The problem with WoW-type raid-focused gameplay.

[Arixtotle]

It's better than balancing around PvP or trying to balance around Raids AND PvP.

[FoxyAreku]

I feel like FFXI had this sort of thinking. We all know how that turned out, what with half the roster of classes being unplayable or outright horrid.

Balance is important. They add plenty of fun stuff that isn't OP, keep it that way.

[nuyu11]

Ballance?
Warrior pretty over power now.

[bbkkristian]

"The problem with WoW type raid focused gameplay"

-its the same stuff after the first expansion?

[Colt47]

I understand where the OP is coming from. I wont say I dislike Final Fantasy XIV, but it's not the game to revive the franchise and make it the golden star of role playing games again. It really comes down to the number of options players have available to solve problems they encounter (that are part of intentional design). Games like Final Fantasy XIV offer very little in the way of problem solving and are all about pattern memorization and gear grinding. They maintain the player base by utilizing daily grind systems that reward repetition and depend heavily on habit forming daily activities that soon become like choirs.

Many games do have these systems, but MMOs tend to push these a bit too much just from the shear amount of time it takes to do some of them. That and the daily quest system binds players to the specific tasks, so even though we did do daily things back in the days before the daily quest systems we had no bound oath of servitude being incentivized outside of our own machinations.

[Tsukino]

Classes only exist because they tried a new thing in 1.0 and uh...no one liked it. They wanted the old stuff. Besides, Yoshi P already said in a recent live letter that they won't be doing anymore Class/Job stuff and are looking into ways to removes the classes themselves.

Do you know which letter this was? I'd be interested in hearing it, since I knew about going forward doing only jobs but wasn't aware of any possible plans to remove the old classes.

[Bishop81]

Your points were good and then you kinda lost it at the end bringing up classes.

1.0 somewhat tried this when jobs first came out, they were advertised as only being necessary when doing full party endgame content and that classes were supposed to stay relevant when doing any other activity (low man / solo). This obviously didn't work, classes have no place really and are generally uninteresting in comparison to jobs.

That's because they kind of stopped with Class development.

They need to add more cross-Class skills. Some can be situational, some can obsolete earlier ones, the point is we keep getting new skills to handle whatever the open world throw at us.

Whether Classes end up OPed in the open world (remember raids will be Job-only) or not isn't that huge an issue. It's open world content, no one will get excluded.

And in regards to adding crazy cross class options to classes, why not just add them to jobs? as it is the cross class options for jobs are cookie cutter and boring really, I'm sure the argument will be made that players will find a "best set" of cross class actions but it'd be nice if i could pick and choose from more abilities tailored towards various fights.

There is no fundamental reason why jobs cant operate on the cross class system the same way classes can other than the fact that we just aren't allowed to, i would much rather see that changed before trying to make classes relevant in any way (even in solo content), sorry.

The reason is ... balance. The more options you give the player in customization of their Job, the harder it will be to balance, as you have to take into account every possible combination of skills selectable - if you miss one and it ends up "OPed", player tears will drown out the sun.

[Ryel]

That's because they kind of stopped with Class development.

They need to add more cross-Class skills. Some can be situational, some can obsolete earlier ones, the point is we keep getting new skills to handle whatever the open world throw at us.

Whether Classes end up OPed in the open world (remember raids will be Job-only) or not isn't that huge an issue. It's open world content, no one will get excluded

The issue with this is allocation of resources:

Open world content as it currently stands doesn't have enough depth to warrant adding considerations for classes, I'm sure by your comment you mean that classes don't have to be balanced around open world content because it doesn't require a party so class balance isn't a thing, but that actually works against tuning classes as well.

From a development perspective the argument would be as follows:

If open world has no meaning, and classes aren't going to be used in group content anyway, why add abilities that players will almost never use? That time would be better spent adding more abilities / actions to jobs with the understanding that they will see usage in ALL content and not just a fraction of it.

Sadly that's how it will be viewed, and while i personally love flavor skills as much as the next person i would still rather them flesh out jobs as opposed to trying to go back and retouch classes.

As for this:

The reason is ... balance. The more options you give the player in customization of their Job, the harder it will be to balance, as you have to take into account every possible combination of skills selectable - if you miss one and it ends up "OPed", player tears will drown out the sun.

This is still dependent on how raids are designed. If encounters were not balanced around DPS checks and how much up-time a DPS can keep on a mob in order to clear, but instead were balanced around the completion of mechanics / objectives you give jobs more leeway to branch out in unique design and ability.

Up to a point players were able to complete endgame content with classes (while overgeared usually) with often hilarious cross class combinations, I would still prefer the cross class system be expanded on jobs to promote more unique play (or at least a larger illusion of choice as that's what it'll be at the end of the day), as opposed to pointlessly trying to breathe life back into classes.

[elemental10]

I think what OP wanted to point out is:

The center of the universe is the raid.

If something upsets the raid's dynamics between jobs, the game falls apart. Same thing with gears.

What I think the OP dreams of is the separation of raid abilities and open world abilities, like a section of Raid Skills that can only be used in Raids and an Open World Skills that can only be used in the Open World. The Raid Skills will be balanced around Raids while Open World Skills can go crazy with what it does. Like PVP with their PVP skills.

Balancing the classes are centered around the raids. That's why BRDs and MCHs weren't taken into consideration before Alex Savage came out. Same with AST and DRK.

OP's suggestion is a little bit off mark because the class/job system is no longer relevant. But hey, we can all dream can't we?

[AnnietheCat]

AKA no-one would play it. How are you going to level?

Well this is simply untrue. The number of people screaming at the Bards who want to be pure dps proves that this is untrue. Many, many people want Bard to be 100% support. And they'd level just the same way healers do: minimal dps to get you through solo stuff. I, for one, wouldn't play a single support class because that's just not what I enjoy. But the Bard community(this is the only thing I can speak on because it's my main job) is split pretty bad about whether we're support or DPS. Sometimes it seems like it's half and half, sometimes it seems like there are more calling to be pure support. So assuming that no one wants to play a support job is wrong; you can go look at all of our complaint threads and you can see the number of people telling us we're meant to be support only. But OP has valid points; everything is so raid focused that the rest of the game becomes tedious and annoying.