Tank homogenization

[Payadopa]

Dont worry about Tank homogenization, like ppl said from Media Tour, every tank feels different from each other.

I'm not sure we're playing the same game. They play almost identical.

[Masked-dingus]

I'm not sure we're playing the same game. They play almost identical.

From someone who has everything 80 and has tanked a lot over the expansions
Yes, SHB Tanks feel totally identical

[AziraSyuren]

My huge problem with a less-homogenized state of tanking is that, back when that was the case, it felt like they had to design fights for the sole purpose of making a certain tank useful while leaving the tank that worked best by default (usually WAR) as the unambiguous best. But that's just in terms of tanking tools; there's really no excuse for WAR and DRK to have almost the exact same core gameplay loop. I can forgive the similarities in other aspects, though; a "fell cleave expy" is something almost every job has and is a very feel-good thing, and gap closers are super important for a tank in particular to have.

I guess I just don't really see an issue with homogenization? I mainly played tanking jobs for their aesthetic over how they actually play to begin with, and it's nice that the jobs I find most aesthetically pleasing aren't subject to a game dev coin toss to determine whether or not they're good for a patch cycle.

[Absurdity]

I guess I just don't really see an issue with homogenization? I mainly played tanking jobs for their aesthetic over how they actually play to begin with, and it's nice that the jobs I find most aesthetically pleasing aren't subject to a game dev coin toss to determine whether or not they're good for a patch cycle.

I'm in the completely opposite camp. While aesthetics are somewhat important what keeps me playing is the job's design, how interesting and varied they are. The content in this game isn't really interesting enough to keep me playing for months, something I came to realize in Shadowbringers...so what kept me playing for all of Stormblood? The design of both tanks and healers. While Stormblood already brought those jobs a lot closer to each other they still had distinctly different playstyles to the point where I could run the same content until the next major content patch, Shadowbringers on the other hand makes me not even want to do my single expert roulette once a day.
So what if not every tank has the exact same mitigation tools? You just need to figure out how to best use the kit that you got.

Dark Passenger for example sounded like a really bad ability on paper, but doing a wall-to-wall pull and then throwing a DA+DP into the trash not only made them miss quite a lot but also gave you such a significant enmity lead that you could drop Grit for the entire fight with no issues.
The same goes for Blood Price which gave some pretty decent MP regen in larger packs and allowed for very strong self sustain through DA+Abyssal Drain. Or Bloodweapon+Quietus as the less defensive option of MP regen for more Abyssal Drain.


Just to name a few unique and interesting Dark Knight abilities which got completely removed in exchange for boring copies of other tank skills with Shadowbringers.


And while people are correct that the stances didn't matter in high-end content because you wanted to be in your dps stance 100% of the time if possible the same doesn't apply to dungeons, something you'll do a lot more often than your weekly reclears.
Depending on how good your party was your kit allowed for more aggressive or defensive play, whereas nowadays your only option is to die when your cooldowns run out. You approach every fight, every dungeon run the same way because there is literally no other option.

[Payadopa]

I said it before and I'll say it again, I don't care about balance if it means everything else gets more boring. If jobs have inherent weaknesses and strengths that's not a flaw but a feature. And Square agreed with me at one point since that's been a staple since FF1, funnily enough.

A good party will find a way to make it work and (shocking, I know) communicate.

And every combination of jobs can clear every content anyway. Why is achieving balance more important than diversity, keeping the lore or just plain fun in the gameplay department? Especially since the vast majority of the content isn't that difficult to begin with?

[Masked-dingus]

The content in this game isn't really interesting enough to keep me playing for months, .

Another valid point. To add on what you said, one of the most important things that made FFXIV different from any other classical MMO was the various number of jobs, and now that they slowly start to kill their jobs identity, i even came to hope they stop adding jobs with nex expansions, since i'm already having less fun with the old ones

[Adeacia]

I've said it in another topic and I'll say it again here: People complain when one job has something another job doesn't have, like a gap closer. Then the devs add what the people asked for. After that, everyone complains that the jobs are too similar when they asked them to make the jobs the same in the first place. I've seen far too many examples of this in my time playing this game.

It's not the devs that have a problem, it's us, the players that do.

[Masked-dingus]

I've said it in another topic and I'll say it again here: People complain when one job has something another job doesn't have, like a gap closer. Then the devs add what the people asked for. After that, everyone complains that the jobs are too similar when they asked them to make the jobs the same in the first place. I've seen far too many examples of this in my time playing this game.

It's not the devs that have a problem, it's us, the players that do.

Except that you are assuming here that the players wanting the job to be identical, are THE SAME players who want them to be different, wich is wrong.
On my side, at least, i would NEVER want tanks to be the played the same

[Bhearil]

Theres a diference between tanks sharing a BASE kit aka ranged atack for pulls, a taunt, a charge, basic defensive cds and tanks being carbon copies of each other, some of then having gameplay mechanics that are virtually the same with a different name and animations.

[shao32]

I being here in the forum since late ARR and I can say literally no one asked for current situation, ppl wanted tanks to be equally effective in they own way in the same situations not having the same mechanics and exactly copypasted skills killing what make them enjoyable and end being forced to play marauder branch's bcs the dev team don't want to care a bout the role for the rest of the expansion Wich is what looks like it since they barely address any of the tanks request.

I will say it always I wish we could get the old diversity back and the dev team put real effort on balance them with our feedback instead of ignoring us like they did in all HW and SB when we complain how problematic was slashing debuff and bloodbath and PLD needing to block magic and dps buffs or DRK most needed buffs over everything in SB.