The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[MagiusNecros]

However all this said going back to your original question what is job identity? It boils down to what does each job do that makes it unique from every other job. And in PVE it's mostly aesthetics. There is very little deviation.

In PvP however there is a LOT of deviation. Down to defensives that grant damage shields and boost defense, AoE stuns, draw-ins/knockback, HP sacrificing attacks, GNB draw changing skills in your kit based on what role you used draw on, polymorph, AoE invulns, attacks that render you invulnerable to damage, true stealth and Death Link, Counter Attacks, delayed damage, fear effects, aoe buffs, crowd control, charm, stance swapping among others. Not to mention personal Limit Breaks that gives every player their own moment of glory and satisfaction. Which all serves to give these classes the identity players are looking for.

[OgruMogru]

However all this said going back to your original question what is job identity? It boils down to what does each job do that makes it unique from every other job. And in PVE it's mostly aesthetics. There is very little deviation.

In PvP however there is a LOT of deviation. Down to defensives that grant damage shields and boost defense, AoE stuns, draw-ins/knockback, HP sacrificing attacks, GNB draw changing skills in your kit based on what role you used draw on, polymorph, AoE invulns, attacks that render you invulnerable to damage, true stealth and Death Link, Counter Attacks, delayed damage, fear effects, aoe buffs, crowd control, charm, stance swapping among others. Not to mention personal Limit Breaks that gives every player their own moment of glory and satisfaction. Which all serves to give these classes the identity players are looking for.

What's sad is we used to have elements of these variables in PvE content. All jobs used to have some form of crowd control or utility, primarily stuns and slows, and old raids did require them to solve mechanics. A lot of these abilities have been removed which means those kinds of mechanics can no longer be used until we are given the tools we need back, which is why I'm sceptical of how far the encounter only approach to DT can take us. Getting to choose which pushback to mitigate or gap to close every minute or so doesn't really cut it by comparison. Not to mention things like Goad, Manashift, hell even aggro management being flushed down the toilet. They aren't even tied to individual job identity or complexity. I wish those things had been iterated on instead of outright deleted.

[Mikey_R]

What's sad is we used to have elements of these variables in PvE content. All jobs used to have some form of crowd control or utility, primarily stuns and slows, and old raids did require them to solve mechanics. A lot of these abilities have been removed which means those kinds of mechanics can no longer be used until we are given the tools we need back,

There are still elements of crowd control around, you just have to look for it. All healers have access to Repose, which puts a single target to sleep, all casters have access to Sleep, which is an AoE repose. The problem is, as soon as you hit it, it wakes up. So it is useless. Plus, using a GCD to sleep a target is nowhere near as good as just killing it quicker. But, to go onto other things; Stuns, all tanks and melee DPS have stuns, Slows, All tanks and Melee DPS have access to slow, though it is only really used by tanks. Unless you mean Heavy (movement speed debuff as opposed to attack speed debuff), which all Phys Ranged have access to.

These things are still in the game, even silence, now renamed interrupt, is on all tanks and Phys Ranged. The problem is, nothing requires you to use them. But this is an encounter design issue and not a job issue.

As an edit, forgot to mention Phys ranged also have access to a bind.

[MagiusNecros]

What's sad is we used to have elements of these variables in PvE content. All jobs used to have some form of crowd control or utility, primarily stuns and slows, and old raids did require them to solve mechanics. A lot of these abilities have been removed which means those kinds of mechanics can no longer be used until we are given the tools we need back, which is why I'm sceptical of how far the encounter only approach to DT can take us. Getting to choose which pushback to mitigate or gap to close every minute or so doesn't really cut it by comparison. Not to mention things like Goad, Manashift, hell even aggro management being flushed down the toilet. They aren't even tied to individual job identity or complexity. I wish those things had been iterated on instead of outright deleted.

It's been eroded away for streamlining. Crowd Control and debuffs has been relegated to PvP or Blue Mage. Maybe Beastmaster in future. DoTs have also slowly been removed. Very few classes have DoTs anymore and if they do only like 1 at best.

Ironically Blue Mage has the most DoTs out of any class now. Usually 3 but can go up to 4-7 depending on spell slots.

Hydro Pull + Ram's Voice is hype just about anywhere.

And we can go waaaaaaaaaaaay back when PLD could stunlock enemies with repeated Shield Bashes until they added Stun resist(internal 1 min cooldown per level of resist) or later on with them removing Dark Dance and Dark Passenger for the Parry + Blind Dodge Tank stuff on DRK. Risky but rewarding to pull off for good MP management.

Or the sheer joy of setting up all your DoTs and spreading them with Bane and Festering to just melt mobs and bosses alike.

It'll be interesting where DT takes us or if it's Meleewalker 2.0.

[Aravell]

Monk plays nothing like Paladin, which automatically invalidates what you said. Different roles? Ok, Monk plays differently to Dragoon.

While jobs don't play exactly the same, there are an increasing amount of similarities that you can't deny.

Jobs with 0 to 100 gauge that increases with 1-2-3 and has a button to increase it by 50: WAR, SAM, NIN, MCH, RPR

Jobs that have very similar damage profiles: NIN and MNK

Jobs that press an ability and then spam the same button multiple times: WAR (Inner Release), PLD (Requiescat), DRK (Delirium), MCH (Hypercharge)

Jobs that predominantly mash only 1 or 2 buttons throughout the encounter: WHM, SCH, AST, SGE, SMN

All these similarities blur the lines and make each job feel more and more like the same. MNK and NIN may play differently if you really focus on what you're doing and what buttons you're pressing, but the feeling of gameplay and the damage profiles are undeniably similar (Fast attacking brawler with button input minigame for a big hit).

Now lets look at the DT changes, more jobs got a new attack that's unlocked by pressing 2 minute button that you use in buffs, previously it was SAM'S thing (Ikishoten > Ogi Namikiri), that's going to blur the lines even further during burst windows.

[Mikey_R]

While jobs don't play exactly the same, there are an increasing amount of similarities that you can't deny.

Jobs with 0 to 100 gauge that increases with 1-2-3 and has a button to increase it by 50: WAR, SAM, NIN, MCH, RPR

Jobs that have very similar damage profiles: NIN and MNK

Jobs that press an ability and then spam the same button multiple times: WAR (Inner Release), PLD (Requiescat), DRK (Delirium), MCH (Hypercharge)

Jobs that predominantly mash only 1 or 2 buttons throughout the encounter: WHM, SCH, AST, SGE, SMN

All these similarities blur the lines and make each job feel more and more like the same. MNK and NIN may play differently if you really focus on what you're doing and what buttons you're pressing, but the feeling of gameplay and the damage profiles are undeniably similar (Fast attacking brawler with button input minigame for a big hit).

Now lets look at the DT changes, more jobs got a new attack that's unlocked by pressing 2 minute button that you use in buffs, previously it was SAM'S thing (Ikishoten > Ogi Namikiri), that's going to blur the lines even further during burst windows.

Whilst jobs do have similarities, it is the nuance they have that makes them different. As an extreme example, if I said every job has GCDs and oGCDs therefore they all play the same, I would likely be told that that is a ridiculous comment to make.

Going into gauges, yes, there are jobs that have similar gauges, would it make it different if it was a 0-50 gauge instead and the only thing you could spend it on cost 50 gauge? That's Monk's Chakra. GNB gauge goes from 0-30 and you spend it in 10s or on the one things that costs 20. The main point here is everything is a gauge and they are all built and used differently with different considerations.

Spam the same button multiple times? Already addressed.

Healers only having mainly 2 DPS buttons isn't an issue with identity, that is more of an issue with how they built healers. However, it also ignores the rest of the healing kit where the individualities of each healer lie.

Dancer's Standard Step and Technical step also have a minigame for a big hit, but I see noone saying that they are the same as Ninjutsu and Masterful Blitz.

As with everything, it all comes down to how broad of a stroke you want to paint it all with. For me, going as broad as, every job bursts every 2 minutes, is more of a job design issue and not a job identity issue. Every job feels different to play, every job has different considerations. There is a reason I prefer to play some jobs over another. If every job was truly the same, this wouldn't be the case. Get a finer brush, look at the details and context of things. Not saying it is 100% perfect, but it isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

[Supersnow845]

Whilst jobs do have similarities, it is the nuance they have that makes them different. As an extreme example, if I said every job has GCDs and oGCDs therefore they all play the same, I would likely be told that that is a ridiculous comment to make.

Going into gauges, yes, there are jobs that have similar gauges, would it make it different if it was a 0-50 gauge instead and the only thing you could spend it on cost 50 gauge? That's Monk's Chakra. GNB gauge goes from 0-30 and you spend it in 10s or on the one things that costs 20. The main point here is everything is a gauge and they are all built and used differently with different considerations.

Spam the same button multiple times? Already addressed.

Healers only having mainly 2 DPS buttons isn't an issue with identity, that is more of an issue with how they built healers. However, it also ignores the rest of the healing kit where the individualities of each healer lie.

Dancer's Standard Step and Technical step also have a minigame for a big hit, but I see noone saying that they are the same as Ninjutsu and Masterful Blitz.

As with everything, it all comes down to how broad of a stroke you want to paint it all with. For me, going as broad as, every job bursts every 2 minutes, is more of a job design issue and not a job identity issue. Every job feels different to play, every job has different considerations. There is a reason I prefer to play some jobs over another. If every job was truly the same, this wouldn't be the case. Get a finer brush, look at the details and context of things. Not saying it is 100% perfect, but it isn't as bad as people make it out to be.

Your point on gauges look at say WAR and DRK. They generate gauge near exactly the same (20 gauge on the third hit, WAR gets 10 on the second but only because storms path which is the same easy to maintain damage up as dark side), they both spend it on the same thing and they both have a button that once per minute lets you spam said thing multiple times. The gauge is essentially exactly the same. RPR’s enshroud gauge is almost exactly the same to MCH’s hypercharge gauge

As for healers you can argue their healing kit has nuance but it also doesn’t, I’m not even going to mention SGE/SCH again but you miss with the design of healers that “a skill can be different but feel the same because it achieves the same thing and you press it at the same time”. 9 times out of 10 SCH will press seraph when SGE presses panhiama, are the skills technically different…….yes, do they really feel different when you press them at the same time……….no.

As for NIN and DNC even though you didn’t reply to my comment specifically I did mention those two feel extremely similar to me

Jobs can be painted with broad strokes a lot of the time because we use them so much they can blur, they do have niche differences but you also have to consider how often those niches actually come into play (ie the healers are not the same because of their heals design issue)

[Aravell]

Show me receipts that this simplification has either prevented loss or generated gain--either of which must be entirely because of the simplification and not because of any other factor. You can't say "Endwalker has more players" because that is not why more people joined FFXIV, unless you can provide evidence to suggest otherwise.

They can't show you any receipts because there are none. Population growth cannot be directly attributed to one thing and one thing only. That's why when asked this question, people can only reply with "Shadowbringers and Endwalker has more players than Stormblood" and refuse to elaborate further.

Surely it has to be the simplified jobs that bring in the players, right? Surely it can't be that Shadowbringers has the most hyped story after the expansion that many regards as having the weakest story. Surely it can't be that Endwalker is the climax of a multi-year long epic saga that many want to see to the end. Surely Dawntrail won't do well because of the graphical update and other major QoL stuff. No, it has to be entirely the simplified jobs!

[ty_taurus]

They can't show you any receipts because there are none. Population growth cannot be directly attributed to one thing and one thing only. That's why when asked this question, people can only reply with "Shadowbringers and Endwalker has more players than Stormblood" and refuse to elaborate further.

Surely it has to be the simplified jobs that bring in the players, right? Surely it can't be that Shadowbringers has the most hyped story after the expansion that many regards as having the weakest story. Surely it can't be that Endwalker is the climax of a multi-year long epic saga that many want to see to the end. Surely Dawntrail won't do well because of the graphical update and other major QoL stuff. No, it has to be entirely the simplified jobs!

If we could somehow get metrics on what type of effect job simplification has on the population of players, that would be a different story, but it's impossible to do this because each expansion is not just a change in jobs, but dozens of different attributes of the game. Even simply the time that an expansion comes out can have an effect on someone's interest in the game, so we don't really have a way to isolate this metric to gauge its exact impact in a vacuum.

But we can see what people say and how people react to the game. I would be shocked if someone could name a single person who's approach to an expansion like Shadowbringers or Endwalker would look something like this: "You know, FFXIV has always been too complicated, but since I read they're streamlining job design, I think I want to play it now." Because as you said, it's the story that has driven players to try FFXIV (and the increase in the game's marketing budget). You can find dozens of examples of people talking about hearing how good the story is, and total radio silence on people talking about how people hype up the job design. The most I could imagine would be hyping up the job system in the sense that you can play different jobs on a single character, which has nothing to do with the design of the jobs themselves.

[Sjol]

They can't show you any receipts because there are none. Population growth cannot be directly attributed to one thing and one thing only. That's why when asked this question, people can only reply with "Shadowbringers and Endwalker has more players than Stormblood" and refuse to elaborate further.

Surely it has to be the simplified jobs that bring in the players, right? Surely it can't be that Shadowbringers has the most hyped story after the expansion that many regards as having the weakest story. Surely it can't be that Endwalker is the climax of a multi-year long epic saga that many want to see to the end. Surely Dawntrail won't do well because of the graphical update and other major QoL stuff. No, it has to be entirely the simplified jobs!

The one flaw I can see with this logic is that new players didn't experience the story leading up to Endwalker when they decided to buy it. A lot of the people who decided to try it probably just decided to try it because it became a common exodus location after Blizzard debacles. That's clearly not every player who decided to try ShB or EW during the spike, but it's got to be a lot of them.