Homogenization and Job Identity - Are they mutually exclusive?

[3ureka]

Let me preface this thread with a series of related questions stemming from the primary inquiry:

Why do you play your class?

Is it because the gameplay (or flow, etc.) appeals to you?
Would you continue to play that class even if it wasn't the "top dps"?
Would you continue to play that class if its gameplay lacked fluidity?

To quote one of the official translations from the latest live letter:

Q5. It was explained that in Patch 4.0 the focus was to reduce the large DPS disparity, but certain jobs feel more reliant on player skill than others. Are certain jobs intended to maintain that difference?

A5. One of the main concepts of FFXIV is that “when playing a job, you experience the uniqueness of that job.”
Due to this, there is a difference in difficulty between the jobs, and it used to be that higher difficulty meant more DPS. We will be scaling down this factor.

Let us suspend our disbelief and for a moment imagine that Square could perfectly balance all of the classes (although for the purposes of this thread, we will be speaking strictly of dps). For example, if someone ran a parser, they'd find that each dps class would be within +/- 5% (let us attribute this discrepancy to differences in player skill) of each other in terms of total damage dealt.

To the more "hardcore" players, I imagine a +5% difference in dps might be an unsatisfactory reward for the depth and understanding that they've put into honing a certain class's rotation. However, would that pittance be enough to deter you from FFXIV? Would having your class's skills be interesting and enjoyable to execute sweeten the deal?

Looking at the quote from the recent live letter, it seems fairly clear that the goals of Square are twofold:

1. have each class bring a unique gameplay experience
2. close the discrepancy between casual and hardcore players

Before going any further, I must disclose that I've been a MNK main for the majority of my time spent in FFXIV. I chose MNK because I usually gravitate towards melee/fist classes; it wasn't until later that I fell in love with the fast-paced nature of MNKs. I started about 10 months ago, so I can't attest to any balancing issues there might've been before then; therefore, any ensuing comments mentioning those times may be lost on me. And speaking of recency, it wasn't until maybe four months ago that I was introduced to the concept of parsing. I had chosen to main a dps class, so it seemed wise that I should start parsing to see exactly how much I was contributing to each fight.

Taking a closer look at where I stood in the pecking order made me reexamine what I thought I knew about MNK and its rotations and openers. The months of experience I've had with the class made it relatively easy to adjust my inferior rotation, and before I knew it, I was at the top of the charts for most of my encounters. What I came to understand about MNK was that it was a hard-hitting, fist-slinging, mobile class with strong DoTs and respectable AoEs. Being satisfied that I knew the class like the back of my hand, I decided to try said hand with a different class, MCH.

Unlike my MNK, I leveled my MCH solely through PoTD, so my experience with the class was severely lacking. It wasn't until I was grinding A1S for my Anima weapon that I was able to perfect the rotation allowing me to hit 25k Wildfires***. While I don't have the same depth of experience with MCH as I do with my MNK, I can confidently say that the two classes are decidedly different in terms of gameplay. Range and the freedom of no positional skills are two of the more glaring differences, but where MNK was more structured in terms of its rotations, MCH felt more like a game of whack-a-mole due to the "proc" nature of its weaponskills.
***Note: I just wanted to stress that it was very, very fun to nail the rotation for the 25k Wildfire, and that it was incredibly rewarding to see that number float up.

It was thoroughly enjoying, rewarding and refreshing to experience such a distinctly different class. (As an aside, I've refrained from mentioning my time spent learning how to tank on DRK, but suffice it to say that it was also an enjoyable experience.) Now let's take a step back and revisit parsing. By the time I was grinding A1S on my MCH, I was very familiar with the process, and I noticed that despite frequently topping the charts, my MCH did not do as much dps as my MNK (there was about a 300-400 dps difference if I remember correctly). With that being said, I still enjoyed playing both classes, and I believe I still would have enjoyed playing both of them if Square had homogenized their dps output - just based on the fact that they offered such different playstyles.

With the release of the Stormblood, I was hoping that my favorite jobs would receive some added complexity and/or interesting skills to accompany the increased level cap. Unfortunately... As much as I would love to expound on how Square's delivery of MNK and MCH have been deeply disappointing and upsetting, it seems I have already done so vicariously through the threads and comments of other forum users. It's what spurned me to create this thread in the first place.

I was so disappointed with MNK that I decided to level up some other dps classes (namely DRG and SAM) to see how fluid their gameplay was. What I found was that they weren't as distinctly different from each other as I found MCH and MNK were (although that's pretty obvious considering that's a ranged vs melee comparison). DRG seems to follow an even more combo heavy rotation with a fair bit of ogcd weaving and SAM seems to be an amalgamation of DRG and MNK, building up resource and expending it depending on what cooldowns are up. More importantly to the thread at hand, DRG and SAM seemed very fluid in their gameplay. I understand this is a completely subjective observation, but if those of you who've had experience with (at least) these three classes could provide input, that would be a great avenue for discussion. Despite sharing the occasional positional requirement and the standard 1,2,3 combo structure, DRG, SAM and MNK all maintained a unique playstyle.

(As you may have noticed, I've only dabbled in melee dps classes, so if you DoM forum users could provide some insight on differences between caster classes, that'd be much appreciated.)

So my final point is this:

if Square homogenized the damage across all dps classes while having each maintain a unique and enjoyable playstyle, would that be acceptable?

I know this may be a rather long-winded exposition, but I hope it serves to illustrate a point on job identity and complexity; and I hope it also serves to catalyze a civil and constructive discussion.

Thank you for your time.

[Nezia]

In order to homogenize the dps classes they would have to either make it so that the combination of the damage you deal directly and the damage you add to others would be equal to all classes with their different and unique buffs/debuffs, OR they should remove all utility and then equalize the direct damage classes deal.

The 1st one is what SE tries to achiev, but it is pretty hard to do since the uniqueness of utilities makes it so that comps will play a hug factor on how much damage you are adding, and the second one would bring the wow problem where raids stack classes that are stronger in order to have an easier time, and since it is much easier to level and equip an alt class in ffxiv than it is in wow so you could expect this to happen even in pugs.

Now, there is another factor that is the difficulty to perform with a job. If SE manages to perfectly homogenize all jobs so everyone deals the same virtual damage(direct damage + damage add to the group), then the easier/less punishing classes would end up as the stronger class. Let's say for example that RDM and BLM are dealing the same virtual damage, in this case RDM would be the stronger job, because it is far less punished by mechanics that force you to move, stun/silence you and things of the sort.

Should they make it so that classes overperform others depending on the situation? This brings another problem: What happens if a raid tier has many encounters that favor one job? Talking again about the RDM x BLM, what if a raid tier has 4 fights that don't require much movement? BLM would come on top, and RDM would be just left in the shadow. But should raid design be limited so that an even number of encounters favor different classes?...

And this goes on and on and on, every answer brings on more issues. I think that they should be going down the line of thought that I described until they find the spot with 'more acceptable issues' and then stop there, perfect balance will never come.

[Tanathya]

I stopped playing DRK on SB seeing as how it lost it's fluidity and became completely clunky. It's not fun to me anymore, considering you can't even lose Darkside anymore, and makes even more use of Dark Arts. They took out the Parry procs gimmick and Scourge, which I sorely miss. I liked how it played on HW, now? It's something entirely different.

[Xau]

Is it because the gameplay (or flow, etc.) appeals to you?

what monk apeals me is the speedy playstile and its flow what had on arr and on hw

Would you continue to play that class even if it wasn't the "top dps"?

yes meanwhile is fun

Would you continue to play that class if its gameplay lacked fluidity?

no, and is lacking already thanks to riddle of fire(and because of that i started to level other jobs)

[Dzian]

Job identity is pretty much dead. Everything has been homogenized so much in the name of balance that any uniqueness and individuality between jobs is almost non existent.

Tanks are a perfect example here. Where the game began paladins had the identity of defensive fortress style tank. While warriors where the brutally offensive orientated tank.

As the game has progressed though there's almost nothing that separates them. Plds can do as much if not more dps than warriors can. Warriors can survive all the same tank busters a paladin can. They nearly always share gear which in turn means they're defence and stats are the same. They've been balanced so much that they have no identity anymore. Dark as well.

Healers as well. Every one can heal just as well as the next with very little identity setting them a part. They tried to make whm a pure healer but that didn't work cos that extra healing power just wasn't necessary because balance means sch and ast also had to be able to cope. So again healer identities are gone.

Dps again much the same. On the most basic levels virtually all dps bring the same to the table. Every dps has some form of aoe attack. For example you don't have an aoe king that sucks at single target. Or a single target king that sucks at aoe. Now every melee has access to goad and invigorate natively. Goad being one tool that set a ninja apart now homogenized to all melee.

It's the idea of balance and homogenization that every job has to be perfectly viable in every situation that completely destroys any real chance of job identity.

The only real difference between melee for example is the weapon they hold.

This is also why crowd control has never been utiisised in this game. Silences sleeps binds heavy stuns all exist but have never been utilised.. Throughout 2.0 and 3.0 they were only ever used as a dps increase. And never touched for there actual effect. So those unique elements jobs bought to a party were never actually used.

I cannot tell you the last time anything actually "had" to be slept for example. or bound in place by a bard. none of those things even though they are in the game have never been made use of because of balance.. and that's why job identity is gone.

[HoLoFoNo]

As someone who has played all 4 melee at 70, I can offer some insight.


Any way I typically would default to my favourite class (DRG ) if they were all homogenized but it is honestly a hard question to answer; I don\\'t know if I changed to MNK because it was top personal DPS, whether I liked its playstyle or because my static needed it at the time. But I personally agree with the poster above, most would just end up with the lowest risk but I\\'m sure a lot would end up picking their favourite.

[HoLoFoNo]

Uh im on mobile so I can't edit my post with the bulk of it so don't mind the inconsistencies

[Lildragora]

I remember back in coil, you wanted these jobs for this turn, and these for this turn, and those guys had to go caster or melee for this turn. The fights felt more dynamic. Granted I skipped most of HW raiding due to life stuff.. and I like the idea of jobs being able to play equally but there are far to many roles for every single one to be viable in every comp while retaining identity. If everything HAS to be viable for EVERY comp in EVERY fight, then everything is more so or less the same with small quirks differentiating them. Thats not what I call unique job and role experiences. I call that a reskin with higher damage or an added effect.

Not that the game is at that point yet... but it certainly is a disheartening feeling seeing it go towards that direction.

[Crewman]

Hell, even in 1.0 the classes still were more distinct from each other than they are now. I daresay I enjoyed it..

[Neela]

Let me preface this thread with a series of related questions stemming from the primary inquiry:
1) Why do you play your class?
2) Is it because the gameplay (or flow, etc.) appeals to you?
3) Would you continue to play that class even if it wasn't the "top dps"?
4) Would you continue to play that class if its gameplay lacked fluidity?

1) Because Summons in FF series always catched me so I started FF14 without any knowledge of the cls interpretation for this mmo. I liked the lore and the story elements around the cls and my first carbuncle as well. Now years later it might be melancholy staying with smn through all the good (hw) and bad (aar) times - looking for their/our place in stormblood after the hype and trouble settled down a bit.

2) in opposite of the majority I think less dots and more egi-related skills (at least the idea behind enkindle cd reduce, ruination and devotion) feel way more summoner than before. (im not saying that the skills and mechanics are great yet but they go in the right direction for me) - although Bahamuts mechanic feels more like a summonerfinisher than just deathflare in the end as well but maybe thats just the visual-impression.

3) never was interested in being top tier all day long. I played the noob smn in aar and the aoe king in hw - dps and rankings are no argument for me to chose a cls I'd like to play. never was, never will be. that being said im deep into Brd/Sch/Whm as well - all cls have their criticism and again I don't care that criticism if I like the overall-cls design and lore.

4) Never give up trying... there is always a way to improve, some are easier some are harder and need more effort but just giving up on something which is different than before without even trying isnt an option. haven't changed a cls or cls-liking cause of adjustments yet. and honestly I don't think I will change main or even sub cls based on question 3 & 4.