The obsession with "efficiency"

[Ryel]

Let's talk about something that I feel is detrimental to the game's long-term health: people's near-fanatical obsession with "efficiency". The word's in quotes because it doesn't mean what these folks seem to want it to mean. Efficiency, in fact, can only really be measured as a time to performance ratio. To the fanatics, it seems to mean cutting corners no matter who's toes are stepped on. Which, in turn, leads to unjustifiable job discrimination based on negligible (at best) data.

Since the expansion's release, too many people have looked for reasons to exclude the new jobs (as well as certain jobs prior to the expansion) from endgame activities based on misleading numbers from content that had not been tuned for the average item levels of the average player. This has lead to people excluding Machinists, Bards, Astrologians, and Paladins based on an irrational obsession with DPS. Yes, I know about the DPS checks in these new fights. It doesn't justify forcing a longtime PLD to hop on the WAR bandwagon simply because someone with an adding machine glued to his hands makes a forum post deeming WAR the most "efficient" tank. It does not justify a MCH or BRD being denied a spot in an EX primal fight because of an Excel spreadsheet.

In short, it's OK to look for ways to optimize each job's performance. Having to needlessly change to some flavor-of-the-month job in some misguided search for "efficiency" really is not.

This is based on the concept of progression clearing content and is a job balance issue and not a playerbase issue.

Players wish to complete content when it's released, it isn't a reasonable expectation to tell players to wait for gear to make their job work in new content, this speaks to class imbalance and bad game design. If one tank can complete content with the available gear when new content is released but another one needs 3 weeks work of tome cap gear (not only on themselves but also other party members) to perform at the same level, that's not a player obsession problem, it's a balance issue.

Players who want to complete content wont wait for broken (under-performing) jobs to be fixed or to take multiple weeks to acquire gear to be on the same level as other jobs when the easiest player-side solution is to either ask them to swap or to find someone else playing those jobs, case and point when it came to PLD and AST having significantly larger issues in progression raid content when compared to WAR/DRK and WHM/SCH.

Players do not have the ability to enact game design changes, they do have the ability to adjust to them however. If something just plain doesn't work or isn't as good as the alternatives chances are players will take the path of least resistance, if you want to fight the uphill battle of class balance then the onus is on you to create a party and try to do so, but you'll have to accept the possibility that players will seek alternatives if they're stopped by the wall of progression due to poor job balance.

You say that you understand DPS checks but it doesn't justify asking a PLD to swap to WAR, the question is if the entire party is putting out their maximum safest amount of DPS and you're still failing the encounter but another tank (WAR/DRK) could safely contribute the extra DPS with no detriment is the party at fault for wanting to seek the winning option?

Sadly the PLD becomes an unfortunate victim of poor class balance (which is a developer issue).