Multiple Job Roles Idea

[Sylvain]

It won't happen because Yoshida said he'd rather add new job than specs.
From a technical point of view, a Job a pretty much a spec.

It took WoW many extansions and struggle to make every job very unique. They only achieved that in the past two expansion and even before, some job litterally had no identity (Disc priest for instance)
And some were just copy of other spec with different twists (Shadow Priest, Affliction Warlock, Destruction, Fire Mage)
If we go back to WoW vanilla and TBC, while every class technically had 3 specs. not only were only 1 viable, but the other were so poorly designed that there was virtually no differences between the spec beside the color of the spells.
Frost and Fire Mage were exactly the same thing for instance, one spam frost bolt, the other spam firebolt.

To come back to FF14, Yoshida rather implement new Job than Specs.
They'd rather implement the Blue Mage than a tanking spec for the Black Mage.

It is a choice like another.

The good point with this design is that it leaves them a lot of room for new jobs every extansion wereas WoW and other game rarely get any new class because a single new class is equivalent to 3 in FF14.
When they introduced the Monk for instance, it was packed with 3 specs, so 3 totally different design with just a few spells here and there as cross spec skills.

I prefer the Job system, at least I know (or hope) that since FF14 is kind poor in gameplay diversity (13 "spec" per say, with would translate to 4 class in WoW), they can add more easily 2-3 jobs every new expac and keep things fresh.

We'll get 2 dps in Stormblood,
Perhaps next one will have 1 heal 1 dps.
then after 1 tank one dps.

Ultimately, this will also help fuel that FF "job" feeling where you have tons of jobs too chooses.

[Ririta]

snip

So balance for scholar is homogenizing them into the same mediocre level as white mage and astrologian?

I didn't ask for white mage to keep getting nerfed over and over since 2.0; I didn't ask for astrologian to be on the same level as white mages instead of scholars. Why bring one job down instead of buffing the others? People like to DPS, let them. It amuses me how badly they've been ruining white mage since 2.1, but that wasn't possible with scholar, so they began crying on how arcanist is bad for balance, as if that wasn't a self-inflicted problem.

Scholars also have more spells to use in an AoE rotation: the 4 DOTs, Bane, Miasma II and Blizzard II. And in the single target rotation you forgot to add Energy Drain.
Speaking of MP efficiency, Blizzard II isn't exactly the most MP efficient spell for the damage it deals.

On summoner; I did raid FCoB, but as paladin. Why couldn't they rise the summoner's base piety? We've had just seen a base stat increase that tier (dragoons with their magic defense) so it could be done. And by the way, the summoner problem was self inflicted after the black mage over reaction in 2.3. A higher MP pool wouldn't make summoners be able to catch up to black mages.

Would you prefer being excluded from any difficult content? FFXI suffered notably from certain builds or sub-classes being deemed "trash" and people outright refusing to take them. Balance is what allows players to more freely choose the job they prefer and still complete everything. Yes, the meta comp exists but it's not to the point of exclusion.

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.

While true, we have no idea if they are homogenizing the jobs. Nevertheless, what you're asking for is a monumental task. Consider, if you will, each job being able to play into every role. With Stormblood adding two additional jobs, you've effectively tripled the devs' work; going from 15 jobs to a whopping 45 as they have to make each viable. Your scenario will, ironically, lead to even more homogenization because creativity is a finite source. They can only make so many builds or jobs unique before ideas start to blend. It happened in WoW.

[Ama_Hamada]

You can have several jobs be viable without homogenizing them to the point where your choice is just aesthetics. What really matters is the encounter design, it can't commit the same mistake as Coil often did.

That has nothing to do with what is being said though. Fixing something that is broken and not fit for the game =/= homogenizing. Also no one uses blizzard II for DPS. Every time I see people attempt using that for DPS, it is a dps loss compared to if they did something different. Dot everything then spam ruin sheesh.

[Malzian]

Want to be a DPS paladin? Just change to a DPS spec (complete with DPS abilities).

All I'm getting out of this is "skill trees"... Yeah, sorry but...

[Neophyte]

What balance issues? Both works perfectly and are fun to play.

You can't give SMN a stronger Ruin, while SCH's ruin remains the same. Same for Ruin2, Bio, Bio2, Miasma, Miasma2, Shadowflare and Energy Drain..

Buffing/Nerfing SMN's old abilities also always affect SCH.

It's a balancing issue if you can't change a job without changing a 2nd one.


This is a soooo obvious issue, I'm baffled that people are actually arguing this fact.

[SendohJin]

It's a balancing issue if you can't change a job without changing a 2nd one.

This is a soooo obvious issue, I'm baffled that people are actually arguing this fact.

SMN is not currently unbalanced because those things can't be changed. They don't have to change the potency of any of those. instead of buffing Ruin they can buff Ruin III, who uses Ruin anyway? they don't need to buff the 3 main dots or shared AOE spells they can buff Fester, Painflare and Deathflare instead.

you cannot and should not attempt to balance every job at every level cap, that's a waste of time.

it's obviously a very minor issue which is why the only thing someone really complains about is Leeches and they have nothing to say about Lv 50-60 spells and abilities.

[loreleidiangelo]

SMN is not currently unbalanced because those things can't be changed. They don't have to change the potency of any of those. instead of buffing Ruin they can buff Ruin III, who uses Ruin anyway? they don't need to buff the 3 main dots or shared AOE spells they can buff Fester, Painflare and Deathflare instead.

you cannot and should not attempt to balance every job at every level cap, that's a waste of time.

it's obviously a very minor issue which is why the only thing someone really complains about is Leeches and they have nothing to say about Lv 50-60 spells and abilities.

The fact that jobs get their own unique abilities themselves should be a sign that the class system failed, IMO. Broil and Ruin III could have just been Ruin III for ACN except the devs realized there was no decent way to make the ability work for both SCH and SMN. By saying "just tweak job abilities" you're already admitting defeat by saying that class abilities can't be adjusted to preserve some semblance of balance.

See also: why Physick sucks for SMN because it scales off of SCHs primary stat instead. If your solution to making Physick a viable self-heal for SMN while not breaking SCH is "just pile MND on the SMN jobstone until it works" then you have already lost. (Or alternately, "make it scale off INT for SMN only", as that is also a change at the job level and not the class level.)

[SendohJin]

The fact that jobs get their own unique abilities themselves should be a sign that the class system failed

who is debating that it didn't fail? we know this when DRK, AST and MCH launched without them. just leave them alone and let them die.

Broil and Ruin III could have just been Ruin III for ACN

you're going to pretend they added things to classes that are not ACN in 3.x?

[loreleidiangelo]

who is debating that it didn't fail? we know this when DRK, AST and MCH launched without them. just leave them alone and let them die.



you're going to pretend they added things to classes that are not ACN in 3.x?

Maybe I didn't explain myself well. I meant that if the class system was a success they wouldn't have dumped it, they would have continued adding class abilities post-30. If your argument is that SCH/SMN don't need to be separated from ACN...well, I think they SHOULD, if only for consistency, but if they don't it's not like the situation with them is unmanageable currently.

Sorry if we misinterpreted each others' points.