Is it fun?

[SieyaM]

I am a bit late in responding to some people, been doing other things. What I am kind of hoping for, which probably will never happen here, is to recapture the immersion I felt when I played Everquest way back when it was at it's height. The class I enjoyed most was Enchanter, which is the most indirect spellcasting class you could possibly play. I enjoyed that my class had a lore that it adhered to and no the raw numbers werent the most important aspect of it, it was how it fit into the world and how it played with the party. I think what would really help the healing jobs is to roll more support elements into them rather than continue stacking them with healing skills and amping up their DPS numbers. Support skills are incredibly hard to balance though and so it is unlikely that SE will add any more of those.

[Side-Eye]

I am a bit late in responding to some people, been doing other things. What I am kind of hoping for, which probably will never happen here, is to recapture the immersion I felt when I played Everquest way back when it was at it's height. The class I enjoyed most was Enchanter, which is the most indirect spellcasting class you could possibly play. I enjoyed that my class had a lore that it adhered to and no the raw numbers werent the most important aspect of it, it was how it fit into the world and how it played with the party. I think what would really help the healing jobs is to roll more support elements into them rather than continue stacking them with healing skills and amping up their DPS numbers. Support skills are incredibly hard to balance though and so it is unlikely that SE will add any more of those.

I too am a relic of the past, having played EQ from a few months after its release in '99 until 2010. I have a great appreciation for what developers did to make "crowd control" classes like chanter feel needed without worrying too much about their place in the overall picture of DPS. It seems FFXIV players are very one-track-minded when it comes to DPS -- regardless of role, people have a great need for DPS above all else, because that is the only metric by which they are judged by their peers. I long for the day when Squeenix bucks the trend, and creates the need for support classes without fear that a lower damage output would make them undesirable.

[Semirhage]

I too am a relic of the past, having played EQ from a few months after its release in '99 until 2010. I have a great appreciation for what developers did to make "crowd control" classes like chanter feel needed without worrying too much about their place in the overall picture of DPS. It seems FFXIV players are very one-track-minded when it comes to DPS -- regardless of role, people have a great need for DPS above all else, because that is the only metric by which they are judged by their peers. I long for the day when Squeenix bucks the trend, and creates the need for support classes without fear that a lower damage output would make them undesirable.

This is a natural consequence of Squeenix's job design philosophy. If all party comps are supposed to be viable, then nobody's exclusive capabilities are mandatory. If you make specific mitigation, debuffs, or what-have-you points of distinction between jobs, then those things will never be required/make clearing an encounter significantly easier due to point number one. The only thing that everyone can do is DPS. It's the only metric that ends the encounter faster, and the only metric that (with the occasional exception of weird boss behavior when you phase early) doesn't have a cap on its usefulness. You're basically always rewarded for doing more damage in FFXIV. That's why the community values DPS. It's the only metric that makes a difference after you've covered your bases.

Edit:
To be fair, this is also a common design problem in other single player Final Fantasy games. There comes a point where...why would you Silence or Slow an enemy? Just kill them. You can one or two shot them anyway. Don't waste MP on crowd control, etc etc.

[SieyaM]

This is a natural consequence of Squeenix's job design philosophy. If all party comps are supposed to be viable, then nobody's exclusive capabilities are mandatory. If you make specific mitigation, debuffs, or what-have-you points of distinction between jobs, then those things will never be required/make clearing an encounter significantly easier due to point number one. The only thing that everyone can do is DPS. It's the only metric that ends the encounter faster, and the only metric that (with the occasional exception of weird boss behavior when you phase early) doesn't have a cap on its usefulness. You're basically always rewarded for doing more damage in FFXIV. That's why the community values DPS. It's the only metric that makes a difference after you've covered your bases.

Edit:
To be fair, this is also a common design problem in other single player Final Fantasy games. There comes a point where...why would you Silence or Slow an enemy? Just kill them. You can one or two shot them anyway. Don't waste MP on crowd control, etc etc.

That is what makes balancing a support class much more difficult then just raw DPS numbers, you need to make their abilities do enough to warrant their inclusion. EQ was a very different game itself, I don't remember combat following such a rigid script. Enchanters were also desired for things outside of active combat. They had mana regeneration buffs that were sought after and since they lasted at least 30 min you could get one before setting out with your group. The reality of this situation even as it is now though is that there will always be a composition that is better than others no matter how slight, and that will be what people end up trying to use. If any composition of jobs can clear content then that should be the only goal. Players will try to enforce a meta comp even if it only nets them 100 or so more DPS.

[ItMe]

The reality of this situation even as it is now though is that there will always be a composition that is better than others no matter how slight, and that will be what people end up trying to use. If any composition of jobs can clear content then that should be the only goal. Players will try to enforce a meta comp even if it only nets them 100 or so more DPS.

Thus far though, with FF14 we've only seen that with world's first runs.
Anything beyond that... not really. That 100 DPS isn't gonna make or break a run (and if it does your team had much larger issues to worry about), so outside of racing for a clear (the only time where light parties are more directly competing with each other) players are just playing whatever jobs they like the other 99.9% of the time.

[SieyaM]

Thus far though, with FF14 we've only seen that with world's first runs.
Anything beyond that... not really. That 100 DPS isn't gonna make or break a run (and if it does your team had much larger issues to worry about), so outside of racing for a clear (the only time where light parties are more directly competing with each other) players are just playing whatever jobs they like the other 99.9% of the time.

I would say the jobs being made so similar now, especially healers, is a result of people trying to force a meta comp in the past for other content. Even now people change jobs every patch almost to try and be the highest DPS ing healer. The fact that people do change jobs so readily is also an indicator that the jobs themselves aren't all the fun or unique, since people are so willing to drop one and play another. Most healers I have seen here keep all 3 max level and do so because they know they might have to change to another if one job has a lead on another, again no matter how slight.

[Rilifane]

I would say the jobs being made so similar now, especially healers, is a result of people trying to force a meta comp in the past for other content. Even now people change jobs every patch almost to try and be the highest DPS ing healer. The fact that people do change jobs so readily is also an indicator that the jobs themselves aren't all the fun or unique, since people are so willing to drop one and play another. Most healers I have seen here keep all 3 max level and do so because they know they might have to change to another if one job has a lead on another, again no matter how slight.

I don't doubt that some people do that but what I usually see is that healer mains play all 3 healers simply because they're healer mains, want all on 80 and a general overview of what they can do. And they quickly get bored of one healer and end up switching it up every few weeks/ months with most gravitating towards WHM even though it's currently the weakest (again).
Many dps mains also tend to level several to max because they like having options but they usually stick with their preferred one longer even if it's currently not the strongest. There is still some fluctuation towards the stronger ones, like everyone and their grandma played SMN last tier and some PFs were even locked to SMN for caster. But several others had the highest number of parses throughout the entire tier even though they were weaker than others, e.g. DRG was behind NIN until the most recent buff and was still more popular. BLM is ahead of SMN and RDM but both get played far more often.
Dps jobs are unique enough to make people stick with them even through bad times, healers are not. So they don't care enough about their class to stick with it and simply chose whatever is still left, fits their current mood, is the strongest or is the easiest to handle.

[Liam_Harper]

I would say the jobs being made so similar now, especially healers, is a result of people trying to force a meta comp in the past for other content. Even now people change jobs every patch almost to try and be the highest DPS ing healer.

Actually, WHM is currently the most popular healer at nearly all levels of play, including Savage, despite having the worst dps. AST, the strongest healer in healing, mobility, versatility and dps is the least popular. In Stormblood however, WHM became the least popular Savage healer. Dancer is also currently the most popular phys ranged but the worst dps in the game and BLM the least popular caster and the best dps in the game.

The community really isn't that meta driven outside of cutting edge World First. Generally when a class becomes unpopular it's because it's complex (which is actually fine, for example BLM is considered perfect) and more often clunky, lacking tools, too rng driven, excessively simple or punishing to play in certain fights. For example with WHM in Stormblood it had no utility, poor mobility, subpar dps and its lilies made no sense while SCH felt great to play, so it's not surprising players preferred it regardless of meta. Nowadays, as bad as WHM may be, it feels straightforward and effective to pick up and play but SCH's a ghosting mess with tons of oGCD's that it's punished to use, so it feels bad.

[TaleraRistain]

I am a bit late in responding to some people, been doing other things. What I am kind of hoping for, which probably will never happen here, is to recapture the immersion I felt when I played Everquest way back when it was at it's height. The class I enjoyed most was Enchanter, which is the most indirect spellcasting class you could possibly play. I enjoyed that my class had a lore that it adhered to and no the raw numbers werent the most important aspect of it, it was how it fit into the world and how it played with the party. I think what would really help the healing jobs is to roll more support elements into them rather than continue stacking them with healing skills and amping up their DPS numbers. Support skills are incredibly hard to balance though and so it is unlikely that SE will add any more of those.

I was a Human Enchanter for over 10 years, but to be fair, support and crowd control were baked into that game and absolutely necessary. Even in places like Kael where we couldn't mez, we could charm. Our DDs were almost never touched.

Support and crowd control have never really been a factor in this game. Maybe way early Brayflox days with Repose or Sleep on the second dragon, or a handful of other places. But now and for a while now it's just been zerg everything to death. Which as a former EQ player is kind of funny to me, because we used to make fun of that mentality. Like when those guilds "downed" The Sleeper by continuously zerg rushing it.

Unfortunately, support and CC seem to not really be much of a factor in any MMOs anymore. I was hoping we would move to more of a support role and gain skills along those lines, but they instead focused us on dps when there isn't anything the heal.