Dismantle the Holy Trinity

[Ahrniel]

I’ve been cultivating this idea in a special petri dish lately, and it ended up growing in something quite interesting, at least in my opinion. Not only that, I think that the implementation of it would solve many issues that have been annoying the head of people in this community for so long, mostly related to job designs and dps.

I will list all the suggestions first so you have some idea of what is coming already, and then I will explain them afterwards:

General Changes:
- Remove the Damage Dealer Role.
- Rename the Tank role as Fighter Role.
- Rename the Healer role as Support Role.
- Warriors, Paladins, Dark Knights, Dragoons, Monks and Ninjas are now Fighters.
- Bards, Machinists, Black Mages, Astrologians, White Mages, Scholars and Summoners are now Supports.
- Instances now queue half of the team as Fighters and half of the team as Supports.

Warrior/Paladin/Dark Knight:
- Now Tank stances are 100% responsible for extra enmity. Extra enmity is removed from specific attacks. Tank stance is obtained before Lv. 16. DPS stance is now active whenever Tank stance is inactive. Combos now deal more damage, or mitigate damage based on Tank Stance being active.

Dragoon/Monk/Ninja:
- Get a Tank stance. Monk could have Earth Fist changed to Tank stance, Ninja has two poisons, one can become Tank stance. Dragoon needs new things. It is also obtained before Lv.16.

Bard:
- Gains Healing songs. All the Heavensward skills are removed. Part of the attack skills are dispersed to Heavensward skills, and healing songs are added earlier in the game.

Machinists:
- Gains Healing turrents and healing potion skills, like Cid’s.

Summoners/Scholars:
- Both Jobs should merge completely. Healing and DPSing will be based on pet and skills used.

Ok, now explain. Are you nuts?

Maybe, but I’m quite confident of it. I don’t like how the design of the roles in FF14 are. In other games the roles are very strict. Tanks tank, Healers heal, DPS kill. In FF14 the devs seem to want everyone to do everything, and I believe the Holy Trinity is getting in their way.

Balacing the burden of DPS, Tank and Healer isn’t quite working. The DPS have the easiest job in the game, while Tanks and Healers have the hardest. Despite that, Tanks and Healers are still demanded to do the DPS job as well. And I blame this on the lack of customization.

In other MMOs multiple roles are a common concept. If you want to solo that solo content, just spec to a DPS build so you can actually do things fast enough, if you want to queue for group content, you can then spec to something else, because you have other people to do the DPS job.

Not in FF14.

There is no customization in FF14, so the different roles are either built in the class, or they aren’t there.

So here is the thing. If everyone is a DPS, who needs DPS roles anyway?

Let’s make things easier: Now everyone has the potential of causing as much damage.
We can balance all jobs to cause about 2000 DPS in the endgame, without caring about their roles. Fighters and Support cause as much damage, as long as they are using the right stance.

On Fighters:
Fighters are Half Defensive and Half Offensive. They have a Defensive stance, we call it Tank Stance nowadays. They get the extra enmity, take less damage, deal less damage. Suddenly they can tank, easy. Remember how hard it is to tank in low lvl instances? Gone, now you get Tank Stance from the start, don’t even bother anymore. Done with going defensive? Wanna get that damage in? Turn it off, get the kills.

On Support:
Supports are Half Supportive and Half Offensive. All support can empower party members through buffs, keep them alive through healing, weaken enemies through debuffs. When they are done with applying the things, they turn into DPS mode and kill things. Easy.

On Group Content:
Now MT – OT dynamic is the rule from the very start. MT tanks most mobs, OT takes the weakest. Both start the encounter in Tank Stance, when enough enmity has been put in and the hard hitting enemies are dead, turn off the Tank stance and get the damage in. Dealing with Boss’ ads is OT’s business.

Now MS – OS (Main Supporter – Off Supporter) is a thing. Main Supporter is always alert for damage and tricky enemies who just need to stop being mean, Off Supporter is ready to switch to Support mode if things get too mean for the MS to deal with.

What does all of this mean?
That means that all melee now take damage, deal DPS level damage and the ranged have support and deal DPS level support. That also means we have 2 tanks, 2 healers and they can, at any time, become 4 DPS.

What does any of this have to do with FF?
Final Fantasy series always had this system built in it: Rows.
Characters could be put in the Front Row and in the Back Row. Front row takes more damage, deals more physical damage, Back Row takes less damage, but is able to use ranged weapons to their full potential, melee physical is weakened. Does it resemble something? Aye.

My suggestion is to make FF14 have a Front Row (The Fighters) and the Back Row (The Supports), just like in pretty much the entire series.

Is this for real?
Yes, what do you think about it? Tell me in the comments below.
And thanks for reading.

[Ashelia_Ferron]

Sounds like you just want to play an entirely different game.

[Warghoul570]

Boy and people branded me a heretic for suggesting purchasable gil in the mog station.. this is heresy at the highest level. We're talking total chaos if this was ever done.

[Leogun]

What would Blackmage do?

[whiskeybravo]

Interesting ideas.. But why?

It's probably too far into the game's life to re-work it from the ground up in such a way. If you make it so every deals the same amount of damage, it's only going to increase the amount of damage required to finish a fight, which means everyone is back in the same boat trying to optimize gear, rotations, stance dancing, etc to push as much damage as possible...It's just a different side of the same coin. Classic front/back row wouldn't work the way the game is currently designed, too much moving around for mechanics and stuff, you'd have to simply say ranged take half the damage and "imagine" they are on a back row. You'd also have to learn how to optimize 2 roles within your job, probably easier for some than others, but if you've only been a tank up to now, you'll have to learn how to dps. If you've only been a dps, now you'll have to learn to tank.. Same with healers and ranged, if you've never done the other job before you'd have to learn.

It does open it up for some new and interesting mechanics based on role swaps during combat, but other than that, yes you're basically talking about a whole new game. It would probably be easier to start a fresh concept than re-work this entire game for your suggestions. Not that they're bad, it would just be a lot to implement for the dev team and require a huge adjustment by the player base. So why change? You should try to justify why SE would want to spend millions of dollars to rebuild the game, and why millions of players would want to get used to a new style of playing, other than because you, personally, don't like the design.

[Ahrniel]

Sounds like you just want to play an entirely different game.

Well, then I wouldn't be in a FF14 forum suggesting ways of fixing FF14's issues.

Boy and people branded me a heretic for suggesting purchasable gil in the mog station.. this is heresy at the highest level. We're talking total chaos if this was ever done.

Really? I think the current system is a chaos.

What would Blackmage do?

Could work around Manawall and Manaward being castable on party members from the very start. Other things should be added. I think a Mana Barrier kind of support for damage mitigation would be interesting. It could even be basically a buff that consumes your mana whenever your allies are hit? So you would have to focus on using Blizzard instead. Oh whoa, it even reduces the damage as wanted. That could work.

and why millions of players would want to get used to a new style of playing, other than because you, personally, don't like the design.

The issues I've seen with this game weren't seen by me alone, but is is documented an discussed throughout the entirety of these forums.

Second thing, you talk as if I had the power to change anything and would upset people if I did? I can't just post things in this forum anymore without salt flying to my face of "Get out of here demon!". People can't even just discuss ideas anymore, everything is threatening to their very lives. That is disgusting.

Third thing, you complain about people "having" to learn a second role. Sorry pal, they already have to, that is reality. I want people to just accept it, and jobs to be properly designed to do so. It is by finally properly acknowledging that that is how jobs are supposed to work, that people will be able to properly design the jobs and then play them. But SE can't decide it, so they keep making a poor job with the concept. If they want to walk to that direction, fine, I'm just suggesting what can help them go to the direction they want to, and as I see it, the old concepts of the Holy Trinity are getting in the way of their plans. They need something new, made just for it.

Fourth thing...

It's probably too far into the game's life to re-work it from the ground up in such a way.

Oh, like, did you see the next expansion, like, a total re-work of the combat system?

[Leogun]

Could work around Manawall and Manaward being castable on party members from the very start. Other things should be added. I think a Mana Barrier kind of support for damage mitigation would be interesting. It could even be basically a buff that consumes your mana whenever your allies are hit? So you would have to focus on using Blizzard instead. Oh whoa, it even reduces the damage as wanted. That could work.

Honestly, I think there is still room enough in the current game to allow some of these types of effects to be spread to the various jobs without completely uprooting the game as it is now. They'd probably be slightly watered down but I'd personally enjoy being able to create a mana-powered shield for allies and utilize umbral ice to pull off some clutch moves. As is, if the tank goes down and the healer has hate or the healer dies and the tank is half dead, if whatever killed them isn't low enough to kill asap, it's over. The only other option is if your ilvl is so high you're stomping whatever is around regardless.

[whiskeybravo]

The issues I've seen with this game weren't seen by me alone, but is is documented an discussed throughout the entirety of these forums.

Second thing, you talk as if I had the power to change anything and would upset people if I did? I can't just post things in this forum anymore without salt flying to my face of "Get out of here demon!". People can't even just discuss ideas anymore, everything is threatening to their very lives. That is disgusting.

Third thing, you complain about people "having" to learn a second role. Sorry pal, they already have to, that is reality. I want people to just accept it, and jobs to be properly designed to do so. It is by finally properly acknowledging that that is how jobs are supposed to work, that people will be able to properly design the jobs and then play them. But SE can't decide it, so they keep making a poor job with the concept. If they want to walk to that direction, fine, I'm just suggesting what can help them go to the direction they want to, and as I see it, the old concepts of the Holy Trinity are getting in the way of their plans. They need something new, made just for it.

Fourth thing... Oh, like, did you see the next expansion, like, a total re-work of the combat system?

I didn't think there was a lot of salt in my post.. I even complimented your efforts. And yea, if you're going to make the suggestions I'll assume, for arguments sake, that you are actually capable of making the changes. So I simply asked "why?"

Other than showing the cross-class skills pool, nobody is sure exactly how much, or how little, the combat system will change. And if it's mainly just dealing with UI, maybe we'll even be able to keep the old one. It's too early to tell, and what's more, do you not want to see what they end up doing before proclaiming the system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt entirely? SE has done a pretty decent job listening to the players to address concerns across many different aspects of the game. May not always be exactly what the players want, for that matter though it may not be exactly what the devs want either, just the best common ground that could be established.

And no, people do not have to learn how to white mage to be a bard, or learn how to paladin to be a monk. Not suggesting learning other roles doesn't help in overall understanding of the games mechanics, but it's certainly not a requirement beyond level 15.

I personally don't see a problem with the "holy trinity". Makes a lot of sense in my opinion. Tanks tank, dps deal damage, and healers heal. Any problems which arise are mostly due to how the players play these roles. From my observations: tanks are too concerned about their damage output. Every DPS wants to be the one that doesn't have to deal with mechanics so they can have max deeps. And healers, well healers have the shit end of the stick, having to deal with derpy dps that don't dodge or try hard tanks that die to every tank buster, and usually end up handling all the mechanics on top of it. But this has nothing to do with job roles, and everything to do with the player base. I don't see how changing every role to be a damage dealer on-demand changes this meta, and like Sigmar mentioned, it'd prolly make it a lot worse.

[Ahrniel]

And yea, if you're going to make the suggestions I'll, for arguments sake, assume you were actually capable of making the changes. So I simply asked "why?"

... I suppose it does make sense, I apologize.

Other than showing the cross-class skills pool, nobody is sure exactly how much, or how little, the combat system will change.

It is all speculation indeed. But I used it as a comparison because SE seems "willing" to change and scrap a lot of combat/skill related things that were around since 2.0. I think it is fair to assume this kind of change wouldn't, effort-wise, be beyond what they are willing to do.

And no, people do not have to learn how to white mage to be a bard, or learn how to paladin to be a monk. Not suggesting learning other roles doesn't help in overall understanding of the games mechanics, but it's certainly not a requirement beyond level 15.

I didn't mean it that way. I mean Tanks and Healers are having to learn how to play as DPS as well, that kind of role, not a specific job.


And the Holy Trinity works, when your Healers and Tanks don't have DPS stances. If I were to compare to WoW back in WotLK as a Restoration Druid I had a single target low damage spell called Wrath and a DoT called Moonfire. My stats were the equivalent of full Mind/Piety and almost no Intelligence in FF14. My damage was terrible, and I had no Cleric Stance. My allies took a lot of damage so I had plenty to heal, and my healing kit was quite diverse from early on. I was a full time healer with no regrets.

FF14 isn't designed like that. Tanks not having to put effort on tanking, Healers not having to put effort on healing, and having plenty of time to switch into DPS stance is how the game designed. But they can't design the classes fully because "They are still Tanks and Healers anyway, shouldn't do a good job like DPS do, because if they do DPS will be useless anyway." They can't get in a stable position with the current design, so I say scrap DDs and embrace DPS as everyone's role. Use the opportunity to polish that Bard's garbage songs and stop being shy in giving utility to jobs that already have it, but don't have more because they just happen to be DPS.

[dejiko_san]

But you're not forced to DPS. A healer can choose to DPS or not. A tank can MT or DPS as OT. It's a choice.
Instead of breaking all the roles, why not just add a fourth role and call it support?