Design of DRK and PLD

[Mikey_R]

No, it doesn't. Any set of jobs can have different but (roughly) equally-valuable synergies. (See Overwatch, for instance, whenever it's in a good patch. For almost all hero/job choices, the way you play is more dependent upon your comp than not, and yet even at the professional level, it could take a month or more for even a map-specific meta to outperform comfort picks or intentionally off-meta --harder to counter-- comps.)

Having synergies isn't damning; it just means you have to balance comps, not only individual jobs.

It just comes back to whether players actually want XIV to be a team game beyond merely picking an angle, and perhaps an 'out' or 'in' position if there are more ranged than melee, before performing their mostly unchanged T&S dance. So far, that seems a no. We seemingly like as little effect from playing with others as possible, or indeed of any chance, anything outside our control.

What you have to remember is that balancing between PVE and PVP have different things to be considered. Whilst PVE is being balanced against each other to fight a static encounter, PVP have to be balanced not only between each other, but the dynamic environment of a human on the other side.

This is why SE balances in each role. All the tanks are similar enough that you can choose any and be fine. Start adding synergy between 2 tanks, and you would have to add it for all different compositions, otherwise, you start having imbalances. That is 6 different combos for the tanks, not much, but it is still something to think about. Then you have the fact the synergies will not apply in dungeons, which SE do balance around.

If anyone can give examples of potential synergies, I am willing to look at it as there might be something I have overlooked.

[Shurrikhan]

What you have to remember is that balancing between PVE and PVP have different things to be considered. Whilst PVE is being balanced against each other to fight a static encounter, PVP have to be balanced not only between each other, but the dynamic environment of a human on the other side.

You seem to be forgetting that they're also balanced separately, with entirely separate toolkits between PvP and PvE for each job?

[Shurrikhan]

Start adding synergy between 2 tanks, and you would have to add it for all different compositions, otherwise, you start having imbalances.

Yes, obviously. Which creates exponentially more work because --when it's not just a mere +X% damage by which to shuffle numbers on a meter and then unshuffle them back in a resultant log-- it's exponentially more gameplay available to each job in party play. The question is merely whether it's worth it, whether we actually want team play, or mostly just simultaneous play.

If anyone can give examples of potential synergies, I am willing to look at it as there might be something I have overlooked.

Honestly, most would be dependent upon actual undermechanical depth, such as not all elements doing the exact same thing (solely raw damage), let alone the same thing as physical damage. Those synergies are things that come pretty quickly and naturally out of fire having some appended mechanic, of wind having an appended mechanic, of multi-strike attacks actually having a intuitive difference from big, single-hit attacks, of attacks that seem--in their animations--to knock enemies to the ground or into the air, of mobs that have more ways to manipulate their behavior than just to be at the top a damage-times-modifier list (a.k.a. Enmity), etc.

Flare goes off in the middle of the enemy pack and for that brief moment, the Ninja has n-1 shadows to jump to. The White Mage draws a torrent from the lifestream (literally just taking advantage of ground on which heal or Holy casts previous landed) or draws up an occluding boulder (ala Stoneshield / ground-targeted Stoneskin) and the Ninja can use that block line of sight between enemies and himself and go into Stealth. The White Mage can project Fluid Aura through Suiton, adding that much potency-to-HP to its wave as it heals and cleanses allies, damages and purges enemies. Etc. Etc.

It's just a matter of having more to our abilities than mere timers, resource gauges, and linear unlock sequences so that a battle doesn't almost precisely as it did, save for perhaps holding an extra GCD before deploying oGCDs in one's opener, in party play as it does against a striking dummy. The synergies form simply from the types and classifications that'd come into play. That's not to say they wouldn't need a fair bit of balance so that, say, a Black&White NIN/BLM, DRK, WHM, PLD doesn't become the go-to speedrunning group for hard dungeons or the like or that you don't end up just stacking Monks and Warriors for the stagger they might induce on adds in a given Savage raid such that you don't even need a second healer. Such wouldn't be "easy". But it's not a fatally flawed course of action to have synergies, nor absurd to want more from party play. It's just more work... mostly because there's then more gameplay actually there.

[Lyth]

...

Why is it that in many games, a player's 'ultimate attack' is gated behind some form of resource gauge? I'm not just talking about Final Fantasy as a series and its Limit Break/Trance/Overdrive/Quickening systems. You see it come up in other genres as well, including fighting games, and even team based PvP games like Overwatch. Why don't you just Omnislash on a fixed recast timer?

One thing that makes MCH and now RPR's resource systems interesting is that they have their burst windows set up as a sort of 'personal limit break'. The limitation of this approach is that you have to pretty much dedicate a resource bar (Heat/Shroud) to the one action. But that generally happens anyways. If you have two use-on-demand actions competing for the same resource, you'll just use the one that gives you more potency. If Living Shadow wasn't gated behind a timer, you'd never want to use Bloodspiller.

The other nice thing about resource systems is that they allow you to be a bit less predictable with your button presses, because little variations in gauge gains can result in you being at different resource levels on different pulls. This is especially true if you set up a number of possible conditions for resource gains, much like the limit break system does. For example, if DRK gained a small amount of blood every time their bubble shields absorb damage in addition to the standard combo based gains, you have a system that plays out a bit less predictably.

You can do the same thing with timers and resets, but it's a bit more heavy-handed.

What stands out about MCH and DRG's respective base combo systems is that they feel a bit different from the rest. After spending ARR juggling Path and Eye, most damage combo/maintenance combo sets feel very samey. DRG is different in that the combo chains themselves are quite a bit longer, and MCH's setup with Drill being roughly on a seven GCD multiple makes it functionally a variable four step combo of sorts. The common theme is that the order of the button presses gets swapped up in varying ways.

Either way, I think that we need at least a few jobs out there that aren't completely predictable in their button presses and force you to react dynamically to either what you have active (resets) or your current resource level. But players have to buy into the idea that a bit of randomness and unpredictability is good for us. It means that there's a higher mechanical skill cap.

[Shurrikhan]

Why is it that in many games, a player's 'ultimate attack' is gated behind some form of resource gauge? I'm not just talking about Final Fantasy as a series and its Limit Break/Trance/Overdrive/Quickening systems. You see it come up in other genres as well, including fighting games, and even team based PvP games like Overwatch. Why don't you just Omnislash on a fixed recast timer?

I'm cool with backloaded damage; I just don't quite see why it'd be any more "organic" than a CD when it's used at a precisely regular integral unless faced with downtime (in which case one is merely punished for being a resource- and therefore more uptime-dependent job in any non-continuous fight).

I guess I could see it if (A) those gauges just had a larger bankable maximum (in generation time) so you could actually delay for and work around various CD periods and/or (B) the kits weren't otherwise discouraged from using Skill Speed, so it'd actually feel like we have an effect on the frequency of those 'ultimates'?

Due to the flat 1.5 non-SkS-scaling GCDs and present examples time-to-cap, we just don't really seem to have that, but if those two things get fixed, I'd love to push some of the APM bustle of the opener back to later in the fight so we don't feel so "on-off" or one-note.

The other nice thing about resource systems is that they allow you to be a bit less predictable with your button presses, because little variations in gauge gains can result in you being at different resource levels on different pulls.

That feels like the very first thing any raider would want to be rid of, but admittedly, the need to do so (to maximize uptime, to have a tank-pull, etc.) is itself gameplay, so I quite like that.

MCH's setup with Drill being roughly on a seven GCD multiple makes it functionally a variable four step combo of sorts. The common theme is that the order of the button presses gets swapped up in varying ways.

If I ever actually had to decide on which CD-weaponskill to use first on MCH, instead of being able to cycle the very same order at all times with no conflict, I would agree.

I don't think MCH or DRG force button presses to get swapped up in varying ways (except perhaps shallowly in the case of Fang & Claw -> Wheeling Thrust and Wheeling Thrust -> Fang & Claw -- though one could just hit both buttons and queue whichever one is possible at that moment), but I'd be all for a job that actually did cause us to swap them up.

[Tex_Mex]

Either way, I think that we need at least a few jobs out there that aren't completely predictable in their button presses and force you to react dynamically to either what you have active (resets) or your current resource level. But players have to buy into the idea that a bit of randomness and unpredictability is good for us. It means that there's a higher mechanical skill cap.

It is interesting to me that this sentence almost perfectly describes DNC and RDM gameplay. Random Procs completely determine what skills you use and there is no set rotation. The line I quoted above suggests that these types of systems should theoretically "increase the mechanical skill cap." In practice, we see that this isn't true for FFXIV. DNC and RDM are considered two of the easiest jobs to play at a high level in the game. Perhaps, if the jobs had more complex proc mechanics, instead of the mindless 50% chance procs they currently have, your comment would line up with what we see in the game. It's also interesting that you used DRG and MCN gameplay to argue your point, when these are also considered to be some of the simplest jobs to master.

I don't really agree or disagree with the premise of your argument, I just thought this was interesting.

[Undeadfire]

DNC and RDM are considered two of the easiest jobs to play at a high level in the game.

Technically, DNC requires Technical Dance casted on time, sharp, prog wise it isn't very strong, DNC very depends on team mates for their usefulness. Rdm has only been treated as a progression job and gets destroyed by Smn/Blm on high end. Blm is the strongest caster out of the lot, problem is you have to cater strategies around them.