My biggest problems with the DPS battle system and how to fix them

[Shurrikhan]

I... honestly don't much care who ends up having indirect contribution, or how much so. I just despise raid buffs that aren't significant enough to influence gameplay or even make anything appear stronger in the moment, only the final number tallies.

It makes more sense to me that whoever plays around a position most able to split its attention onto other members and move to and around them as would be helpful should be the one with the most strength allocated to indirect means. Beyond that... whatever.

I certainly don't feel like such typal distinctions are necessary for job identity. On average, I find it at least as likely that they'd conflict with individual job identities.

[Lambdafish]

I find it at least as likely that they'd conflict with individual job identities.

I think this is the biggest problem with the DPS role system. It was made at a time where there weren't many jobs and job identities weren't so wildly varying. Even Physical/Caster ranged weren't so separate, with 2 slots being dedicated to melee, and 2 being dedicated to ranged. IMO the system we have is archaic and not designed for the amount of, and varying styles of job that we have in the game now.

[Shurrikhan]

I think this is the biggest problem with the DPS role system. It was made at a time where there weren't many jobs and job identities weren't so wildly varying. Even Physical/Caster ranged weren't so separate, with 2 slots being dedicated to melee, and 2 being dedicated to ranged. IMO the system we have is archaic and not designed for the amount of, and varying styles of job that we have in the game now.

I obviously can't disagree with that; I just feel that trying to pigeonhole jobs even further into homogeneous roles and sub-roles is the opposite direction of where we should be going. I.e. let Bard be more Bard; where exactly its indirect contribution ends up from there, within reason, is basically irrelevant.