What is more important? Job quantity or job identity?

[DinahDemiurge]

I'm beginning to get a tad worried that job identity and uniqueness is playing second priority to sheer quantity of jobs. We're going to have to ask ourselves what is more important going forward. I for one prefer a unique identity to each job over quantity of jobs. What about you? I think 8.0 should be job identity focused and not add anything new to the roster. I know that is unpopular probably but the homogenization trend is still worrying since 5.0.

Note: I'm referring to gameplay, not asthetic.

[DinahDemiurge]

Ugh I meant 7.0 above. Whoops.

[CaptainLagbeard]

I think Identity is more important.

However, some homogenization is also good since they all have to perform on the same level... It's not really good for any of the classes if one of them is objectively just much better...

[Jeeqbit]

Summoner's change doesn't look like homogenization to me.

[Alxyzntlct]

From what I’ve seen in other games, it feels like SE either has or is going to hit their capacity with balancing / maintaining the jobs they already have not have much room for yet even more Jobs.

I get that folks always want more, always looking for that next flavor of ice cream, but there’s literally only so much that can be done with jobs…

I’d love to see more evolution of the jobs that exist, expounding upon capabilities, adding utility, or even adding something that allows using unlocked abilities on other jobs.

[Neoyoshi]

I feel like it's for the best; this game is no longer playing second or even third fiddle to other mmorpg's market-wise like we used to- and 5.0 definitely is the sweetspot in terms of audience accessibility.

I believe that them going backwards now and trying to reintroduce previous design philosophies to simply please a certain group of players is making the same mistakes Blizzard made repeatedly.

It's a good thing they are looking at what works the best and just sticking to it and building from there.

[Khalithar]

Quantity or identity?

I want both tbh.

[Halivel]

or even adding something that allows using unlocked abilities on other jobs.

We had that in the past, and while it was an interesting feature, it was a pain. Imagine that you have to level a job because it has a cross skill (that's what cross skills originally stood for, yes) you need, while you don't even like the job you need this skill from. All healers had to level BLM until level 26 because it had Swifcast, all melee DPS had to level Dragoon until level 42 and so on. There were some cross skills on other jobs too, like Monk's mantra, Protect and Stoneskin on WHM, etc.

[Halivel]

On topic: homogenization, while has its obvious cons, is more of a good thing overall. Yoshida did say before 5.0 release that they're trying to get rid of strict meta mentality, and in order to do so all jobs within a role need to perform on a more or less same level. Yes, it kind of makes job choice a matter of aesthetic rather than utility, but it also gives people an opportunity to play jobs they visually like without being left out from doing content just because meta lovers won't invite them into parties. All jobs still have its identity, it just changed its form of presentation a bit.

[Bhearil]

On topic: homogenization, while has its obvious cons, is more of a good thing overall. Yoshida did say before 5.0 release that they're trying to get rid of strict meta mentality, and in order to do so all jobs within a role need to perform on a more or less same level. Yes, it kind of makes job choice a matter of aesthetic rather than utility, but it also gives people an opportunity to play jobs they visually like without being left out from doing content just because meta lovers won't invite them into parties. All jobs still have its identity, it just changed its form of presentation a bit.

Really? because tanks and healers are slowly becoming carbon copies of each other their personal identities bit by bit burned in the pyre of "making everything absolutely 100% balanced". If i wanted skins instead of different jobs i would play LoL