What if Support Role was Added to FFXIV?

[Soge01]

Would it make sense to add a fourth role to the Trinity of Tank, Healer and DPS to help create a better balance between all the job classes?

[ASkellington]

Technically we have the support role with ranged dps. Its just that SE doesn't want to do anything to make support rewarding or good.

[Avoidy]

Technically we have the support role with ranged dps. Its just that SE doesn't want to do anything to make support rewarding or good.

First post best post.

People say they want support, but there's nothing to support in this game now that it's been totally streamlined down to this. For example, other games will have mana (MP) actually be used by everyone, for everything, and when you run out you're literally out of options. Some support jobs will exist to feed you more mana, so that you don't run out of options. Can you imagine if tomorrow, every ability and weaponskill in the game cost mp, and melee jobs that lacked lucid dreaming were suddenly reliant on healers to cast a mana battery spell every 30 seconds or something? I bet most of you here would hate it. The whole party system is simultaneously interconnected (everyone standardized on a 2m system) but also feels incredibly isolated and independent compared to other games I've played. You just do your rotation while barely thinking about others around you (from a skill-use context, not necessarily a positioning context) until your 2 minute egg timer pops. People would be absolutely livid if their performance were directly tied to another person's ability to feed them resources so they could perform. We'll never have a rewarding support option in this game, because rewarding support options necessitates having something extremely valuable to support in the first place, and being able to fail and take others down with you if you fail; the devs don't have the courage to bring that style of play into all content by baking it into a skill kit. And it makes me sad, because I loved playing support in better mmos that got it right.

[R041]

...

You're right, and I said the same thing a page ago - There's nothing to support exactly. It's all been kinda streamlined into a smooth experience without opportunity for failure. Saying it's smoother doesn't even give it credit as a better experience necessarily, because technically our boss mechanics have gotten more interesting, but the difficulty from the player's individual class requirements have been mostly removed and more boring in favor of DDR gameplay. I want both.

[Avoidy]

You're right, and I said the same thing a page ago

I committed the sin of not reading a thread all the way through before commenting. Support roles were my all time favorite thing to do in tera before it died, and no other mmo has come close to the fun I had from healing in that game, so I jump at the chance to talk about this subject.
At this point, I don't think it'll improve. And I'm speaking broadly now, at just the mmo genre in general. So many games are steering away from the trinity model and creating independent dps experiences where you heal and budget your mana with consumables. If support exists, it's some watered down damage only form of support where you hit a button to make people's damage jump by X%. It doesn't feel meaningful. And that's just where we are now. I hope XIV can be pioneers and lead us back into a golden age of support, but I 100% do not expect innovation from a game that's comfortable staying the course and will have support and approval for doing so. Feelsbadman.

[R041]

...

Part of me kinda holds out hope, because RDM got AoE shield. BUT I'm also worried because most of our 'Support' is turning into Damage Buff or Defense. So it doesn't feel very innovative after 12 years of XIV. Like I can't necessarily say what would be innovative for them at this point, because they've only been removing and re-gifting to other classes for the past 5 years, while 'streamlining' all of the stats and resources like MP/TP.

I paraded the idea of removing Job + Class combinations in lieu of an easier/streamlined class system overall. But then I realize that it was actually a huge mistake and they should have made adjustments instead of remove entirely. My problem was you'd have to level a whole separate class outside of your Main/Secondary just to get a passive or role ability that we knew was necessary. Then I look at how WoW's Skill Tree is going and realize we're really missing out on individuality, they managed to give them options and make it not a slog.

So I don't really know anymore, and I think 7.0 is going to really tell us if they want to stay on this Shadowbringers copycat path, or try and innovate again like they used to. I kinda feel like we're in a pseudo-maintenance mode considering Yoshi is focusing on XVI, and that makes me sad.

[Mikey_R]

First post best post.

People say they want support, but there's nothing to support in this game now that it's been totally streamlined down to this. For example, other games will have mana (MP) actually be used by everyone, for everything, and when you run out you're literally out of options. Some support jobs will exist to feed you more mana, so that you don't run out of options. Can you imagine if tomorrow, every ability and weaponskill in the game cost mp, and melee jobs that lacked lucid dreaming were suddenly reliant on healers to cast a mana battery spell every 30 seconds or something? I bet most of you here would hate it. The whole party system is simultaneously interconnected (everyone standardized on a 2m system) but also feels incredibly isolated and independent compared to other games I've played. You just do your rotation while barely thinking about others around you (from a skill-use context, not necessarily a positioning context) until your 2 minute egg timer pops. People would be absolutely livid if their performance were directly tied to another person's ability to feed them resources so they could perform. We'll never have a rewarding support option in this game, because rewarding support options necessitates having something extremely valuable to support in the first place, and being able to fail and take others down with you if you fail; the devs don't have the courage to bring that style of play into all content by baking it into a skill kit. And it makes me sad, because I loved playing support in better mmos that got it right.

The thing is, we did have something like this back in Stormblood. Bard and Machinist had 2 actions, Tactician and the MP one which I forgot the name of. Do you know how annoying it was, as a melee, to run out of TP before the end of a fight, despite optimal usage of Invigorate? I'm happiny doing my rotation and suddenly, I have to stop because the ranged is either sleeping or there doesn't happen to be one in the party and it was even worse for tanks, well, mainly DRK. PLD could delay running out of TP because magic phase and Warrior did have Deliverance Equilibrium, but they could still run out. It would be a similar situation for casters and healers, with healers having the additional benefit of, if the ranged wasn't sleeping, you could have a ton of MP meaning raises weren't really hitting your MP management (though, if they were sleeping, RIP MP).

So the question becomes, should your ability to perform your rotation be tied to someone else? I would personally say no.

[Shurrikhan]

So the question becomes, should your ability to perform your rotation be tied to someone else? I would personally say no.

Your core rotation? No.

But could support be done in such a way as to make it feel like a bonus?

For instance, if normally I have to Twin Snakes every other form-cycle on Monk, but a Haste buff would push me to where I instead can Twin every third, or Demolish goes from every third cycle to every fourth, that'd be something I can leverage decently smoothly, yet wouldn't make my old way of doing things necessarily feel cruddy or "nerfed" by way of contrast. If I normally could get out of a huge AoE in time, but would have to give up a GCD and a half of uptime in doing so, and a support tool could instead get me out in half a GCD, cool. The fight can't just murder me as a form of composition check, but that bonus would feel pretty good.

[Mikey_R]

Your core rotation? No.

But could support be done in such a way as to make it feel like a bonus?

For instance, if normally I have to Twin Snakes every other form-cycle on Monk, but a Haste buff would push me to where I instead can Twin every third, or Demolish goes from every third cycle to every fourth, that'd be something I can leverage decently smoothly, yet wouldn't make my old way of doing things necessarily feel cruddy or "nerfed" by way of contrast. If I normally could get out of a huge AoE in time, but would have to give up a GCD and a half of uptime in doing so, and a support tool could instead get me out in half a GCD, cool. The fight can't just murder me as a form of composition check, but that bonus would feel pretty good.

You see, that's fine for Monk, because it's combos are so flexible, however, what about something like Dragoon? With it's more rigid combo structure, there is no way you would be able to make it fast enough to get another 5 GCDs in before you needed to refresh Chaotic Spring/power Surge, so you will be clipping the Chaotic Spring DoT early, which could lead to a DPS loss. Then you have to take into account the potential for misaligning your rotation compared to raid buffs, which is one of the reasons why poeple didn't like Arrow/Spear (the other was resource management, using up MP/TP quicker, except BLM, they enjoyed Arrow alot).

Similar things can be said for resource generation. Giving Monk an extra Chakra is different to giving Samurai Kenki, then what would you do with Dragoon? There's just too many potential pitfalls when messing with someone else's rotation that I can't see the benefits outweighing the drawbacks.

I played AST before the change. It was actually interesting. I don't know how they fared DPS-wise (which is the barometer everyone uses for everything in this game), but it was very enjoyable to play.

Completely depended on the party and card RNG however, it went from really weak to really strong. I don't think a suitable middle ground was really found however.

[Jeeqbit]

Ranged physical (BRD, DNC and MCH) are meant to be support.