Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[Shurrikhan]

If job identity causes one tank to deliberately sacrifice all but 1 hp, then let it die.

Otherwise, this tank uses a gunblade, that tank uses a sword and shield. This ranged DPS shoots arrows, that ranged DPS dances. This caster summons egis, that caster attacks from near and far. All these melee DPS use positionals differently.

Those differences are sufficient for job identity.

Why? There's little to no additional risk to, say, Superbolide over Hallowed Ground when well managed -- save in that it has a shorter duration. Why should we, their party members, be denied these interactions with these idiosyncrasies? Why should those tanks themselves? I'm not about to defend Living Dead's design, but even it is something that I've learned to work around on any healer, saving Aetherflow, Emergency, and Recitation or Excog to burst heal the DRK back up in the last couple GCDs on SCH, holding every other Bene for it on WHM, etc., etc.

Differences, so long as they're not abhorrently designed (e.g. Living Dead), are generally fun to play with and around. Do not reduce jobs to simple reskins, relabels, and re-lores of Tank, Healer, Melee, Ranged, and Caster.

[linay]

Why? There's little to no additional risk to, say, Superbolide over Hallowed Ground when well managed -- save in that it has a shorter duration. Why should we, their party members, be denied these interactions with these idiosyncrasies? Why should those tanks themselves? I'm not about to defend Living Dead's design, but even it is something that I've learned to work around on any healer, saving Aetherflow, Emergency, and Recitation or Excog to burst heal the DRK back up in the last couple GCDs on SCH, holding every other Bene for it on WHM, etc., etc.

Differences, so long as they're not abhorrently designed (e.g. Living Dead), are generally fun to play with and around. Do not reduce jobs to simple reskins, relabels, and re-lores of Tank, Healer, Melee, Ranged, and Caster.

It's fun for some people and not fun for others. That's fine, but my point remains that a dark knight will still be a dark knight and not a paladin regardless if LD works the same as HG or not. Shared effects of certain skills would just point to the shared role between the two.

I'm not against differences, but I'd prefer that those differences are not for the sake of having a difference in fear of "death of job identity," but rather because those differences provide good alternatives. It can be hard to achieve because pragmatism dictates that if you can show one alternative to be better than another, then there is really no point to the alternative. That's when "job identity" should not be used as an excuse to keep the worse alternative. Either improve the weaker alternative while still having it be different or make them the same effect-wise and stick to aesthetic/lore difference.

No matter how you slice it, the onus lies with the dev team to make each job competitive within its own category.

Hence, homogenization.

[CapricaLangley]

I'm not against differences, but I'd prefer that those differences are not for the sake of having a difference in fear of "death of job identity," but rather because those differences provide good alternatives.
Hence, homogenization.

What I tried to say with that discussion is that we are stuck in the DPS and homogenisation mindset because the current philosophy behind activity design is pushing towards that direction. If every high-end encounter required a good dose of both physical and magical mitigation (it's just an example) tanks would need a more incisive identity. I like every job being viable, but there are many routes available to achieve that result without going all-in on DPS checks and full homogenisation mode IMHO, and of course they are more time consuming and difficult to design for the devs.

Another thing I think is very important and is not being discussed is the fact that a lot of players in this thread are talking about being locked out of duties and people using the best possible option for a fight. This is true indeed, but it opens up for another problem: if the players are relying so much on party finder and struggle to find groups for high end content, it means that social features built in the game are not doing their job properly.

Also, to Nora, these were just two random examples. I'm just worried for what I think may be just the beginning of a bigger identity loss process. Personally, I fear the day when we'll be just 3 roles with different cosmetics and a couple rotation nuances, but of course there is a lot of people out there who wants just that.

[Nariel]

What I tried to say with that discussion is that we are stuck in the DPS and homogenisation mindset because the current philosophy behind activity design is pushing towards that direction. If every high-end encounter required a good dose of both physical and magical mitigation (it's just an example) tanks would need a more incisive identity. I like every job being viable, but there are many routes available to achieve that result without going all-in on DPS checks and full homogenisation mode IMHO, and of course they are more time consuming and difficult to design for the devs.

Another thing I think is very important and is not being discussed is the fact that a lot of players in this thread are talking about being locked out of duties and people using the best possible option for a fight. This is true indeed, but it opens up for another problem: if the players are relying so much on party finder and struggle to find groups for high end content, it means that social features built in the game are not doing their job properly.

Also, to Nora, these were just two random examples. I'm just worried for what I think may be just the beginning of a bigger identity loss process. Personally, I fear the day when we'll be just 3 roles with different cosmetics and a couple rotation nuances, but of course there is a lot of people out there who wants just that.

Yeah because having to be carried away by your friend or because those randos pity you is such a nice and compleling feelling, nothing like feelling totaly useless and unable to carry your own weight because "well too bad your favorite job don't have the toolkit for those bosses".

[CapricaLangley]

Yeah because having to be carried away by your friend or because those randos pity you is such a nice and compleling felling, nothing like felling totaly useless and unable to carry your own weight because "well too bad your favorite job don't have the toolkit for those bosses"

I seriously don't understand why I keep receiving those kind of passive aggressive answers. I'm not pointing a gun to any job, I don't want anyone to be left behind, never said or even made an allusion to anything like that. I'm just worried because I feel like the homogenisation process is gutting job identity. I don't know which class you do play, here in the forum I see Archer 80, as you can see i'm registered as Bard level 80: wouldn't you like this job even more if it actually felt like an actual Bard?

I mean, of course I want every class to be viable and DPS differences not being an issue, but I'd like it even more if every job had a more unique identity. I remind you that probably the thing that got you into playing your favourite job was identity, because at the beginning nobody knows how does it feel or perform in actual end game content.

edit bc edit: Again, I think (maybe being completely wrong) that there may be a lot of different ways to include job identity in encounter design without making anything mandatory.

[Nora_of_Mira]

Also, to Nora, these were just two random examples. I'm just worried for what I think may be just the beginning of a bigger identity loss process. Personally, I fear the day when we'll be just 3 roles with different cosmetics and a couple rotation nuances, but of course there is a lot of people out there who wants just that.

from my perspective, its because you (collective you) want FFxiv to be a game that it's not, hence why people think its an "identity loss". I think FFxiv is just trying to be FFxiv and if people want these drastic changes to philosophy, they should play GW2.

Also:

I like every job being viable, but there are many routes available to achieve that result without going all-in on DPS checks and full homogenisation mode IMHO, and of course they are more time consuming and difficult to design for the devs.

I believe this to be straight up impossible. to look at GW2 again, every job can basically fill any role, but thats bc the content allows it. FFxiv's content does not allow that, hence the trinity, and hence the homogenization. I dont find the homogenization in FFxiv to be egregious. I love melee DPS but I favor the style of DRG and SAM over NIN and MNK. I also favor DRK/GNB over WAR/PLD. These nuances really only show up when doing high-end content, for SURE, but they exist and are different enough to feel unique, imo.

[linay]

I like every job being viable, but there are many routes available to achieve that result without going all-in on DPS checks and full homogenisation mode IMHO, and of course they are more time consuming and difficult to design for the devs.

And that may factor into which route ends up being taken. People may want different things and the devs also have their own priorities and limitations when deciding who to please and how.