Why the class system isn't bad, feat. Ranger

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like a Bard and Ranger easily could be distinct from each other. I just feel like XIV's current, very strict armory system -- applying a specific number of nonadjustable (except by being in PvP) abilities to a class, and then job skills atop them and beyond them with no meaningful expansive or synergistic passives being added by the job to alter or really play on what the class provides -- doesn't suit those potential distinctions. In part that's because the class is so bare-bone, though, not because it already lends itself so much towards Bard, nor because Bard already does or should fill every function or aesthetic that a Ranger might. In short, the ARR class was never really designed to be compelling in itself, and that's the real mistake. Not that it's holding Bard and Ranger back, but because it was only ever a non-entity, or a mere step in another's aesthetic. Had it been a fulfilling class from the start, which Bard then provides its own spin on, we could in turn see Ranger provide yet another.

The same is true of Rogue, Ninja, and any possibility of a Thief stemming from the same class. Rogue in its own right looks ridiculous. All of the gaudy wind-streaked spinning makes no sense until the advent of Huton, which, sadly, still makes little of the aesthetic. The later-added Armor Crush looks far more practical and sounds more the saboteur than Ninja feels—it seems a ready fit for a Thief more so than NIN. And yet, rather than all the wind-themed abilities that Rogue excuses through its later attachment to Ninja, it alone affects Huton.

I can understand the dislike of classes as they've been deployed in ARR. Their only fit to the game is that, frankly, a novice adventurer probably shouldn't wake up one day, grab a sword from a local coliseum trainer and think "I'm a level 1 in a lost art I don't yet know exists". It's a restriction to better suit lore, at best.

But it doesn't have to be. The concept itself is solid. So long as there are diverse ways to use a particular set of techniques, whether in bowmanship or hand-to-hand combat, the division between class and job, and any other jobs branching from the same class, can be a powerful tool for customization. But the class needs to then be the majority of the gameplay, at least at first (say, level 50), and the job shouldn't be purely additional strengths. Though that doesn't mean it needs to introduce weaknesses, there needs at least to be other meaningful, viable, and enjoyable benefits that the player is restricting himself from by choosing to specialize in the job. The job should allow an advanced and distinct path for additional skills, but the many combinations of borrowed aspects from other classes, focusing on x portion of gameplay, should be at least as interesting collectively and nearly as interesting individually.

To reiterate, the issue is the implementation and priorities, both, in how XIV's class-job system was designed. You absolutely CAN increase a Summoner's basic DoT damage without increasing a Scholar's by the same amount. We already adjust potencies, adjust stat multiplies, and even remove entire effects and add new conditionals by a check made to every ability from simply entering a PvP situation. Why should variance by job then be a necessary impossibility? It may not be possible with their current coding, but that's an issue of the code — not the concept itself. It's the implementation, and the fact that the class is being treated as a lore-based preliminary period rather than as a center or central node for customization.

By the time you allow for dynamic animations (even if as simple as adding particle effects, changing anchor points, or adjusting the animation's speed based on attack rate), for instance, there's really nothing to hold back a Pugilist from sourcing a Dancer, nothing to force the Rogue to be as gaudy as a Ninja, nor any undermechanic a Ranger can't play off of differently from a Bard.

[Acidblood]

...

While I agree to an extent, what you are talking about is more of a ground up re-work than a modification... and if FFVIX was fundamentally designed differently then it could be a pretty good system.

The problem is that FFXIV, like most theme park MMOs, is designed around the meta of DPS, DPS, and more DPS*... and as we have already seen with the likes of MNK, PLD, and WHM, it doesn't matter how many options (jobs, classes, selectable skills, etc.) players have, if it doesn't increase the all mighty DPS it's not going to get (widely) used.

The one advantage FFXIV has, at least compared to most other MMOs, is that each job has a very distinct mechanic / playstyle, so even if a job is not 'meta', it still gets used based on personal preferences: e.g. I personally prefer the playstyle of PLD over WAR, and the mechanics of BLM over SCH (but I know others who are the opposite).

If this distinctness was to be reduced, it would not significantly add to the game... Using Bard and Ranger as an example, if Ranger is simply to be the personal DPS version of Bard, then if Bard does not provide more overall DPS it is not going to get used, and if it does, then anyone playing Ranger is going to be told to switch to Bard. And if Ranger is going to be more distinct than that, then why not just have it as a separate, stand alone, job (even if the lore at low levels is connected)?

* This is in comparisons to an FF Tactics style game, where survival can matter just as much, if not more, than DPS… i.e. taking a few extra turns is worth it if you can comfortably ensure (via the use of non-DPS abilities) that all your characters will survive.

[Shurrikhan]

While I agree to an extent, what you are talking about is more of a ground up re-work than a modification... and if FFVIX was fundamentally designed differently then it could be a pretty good system.

The problem is that FFXIV, like most theme park MMOs, is designed around the meta of DPS, DPS, and more DPS*... and as we have already seen with the likes of MNK, PLD, and WHM, it doesn't matter how many options (jobs, classes, selectable skills, etc.) players have, if it doesn't increase the all mighty DPS it's not going to get (widely) used.

The one advantage FFXIV has, at least compared to most other MMOs, is that each job has a very distinct mechanic / playstyle, so even if a job is not 'meta', it still gets used based on personal preferences: e.g. I personally prefer the playstyle of PLD over WAR, and the mechanics of BLM over SCH (but I know others who are the opposite).

If this distinctness was to be reduced, it would not significantly add to the game... Using Bard and Ranger as an example, if Ranger is simply to be the personal DPS version of Bard, then if Bard does not provide more overall DPS it is not going to get used, and if it does, then anyone playing Ranger is going to be told to switch to Bard. And if Ranger is going to be more distinct than that, then why not just have it as a separate, stand alone, job (even if the lore at low levels is connected)?

* This is in comparisons to an FF Tactics style game, where survival can matter just as much, if not more, than DPS… i.e. taking a few extra turns is worth it if you can comfortably ensure (via the use of non-DPS abilities) that all your characters will survive.

That's the thing: as long as DPS remains almost purely a long-term metric, perhaps even regardless of the viability of (status effect, etc.) utilities, there can be no real differentiation. Until there is a synergetic use for burst, be it defensive or offensive or both at once in purpose, to differentiate from long-term damage, and until there is a very real threat to enemy burst that is distinct from "white damage" rather than both being equally tunneled into a single specialist responsibility, there will only really be one meta. Meta variation requires versatility in how output can be perceivably measured, and that is probably going to occur primarily through undermechanics. A game that has only a bare-bones take on additional systems (e.g. enmity) and, at best, %HP triggers for bonus abilities, isn't going to have the foundations to build real variance.

Better a re-work than to be fatally capped...

[dragonseth07]

snip

We already have specific uses for burst damage in the form of every DPS check ever, starting all the way back in Ifrit's Nail. And burst survival in the form of tankbusters, what everyone saves their CD's for.

Am I just misunderstanding you here?

[Shurrikhan]

We already have specific uses for burst damage in the form of every DPS check ever, starting all the way back in Ifrit's Nail. And burst survival in the form of tankbusters, what everyone saves their CD's for.

Am I just misunderstanding you here?

We have it for specific encounters, but very use little generally. These are rarities, limited mostly to raiding. In any other case it doesn't matter at what rate damage is output, only that it is. Compare that to games that have some manner of damage-based interrupt. In those, damage isn't just a completion metric, be that for an encounter or a specific add or phase; it's your lifeblood, which you must coordinate to survive. Even better, perhaps, is when undermechanics can distinguish between interrupt contribution and pure damage contribution. At that point you have a balance alike to tanking vs. pure damage, but without limiting sabotage of enemy output to tanks and a bare-bones attention system (enmity). It's not "everyone" saving their CDs for tankbusters; the vast majority of players are absolutely unaffected by their existence. And that's because we remove that consideration from general responsibility and lock it away among specialists. Now, that is simply the default way things would work when allowing only for mitigation through modification to input (incoming damage), but the real question is -- why stop there? If we could affect more than just (long-term) completion metrics with our damage, the game could get far more complex, allowing for far more variation in its metas.

[RopeDrink]

Jobs are just an extention, and I'm fine with that. I come from a long-line of MMORPGs where playing any class requires creating and levelling a new character from scratch. Lately some have adopted the 'one character for all classes' approach (eg. Skyforge), but here it goes deeper (not much). I have no problem with it, even if I do agree that a Rogue shouldn't anything like a Ninja, for example, but hey, I don't see them widening the rabbit hole anytime soon.

[Okamimaru]

I had originally hoped the job system would be closer to ff tactics with having to unlock jobs by leveling other related jobs... and allowing more cross job skills to give characters a bit more flexibility and uniqueness... having a main job and a sub job that you could mix and match as you wanted...