Homogenization and Job Identity - Are they mutually exclusive?

[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.

[Ryaz]

Not mutually exclusive, but hard to pull off.

For example, they COULD remove all "buffs" for DPS and focus on them all being selfish DPS without homogonizing them too much. However, each one would have to play uniquely enough to not feel like more of the same. That means distinct ways to deal damage, different resources, etc.

The problem is that even when you do that, there will be balance issues. Look no further than WoW for that. The classes have been pared down and homogenized quite a bit, but most still play differently enough to keep their identities. However, balance is still a pain and some playstyles just aren't fun. Like Unholy Death Knights and their RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG. Sure, it plays differently than Frost DKs or Ret Paladins or Fury Warriors, but it isn't fun (and was one of the weakest dps classes when I stopped playing Legion). Unholy wasn't any harder to play than Frost, but did far less dps.

[RiceisNice]

They're not mutually exclusively. Take 3.x's BRD and MCH for example. The two shared so much in base foundation, there was very little differentiation despite how (GB/WM excluded) you try to differentiate them down the road. Both use a priority system based on procs, both maintain a self-buff, both maintain a DoT. The only real difference came from their cooldowns and one not being designed for cast times due to the nature of oGCD resets. Compare it to 4.x; both have a rather distinct take on their rotation and gameplay.

I'd honestly rather play a game where every character (or on this case, jobs) plays differently from each other and can be interchangable for the content. It's been said again and again; unless you're absolutely min-maxing, you don't need to bench out certain jobs for content (and honestly, it's also why gear is shared to an extent to begin with).

[Yorumi]

Yes you can do it, the biggest problem is SE is rather unwilling to look at larger meta concerns with classes. They've just begun to look at other resource management but only touched on a few classes and not in a very deep way. Resource management is one way to make classes feel very different. SE basically just has MP and TP and more or less they function exactly the same. So they have one resource. I remember in swtor they had 4 management systems. One was a standard mana bar, one had two types of skills resource builders and resource spenders, one had an ammo system, and one had a system where it was like a mana bar but it would regen faster the higher it was. So if you dumped it all it was slow to regen, but you had skills that could fill it on longer cooldowns so there were times you wanted to dump the bar and times you wanted to be careful not to dip too low.

Now that's not the end all be all but that right there shows you systems that SE is just ignoring. What about larger meta concerns, well lets take the rdm, blm example from the first page here. Why is a rdm not punished so harshly by mechanics? Well because they have a means of dealing with mechanics, namely mobility. Now it's certainly an identity for a blm to be largely immobile, they want their feet planted in the same spot as long as possible. Here's the problem with a situation where rdm and blm do the same dps, dps is not the only concern in balance, the whole package is. Rdm was given something in addition to it's dps which thus throws the situation out of balance. So what do you do with blm? More damage, well that's not really fair? Mobility? That's boring and homogenizing. What about skills to deal with mechanics? Imaging if blm was given something like a blink spell. Wrapped in FF lore, the spell phases the blm into the ethereal plane(or perhaps the void) and while there are untouchable by material beings or abilities while still being able to affect them. Self only, lasts for say 2 - 5 seconds whatever is considered balanced, and has some cooldown. Now when something comes along requiring movement the blm can simply blink out and not get hit by the aoe or other mechanic. Obviously we can't have them blinking every single last mechanic away but I think you should get the idea.

As with the given mnk, mch example, and my rdm, blm one there are lots of things they can do to preserve a class identity, give them interesting ways of accomplishing their goal, all while doing similar dps. The problem is SE seems to now largely lack creativity when it comes to this stuff.

[Kabooa]

Homogenization is the idea that you give up your class uniqueness in order to gain equal footing in objective power. This happens largely due to your playerbase insisting that they need to be as viable as the other guy despite their own class's strengths or weaknesses. In some cases the changes are good (2.0 Warrior to 2.X), in some cases the changes are neutral (ARR Dragoon to HW Dragoon) and in some cases the changes are negative (ARR Bard to HW Bard)

What we saw in Stormblood was the Homogenization of a 'role'.

Tanks are tanks, melee are melee, casters are casters, and so on. They all must fit within the boundaries of that role to complete the content they aim to do. However

A Black mage does not play anything like a summoner or a Red mage.
A monk plays nothing like a Ninja
Bards do not play like Machinists
Warriors do not play like Paladins or Dark Knights


This is important. All classes are competitive within their role, but none are required to absolutely do content as it was balanced (Day 1 pushing content with no gear is not 'as balanced' when it comes to Savage).

The old paradigm of "Paladin is the most durable thing ever" went in the same vein that "White Mage is the healer, Scholar is the DPS support" went. As more jobs get added, it's the -role- that they are balanced around. Individually, they will all have something that makes them different. (Cards, Faerie, OGCD use)

[RiceisNice]

This is important. All classes are competitive within their role, but none are required to absolutely do content as it was balanced (Day 1 pushing content with no gear is not 'as balanced' when it comes to Savage).
)

This is the key point right here when job design is to be considered. 4.0's state of balance was nowhere near as bad as 3.0 for MCH/BRD/AST or 2.0's WAR, and for the most part were perfectly feasible to bring into content (in MCH/BRD's case, they got their changes as early as 3.01, before Savage even came out (and ASTs had to wait until 3.07)



The current situation for example right now, MCH's inherent issues is not the disparity between itself and it's counterpart (the BRD), but that the job at the time is rather unrewarding for utilizing it's mechanics properly (overheat), was overly punishing and now really doesn't have a coherent gameflow after heat adjustments. I still played MCH out of preference over bard, and was fully capable of clearing O1s last night (with a group that's also carrying a scholar and monk, two classes whom get quite a bit of flank for apparently being not-so-go)

[Donaria]

Remove your identity politics from our game!

[KuroTenshi]

I don't think SE even wants all dps to do the exact same amount of damage even with rDPS contributions. There's differences in them for a reason and we still see good representation on every class even if it's not all the same.

(This is in reference to someone mentioning making all DPS do the same and suggesting square wants them to with their rDPS contributions.)

[Duelle]

Why do you play your class?

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

Part of it. Class concept/fantasy also have a hand in it, but gameplay has to fit the class concept. You can have a guy dressed like a pirate with a gun in his hand, but if he's spamming cures and buffs and not doing piraty things, then you have dissonance between the image the game is trying to sell you and how the class actually plays. At least to me, at that point it doesn't matter how well or terrible the class plays, because that dissonance muddies the whole experience.

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

This is a tough question, because viability is determined largely by theorycrafting/numbers, but optics also play a role in it. I'm personally fine with variances in DPS, so long as the difference between the top and bottom is fairly small.

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

This is a really weird question, because what you're suggesting is classes with abilities that have absolutely no interaction with one another or serve no purpose in the intended role of the DPS in question.

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

Ideally, yes. I personally do not see identity in things like DPS variances. If DPS variances must exist, they usually come as a result of advantages in other aspects (utility, an edge in single-target DPS, an edge in AoE DPS).

Of course, variances are unavoidable, especially if you're tuning classes around what WoW veterans call a Patchwerk-style fight (a fight that allows 100% uptime with no mechanics or telegraphs involved). They surface as soon as you throw in mechanics that favor melee or ranged, or put in anything that requires movement.

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I personally would not call equal DPS homogenization. Real homogenization comes about when you make classes play entirely too similar to one another. And even then, it's more of a gray area than anything else. I say this because otherwise NIN, WAR and SAM would be called homogenized only for having Slashing debuff (if anything, I'd make that argument if we were talking Beast gauge vs Ninki vs Kenki, though that's because I feel not every class should have gotten a resource bar).

They've just begun to look at other resource management but only touched on a few classes and not in a very deep way. Resource management is one way to make classes feel very different. SE basically just has MP and TP and more or less they function exactly the same. So they have one resource. I remember in swtor they had 4 management systems. One was a standard mana bar, one had two types of skills resource builders and resource spenders, one had an ammo system, and one had a system where it was like a mana bar but it would regen faster the higher it was. So if you dumped it all it was slow to regen, but you had skills that could fill it on longer cooldowns so there were times you wanted to dump the bar and times you wanted to be careful not to dip too low.

To add to the list, there's WoW Rage (resource generated from auto-attacks and taking damage), Energy (resource that regenerates very quickly but is also spent quickly), Mana (standard faire), Runic Power (generated by using special moves), and Runes (resource that can be used for special moves and regenerates on its own over 15s). Now all of these systems don't sound like much, but they are a big deal because they can help set the pace of gameplay for classes that use it, which I think is another great way to help differentiate classes from one another.

I'll admit that I have been disappointed with the fact that SE has married every job to TP and MP. Especially after seeing that one WAR mock-up where they used UI scaling to replace the MP bar with the Beast gauge bar.

[Lildragora]

Id rather have more diversity in jobs specifically verse roles, with multiple fights/raids/primals that capitalize on their uniqueness. Meaning some comps might not be viable in somethings but this other one is and visa versa. Would make me feel better about the time I spent leveling other jobs.

As a healer example: This boss absorbs shields on party members as a HP regen so you cant bring a Noct AST or SCH for mitigation, but this other boss does special attacks that need to be mitigated or it's a wipe. This of course would require re-working some jobs to fill those specific roles within the healer/dps/tank category. Not the best example it's just something to explain what I mean.