Quote Originally Posted by Mhaeric View Post
Now for the full calculations in order from "hardest" to "easiest":

Ninja 3.9
Samurai 2.6
Dancer 2.5
Black Mage 2.4
Summoner 2.0
Red Mage 2.0
Dragoon 1.7
Monk 1.5
Bard 1.3
Machinist 0.6
This can only inspire the most rational of responses.

Jesting aside, I'm going to come out and say that difficulty should never be a significant impact on Job performance if we want to talk about balance. All that does is create a timeline until the "easier" job is obsolete. There's a reason characters in Moba-types that have more value while being more 'skill based' (RE: Not point and click) get constantly adjusted down to a normalized value.

The skill floor (and ceiling) will eventually be surmounted and reached, thus ensuring every other option is just a weaker option.

Now - If -every- option had a 'harder' variant of itself that lead to higher performance (RE: Monk Tornado Kick), then I think that's fine, if we're talking values in the 5-10% range, but the punishment for doing it wrong should also be equally lower.

The fun in having more demanding options is the demand itself. Having a suitable, stable and simple 90%, but with the option to attempt a more volatile 80-100% range, and having that for every job, might seem antithetical to what I just said, but the key is that the option exists for every job, instead of just some jobs.

I think players should have the opportunity to excel, but the prestige should primarily be the playing itself, not the end result. Having a 'more than enough' simpler path but also a challenging 'it's worth it if you can do it right' path would be ideal.