Homogenization and Simplicity in Tank Roles

[AziraSyuren]

Hot take: People only want complexity to the extent where it allows them to jerk it to how difficult their job is to play, while they avoid most -if not all- truly complex and deep content like the plague.

(They also conflate complexity and depth but that’s less of a hot take)

[Absurdity]

Hot take: People only want complexity to the extent where it allows them to jerk it to how difficult their job is to play, while they avoid most -if not all- truly complex and deep content like the plague.

(They also conflate complexity and depth but that’s less of a hot take)

Hot take: "You don't even do savage" is the new and hot excuse to dismiss peoples' opinions on job design, despite those jobs having the biggest issue in specifically the content those people do.


You're not bored out of your mind in savage/ultimate prog, there's enough mechanic vomit and dps optimization going on that you rarely have time for it.

You know where those homogenized 1 button spam jobs (obviously exaggerated) become an issue because they're just not fun? The other 90% of the game that you usually do almost every day, the content that can not be as complex mechanically. You know, the content those "filthy casuals" do.

[AziraSyuren]

Hot take: "You don't even do savage" is the new and hot excuse to dismiss peoples' opinions on job design, despite those jobs having the biggest issue in specifically the content those people do.


You're not bored out of your mind in savage/ultimate prog, there's enough mechanic vomit and dps optimization going on that you rarely have time for it.

You know where those homogenized 1 button spam jobs (obviously exaggerated) become an issue because they're just not fun? The other 90% of the game that you usually do almost every day, the content that can not be as complex mechanically. You know, the content those "filthy casuals" do.

I wouldn't say I'm discounting opinions outright. What I'm saying is that there's a reason my experience vastly differs from a lot of people in this thread. I still find the game and its jobs incredibly interesting, and see dozens of ways that the tanks are different that would probably be called nitpicky if I brought up in an argument. Not only that, but there was a pretty significant gap between when I last played seriously (mid-Sigmascape to late Eden's Verse+Promise), and I'm really not feeling like anything is lacking in between now and then, job-wise.

What people are finding boring isn't the jobs. It's the game. No amount of good job design can fix a boring game, and shit gets boring when you've been around long enough to complain about how things used to be better.

Not only that, content other than Savage and Ultimates where you don't even have to use half of your kit to get through and 3/4ths of it to get it done in a decent time always has and always will be boring, and I say this as someone who's been playing since HW. No matter how complex or interesting the kit is, a job won't be fun in content that doesn't challenge you to use it.

[Ultimatecalibur]

You're not bored out of your mind in savage/ultimate prog, there's enough mechanic vomit and dps optimization going on that you rarely have time for it.

You know where those homogenized 1 button spam jobs (obviously exaggerated) become an issue because they're just not fun? The other 90% of the game that you usually do almost every day, the content that can not be as complex mechanically. You know, the content those "filthy casuals" do.

Actually that high end stuff is where a lot of complaints originate. Most complaints about healer dps rotations come from the high end players who end up with logs that show them casting Glare/Broil/Malefic 90% of the time in the current end game raid. Most complaints about tank boredom come from tanks noting that they are hardly using their mitigation cooldowns and that most tank busters are being handled by invuls.

[Karshan]

Some of you have to remember this is not a solo game. In that regard, META has existed, exists, and will always exist, and if the balance is significantly tilted, can lead to shunning entire jobs out.
Tis just the neverending tale of how originality meets its greatest foe : balance.

It's a matter of choice :
Do you want a job really pleasing, but a lottery to know if you can take that job you love so much in high end content or not, because people don't want you, and be condemned to dungeons with that job ?
Or do you accept some homogenization to play the one you want everywhere, although feeling a bit lacking ?

Because as someone said, the idea of maintaining balance not only on DPS rotation but also mitigation, enmity, and movement, while having original skills for all those aspects that work totally different, and on 4 classes, is delusionnal and requires tremendous creativity. The risk of failure is high. You don't take high risks for 5K people over 200k. Basic project management. Whether it's good or bad, the deciding board above the devs and Yoshi doesn't care, they only see 200 vs 5.
Quickly, one design will outshine the rest (or one will fall behind, and badly, like PLD in 3.0) and tada, seclusion begins.

I very much agree with those here who said it's more about the fight design of normal and extreme content that falls behind and fails to make you use those homogenized tanks to their limits, encompassing it only in week 1 3rd / 4th floor and ultimates.
I have tank & heal buddies staying on the game non stop since 6 years, they enjoy progging in their class on Savage and ultimate a lot, I'm most likely surrounded by intensive masochists then eh ?

[Awha]

I do wish they would add more complexity to tanks that is not strictly tied to the encounter. Having tighter timings that reward players using a defense cooldown at the right window akin to things like tbn but more so like reaper.

More ogcds for damage would also be nice. End of the day if FFXIV wants everyone to do damage may aswell lay into and give every job a more fleshed out gameplay loop.

[Lyth]

There's a perception amongst FFXIV players that action/talent tree design doesn't ever work because there is always a meta pick. That's actually false.

There's a clear cut meta pick only if you can directly compare actions to each other. For example, if you were choosing between Shadow Wall and Vengeance as defensive options on an action tree, you can say that Vengeance is a better action because it has an offensive buff that the other doesn't. But what if you were comparing Shukuchi, En Avant, and the new Hell's Egress/Ingress (RPR) as movement abilities? That's a bit more difficult of a comparison to make, and player preference may start to enter the picture. In some cases, you may have choices between a marginally mathematically better option when executed perfectly and a simpler option that is much more forgiving. You still see a lot of variation in player choice when you lay out these types of options.

You only run into problems when your choices are partially homogenized, because you can do a direct comparison and a clear winner emerges. If choices are completely homogenized, then you have balance but it's boring. If you can't form a proper comparison between the choices at all, then you also have balance, but you also have variety. People are always afraid to try new things, but I really think it would be worth a trial of a simple action/talent tree to see if it works in this game.

Also, as an aside, your priorities during progression are completely different from farm. When nobody knows a fight or how mechanics works, players play a lot more defensively, because your goal is to see more of the fight to gather more data about it. So I wouldn't generalize across the two.

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

Right?, and correct. In-class Diversity and game design styles like skill trees can work very well... I never attempt to argue about it, though...
People will believe what they want to believe, and any game that I have ever been to play, that had In-Class diversity in their classes(and/or subclasses), also had superior game design in combat systems and classes design, than the not so good or straight just bad design that FFXIV has; so it is fair to doubt that In-Class diversity would function in FFXIV, because even I doubt that it would function.

To be honest, I very much hate the "Holy Trinity", the Damager-Healer-Tank Trifecta... A combat system that encourages homogenization, which is also sort of the Antithesis of(the case of how the FFXIV "jobs" are extra rigid makes this worse), the superior game design of In-Class Diversity and styles like skill trees, so FFXIV would have to change and upgrade its awful combat systems from the roots, I think...

I hate to love FFXIV to the point that I care a lot about the game, and want to see it improve, but I also hold no hope towards if that will ever happen...

Even though I hate both, homogenization and simplicity seem to be the play of the game, so I do not see that either of these things would lessen, let alone stop... I can think of ways to change FFXIV, to make the game more varied, diverse, complex, and more of a challenge, but my thoughts have no worth to the powers that be, and hold no weight...

[Tarrick]

To be honest, I very much hate the "Holy Trinity", the Damager-Healer-Tank Trifecta... A combat system that encourages homogenization, which is also sort of the Antithesis of(the case of how the FFXIV "jobs" are extra rigid makes this worse), the superior game design of In-Class Diversity and styles like skill trees, so FFXIV would have to change and upgrade its awful combat systems from the roots, I think...

Game designers didn't just make up the "holy trinity" style and force it on everyone. It came out of the long iteration of multiplayer strategy games from tabletop, to BBS, to MUDs, to MMOs where players naturally progress into this sort of specialization. Human beings quickly identify that the most effective means of accomplishing a goal is generally through specialization (this is why min-maxing is a thing), so you would have to specifically design a game to prevent that sort of thing if you want to avoid it. However, that often leads to a different sort of homogenization where everyone is capable of DPS but also must have some defensive capabilities and self-healing at which point every class is mechanically similar with different flairs. At that point, a party is just a group of similar individuals rather than a group of players each coordinating different strengths.

[FoxCh40s]

I love how Tank Mains are arguing about homogenization, when you guys don't even know TRUE Homogenization. You guys argue over how boring tanking us getting, and then come into the Healer forums and tell us everything is fine.

So guess what? It's fine. All the tanks are perfectly fine and don't need more complexity.

Feel triggered?

Point made.