The trouble with Job redesigns

[Dyvid]

So, every time they have done a job redesign something feels off. MCH, MNK, SMN just don't have the same flavor as they did before the redesign.

The first question that must be asked is who is the job redesign for? Is it for the player base that has been playing the job? Is it for a new player base that may or may not play?

Why redesign a job in the first place? Technical issues? Design? Or just plain popularity?

The problem is with each redesign they fail to improve upon the core mechanics to that job. MNK was keeping your GCD at 1.5 and positionals. SMN was managing Pets, Aetherflow/Trance, and Spells. MCH was Ammo, Turrets, and Heat post 4.0.

This is important because they could have kept the stuff mains enjoyed and expanded into a direct the developers wanted the job to go. Instead, they chose to remove all aspects of the jobs which in turn alienates the core players of the job.

[Flana]

At the very least the Summoner redesign missing the point is on-brand for SE. They've been actively designing against the base of the class since Stormblood introduced Demi summons and completely broke everything. The rework deserves special scorn because it destroyed the old job while solving none of the problems and just loading them into the new one. Actions can still ghost, even if carbuncle has been demoted to a glorified shield bot that doesn't even work for half your rotation since it's dead. Demi AI is still garbage and despite needing a target to be summoned they can just decide to follow you around wasting autos unless you force their AI to target with an attack. The entire thing is somehow shallow while still being infested with all the problems Demi summoning created.

MCH got the same boat of a rework reducing the class to a shallow core, but that is also because SE won't let MCH do what its build is supposed to be while being pidgeonholed by its role. They either need to abandon the phys range limitations and actually let mch be a a selfish skilled DPS like SAM or BLM, or ditch the idea and build it like the other Phys Ranged and let it have more group utility. Right now it is stuck in the middle and not able to deliver on either in a satisfying way.

[Dyvid]

MCH got the same boat of a rework reducing the class to a shallow core, but that is also because SE won't let MCH do what its build is supposed to be while being pidgeonholed by its role. They either need to abandon the phys range limitations and actually let mch be a a selfish skilled DPS like SAM or BLM, or ditch the idea and build it like the other Phys Ranged and let it have more group utility. Right now it is stuck in the middle and not able to deliver on either in a satisfying way.

Well this bring up another core issue we are dealing, battle system design change that came about in 4.0. On the surface the idea looked okay. Within each DPS Role you would have a scale from pure DPS to DPS that buffs party. Now however we are at a point where you can't tell what each role is suppose to do anymore.

Physical ranged DPS attack foes from a distance. They excel at inflicting sustained damage, and also provide support for companions.
-Yet MCH doesn't provide anything other than a bubble that other non PRDPS can provide. Other NON PRDPS can support companions as well as if not better.

Magical ranged DPS attack foes using a variety of arcane arts. Movement is restricted by casting times, but they excel at inflicting high burst damage.
-SMN is a fine example against this term. Almost their entire skill set is instant cast giving incredible movement with no DPS penalty. Even RDM is required to cast 50% of the time.

Melee DPS are close-range attackers. Focused on combos and careful positioning to inflict the maximum amount of damage.
-While true, encounter where mobs take up half the arena make this easier and negate the point of positional needs.

If we are to expect new DPS jobs along with redesigns in the future, SE first must retool how the system works and how each role within the system is supposed to contribute.

[Saimeren]

Magical ranged DPS attack foes using a variety of arcane arts. Movement is restricted by casting times, but they excel at inflicting high burst damage.
-SMN is a fine example against this term. Almost their entire skill set is instant cast giving incredible movement with no DPS penalty. Even RDM is required to cast 50% of the time.

This honestly doesn't work in a game like FFXIV which relies so heavily on mechanic based fights. Fights where you might have to move every few seconds to avoid attacks. This kind of gameplay works great in other MMO's like WoW, GW2 and SWTOR because their fights allow you to stand still and hard cast. This is the exact reason a lot of the community state that Black Mage is one of the harder jobs to play in this game. Throw it into WoW and it would be a relatively easy job to play just like WoW's mage. (Granted with a slightly more involved rotation.)

The other reason this doesn't work is because every job deals roughly similar-ish damage. Or at least has jobs in the different roles that can deal as much damage as the casters.

The whole point of a "caster" is that they're supposed to deal the most damage out of any dps. The drawback is that they're immobile and have to spend some time casting. Their damage also comes at the end of their cast rather than the beginning/ right after the button push like Melee.

The benefit of a Melee is that they can still deal 100% of their damage while moving. They have mobility but give up a bit of damage.

Anymore now a days everyone wants to deal the exact same damage as the next guy, so all roles now have to deal big burst damage. This gives "casters" a significant disadvantage with no gain over the mobile Melee.

Having Magic damage dealers with instant casts makes perfect sense in the modern day of gaming. Unless they're going to nerf Melee damage to compensate their Mobility vs the casters cast times, I don't see this trend changing.

And if in the next expansion Summoner's get Leviathan, Shiva and Lord Thunder Bread and their rotations are long hard casts, I'm willing to bet that you'll see a significant drop off in the amount of people playing Summoner. People like mobility. It's fun. Take that away and you'll see the same trend as Black Mage.

[Dyvid]

This honestly doesn't work in a game like FFXIV which relies so heavily on mechanic based fights. Fights where you might have to move every few seconds to avoid attacks. This kind of gameplay works great in other MMO's like WoW, GW2 and SWTOR because their fights allow you to stand still and hard cast. This is the exact reason a lot of the community state that Black Mage is one of the harder jobs to play in this game. Throw it into WoW and it would be a relatively easy job to play just like WoW's mage. (Granted with a slightly more involved rotation.)

The other reason this doesn't work is because every job deals roughly similar-ish damage. Or at least has jobs in the different roles that can deal as much damage as the casters.

The whole point of a "caster" is that they're supposed to deal the most damage out of any dps. The drawback is that they're immobile and have to spend some time casting. Their damage also comes at the end of their cast rather than the beginning/ right after the button push like Melee.

The benefit of a Melee is that they can still deal 100% of their damage while moving. They have mobility but give up a bit of damage.

Anymore now a days everyone wants to deal the exact same damage as the next guy, so all roles now have to deal big burst damage. This gives "casters" a significant disadvantage with no gain over the mobile Melee.

Having Magic damage dealers with instant casts makes perfect sense in the modern day of gaming. Unless they're going to nerf Melee damage to compensate their Mobility vs the casters cast times, I don't see this trend changing.

And if in the next expansion Summoner's get Leviathan, Shiva and Lord Thunder Bread and their rotations are long hard casts, I'm willing to bet that you'll see a significant drop off in the amount of people playing Summoner. People like mobility. It's fun. Take that away and you'll see the same trend as Black Mage.

Yea, but it's worked for 9 years now. We have done it for 9 years. We have had no issue with casting for 9 years. BLM, which is consider the heaviest in casting has ranked in the top five DPS year after year.

[stellahawke]

Having Magic damage dealers with instant casts makes perfect sense in the modern day of gaming.

yes it does make sense but in moderation and not there entire kit. old smn was still super mobile when ya needed it and not for the whole time. old smn had the 4 pet attacks, phoenix, swiftcast, and ruin 4 and ruin 2. and we had ogcds to fill inside alot of those so its not just standing around till the next gcd is up. old smn had enough movement to do any content without being in terms of a physicals range. classes can have movement but they can be smart about how they implement it this current movement system. this is why sense the current smn is not like any of the other casters and is a black sheep in the caster catagory cause its does not follow the definition all the other casters have to follow. which is a class that has cast times. redmage still has cast times. and the instacast is ok sense the other system for the class is rng based and they play hand in hand. blackmage is a full on century cannon but still has decent amount of movement keep some uptime.

[Dahlinea]

If we go for plain popularity route then BLM needs to get the SMN treatment as well since it's the least played caster.

Make Fire and Ice spells insta cast, remove enochian timer, making it present all time, and delete triplecast, aetherial manipulation and ley lines (since they will be obsolete). Gonna be so much fun :\

But jokes aside, I wanted to know what they think when they do certain reworks then leave the jobs in the dust for two expansions like they did with MCH...

[CasterSvarog]

Honestly it’s a little bit maddening, how much the devs are trying to appeal to people who often don’t put more then the barest minimum. Having a casual audience is important, they keep the game active for a long time. But they proceed to almost spit in the eye of their older players in the same sentence by removing any sort of depth to job design.
I loved ShB summoner, the moment I finally figured out how the hell to do everything right at the start of Firebird trance or streamlining Demi-Bahamut to not have to use a swift cast by swapping an early ruin 4 for a ruin 3. Stuff like that felt amazing because it felt like I knew the job pretty good and could do it right.

Compare that to current summoner which, I’m gonna have to be blunt, is boring as hell. The new summoner at a basic level is not something you can screw up. Summons and trances? Gcds so you can’t have issues with clipping. Aetherflow? It’s just a dps boost every 60 seconds, same time as the Demi’s. Miscellaneous Gcds, it’s just two different buttons that all, with like 2 exceptions, let you fly across the arena like a ranged dps.
The only thing I feel that Endwalker summoner did perfect, was having the Demi’s not follow like a puppy if I’m trying to move. Otherwise, the job just gets worse to me the more I think and play it.

But the devs don’t even want people to bother with dots like with Bard and summoner, or managing gauges like Warrior and Samurai had to. Just cut those problems and make things easier for the devs and just, ignore the players who brought this game back from the brink in ARR or HW.

Edit: And that’s before getting into all the stuff we’ve lost throughout the expansions. Not everything from those were great ideas, like the rigidness of the meta via Bard and Dragoon synergy, and the almost nutty work arounds HW job design had like cast bar bard/machinist and Monk existence. But there was some things that were pretty good ideas back in those days, like the DRK needing to balance their Mana for damage instead of spamming a single button or being a worse Warrior, and the utility Bard once had in Stb like with Foes requiem.

[SargeTheSeagull]

I honestly think the main source of the problem is how few devs are dedicated to job design. The same people working on PvE are also working on PvP. Jobs are practically completely different between PvE and PvP so we've got around 38 jobs and only 4 or 5 dudes designing/maintaining them. Of course they're gonna streamline, simplify and homogenize them. If they don't how the hell else are they gonna do their jobs? I'm not defending them, but I think doubling or tripling the number of heads working on jobs is the main way this could be fixed. If jobs keep going down the current path there's a 99% chance I'll stop playing with any regularity. I'll become a normie who just resubs every other patch for the story.

[Shurrikhan]

So, every time they have done a job redesign something feels off. MCH, MNK, SMN just don't have the same flavor as they did before the redesign.

The first question that must be asked is who is the job redesign for? Is it for the player base that has been playing the job? Is it for a new player base that may or may not play?

I actually feel like the modern Perfect Balance is the most on-point we've ever had in terms of core theme. It's frequent and adds macrorotational nuance (intentional drift, alignment, etc.), much like ID in ARR, ToD/Frac in ARR and HW, and ToD, TK, RoF, and RoW did in StB. EW Monk can and should be more exciting and fleshed out, but it hasn't departed from core themes relative to Shadowbringers (even early Shadowbringers); GL, once no longer spendable, was a non-mechanic, after all, with many just preferring to go consistently fast. Late-Stormblood Monk, some bloat and lackluster abilities aside, was my favorite version, but Endwalker Monk is about as fitting as any streamlined version can get.

Summoner and Machinist, on the other hand... are outright gutted vestiges of their earlier jobs. Machinist is essentially absent of mechanics outside of "hit on CD / 100 gauge" and "3 goes after 2, which goes after 1". Summoner just hasn't bothered whatsoever to flesh out its new direction, making it feel merely like 5 skins of 11111 or 22222 spam.