DPS jobs lacking utility?

[Shurrikhan]

What would be considered "good utility"?

Good utility is utility which allows for multiple but deliberate and impactful means of approach. It therefore requires not only a good kit but also appropriate contexts.

In game design 'utility' can be really hard to codify, because it comes in two flavors: Tangible (Ex: Trick attack, dance partner, regens, leylines), and Intangible (Ex: En Avant).

If utility is something that is adding to a numerical value that your constantly comparing, it is easy to design but can often feel either invisible (Ex: Bard songs), helpful (regens when they won't ever be a difference maker in even getting the healer one more cast), or overwhelming (old trick attack or piercing/slashing debuffs for example). Its also hard to make even really strong ones feel good or to make them noticeable for your teammates. A few feel REALLY good (Leylines) because they both are a meaningful DPS increase AND are visible in how they are helping you (It isn't an accident many of the 'fun' utility is a speed increase, because casting more is very visible), but overall even when these are good they lack any real 'highpoint' compared to a big attack with a flashy animation.

Agreed, though I'd argue that if a parser is required for a given utility to be visible, let alone a comparison of multiple runs, it's not remotely tangible. (Dance Partner, for instance, would fall among those, at least outside of Devilment and sometimes its stacked AoE heal.) Opposite, a skill with situational value (such as En Avant) is a tangible gain when pertinent situations arise. The main problem is crafting situations to allow for pertinence enough for tangible utility without constraining means of successful interaction to that utility.

Consider, for instance, a would-be lethal AoE. If the AoE has no fall-off over range and movement skills are relevant, the fight becomes constrained to those movement skills. Alternatively, if the AoE has linear fall-off over a considerable range, the difference of a mere 10 yards may not be quite as noticeable as one would like. The perfect solution, then, is likely one which allows for but softly punishes or constrains preemptive movement, such that laggy players can skill escape with Sprint alone (and that Sprint would have no need to be on cooldown), but in which the AoE nonetheless feels timely and punishing enough that those movement skills significantly aid safety and/or uptime.

[Acelyn]

What's so bad about some dps jobs not having extra utility, shouldnt there be some differences?

maybe some players really want to just mow down enemies, let em, i main rdm and yes i wait for my time to shine but also if no one dies at a bad time i'm fine.

i'm also one of those who just doesn't want the extra stress that comes with support, that's why I choose damage classes

[Lyth]

Players use utility if it's expected of them. If your PLD and BRD have to take turns silencing High Voltage and your BRD misses the silence, then everyone knows who is responsible. So you get it right. If you give everyone a silence, then it falls to the lower end of the dps spectrum (tanks and healers) to sort it out so that everyone else can tunnel on the boss. If missing the silence doesn't have consequences, then nobody will do it.

[Lucyfurr1988]

I havent played all dps jobs yet, only Sam, Ninja, Black mage, red mage but I am feeling DPS jobs dont get much utility or non dps related cds in general to the point it feels like you are only pressing dps buttons and rarely ever anything else.

Coming from WoW where for example the hunter has aoe root, threat redirection, 6s immunity, 20% DR for 6s, personal heal cd, single target slow, aoe trap slow, single target 60s cc, speed boost cd, dispell and stealth detect flare

utility is used differently in this game mostly in the form of buffs and debuffs. trick attack on ninja for instance is a debuff on the boss that makes it take more damage, embolden on redmage is a party wide buff that increases damage (physical for party members that imo should be on all. there are also things like feint and addle which work on a reducing damage output. honestly black mage and samurai are very selfish dps jobs they dont provide ultility but literally hit like a truck.

melee dps can reduce physical damage output, dragoon had buffs to the whole party and a buff to oner other member, ninja has trick attack which when used right increases everyones burst damage windows as they all fall inside trick attack windows, monk has brotherhood and massive personal mitigation. and all melee players have a stun.

physical ranged all have their own 10% party wide damage mitigation, heavy (not really useful in most content) and an interrupt.
bard has its songs that are buffs and a direct hit +20% iirc it can also up the amount of healing taken by 1 party member, an esuna effect.
dancer has a 5% damage up buff on themselves and one other player at all times a 5% party wide damage up buff on a 2 minute cooldown, a crit and direct hit +20% on itself and one other player every 2 minutes, a stackable heal that when stacked equals the same potency as assize (a whm heal) and a healing up buff that it can snapshot onto the paties healers.

magical ranged all have a magical damage output debuff for the boss.
redmage has embolden and summoner has devotion which is a damage up buff on a 3 minute cooldown.

whm has a raidwide mitigation of 10% while upping it healing potency.

scholar has the mitigation in its dome and also has a debuff on the boss that makes it more likely to take critical damage on a 2 minute cooldown.

astrologian can snapshot its done for mitigation, also has cards which are damage up on a 30s cooldown and sleeve draw which is another card on a 3 minute cooldown and divination which is a raidwide damage up buff for upto 6% (dependent on seals and asts making sure to get the highest at its lowest its a 4% buff) on a 2 minute cooldown.

all tanks have party wide mitigation.

[dezzmont]

In game design 'utility' can be really hard to codify, because it comes in two flavors: Tangible (Ex: Trick attack, dance partner, regens, leylines), and Intangible (Ex: En Avant).

If utility is something that is adding to a numerical value that your constantly comparing, it is easy to design but can often feel either invisible (Ex: Bard songs), helpful (regens when they won't ever be a difference maker in even getting the healer one more cast), or overwhelming (old trick attack or piercing/slashing debuffs for example). Its also hard to make even really strong ones feel good or to make them noticeable for your teammates. A few feel REALLY good (Leylines) because they both are a meaningful DPS increase AND are visible in how they are helping you (It isn't an accident many of the 'fun' utility is a speed increase, because casting more is very visible), but overall even when these are good they lack any real 'highpoint' compared to a big attack with a flashy animation.

Intangible utility is easier to make feel impactful to some degree, and as long as their use cases come up remotely often (ex: Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines are very frequently useful to maintain uptime), but they can be much harder to keep relevant (Ex: DPS Esunas, heavies, stuns) because they can break encounters, and its harder to overall design them because by their nature they are introducing entirely new mechanics to the fight. Most of the ones that 'work' in XIV are movement, and tank damage reduction effects, though "rez-mage" gets a special mention. XIV used to have more of these, but most were considered bad (ex: Ewer cards) or frustrating to use (manashift) and the game pushed away from these.

XIV tries very hard to push away from 'meta' comps and so complicated ability interactions between players are de-emphasized. In some ways this is good (Its nice to not be locked into DRG+BRD super hard) in other ways it limits the design space for utility a bit. Visible, impactful, offensive utility can have serious implication for other kits. Despite the fact most 'fun' self buffs we see are either a total transformation of abilities or attack speed increases, there is a reason attack speed increases went away. Likewise, defensive/healing utility is rough because the very concept of healing is strange in game design overall, because all healing that doesn't directly save the target is 'wasted,' so unless healing can get so demanding the healers alone can't cover it, or unless your heal effect is so powerful it saves a healer GCD, healing or defensive buffs are 'worthless.' And intangible benefits require fight design complicated enough for your intangiable utility to meaningfully alter it, which is hard without creating fights that 'require' certain types of party members, so we tend to only see intangible utility when they are very 'internal' to the character and accomplish something that naturally fits into how the job plays anyway (like BLM).

[AnotherPerson]

-"Good" utility is anything that restores your resources i.e. HP, MP, TP, job gauge. Things like equilibrium, lucid dreaming, goad, infuriate, etc. that immediately benefit you and is almost always a DPS increase because of ease-of-use and flexibility.

That's the joke. We already have those tools. Some jobs have a couple more than others, but we have those tools at our disposal. In that regard, DPS is not "lacking" good utility. And yet people say we lack 'good' utility, which means good utility is not simply related to numbers.

In game design 'utility' can be really hard to codify, because it comes in two flavors: Tangible (Ex: Trick attack, dance partner, regens, leylines), and Intangible (Ex: En Avant).

If utility is something that is adding to a numerical value that your constantly comparing, it is easy to design but can often feel either invisible (Ex: Bard songs), helpful (regens when they won't ever be a difference maker in even getting the healer one more cast), or overwhelming (old trick attack or piercing/slashing debuffs for example). Its also hard to make even really strong ones feel good or to make them noticeable for your teammates. A few feel REALLY good (Leylines) because they both are a meaningful DPS increase AND are visible in how they are helping you (It isn't an accident many of the 'fun' utility is a speed increase, because casting more is very visible), but overall even when these are good they lack any real 'highpoint' compared to a big attack with a flashy animation.

Intangible utility is easier to make feel impactful to some degree, and as long as their use cases come up remotely often (ex: Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines are very frequently useful to maintain uptime), but they can be much harder to keep relevant (Ex: DPS Esunas, heavies, stuns) because they can break encounters, and its harder to overall design them because by their nature they are introducing entirely new mechanics to the fight. Most of the ones that 'work' in XIV are movement, and tank damage reduction effects, though "rez-mage" gets a special mention. XIV used to have more of these, but most were considered bad (ex: Ewer cards) or frustrating to use (manashift) and the game pushed away from these.

Exactly. This here is the real kicker. Everyone here has been complaining about lack of useful/good utility when in reality we have plenty of utility that affects numerical values. Support healing buffs? Mantra, Nature's Minne. AoE Mitigations? Shield Samba / Tactician / Troubadour / Feint / Addle. Resource sustain? Second Wind, Bloodbath, Lucid Dreaming. Damage increases? Pretty much in every toolkit, Chain Strategem, the current AST cards, Divination, Dragon Sight, Technical Finish, Dance Partner, Trick Attack, etc. The list goes on and on. These support skills are certainly useful utility.

What people have been feeling when they say lack of utility is the intangible benefits that the utility gives in relation to how it can change your avenue of approach without affecting encounter design. The most obvious example is always Black mage - properly using Aetherial Manipulation and Between the Lines is the fastest ways to increase your DPS and stay safe from avoidable AOEs - all the while not giving an actual DPS increase on its own. How? By forcing the player to move and reposition, in other words - Utility for Encounter design. Situational Utility for Situational Value.

In other words, the lack of utility stems from the unchanging feel of encounter design. This comes from the obvious problem of a DPS-centric meta. Everyone looks at utility at whether we would lose potential DPS tradeoff. We have plenty of situational utility - Heavy + bind + sleep. However, we don't ever use them because there's rarely a need to necessitate their usage as requiring them would start locking specific role/job compositions, and that's not always applicable when you go into Duty Finder with a bunch of random players whose jobs might just all be red mage. In other words, the readily available situational utility is usually focused internally on the job itself. The main difference between good vs. bad situational utility is how applicable is their usefulness on a general consensus in the variability of their intended purpose. That is what makes utility feels 'unique' and dependent on the player using it itself giving a notable impact on the fight.

In this case, mobility is always useful because we use it to dodge AoEs or gap close and resume our DPS rotation. That's mainly because encounter design has a lot of avoidable mechanics that require players to move. Black mages benefit more to mobility since their situational utility's effect can drastically change per party whereas other jobs gap close for the purpose of re-engaging/disengaging and a lot less so for dodging AoEs. Their mobility serves a very static goal, but it's still better than having no gap closer at all (PLD before intervene).

Situational utility with variability is mainly what AST's old cards did because you can never guarantee what you drew, instead you used what you got to its best effect. People loved this side of AST cards. At the same time however, the card you drew was very situational on whether it could be useful, so it suffered when fights became heavily scripted. It was also what led to people 'fishing for balance' since damage increase is always useful and Spire isn't. In other words, AST's original situational utility could be very off its intended purpose.

I have a feeling that situational utility is what led to Monk's Shadowbringers later toolkit, except the difference in the general utility is that the usage of those skills are very static - disengages and transitions don't add a lot of change, it just keeps things flowing. There's not much variance to make it feel different so their situational utility was very much so inapplicable to most of the fight.

[Duskane]

personally i love support roles but the ranged dont really cut it for me and most of ninjas stuff is gone due to enmity changes.
really a big reason i like tanking because of all the tools they have to help the party.

[Payadopa]

I think SE just programmed themselves into a corner with the whole DPS/tank/healer segregation to make the DF work. Classes need to fit a certain role or it doesn't work (looking at you, BLU). Combine that with static boss encounters and of course everything will devolve to number crunching. I'm not disputing that fact. I'm just saying I could see the writing on the wall ever since the system was implemented and I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. ShB brought the worst job changes by far. No job is allowed to stand out and [press button to make damage go up/down] is just no fun to use.

[Gruntler]

I think SE just programmed themselves into a corner with the whole DPS/tank/healer segregation to make the DF work. Classes need to fit a certain role or it doesn't work (looking at you, BLU). Combine that with static boss encounters and of course everything will devolve to number crunching. I'm not disputing that fact. I'm just saying I could see the writing on the wall ever since the system was implemented and I was hoping it wouldn't come to this. ShB brought the worst job changes by far. No job is allowed to stand out and [press button to make damage go up/down] is just no fun to use.

Look, I don't know how else to put this. The game's--in fact the entire subgenre's this game inhabits--core mechanic in combat is to take a bunch of numbers, and add them together, until they exceed a total; and to do this either before a rival set of numbers sums up to exceed a different total, or before a timer expires.

Complaining that every job is based around some combination of adding the numbers that make you win, or subtracting/dividing/avoiding numbers so you don't lose, is like complaining that your first person shooter relies on aiming and pulling the trigger as a mechanic, and that the 'writing is on the wall' the moment they introduced aiming and pulling the trigger.

Things like silences, stuns, heavy, binds, got used this expansion. They don't get used every tier, but they do get used in some form. Utility like rezzes secured world firsts. But utility didn't do so 'despite' the dps meta, they did so because of it, and they work in that frame work, in the same way portable walls and forts, heals, and other forms of utility work in a first person shooter: By interacting with the genre's core mechanics (damage dealt, damage mitigated/undone/avoided, and time).

[Shurrikhan]

Look, I don't know how else to put this. The game's--in fact the entire subgenre's this game inhabits--core mechanic in combat is to take a bunch of numbers, and add them together, until they exceed a total; and to do this either before a rival set of numbers sums up to exceed a different total, or before a timer expires.

Complaining that every job is based around some combination of adding the numbers that make you win, or subtracting/dividing/avoiding numbers so you don't lose, is like complaining that your first person shooter relies on aiming and pulling the trigger as a mechanic, and that the 'writing is on the wall' the moment they introduced aiming and pulling the trigger.

I get where you're coming from, but that isn't quite an apt analogy. There's nothing in an MMORPG that requires that jobs being slotted into mostly homogeneous templates any more than that weapons in an FPS must have distinct and mostly homogeneous sets among SMGs, ARs, LMGs, and Snipers such that the range, damage per bullet, or rate of fire of any one set cannot reach into the span already held by another set. Such, as here, would be a separate and very deliberate decision.

Things like silences, stuns, heavy, binds, got used this expansion. They don't get used every tier, but they do get used in some form. Utility like rezzes secured world firsts. But utility didn't do so 'despite' the dps meta, they did so because of it, and they work in that frame work, in the same way portable walls and forts, heals, and other forms of utility work in a first person shooter: By interacting with the genre's core mechanics (damage dealt, damage mitigated/undone/avoided, and time).

On this, though, 100% agreed.