Why current job design is boring?

[Tunda]

What holds creative job design is how fixated the jobs to specific window, I mean I get it there is buffs that need to be aligned but let me explain,

Why having a buff for DPS jobs in the first place? I mean you could say to have variety and I agree I am all in with variety but at what cost?

boring designs.. adding finishers each expansion.. remove features to make the job more braindead?

I believe what holds the job design is how the game try to manage all jobs to specific window that will have sequences:

• Jobs will homonigized to specific window: 1min, 2min
• kill creative design and proc based/RNG based jobs (that's why they remove RNG from AST BTW)
• kill the encounter design.

What could be the solution.. let me start for each issue:

Buff window:

• Stop fixing buffs around 1 or 2 min and keep it consistent.
• Keeping consistent means there will be specific role that will handle it.
• introduce new role "Supports" who will responsible for party buffs.
• "Support" jobs will be responsible to buff DPS/Tanks/Healers

Job design:

• Not all jobs are designed around 1 min or 2 min window (they shouldn't be).
• having hominization burst will kill non burst jobs.
• Burst jobs are one dimensional, we can't have fully RNG based jobs or proc based jobs or unique kit because all jobs are bust jobs and if it is not burst jobs means they will fall behind in 1 min or 2 min burst phases.

encounter design

• Encounters will always stay still every 2 min
• encounter will be predictable and playing it again feels like watching same movie 99 times to get tomes.
• encounter will have to stay as what it is now because all jobs are designed this way ( or try to be)

at the end SE can't make all jobs burst jobs.. they can't make encounters unique because how jobs has been designed.. 1min 2min buff will always be wall that will kill creative job designs

[CaptainLagbeard]

Healer could probably be reworked into a dedicated Support Role...

Make more of the DPS into selfish ones, and offload the Raid buffs onto Healers.
Also, buff the Healers damage so they can contribute to the fight outside of the burst window.

[Raikai]

I really agree that party buff role should be a constant function of those jobs. They can surely kill the 2min meta while keeping the buffers within that commitment:

- AST buffs one person in set intervals
- DNC buffs one person constantly
- BRD buffs the entire party constantly, but for less
- NIN debuffs the enemy in set intervals
- <NEW> whatever new aiming job debuffs the enemy constantly, but for less
*I'd actually add a new tank in that niche too to mirror what AST is in relation to healers.

I think that creating a brand new role just for that might be a bit overkill and way too much hassle, but there you have it. Pick every other 2min meta actions (Brotherhood, Divination, TS, Arcane Circle, etc, etc) and rework them into inwards job mechanics.

And there you have it, free of the 2min meta shackles, the job gameplay becomes more engaging because everything doesn't end up being overly homogenized. Those jobs with party buffs now get a new skill ceiling that rewards them greatly by knowing their team mates' kits. Big proof that this can work is how the old Trick Attack was and how the party could adjust differently to seize those odd windows.

[Jeeqbit]

I would agree with removing party damage buffs. They would still work around certain timesframes because mechanics and mitigations also have always aligned with certain intervals, but at least this would be reduced to be better even than it was before Endwalker where they could choose which interval for different parts of the rotation.

introduce new role "Supports" who will responsible for party buffs.

Generally, the ranged physical role were always regarded as this (even by SE, if you notice things like the run speed buff, party-wide mit, BRD's old kit, DNC's kit). Other interpretations have tanks/healers as the supports.

[ovIm]

We would also do well to understand how we got at this point. Lets review a bit, shall we?

The damage calculation in this game is not additive, its multiplicative. This means that stacking buffs will always be more worth than not doing it, unless timers are way too diverse.

Also, classes have a lot of high potency nukes on high cooldowns, often tied to damage buffs.

These two factors alone caused people to always try and sync up their cooldowns, as this was the way to dealing the most damage (after all, the goal of most encounters is "reduce enemy HP to Zero"). And of course, people wanted to make this easier. Square Enix simply catered to peoples wishes there.

To mitigate this, it would usually help to flatten the damage curve a bit, reduce the potency of the finisher nukes and redistribute the potency to other skills. And if damage cooldowns affected others differently, it would reduce the need to sync up cooldowns.

Now, whether this is something players want, or something that has no drawbacks, that is a different story altogether.

[*] introduce new role "Supports" who will responsible for party buffs.

We already have a Support role, that is Healers. Let me explain.

When designing a game, you work with 3 base "interaction directions": Player to Opponent, Opponent to Player, Player to Player.

For each of these directions, you have a role that covers that.
Attackers work on the Player to Opponent direction
Defenders work on the Opponent to Player direction
Supporters work on the Player to Player direction

If you were to add a Supporter role, you would have 2 roles (Healers and Supporters) taking care of "Player to Player" stuff.

[Unyqua]

If there was an easy fix we would already have it, but the 2 min window is a solution to a obvious problem. there is no easy fix without reworking all classes and when you just remove the group buffs, classes with self buffs on a timer will still have to do them in that window.
Even in wow it was best practice to sync your stuff with Bloodlust/Heroism. You might had a bit more controle about it but in they end you had to play around that buff if you did it on pull, in the middle or before enrage.
The moment you have group buffs people will try to sync them in the best way and with the best comp. In this case the Meta will define the window and not SE

[Connor]

Naa, let’s just alienate any player that likes supporting the party in multiplayer games until they stop playing or force themselves to love dps’ing
/s

[mallleable]

I feel like tanks, and healers are already kinda intended as the 'support' roles with healers as 'ranged support,' and tanks as 'melee supports.'

[BabyYoda]

..

The issue with the current "support" jobs that they are not a primary support and they also designed around 1 min and 2 min.. the problem is that we can't have them as consistent buffs jobs because they will be overwhelming.

Creating a role that is separate to keep buffs rolling by maintaining their rotation is what I ask for.

Bard and Dancer are the only support jobs in the game and they kinda leans into more dps and finishers after finishers.
MCH isn't a support they liiterly can't be supports having 2 spells that can be used each 1 min or 2 min is killing the job and the job is already dying.
The problem is even support jobs can't have consistent buffs through the fights, DNC is the most support job in the game but they take the direction of finishers like am I playing samurai or dancer?

AST is the same issue.. how you can manage healing while also having consistent buffs?
The current AST is buffing 2 party member damage each 1 min which is the issue again.

Current support jobs can't have consistent utility because it is overwhelming to play.. some healers can't use esuna and we give them to boost 10% of party damage?

It is overwhelming and doing too much while I can play another job thay is focusing on healing or shielding without having to keep buffs rolling.

And I agree we should have support jobs with similar mechanics of current buffs and most importantly creative ones

Example of support job that is done perfectly is how Dancer standard dance have RNG mechanic to it.. we want more of that with different ideas for bard.

AST needs an another version of the job that is fully support job

[BabyYoda]

We would also do well to understand how we got at this point. Lets review a bit, shall we?

The damage calculation in this game is not additive, its multiplicative. This means that stacking buffs will always be more worth than not doing it, unless timers are way too diverse.

Also, classes have a lot of high potency nukes on high cooldowns, often tied to damage buffs.

These two factors alone caused people to always try and sync up their cooldowns, as this was the way to dealing the most damage (after all, the goal of most encounters is "reduce enemy HP to Zero"). And of course, people wanted to make this easier. Square Enix simply catered to peoples wishes there.

To mitigate this, it would usually help to flatten the damage curve a bit, reduce the potency of the finisher nukes and redistribute the potency to other skills. And if damage cooldowns affected others differently, it would reduce the need to sync up cooldowns.

Now, whether this is something players want, or something that has no drawbacks, that is a different story altogether.



We already have a Support role, that is Healers. Let me explain.

When designing a game, you work with 3 base "interaction directions": Player to Opponent, Opponent to Player, Player to Player.

For each of these directions, you have a role that covers that.
Attackers work on the Player to Opponent direction
Defenders work on the Opponent to Player direction
Supporters work on the Player to Player direction

If you were to add a Supporter role, you would have 2 roles (Healers and Supporters) taking care of "Player to Player" stuff.

The problem is having healers to support is overwhelming for most people.. there is a reason why SE reduce the support kit from AST..
Why playing a job who is responsible for 2 things instead of 1 ?
I get it is fun but also not fun at balance perspective.

That's why we have AST designed around 1 min and 2 min because it is overwhelming to do 2 jobs at once

Healers are missing esuna's and now we give them 10% of party damage? It is too much to ask for