Yoshi's Comment on Future Job Design - Are Jobs

[AngelCheese77]

I would hope they work on the jobs that are in the game now by fleshing them out and adding more quests that are engaging and tell us more about the class/job.

[Silverbane]

There is a crying need for at least one more job in FFXIV: a job that addresses one of the most active and competitive activities in the game. One only need visit the Aetheryte Plaza at Limsa Lominsa to see how popular this activity is, and how competitive, but for some reason there is no job particularly well suited for it.

The activity is, of course, Glamour, and the new job we need is Glamour Model.
I leave it to others to flesh out all the actions and traits that Glamour Model would have, but being able to use any other class's items as a glamour could be one of them.

[Hyperia]

There is a crying need for at least one more job in FFXIV: a job that addresses one of the most active and competitive activities in the game. One only need visit the Aetheryte Plaza at Limsa Lominsa to see how popular this activity is, and how competitive, but for some reason there is no job particularly well suited for it.

The activity is, of course, Glamour, and the new job we need is Glamour Model.
I leave it to others to flesh out all the actions and traits that Glamour Model would have, but being able to use any other class's items as a glamour could be one of them.

Don't just stand there, let's get to it
Strike a pose, there's nothing to it
Vogue

Quote from Vogue - Song by Madonna

[RitsukoSonoda]

There is a crying need for at least one more job in FFXIV: a job that addresses one of the most active and competitive activities in the game. One only need visit the Aetheryte Plaza at Limsa Lominsa to see how popular this activity is, and how competitive, but for some reason there is no job particularly well suited for it.

The activity is, of course, Glamour, and the new job we need is Glamour Model.
I leave it to others to flesh out all the actions and traits that Glamour Model would have, but being able to use any other class's items as a glamour could be one of them.

Just have them make the limited job "Onion Knight" can equip any piece of gear or weapon and use any skill you learned from other jobs... >.> lol

[SeverianLyonesse]

There is a crying need for at least one more job in FFXIV: a job that addresses one of the most active and competitive activities in the game. One only need visit the Aetheryte Plaza at Limsa Lominsa to see how popular this activity is, and how competitive, but for some reason there is no job particularly well suited for it.

The activity is, of course, Glamour, and the new job we need is Glamour Model.
I leave it to others to flesh out all the actions and traits that Glamour Model would have, but being able to use any other class's items as a glamour could be one of them.

Sounds like it should be a Disciple of the Land. And by that I mean a Student of the Streets. And by that I mean a catgirl in 2B leggings with a LFP icon.

[Reylah]

When I read that the FFXIV devs were having a tough time thinking of new jobs I laughed. It was a sad laugh because I had watched them systematically strip out a whole damage style for no clear reason. I’m talking about DoTs. Relegated to the thing that procs bard abilities and the only other dps button healers can hit. Maintaining DoTs and effects is a playstyle that people can enjoy but they were deemed unacceptable and destroyed.

WoW definitely has significant differences between some jobs, and within the specs themselves sometimes which is very cool - but it's also fairly common to have a garbage spec that no one wants to see you on because it does actually just pull large amounts of aether through a garden hose.

This is something that always catches my eye when people talk about WoW’s spec balance. Technically all of the specs hit the same “can clear all content” bar as FFXIV job design does, but there is more “infinitely scaling” content that makes the differences between specs more obvious once you pass that bar. The “infinitely scaling” content drags small differences out until a line is crossed and the lower performer can’t go higher. Mythic+ dungeons are the clearest example in WoW when this happens. Every spec can get the highest achievement for the content (clearing all keys at +20) but going higher and faster than that, things start to fall off the list.

I think the best comparison for FFXIV is speedkill runs because the race to do more damage will cause certain jobs to be favored over others but the base content of just killing the boss is capable of being done by every job. Speedkills are not as high profile though so it doesn’t have as much trickle down effect on player perception of job/spec balance.

There is also the compounding factor that some spec’s excel in AoE or single target so your group composition has to account for that. As an example I main an Assassination rogue and my single target damage is superb but my AoE is much weaker. When I swap specs to Outlaw I can equal or exceed my assassin AoE damage while being a whole raid tier lower in gear but my damage to 1 boss target will be trash by comparison. M+ has more AoE heavy fights but single target damage is still needed on bosses so if the group already has 2 AoE specs they won't want a third. Conversely in raids single target is favored for more bosses but there are fights with heavy add phases so a few AoE specs are needed. Its a design philosophy that has flaws (but they all do) butI think the benefit for spec identity was worth it.

I would compare FFXIV jobs to Specializations in WoW, because classes just have an overarching flavor and specs hold most of the play style differences. One of the reasons why IMO WoW has stronger spec identity is because the devs said it's ok for specs to actually, you know, specialize in things.

Hell yeah there are some balance issues but as the saying goes “Nature finds balance not through equilibrium, but through change.” I’ve been watching as, with each expansion, the FFXIV devs have tried to make jobs more equal and become less willing to make system level changes and it's worrying me. I first started playing in HW because FFXIV offered some unique play styles that I couldn’t find in other MMOs like AST cards and later dance dance revolution on the dancer and jumping in with the stabby stick on RDM then flipping out for the big boom. Some of these identities have been eroded away and it doesn’t look to be stopping soon.


Designwise I would say this is a part of spec identity in the same way “pure dps” vs “support dps” is for FFXIV dps jobs. Some jobs do more damage while others boost their party members dmg. That they both contribute damage as a perk is a function of encounter design and a whole nother kettle of fish.

There is something the devs can play with: damage profiles. Not AoE vs single target, that wouldn’t really work with how encounters are designed in FFXIV but something could be done about every job having a build and burst cycle that is designed to land on a 2 min cycle for party buffs. Why do I care about dancer feathers if it takes 1-2mins to build up 4 feathers before I have to worry about losing some procs if I’m just going to blow them all in a 20sec party buff? Is there ever a time to use them outside of party buffs? only if you might over cap or want a pretty animation.

Want they could do:
1) they could add (or add back, less likely) more DoT based jobs.
2) generate and use resources on smaller, quicker cycles for some jobs (but not all because then they just play the same again) perhaps instead of a combo system for once. I know its core to FFXIV but all the jobs have a set “press 2 after 1” decision making tree. Adding a job that doesn’t already makes it unique.
3) have healers actually heal in different ways like more heal over time from AST for predictive pure heals or single big shields from sage and many small/medium shields for scholars. Well, maybe that would work if FFXIV bosses were more varied in their own damage profiles but as it stands this won’t work and I should stop kidding myself.
4) stop designing jobs to fit the fights and just let the fights allow for the jobs. I.e. Sage is a super generic healer because it has to be able to go back and do all of the fights from 2.0 onward, not because its actual theme is bland. Everything that could have been interesting got ironed down to fit the formula. Sure it has some new things but it doesn’t actually feel different, just more inline with what's expected of healers. Know the fight to prepare your heals (shields), hit things but this time it's worth more than just damage.

Damn. It all came back to encounter design anyway. But I think they totally could make more new jobs if they bothered to try.

[Reylah]

I read that in the new expansion WoW is making alts even friendlier closer to the point that an alt is almost like FFXIV job changing system (not quite, but ish), and if they improved their balance (and stop making certain specs consistently bad lol), that could pose an interesting competition to FFXIV. Not saying anything for certain yet, because the expansion is not even out so we're all on hot air but I'm hoping FFXIV is ready to answer the call for improved competition (potentially).

Honestly I hope they respond like the wow devs did. After finally ditching the “we devs know best” ideology they went back to their roots. And as a Rogue, I am all about that sh*t. Blizzard was known for taking other ideas and adding a twist to them and adding more polish (warcraft hero units in an RTS, WoW standing on everquest shoulders, hearthstone with set mana gain per turn vs MTG land troubles, etc…) results may vary but it's where they’ve had their biggest successes (also they steal from themselves a lot. Look at the cross-pollination of abilities and features between HoTS, Overwatch, WoW, and Diablo). So they looked at what everyone else was doing and said “f-it that looks good, How to make it work for us.” Professions? Everyone loves FFXIVs more involved professions, let's give ours more depth and add a commission board. Mounts? Guilds Wars 2 has a shiny flying system people swoon over. Let's try that out for an expac (I highly suspect they will expand on the system if it's popular). Also talent trees but that’s just a root and tree joke and i’m not a druid (a job FFXIV could add if they tried. They certainly steal enough form the norse and celts it wouldn’t be hard)

Intellectual larceny at its finest. There should be no shame in looking at a good idea and saying “That works, I should try and use it.” blah blah copyright blah blah intellectual property… BS. Obviously things don’t translate 1 to 1 from other systems, make it your own like the teachers said. If you can avoid plagiarism for a school essay you can avoid it when making a game.

The FFXIV devs should look at other games and go “Oh, people like when jobs have more differences than a coat of paint.” “Oh, maybe healers can take more ‘stress’ than we give them credit for.” “oh, that company hired a bunch of people to make more content in areas they are lacking? Maybe we should hire more people to shore up our weaknesses.” etc…