The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[Eothas]

...and the race for firsts.

You are not wrong, but world-first races shouldn't even be a consideration regarding job balance/identity, ever. That's something that 99.9% of the playerbase will forget about after 1 week of savage release. I'd say that endgame, parse-brained players are the reason we have stale design ("muh Balance card...").

[Sunhwapark]

I'd say that endgame, parse-brained players are the reason we have stale design ("muh Balance card...").

Ah yes, it's the players fault that SE decided to randomly buff balance from 10% to a 20% solo card boost in 3.4 where it had such content that DPS skipping phases were most prominent.

[MagiusNecros]

a very reasonable fear that their job design will lock jobs out of prog content and the race for firsts.

*angry Blue Mage noises*

[Rekh]

I very much doubt they're scared of complexity. Why would they be? You outlined the actual worry yourself -- a very reasonable fear that their job design will lock jobs out of prog content and the race for firsts.

Balancing jobs against fights is incredibly difficult at the extremes as shown by not just this game but other MMOs as well. The goal of making jobs feel different and jobs be balanced are at opposition. I don't envy the job designers who are having to do this.

Let's thank all the world first streams and all tha nonsense. I've been saying it for years; the reason why shadowbringers baby-mode happened was because of raiders/proggers complaining about bard, dragoon, and all these other buffs and jobs "not being allowed in PF savage/ultimates."

No one cares if you bring any job to any savage/ultimate now, they're all copy paste burst babies of the the 2 minute snooze cycle.

It's a question of do we want 1 ultimate raid per expansion or 3 with the equivalent of checkers job design.

[Equitable_Remedy]

I started playing FF14 during ShB, and I liked it.

I kept playing through EW because I kept liking it. NIN, in ShB and EW, is one of my favorite classes in any MMO - I have a lot of fun playing it.

I like what I'm seeing for DT, but of course, I'll actually have to play it to see if I enjoy it.

Sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[MagiusNecros]

Can't say World first will ever really be the same ever since the usual groups that get world first were exposed as cheaters. Which admittedly was much more interesting content then the actual fights ingame.

[Supersnow845]

As much as I liked HW/SB AST it is a valid example of a job that was changed top to bottom because of how hostile balance was parse design (I’m not making a comment either way on the validity of that stance)

However I don’t remotely think that’s a reason to triple down on the extremely beige design that’s been so prominent since ShB

Jobs should still have expression and ceilings that aren’t on their floors. SGE is easily the worst designed job in the game on this front

It shouldn’t be so hard to design jobs who’s skill ceiling is more than “press buttons in the right order” yet somehow the one job that currently has this is getting it removed in DT

[Aravell]

I very much doubt they're scared of complexity. Why would they be? You outlined the actual worry yourself -- a very reasonable fear that their job design will lock jobs out of prog content and the race for firsts.

Balancing jobs against fights is incredibly difficult at the extremes as shown by not just this game but other MMOs as well. The goal of making jobs feel different and jobs be balanced are at opposition. I don't envy the job designers who are having to do this.

The question is "Should individual job balance matter so much in a game where you can change to any job at will?", if someone wants to clear week 1 and their job is off-meta, they can simply swap to the meta job of the tier.

Endlessly chasing after perfect balance means you also eventually remove all nuance out of your game, leaving a flat and bland combat system that is incapable of engaging experienced players.

I don't know about everyone else, but I personally won't raise my arms and cheer when the dev team rips out job individuality to make their job easier.

[Aword3213]

"8.0 will have more job identity"

Did they forgot?

They must have acknowledged job identity crisis to plan such a thing. However, why did they choose to delay it until 8.0 when job gameplay is core to both casual and hardcore content?

[Aravell]

I honestly don't think "players will optimise the fun out of the game" is a good excuse to design the fun out of your own game first.

Players optimising the fun out of the game is their own choice and only affects their own experience. Designing jobs to chase the endless unattainable perfect balance affects everyone.

They should just design jobs to be fun and have their own originality and nuance while leaving whoever wants to optimise their fun out to do so.