/r/ffxivdiscussion: Would you be excited for a top-to-bottom rework of all jobs?

[Avidria]

Prooobably not. Considering the last major playstyle changes made to bard gave us bow mage for one expansion and then immediately removed that lol
I mean i liked bowmage but im fairly certain that many did not. It was very jarring and odd.

Anyway it would strongly depend on what exactly was getting reworked.

[Kes13a]

I'd go so far as to say every job should have an advanced job added. The advanced job doesn't change the rotation at all, but reskins it, possibly with new animations. An example could be a Black Mage, specializing in fire/thunder/ice, swapping to a Geomancer, specializing in Earth/Wind/Water.

You end up adding variety, can change animations, it literally doubles the animation work on classes, but doesn't require rotational changes so it's mostly about making sure the paired skills are otherwise identical (and I fully expect this to be more work than it seems like it should be.)

That said, the devs can definitely make it so each role can have 6 unique jobs. It would require a lot of work, but it is doable. Though the biggest problem is the devs need to change their encounter and class design philosophy away from busters and towards something like WoW's triage. Tanks and healers have been carbon copies of each other in practice since SB, and the biggest driver of this is the buster meta. Break that meta and suddenly things can slowly dehomogenize. That combined with killing the 2m meta and so forth would work wonders towards fixing the game.

major issue is I do not believe ANYONE on the dev team actually plays a healer.

its not just carbon copy its downright ignoring the job grouping. why they give tanks and dps so much self healing is because they have no clue about the healing jobs... period. they can talk about FF14 having a trinity all they want, but when they do not understand how 1/3 of that trinity should work... thats how we end up where we are today. thats how we end up with todays Warrior.

[Aravell]

I think it depends on the job. Some would benefit from a total rework, others have a good base and just need a bit more depth to go with it.

The problem is that I'm not sure if the current team is up to the task. There doesn't seem to be a lot of creativity running through the team at the moment.

[Ryaze]

Yes. After 2 expansions of just adding a finisher onto RDM and DT looking like even less than that. Yes please. Even though there are several jobs I thoroughly enjoy, the way CBU3 has structured FF14 jobs is not tenable with future expansion releases. They need to shake things up. Yes, sometimes change is not always well received, but I’d rather have change than stagnation. And from what we’ve seen of DT so far, that’s where we’re at.

Change is historically one of the core tenants of MMOs. If people don’t want things to change either play WoW classic or pick another genre of game.

[Fyrebrand]

Why would they need to completely rework ALL jobs? I'm always interested in fresh ideas, because there's always room for improvement. But it really depends what job we're talking about, and where they want to take it. Is the change actually significant? Is it for the better? And what about all the players who enjoy the job as it is?

One dream feature I'd like to see is the opportunity for customization within a job, like talent trees or specializations. In that case, I think jobs would probably need to be rethought from the ground up, but the new system would really need to be worth it, and carefully designed. Or if they brought back the idea of cross-class abilities, but made it actually good this time. Of course, I know nothing like that is going to happen.

[KageTokage]

I'd appreciate one at this point if it means every job has a distinct identity/gimmick instead of feeling derivative from one thing or another.

Like...I can't get excited for Viper when its gameplay is easily comparable to a weird blend of SAM and RPR with the emphasis on maintaining buffs through different combo chains then going into button spam mode after building enough resources.

[CKNovel]

Depends from jobs to jobs but overral, not all jobs needs a rework.

I'd say DRK & MCH would need a rework on PLD's level as well with a complete redesign of LS&AQ.
I don't know what SMN needs but it need a lot.
Red mage suffers from an outdated design from Stormblood where it used to be the most mobile mage but ended up being the least mobile today.

Healers needs a complete rework, the philosophy around ress should evolve in my opinion.

[Supersnow845]

I'd appreciate one at this point if it means every job has a distinct identity/gimmick instead of feeling derivative from one thing or another.

Like...I can't get excited for Viper when its gameplay is easily comparable to a weird blend of SAM and RPR with the emphasis on maintaining buffs through different combo chains then going into button spam mode after building enough resources.

Interesting from what I could see of VPR it looked more like melee DNC than anything else to me

Still PIC seems to indicate that they still have at least some creativity. I guess it’s closest analogue is NIN given it looks like the motifs are kinda like ninjutsu while you do the filler rotation in the background but unlike NIN it seems like the burst plays into the filler rotation rather than just being something you constantly weave around your 1-2-3

[Wanzzo]

What is most lacking is identity, imo.

Each job needs to be more and more unique. This tactic they use of standardizing jobs according to roles is really sad. They should completely change this direction and give each job a greater sense of identity. Even though a job has skills/spells common to others in the same role, it MUST be different in execution, sequence, effects and feeling of use. It needs to have its own exclusive mechanics in addition to its visuals. In my opinion, the developers should redo them all with this in mind. The standardization of jobs according to roles should reduce its intrusion on the identity of each job itself.

The game could have more combat elements, the return of DoTs, field/ground control, support function, new types of damage and resistance, etc. Along with the revamp of jobs, there could be a revamp of combats as well. I often find myself thinking about "fire damage, electrical damage, ice damage..." and similar resistances and vulnerabilities... This would make the game a little more tactical and more fun (but, I understand that such a change would need to bring revamp of all enemies, dungeons, raids, etc...).

Regarding new jobs, I believe they will not stop doing them and I think it would be wrong if they did. New jobs always add players wanting to log in to enjoy the stories and the feeling that such jobs bring. If you make the changes I mentioned, this feeling will be even more enhanced and enjoyed by players with each new future job.

Another thing I imagine is that we will have some kind of "job specialization" at some point in the future. It would be awesome! A point at which a Ninja, for example, can become either a "Shadow Blade" or an "Assassin", for example. While the Shadow focuses on support and area damage, the Assassin focuses on single target and massive damage. And also the possibility of changing specializations at the click of a button (which makes preparation for each raid or extreme more interesting for each job). new builds could be included in this (like, a fire enhanced BLM or a lightning one, or something like that). For each hard boss we would find, a set of skills/spells focused on him could be discovered for each job to use.

[ReynTime]

I wouldn't be excited, because I don't trust the team to do it right.
Even asking them to just make each job in a role have varying degrees of complexity for their rotations to appeal to different flavors of players is asking too much since they've been axing that aspect as well.