Homogenization and Job Identity - Are they mutually exclusive?

[Schondetta]

I stopped playing SMN recently because they were poorley setup in SB . the gameplay is a clunky joke let alone the flavor and made the switch to red mage which is superior in every way. My metric here is of course "fun" because its a video game.I couldn't care less about dps numbers.I beleive access to that information is a cancer in mmos. The goal should be to give each job a unique experience. But you can't do that with a MMO model that is inherently tied to fundamental mmo mechanics which now makes the system 13 years old which at the time of wows emergence was only the standard due to technical limitations and NOT lack of innovation. Needless to say we can't get what we want without a paradigm shift in the genre which is a topic for another thread. There's never going to be "balance" without sacrificing uniqueness. The community will need to decide which is more important as long as mmos stick to this model.

[Yorumi]

But you can't do that with a MMO model that is inherently tied to fundamental mmo mechanics which now makes the system 13 years old which at the time of wows emergence was only the standard due to technical limitations and NOT lack of innovation.

The age of a system has nothing to do with it's value. There are things we love in video games that are approaching 40 years old. Innovation is not automatically good, often times it ends up terrible or worse off. The core mechanics of ff14 arn't what are hurting it's jobs, it's a lack of creativity in implementing those jobs that is.

[Schondetta]

The age of a system has nothing to do with it's value. There are things we love in video games that are approaching 40 years old. Innovation is not automatically good, often times it ends up terrible or worse off. The core mechanics of ff14 arn't what are hurting it's jobs, it's a lack of creativity in implementing those jobs that is.

I agree 100% I meant to say the model stifles creativity which I am sad to say square is not above that influence. But you do have to change SOME things else we just keep having these nerf vs buff arguments every patch for every mmo ever

[Yorumi]

I agree 100% I meant to say the model stifles creativity which I am sad to say square is not above that influence. But you do have to change SOME things else we just keep having these nerf vs buff arguments every patch for every mmo ever

Not really. You can make interesting classes within the framework. The problem is not the core game mechanics so much as the desire by mmo companies to keep people on the treadmill perpetually. It's not lack of creativity, it's lack of desire. Think about our dungeons in this game. Since the end of ARR all our dungeons are copy/paste, it's 2 trash pulls, 1 boss, 2 trash pulls 1 boss, 2 trash pulls 1 boss and done. They just put a new coat of paint on each one. Raids? 1 Boss fight, with 4 total fights released every raid patch. It never changes. Why is every combo in the game no more than 3 buttons long? There's nothing mechanically limiting that.

It's not the game mechanics stifling creativity in ff14, it's a total lack of desire on SE's part to be creative. I could come up with all kinds of ways to make some very interesting classes, and would be capable of balancing them and I'm just some bozo on the forums. Plenty of others here could do so as well.

Think about some of these questions, why are they so afraid to allow us to debuff bosses? I'm talking things like paralyze, blind, stun, slow or other such things? They could easily balance fights around the use of these abilities. Why do true support classes not exists? I'm not talking bard and mch that have a couple of useful things, I'm talking true support that has big buffs and debuffs. They'd be required? Well yeah, just like a tank is, or a healer, or dps. Why not explore a lot of the alternate resource management systems?

I started to suspect in HW but SB has confirmed it. SE has absolutely no desire to do anything interesting. They seek to stay in the holding pattern. Continue to copy/paste dungeons and raids, as well as just using a standard stat progression equation to perpetuate the treadmill. Again this has nothing to do with the core mechanics, it is totally and entirely a complete lack of desire to be creative and do anything more except the bare minimum.

[Dzian]

The age of a system has nothing to do with it's value. There are things we love in video games that are approaching 40 years old. Innovation is not automatically good, often times it ends up terrible or worse off. The core mechanics of ff14 arn't what are hurting it's jobs, it's a lack of creativity in implementing those jobs that is.

The creativity is restricted by the stupid concept that everything has to be perfectly balanced and perfectly viable for every piece of content. Pair that with duty finder and you put a lot of limits on what you can do with jobs.

You will never see for example an evasion tank. Nor will you see a glass cannon dps job. Or even an aoe king that's weak at single target damage. You will never see content that require crowd control of any real form. Balance is the reason sleep has never been utilised in oven for example. The second you require mobs to be slept you tilt the scales in favour of blm for example which breaks the balance. However you could have a fight where magic damage isn't effective and balance the job that way.

Duty finder also because well what happened with tanks basically. Get 2 p aladins in your party amazing defence but good luck clearing those dps checks. 2 wins raw healing power but no support or utility same problem. Theres no flexibility in party composition. Taking a whm for example doesnt mean you only need one healer because there so powerful. But sch and ast you might need 2 but they offer more deeps.

The very design of the game places a lot of limits on there creativity and options.

Which goes to back to my earlier post and tanks.

Paladin used to be the ultra defence tank. Warrior used to be the ultra offence tank. Now though they're exactly the same. Only the weapon is different

[Yorumi]

The very design of the game places a lot of limits on there creativity and options.

Which goes to back to my earlier post and tanks.

Paladin used to be the ultra defence tank. Warrior used to be the ultra offence tank. Now though they're exactly the same. Only the weapon is different

You're looking at it the wrong way. A class should not be defined by how much of a stat it has, but how it does it's job. A tank should not be defined by how much defense or offense they have, those are just numbers. Think of it this way, if you took two tanks, gave them both the exact same kit, literally identical skills, with just different names and animations, but made Tank A have more mitigation, and tank B have more potency on the skills we'd all say that's boring as all hell. Lets look at the opposite extreme though, both tanks have exactly the same mitigation, and exact same dps, but they both play radically differently. They have different resource management, totally different combos and playstyle. We'd all be praising the design. Here's the thing, since both have the same mitigation and same dps they fulfill that requirement of all classes being viable on all content. You're also not worried about getting multiple of each one in duty finder.

Now with different class design it could mean that skill ceilings are higher and not everyone is capable of performing on a class. That shouldn't be a problem though as long as there are accessible classes. The good players will enjoy the high skill classes and others need to get get good or play another class.

Even when it comes to things like sleep, or CC in general. They could easily define a 4th role of support and it's classes all have buffs and CC and dubuffs and such. Likewise since it's already required, nothing is really stopping them from giving CC to healers and requiring it. They could even implement other types of CC that fit with other classes, like stunning fear: "Your rage filled shout makes enemies so afraid they cannot move or act, effect ends upon taking damage."

It's all there if they want to use it. However, as long as classes are defined solely by how much defense, or how much offense they have, yes you're right there's not much they can really do.

[Inuakurei]

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.

I just wanted to say that I agree with just about everything you said.

Also that you are the only other Lala I've seen with the same hair colors, and nearly the same complexion as me. we are nearly twins lol. And both on Sargantas. And both Tanks.

What are the odds.

[Duelle]

You will never see content that require crowd control of any real form. Balance is the reason sleep has never been utilized in oven for example.

Not really. Poor design and their inability to fix a simple problem is why the devs don't allow Sleep to be used.

Instead of having to give themselves even more work by creating barriers between dungeon sections, they only needed to:

- Remove Deep Sleep: No more AoE sleep.
- Set dungeon mobs to ignore the boss room barriers: Means you can't just ignore mobs and run to the boss. The train will follow you into the boss room, through the barrier and obliterate you.
- (Optional) Make trash hit harder so that it is a lot easier to die if you pull a lot of mobs.

CC would need to become more spread out, or involve adds in boss fights. I think of the Kel'thuzad fight that mind controls raid members, requiring your mages in the raid to polymorph MC'd members until the MC wears off, and ask myself why SE doesn't do anything like that, for example.

The second you require mobs to be slept you tilt the scales in favour of blm for example which breaks the balance.

Machinist

22 Tranquilizer Dart - Puts target to sleep. Receiving damage will cancel the effect. Duration: 30s

Astrologian

38 Stop - Prevents target from moving or performing any actions. Receiving damage will cancel the effect. Duration: 30s.

Red Mage

15 Versleep - Puts target to sleep. Receiving damage will cancel the effect. Duration: 30s.

Dark Knight

46 Torment - Draw out hallucinations that confuse and torment target, preventing them from moving or taking actions. Receiving damage will cancel the effect. Duration: 30s. Cooldown: 60s.

I think with that, we have enough CC spread out that we can go ahead and make CC a little more important throughout content.

Paladin used to be the ultra defense tank. Warrior used to be the ultra offence tank. Now though they're exactly the same. Only the weapon is different

Being the ultra defense tank is what got PLD flushed down the toilet last expansion. If you want to create differences between tanks, you need look no further than parts of the tank paradigm and go from there.

By comparison, none of the WoW tanks had anything about damage (at most, Death Knights developed a knack for soloing older content because of how the Vengeance mechanic worked in combination with Death Strike/Blood Shield). Two of the tanks used sword and shield, one getting angry when hit and the other using holy magic to partially reflect the damage. One turned into a bear with high armor and high HP to make up for their lack of blocks and parries. One drained HP from their enemy over the course of a fight (Death Strike healing + Bloodworms) and could shield themselves as long as resources allowed while still having some basic mitigation cooldowns. One relied on keeping effects active (+dodge, +parry) and managing a mechanic that split damage taken (80% on hit, 20% over 12s), along with a self heal. These are the sort of distinctions you want between tanks. Making one the "defense tank" and another the "damage tank" is laughable when you compare it to that.