pterois]

its trail and error people... you open up the doors to complete freedom and customization. then watch what the people do and see what becomes the normal/most powerful/most sought after. THEN instead of nerfing those to be on par with the jobs no one wants to play... you look at how you can make up for the short falls of those weak jobs. AND YOU DONT DO THAT BY INCREASING THEIR POTENCY. you actually make changes to the abilities and make them more fun to play. like giving drg the chance to dodge while jumping (like ever freakin other FF in history) or giving the PLD the ability to raise in battle or actually push out decent heals while another healer is being raised (to take the safe slow route to ensure victory)... or making the war dps respectable enough for a 1 tank situation be a balls to the walls crazy kill fest that could just as easily find defeat (going the NOT safe route lol)

Just like all of the Final Fantasy's in the past... having a particular job in your team gives you both benefits and drawbacks (like using all drgs with dragon lances to defeat neo-shinryu or not being stupid and brining blms to the Omega MKII fight in FF3) the devs just needs to figure out how to have BOTH the benefits and drawbacks not outweigh each other in awesomeness.

[Codek]

Ugh, this topic is terrible.

Uniqueness is a lie, this day in gaming it is far to common to simply look up the math and experiments that someone else performed and optimize based on those results just like every other player.

The only thing you get from overly complicated and elaborate systems is a development team struggling to fill the needs of the players crying that they are mathematically inferior to fellow counterparts.

Just call for more elaborate content that stress different play styles to succeed at, but please don't request for continuous character modifications forced upon all players to constantly (and unnecessarily) review how to play the game.

[Xatsh]

Over Balance leads to bland classes where everything is more or less the same 1,2,3 + 4,5,6 spam over and over and over with different animations.

Balance is very important or it leads to classes that no one wants, but extreme overbalancing can lead to over simplification which is horrible. Aka the removal of the elemental wheel, mob resistances, breaking weapons and part of the mobs and such. These were all good things in 1.X that should of been brought over. Being unique and more complex especially at endgame I see as more important then perfect balance. Sure maby X class if better in this 1 encounter... who cares it is 1 encounter if it leads to a more rich endgame.

Only thing perfect balance is important in is PvP.

[Suggestion]

I'm not on board with creating content just to create content. I think that will eventually stagnate. I would think that expanding on ideas already in play would also be beneficial to a game to keep it interesting. And i came here from GW2 and they are still focusing on pumping out new story instead of fine tuning their already existing content (which of course is something SE is doing a much better job with). But hey i don't know how to run a game ^^

Oh in case everyone was wondering why my topic post is so cheesy, its because i wanted people to read it not just the comments below and such.

And on a side note, My post was to convey the idea that when you edit one class we should look to see how it affects another and such. Not to fear change but look at it from a bigger picture. I know that sounds arrogant. SE thinks about it all the time I'm sure ^^

[Suggestion]

This is just an example but i have a friend who played Bard religiously and now he feels that bard is unnecessary. This is HIS opinion doesn't make it anymore right than another persons. One of his reasons is the fact that he doesn't get to use his songs that much. His raid group is well versed in managing there tp and mp. Along with the fact that most endgame content is played by better than the average players who are also good and managing theirs.

[Suggestion]

And i main SMN, I love it. And we all know about SMN mp issues, but srs if you can just get the hang of it you really wont have that many problems to be honest. But i take this as a challenge and be sure to conserve my mp while outputting the most damage. But hey, im not perfect. So everyone once in awhile i wish i could get a song. And boom there is suddenly a reason to use songs on bard

Lame example i know

I think there should be more of these examples so that classes can interact better and have their unique skills used.

[Fadigre]

Interestingly, one of the first things Yoshi did when he took over in 1.0 was class diversity. Giving classes some unique feeling and individuality!
Back then there were no differences between a Conjurer and a Thaumaturge. Both had sufficient nukes, both had sufficient heals. Doesn't that sound crazy?
Why would you not have one tank and 7 casters?

It was giving each class a purpose that helped to interest people in each of the classes we have today!

I'm very much for it, people struggle to choose what to main between Paladin and Warrior currently because they both essentially get the same job done. You can push and shove about it all day!
Paladin has Stoneskin, Warrior has self heals, Paladin has shield blocks, Warrior has Inner Beast but at the end of the day, the jobs do the same thing and interact with other players the same way.

Surely it is the way that Bard is defined that we don't have parties lined with them instead of other DPS, especially with the way it interacts with Dragoon! Adding unique qualities to classes does not mean they will be stacked.

More definition can be dangerous but I believe the game has space for more.

[Suggestion]

Ugh Fadigre I'm trying really hard but i can't stop reading your post without a sarcastic voice in my head >.<