Is it just me or is class design / balance severely lacking this expansion?

[Lium]

Yes, classes in a certain role need to be able to do the same thing, to a degree. Every healer needs to be able to heal, every tank needs to be able to tank, but when the classes are so similar that the only difference between a SCH and a WHM is asthetic, that's going way too far.

SMN/RDM/BLM all have the exact same role, yet they don't play similar to each other at all, I don't see why AST/SCH/WHM can't be treated similarly just because their icons are green.

And have you seen the complaints from RDMs? That's actually my main, but I don't think we should have the same level of damage as BLM or SMN. However, many do it seems. And that just proves my point.

I have horror stories of playing WoW from vanilla all the way through MOP when classes were so incredibly broken and unbalanced. After MOP, all classes started to basically be the same because of it. But holy crap, warlocks were one-person raids. Resto druids trivialized content because of how OP their healing was and they NEVER died in PvP. Ever. Even with five or six players attacking them.

So, yes I'm biased because of the absolutely horrible experiences I had playing terribly designed classes in other games back in the day.

[Billythepancake]

And have you seen the complaints from RDMs? That's actually my main, but I don't think we should have the same level of damage as BLM or SMN. However, many do it seems. And that just proves my point.

I have horror stories of playing WoW from vanilla all the way through MOP when classes were so incredibly broken and unbalanced. After MOP, all classes started to basically be the same because of it. But holy crap, warlocks were one-person raids. Resto druids trivialized content because of how OP their healing was and they NEVER died in PvP. Ever. Even with five or six players attacking them.

So, yes I'm biased because of the absolutely horrible experiences I had playing terribly designed classes in other games back in the day.

I've seen the complaints of RDMs and, I feel for them, but I WISH my issues with my class were the numbers it could pull. Potencies are easy to adjust, and at the end of the day, SMN and BLM aren't so far ahead that you're at a disgusting disadvantage just for having a RDM.

[Jkap_Goat]

this is what happens when you have a game design around the Holy Trinity and every job, while instead of feeling really truly unique, they need to perform the same and be the same like everybody else so people won't complain about balance. when you take the uniqueness of a job that made it truly special, you end up with carbon copies.

this a problem I have with XIV, I don't have faith in them to make a truly different healer than the 3 other healers who perform the same with just different flavors.


to be honest , I'm just waiting for FFXI R2 to be announced, atleast the jobs there do feel very different from each other, but I would rather have unbalanced jobs that carbon copies like on XIV

[MOZZYSTAR]

Storywise (post-ARR), I think Stormblood is the weakest expansion and class-change wise, it wasn't good (it used to be the worst).
But class/mech wise, Shadowbringers is by far the worst expansion to date. The story is amazing (in my opinion), but everything else is the worst we've ever seen I think.

[Riardon]

Jobs became really borring to play with little to no thought of input.
DRK was butchered for me. It became a totally brain dead job with no style.
SCH is unrecognisable.
AST again became boring.
Thank the Twelve that at least DRG remained the same.
They keep grounding the jobs trimming skills and stupifing them in the name of casualty and "ease of use".
Most jobs became brain dead.

[Reap00]

Yea it is just you.

[Jkap_Goat]

Jobs became really borring to play with little to no thought of input.
DRK was butchered for me. It became a totally brain dead job with no style.
SCH is unrecognisable.
AST again became boring.
Thank the Twelve that at least DRG remained the same.
They keep grounding the jobs trimming skills and stupifing them in the name of casualty and "ease of use".
Most jobs became brain dead.

agreed, I used to love AST, now i won't even touch it, WHM is much better with better MP management. but even WHM is boring

[Lium]

Yea it is just you.

This made me laugh really loud for some reason.

[Satarn]

We might all criticize homogenization but what's the alternative? Each job having their own unique flavor inevitably leads to some jobs being great (FOTM) and some jobs being bad (jobs that are basically not viable for progression content). This puts a lot of stress on developers who have to figure out a way to make all classes pretty much equal because everyone has their own playstyle.

The easiest way to do that is to essentially make them all the same.

What is the point of having 17 jobs and adding more on top of that, if they're all going to play the same? XIV has a varied population of players and this population needs diverse play-style options to satisfy its needs. If you limit the choices to just roles - and on top of that make those roles as shallow and unengaging as tanking and healing are currently - people who don't find the specific niche you've settled on fun will eventually leave.

The thing is that FFXIV has overall been pretty damn good in terms of balance - not just now. Rarely is a job literally not viable to clear content and I don't think any job has ever been actually mandatory due to its unique abilities. The imbalance in this game mainly boils down to just rDPS, which can be adjusted easily with mere numerical tweaks, rather than game-play changes.
This shows there is no real need for homogenization in order to achieve balance. A job is wildly below what is accepted as decent rDPS? Just throw more potency at it until it gets there, you don't need to change how it does its damage.

[Coatl]

And have you seen the complaints from RDMs? That's actually my main, but I don't think we should have the same level of damage as BLM or SMN. However, many do it seems. And that just proves my point.

The way numbers are balanced right now RDM is far far behind BLM/SMN. You have to play the class perfectly, and that's only to do enough to not feel like a burden. The stricter the DPS checks of the fight the less valuable RDM becomes. This is true always. Veraise becomes worthless when it doesn't really give you any leverage. Then you are just left with a caster that does bad damage by default.

The checks and class balancing wasn't this bad in stormblood, which is why RDM was always in a decent spot back then. The circumstances are different now, and that's all I implore you to consider.