So after waiting for about 2 weeks to see the consequence of homogenization

[TcomJ]

Again, what, at all, does that have to do with class homogeneity? Please, let's not throw in every other form of "homogeneity" (mapdesign-homogeneity, backstory-homogeneity, vfx-homogeneity, texture-homogeneity, polycount-homogeneity, etc., etc.) into a thread you clearly centered on class/job homogeneity in particular.

Anyone short of 100% completionists will finish FFXIII long, long before unlocking all levels of each Role for each character. The characters' diversity is in their progression and who you can work into strategically appropriate compositions at that particular time, not just some 60 hours of grinding after having already beaten the game. Sure, other characters can eventually get Hastra, but if it's not accessible even by the last boss without tens of hours more time, for instance, then it's essentially unique to the one character who gets it way earlier than the rest.

I'll agree that XIV jobs have become more homogeneous -- you're preaching to the choir here, so to speak. But let's not reach for oil-slick straws miles away when we have plenty of examples right here in XIV.

I didn't say that 13 has homogenized job. I literally said that it's not. The problem with 13 is the difficulty of the game is the problem. Even the dev said they are putting emphasis on linearity of difficulties to the point that everything is a smooth shallow slope where there is no difficulty spikes or challenge at all so casual players can sail and breeze through content with no obstacles.

If players want challenge, they can do optional side quest outside of what's the world name again? lol. What I meant for 13 comparison is that, lack of depth and difficulties of the battle not the job.

But if the devs of 14 make all job be THAT easy let's say how they make bard even more simplified, then it would feel like how they make 13 difficulties so bland. That's what I meant.

[MaelleRiou]

This is an unfortunate aspect of MMOs. The more jobs that get added, the harder it is for them all to have unique buffs and utility while still being balanced with each other.

Having a situation like Stormblood where groups pretty much always wanted a bard and dragoon for their utility over other DPS of their role is problematic and becomes increasingly more so the more jobs that are added.

Should bard utility still be at Stormblood level where they're almost always the physical ranged of choice? What then would be the point of machinist and dancer?

The party buffs are probably the least interesting part of jobs anyway. It's either a long cooldown you use once every 2-3 minutes like Devotion or it's just something that's a passive part of your rotation like bard songs were in Stormblood. Ultimately, the uniqueness of each job should be in how it plays, not so much in what buff it brings to the party.

I do think part of the problem is the insistence on very tight DPS requirements for raid fights that it pushes people into optimizing everything about their group and moving away from every fight being a DPS check fight would allow for a bit more room. Hard for a red mage to get much benefit out of their raise when the reduced damage from the death might cause a wipe anyway.

[TcomJ]

This is an unfortunate aspect of MMOs. The more jobs that get added, the harder it is for them all to have unique buffs and utility while still being balanced with each other.

Having a situation like Stormblood where groups pretty much always wanted a bard and dragoon for their utility over other DPS of their role is problematic and becomes increasingly more so the more jobs that are added.

Should bard utility still be at Stormblood level where they're almost always the physical ranged of choice? What then would be the point of machinist and dancer?

The party buffs are probably the least interesting part of jobs anyway. It's either a long cooldown you use once every 2-3 minutes like Devotion or it's just something that's a passive part of your rotation like bard songs were in Stormblood. Ultimately, the uniqueness of each job should be in how it plays, not so much in what buff it brings to the party.

I do think part of the problem is the insistence on very tight DPS requirements for raid fights that it pushes people into optimizing everything about their group and moving away from every fight being a DPS check fight would allow for a bit more room. Hard for a red mage to get much benefit out of their raise when the reduced damage from the death might cause a wipe anyway.

For MCH main, party buffs are not interesting then don't have it for MCH as you like MCH for that. For many bard players and DNC players they are interesting.

And I don't know what MMO you play where the more jobs they add, the homogenization becomes prominient and job identities fade away.

Ragnarok for example has no problem of that whatsoever. They never have to rework or remove abilities from old jobs and the more new job they add, the more unique and weird they get.


Right now, the only buff people can think of is damage buff in this game that's relevant. Hence, such is the reason why there can be no other kind of buff. We removed TP, though as convenient for some jobs and abilities spamming, there is now less factors for buff to occurs.

The more resource you remove, the less flexibility of stats manipulation and interactions you get.

The game is designed to rely heavily on 1-2 character stats, and buffing any other stats such as say sks for mnk or mch is/was a no no.

But say Ragnarok, you can buff elemental attack, you can buff TP, you can buff agi, str, vit, int, debuff this and that, cast speed, sks, luck all across the board. Even elemental combo is such a thing.
That creates depth and exploration and the emphasis of meta doesn't rely on a few jobs but diversify and spread across the jobs and stats.

And now we have what we call inflation of DPS number and discrimination of meta based on DPS number. Because we remove all these factors, in the end people discriminate the only thing that only matter, DPS.

Even Ragnarok introduces Bard and then Dancer, they never have removed bard abilities for dancers.

[MaelleRiou]

For MCH main, party buffs are not interesting then don't have it for MCH as you like MCH for that. For many bard players and DNC players they are interesting.

And I don't know what MMO you play where the more jobs they add, the homogenization becomes prominient and job identities fade away.

Ragnarok for example has no problem of that whatsoever. They never have to rework or remove abilities from old jobs and the more new job they add, the more unique and weird they get.


Right now, the only buff people can think of is damage buff in this game that's relevant. Hence, such is the reason why there can be no other kind of buff. We removed TP, though as convenient for some jobs and abilities spamming, there is now less factors for buff to occurs.

The more resource you remove, the less flexibility of stats manipulation and interactions you get.

The game is designed to rely heavily on 1-2 character stats, and buffing any other stats such as say sks for mnk or mch is/was a no no.

But say Ragnarok, you can buff elemental attack, you can buff TP, you can buff agi, str, vit, int, debuff this and that, cast speed, sks, luck all across the board. Even elemental combo is such a thing.
That creates depth and exploration and the emphasis of meta doesn't rely on a few jobs but diversify and spread across the jobs and stats.

And now we have what we call inflation of DPS number and discrimination of meta based on DPS number. Because we remove all these factors, in the end people discriminate the only thing that only matter, DPS.

Even Ragnarok introduces Bard and then Dancer, they never have removed bard abilities for dancers.

Because Ragnarok doesn't really have end game raiding so classes don't necessarily need to be balanced with that in mind.

I didn't find bard's party buffs in Stormblood to be that interesting at all. It was just 3% bonus to crit that passively happened as you did your DPS rotation and Battle Voice and Foe Requiem is just a "Do this when the raid leader tells you to" ability.

I think Dancer is the only class that has ever had interesting raid buffs, well, single target buff, since it's more than just occasionally pressing a button when the raid leader says to or passively buffing people for just being there.

[TcomJ]

Because Ragnarok doesn't really have end game raiding so classes don't necessarily need to be balanced with that in mind.

I didn't find bard's party buffs in Stormblood to be that interesting at all. It was just 3% bonus to crit that passively happened as you did your DPS rotation and Battle Voice and Foe Requiem is just a "Do this when the raid leader tells you to" ability.

I think Dancer is the only class that has ever had interesting raid buffs, well, single target buff, since it's more than just occasionally pressing a button when the raid leader says to or passively buffing people for just being there.

Ragnarok has plenty of super bosses and dungeon raids and raid events. Do you ever play it?
And how do you play bard in stormblood and only geto to level 50 and mch is lvl 70?
That 2% crit bonus (not 3% never has been) at lest make the songs actually songs coincide to the lore of the job. Sing to buff ally. Since you don't like bard, you play mch, make sense? And then there is the Trabadour that was a three version buff depending on the songs you are currently playing, though situational and buggy on mage ballad trabadour, it was a nice creative start. Then there is the Foe Requiem, arguably the identy of bard which was removed. You play the 2% crit is like 1/5th of Litany the whole entire raid duration, that's huge.

You find DNC buff interesting? You don't even have the job. And their buffs are literally just damage buff, crit buff, heals both single target and partywide. Still the same from bard just different numbers of target and stat numbers.

I start to think you are trolling.

[MaelleRiou]

Ragnarok has plenty of super bosses and dungeon raids and raid events. Do you ever play it?
And how do you play bard in stormblood and only geto to level 50 and mch is lvl 70?
That 2% crit bonus (not 3% never has been) at lest make the songs actually songs coincide to the lore of the job. Sing to buff ally. Since you don't like bard, you play mch, make sense? And then there is the Trabadour that was a three version buff depending on the songs you are currently playing, though situational and buggy on mage ballad trabadour, it was a nice creative start. Then there is the Foe Requiem, arguably the identy of bard which was removed. You play the 2% crit is like 1/5th of Litany the whole entire raid duration, that's huge.

You find DNC buff interesting? You don't even have the job. And their buffs are literally just damage buff, crit buff, heals both single target and partywide. Still the same from bard just different numbers of target and stat numbers.

I start to think you are trolling.

"Don't like bard, play machinist" You mean like in Stormblood when most groups took bards and not machinists? Sounds a lot like "I want my ranged DPS to be the only one groups use."

[TcomJ]

"Don't like bard, play machinist" You mean like in Stormblood when most groups took bards and not machinists? Sounds a lot like "I want my ranged DPS to be the only one groups use."

I knew it. So you want bard to be like worse MCH so you advocate to remove all bard buff while MCH get even more DPS? right. Good for the game.

[MaelleRiou]

I knew it. So you want bard to be like worse MCH so you advocate to remove all bard buff while MCH get even more DPS? right. Good for the game.

No. How things are right now is fine. All 3 physical ranged DPS bring roughly the same value to raids so a raid group can pick any of the 3 they wish to bring.

Instead of being like Stormblood where it was bard or go home. Which seems to be what you want to return to.

[TcomJ]

No. How things are right now is fine. All 3 physical ranged DPS bring roughly the same value to raids so a raid group can pick any of the 3 they wish to bring.

Instead of being like Stormblood where it was bard or go home. Which seems to be what you want to return to.

The fact that you have so little knowledge of the job you hate and mislead every single point I have already said mean you are trolling. What happen right now is people like you only want your DPS to be the most DPS and screw other unique jobs like nin,rdm,smn, and bard, kill all other non-direct dps skills so that your dps ditcher job get the spotlight.

all combos are gone, which you ignored my point completely, which I already stated that if every job has combos interactions one way or another, this wouldn't have happened. And you would spiral down the game where one job gets all the utilities and there rest of that role would only do just press buttons do damage.

It's not just range, your mentality screw other 5 dps jobs and even healer like AST. Had there been more combos other than Bard+Drg or asking for MCH to have more combos with raid jobs, there would be no need to shit on other jobs like what you are doing. You are just not creative and short sighted and lazy.

Did I ever say Bard should have more buff than DNC? no. You just accuse me of oh, DNC should have useless buffs and all the good one to Bard.

You don't even know how buffs/debuffs/utiltiies in Ragnarok works. Let me guess, you only play like WoW for mmo?

Have you ever considered MCH to have more interactions with other jobs? No, because you only want "me me me me me DPS".

You should go read all the jobs abilities in Ragnarok. If you ever play an actual RPG that is, you wouldn't be so brain dead.

Bard players like fine, you want more DPS, go ahead get more DPS for MCH. But then you people come and say, fuck bard utilities, how dare you like singing with effect. lol
Pathetic.

Did you ever think
1) DNC now has all the offense buff and heals, Bard should maybe small party buff/debuff hybrid or just pure utility/defense supports? No.
2) Should MCH has piercing/slashing/blunt combo with other jobs? No.

So much potential variety, but all you can think of is "nope, no interactions among jobs in RPG". In a god damn RPG.

[Aeliott]

For the Bard outcry, while I agree it should have more of a support focus given its FF identity, it barely lost anything in the transition to Shadowbringers. It went from lauded best designed job to "oh my god ruined" because of...losing a non interactive passive buff and a clunky as hell cast bar. That's it. If its not supportive enough now let's not pretend it was in SB either.

And sticking with the bard example it has perhaps the most unique, least homogenised DPS gameplay. It's burst cycle is every 80s, continual ogcd procs on a priority system different from Dancer, apex "money shot" built up exclusively from procs. No other job feels like it, it's the antithesis of homogenisation, unless you degrade the definition of it to "does damage, has procs".

The imbalance, which as ever with xiv isn't even that imbalanced, has nothing to do with homogenisation (I could see a case for tanks being homogenised but they're still tightly balanced), if ninja has a high "utility tax" but dragoon doesn't. Balance aside every DPS feels very different