Concerns Regarding DPS Balance: Physical Ranged, Red Mage, and Summoner

[Ghost_of_Ebina]

As a RDM main, I can understand the DPS level as it is _IF_ RDM truly has skills for support aimed at helping the party (rDPS).
However, PCT which is supposed to be a "pure ranged magic DPS" has equal or better support skills than RDM, so the entire idea that "RDM is tailored to be support" is not too convincing.
With Black Mage, it is understandable because they are truly a "selfish DPS" with no synergy skills and focused purely on self-mitigation / buffing.

It is clear the current party buffs / support that RDM provides is way too weak. I mean, magick barrier itself is only for "magic attacks" while PCT's party mitigation helps protect against all damage types.
Skills like that are not held by "pure DPS" jobs.

[Supersnow845]

As a RDM main, I can understand the DPS level as it is _IF_ RDM truly has skills for support aimed at helping the party (rDPS).
However, PCT which is supposed to be a "pure ranged magic DPS" has equal or better support skills than RDM, so the entire idea that "RDM is tailored to be support" is not too convincing.
With Black Mage, it is understandable because they are truly a "selfish DPS" with no synergy skills and focused purely on self-mitigation / buffing.

It is clear the current party buffs / support that RDM provides is way too weak. I mean, magick barrier itself is only for "magic attacks" while PCT's party mitigation helps protect against all damage types.
Skills like that are not held by "pure DPS" jobs.

RDM is taxed because of rezz, not its support capabilities

[Valence]

Part of me wants to empathise with phys ranged dps mains but as someone who plays most other roles but not phys ranged I kinda have always seen phys ranged as the "free" slot xD

IM not speaking about YOU personally... but in my many years of admittedly anecdotal experience. The lower skilled players tend to congregate to the phys ranged role because its very approachable. No melee range downtime to have to negotiate and no casts to have to navigate. Its free as a bird with a simple rotation. If you're a dancer you even have 3 stacks of the get out of jail free card (or a go directly to jail card depending on who you ask)

There has been zero content that you've excluded a physranged because their damage was low. 99% of 8 person groups still take one phys ranged.

Another way to perhaps look at it is because phys ranged output is lower in potential, a lower performing player also has a reduced impact on team performance. Basically, you take a bigger hit if your picto performs poorly vs your dancer. This only further pushes phys ranged as the "free" role in a party. That is not to say skilled phys ranged players can't or don't make an absolute impact in raid groups, but if you could only have a handful of highly skilled players in your group, you'd get more bang for buck placing them in the higher output roles. Likewise if you have peeps that are maybe new or are a little slower on the uptake, having them in the phys ranged slot can mitigate the inexperience.

You could absolutely argue that this is not a good design choice but I absolutely have taken advantage of the fact when putting together groups for friends xD if any of those friends ends up reading this though, know that I <3 you all the same xD

Someones gotta be the bottom~ ✌

(Just being a bit cheeky pls no murder)

That's some hefty prejudice, because if you actually look at the history of XIV throughout the years, starting in HW because I can't talk well enough about ARR having never played in there:

- HW BRD was incredibly janky and not exactly easy to play, and had cast times on everything. It was certainly not a job where all those so called "low skilled" players congregated around.
- HW MCH was the hardest dps job rotation in the game and I don't think anything has come ever close by now except non standard BLM (probably a lot harder if you go deep into it yes). Take a look at the 3 or 5 ammo openers and you'll see what kind of monstrosity it was, with added gauss barrel stance dancing to fish autos at the end of certain segments. It's been considered as such that it got literally burned into the minds of players for almost the whole duration of SB as well even though the job was a lot more approachable and straightforward: nobody in casual circles wanted to even play the job due to the reputation it still had. There is a reason the job suffered from "engineering degree" memes for 2 expansions (just look at one of the larrysaur videos on MCH from back then).
- SB BRD was all but easy, actually very hectic with a LOT of things to juggle (shorter dots, shorter songs, MP management on raid buffs, incredibly frantic proc rates, etc). I do not remember the job being flocked over by low skilled players more than any other there.
- SB MCH was not played a lot due to low popularity and was certainly not easy. Straightforward rotations but complicated burst patterns, and incredibly punishing, which is something that low skilled players tend to flee like the plague, see BLM throughout the whole history of the game.
- ShB MCH attracted a lot of lower skilled players yes, but DNC overtook that role because of its simplicity and intuitive, carefree gameplay, even though it got simplified a lot in EW and most of its constraints got removed (melee range for burst, and proc overwriting). I'd argue that yes, DNC is still extremely approachable those days for any low skilled player, but this crown has been taken by EW SMN now, and by far. Either way, at the end of EW, both caster DPS and rphys had more than 50% of their respective player bases playing either SMN or DNC according to raiding charts.

I do agree and have already argued that SMN introduced too many discrepancies in skill levels without groups and wasn't healthy for the balance of the game before, but conflating this with the whole rphys role sounds like pushing it to me, especially if you haven't even have played the role...

[Reldhir]

You are making the exact same argument that is used for the physical ranged tax: Because they are easier to keep uptime, they should deal less damage. But that logic falls apart when you consider that low skilled melee players still deal way more damage than low skilled physical ranged players. If the skill floor were that much lower with physical ranged jobs, then a bad player should be able to deal more damage as physical ranged than as a melee or a non-raise-taxed caster, but they don't. I'd be fine with physical ranged not being as good as a melee at the top end to reward the higher difficulty of reaching the skill ceiling if the average or a bit above average player would perform better as a physical ranged. But the ranged tax existing even at the bottom of the skill spectrum completely and utterly invalidates that argument.

But thats not the point im making xD

A bad melee hurts the team more than a bad phys ranged. A melee performing at 50% of their potential is a bigger dps loss than a Phys ranged performing at 50% of their potential :P

And since we've not at the point where we're excluding phys ranged one can only assume that the fights are being balanced with the low phys ranged output in mind.

You up the phys ranged output, the balance team ups the overall dps requirement. Phys ranged then takes on a little more responsibilty outputting that dps where as currently they can hide behind their big stronk mele... picto. Just picto.

Means newer players or less skilled players lose their lower stakes role :P

Is this the reason why SE chose to treat phys ranged the way it has? I dunno, maybe? I'd sooner hope this was the case than believe they're just plainly incompetent. Is it a good reason? Welp if youre a phys ranged main then probably not :P

Either way, it was a tongue and cheek comment. I am certainly not an opponent to changes with the role to improve its standing in dps things xD

[Naryoril]

Balance team? You mean the balance team that screwed up picto damage and set it way too high, and then decided to increase the damage of all other classes (except for the ones that actually need it), without adjusting the bosses and thus throwing the balance completely out of whack? That balance team?

I highly doubt increasing the damage of physical ranged to a point where the reasons to include them in a high end duty isn't just the 1% damage bonus to everyone, and even then they only just barely make the cut, would be that much of an issue.

Punishing all physical ranged because "little timmy mc casual pants" wants to do savage raids even though he shouldn't can't seriously be an argument for anyone.

[Reldhir]

Balance team? You mean the balance team that screwed up picto damage and set it way too high, and then decided to increase the damage of all other classes (except for the ones that actually need it), without adjusting the bosses and thus throwing the balance completely out of whack? That balance team?

I highly doubt increasing the damage of physical ranged to a point where the reasons to include them in a high end duty isn't just the 1% damage bonus to everyone, and even then they only just barely make the cut, would be that much of an issue.

You're right they did screw up the picto balance, they screwed up the tank dps balance last expansion too and I'd argue that was a far bigger mistake. But them making mistakes like that doesnt just invalidate them or mean that theyre totally incapable of having solid reasoning for all the other choices they make regarding balance. dont throw the baby out with the bath water. Im not saying we should let mistakes like picto balance slide, just be reasonable with your hate for the balance team. you are still playing a functioning game after all, even if its not quite functioning the way everyone would like.

Punishing all physical ranged because "little timmy mc casual pants" wants to do savage raids even though he shouldn't can't seriously be an argument for anyone.

Oh yes it absolutely can and is being used by none other than SE themselves lol! I don't agree with the sentiment either but pretending it's not a reason because it doesn't align with what you want is...

Yes it can be frustrating :P

[Reldhir]

That's some hefty prejudice...

I do agree and have already argued that SMN introduced too many discrepancies in skill levels without groups and wasn't healthy for the balance of the game before, but conflating this with the whole rphys role sounds like pushing it to me, especially if you haven't even have played the role...

I mean I kinda asked for this tone of response being cheeky with they way I phrased things but I don't think wrong :P You might just be missing my point

Im not taking this as an opportunity to poop on phys ranged, there are plenty of phys ranged mains far more skilled than I..... but then there are a ton of super casual players that also like to dabble in raids and as I stated in my admittedly anecdotal view of the situation a lot of those casual players, play phys ranged or as you made mention smn too because thats also kinda in the same category

BUT unlike phys ranged, the alternative to SMN is picto, a job that is meaningfully more powerful than smn. When filling out a party you tend to have 1 caster and 1 phys ranged. If a casual player shows up as a smn and doesnt perform well, thats graded against the potential of a picto.

Conversely, phys ranged are all the same, and more importantly to the point im trying to make, low damage output. It means their overall contribution is reduced simply by having the weakest role.

Now I understand that dedicated and skilled phys ranged player are like yo gimmie more responsibilty bro I can take it I can do it. And there are plenty out there! But! On the flip side, little timmy mc casual pants has a lower stakes role that he can just slip right into and if he does poorly its still rough sure but not as rough as if he was on picto~~

Thats the point i was making about phys ranged being the free role, its the entrypoint role to dps, lower stakes, easier skill set, less things to deal with.

Again! Im not oposing peeps who want more for the role! Just making an observation

[mallleable]

The thing is that Reldhir does kinda of have a point about phys ranged 'having it easy.' Unlike every other role, phys ranged have no environmental challenges to overcome while in combat. Tanks have to consider melee uptime, incoming damage against themselves, incoming damage against their party, and sometimes boss positioning. Healers have to consider incoming damage against their party, and casting uptime during heavy movement. Magical Ranged have to consider casting uptime during heavy movement, and Melees have to consider melee uptime, and positionals. Granted they all have incredibly strong, and easy to use tools to overcome these challenges, but the challenges exist none the less. The fact that Phys Ranged have no such environmental challenges to overcome, to me, is a failure in class design. Which is why I froth at the mouth over walking casts because they would give phys ranged that environmental gameplay that is missing as well as being able to increase their damage numbers even if it would resemble Magical Ranged gameplay.

[Lyth]

I know that Yoshi-p stated that the devs balance jobs based on the 'difficulty of playing that particular job and its rotation, as well as its support actions and their effects' during his apology for the P8S job balance, but I don't actually believe that to be the case in practice. What's more likely the case is that jobs are currently balanced in a reactive fashion to player feedback, with SE trying to cater to perceived popular demand.

Job 'difficulty' has no fixed goalposts, because anyone can claim to find anything difficult. It also comes out in the wash when you balance for an encounter. If a job is 'intrinsically' harder to play, you would expect players to put out less DPS on it prior to rebalancing. Do you really believe that a 50th percentile PCT is more skilled than a top 1% MCH? If you're balancing around 'difficulty' alone, you just need DPS parity. Match 50th percentile with 50th percentile, and top 1% with top 1%. That's balancing for difficulty.

A more accurate statement is that job balance is dependent on uptime and burst potential. Melee and ranged is a classic example of this. In the extreme case, if you create a boss with a moat around it that you can't cross, tanks and melee have 0% uptime and do essentially no damage under all conditions. In contrast, if you have a target dummy with an arena-sized hitbox, there's no advantage to playing at range. This dependence on fight design means that you either design all the fights to be the latter case (which is terrible design and very unsatisfying for players), or you just accept a degree of DPS discrepancy across various fights and try to mitigate it in other ways (i.e. downtime actions or role locks).

The same is true for consistent damage and burst. In the extreme case, if you have a fight with alternating downtime intermissions and burst windows, consistent damage jobs fall massively behind on damage. In contrast, if you have a long duration target dummy fight with 100% uptime, there's less of an advantage to burst. You can't balance both of these cases simultaneously. So you do have to have jobs with consistent damage output do more damage under target dummy conditions, because they're going to tend to fall behind in the actual thing. You can also try to mitigate this difference in other ways, like resource-gated (or more accurately, 'uptime-gated') burst and caps on damage variance (guaranteed Crit/DH).

I think the end goal should be to give the closest level of DPS parity within the DPS category for as many fights as possible. There will be a degree of discrepancy that is always present due to fight design, because if you balance jobs based around target dummy conditions, some jobs will be consistently behind. So you do have to uptitrate the DPS in those cases, such that they push ahead under some conditions and fall behind on others. You'll know you've hit the correct balance when the same job isn't always on top.

I think the 'damage' vs. 'utility' side is probably harder to reach a consensus on. The primary function of a DPS job is to do damage. So you do have an obligation to independently balance DPS with DPS, and utility with utility. I know that there are some Physical Ranged players that like the traditional 'support-focused' aspect of the role previously. But we're also at a point where Magical Ranged offers simultaneously more utility and more DPS than Physical Ranged, which is a failure on both counts. It's a cross-roads, but something needs to change, or you'll eventually find that players don't want to play Physical Ranged anymore.

I'll also say that I don't think that walking casts will result in parity for Physical Ranged. The goalposts around 'difficulty' will just shift, and you'll be told that you're doing less damage because standing casts are 'harder' than walking casts (even when those 'standing' casts are actually instant). Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fresh idea and I'd love to see it implemented on some current or future jobs (not necessarily even just Physical Ranged), but I wouldn't pin your hopes on it instigating a change.

To overcome this situation, SE needs to take a stand, throw out community biases, and say that they want to give equivalent value to the Physical Ranged subrole. I also think this will be a catch-22 as long as Physical Ranged is in a different subrole category from Magical Ranged, simply because there's no incentive for actual balance if you've got a guaranteed slot, and there's no way to accurately detect the drop in interest in the role with role locks present.

[Reldhir]

Do you really believe that a 50th percentile PCT is more skilled than a top 1% MCH? If you're balancing around 'difficulty' alone, you just need DPS parity. Match 50th percentile with 50th percentile, and top 1% with top 1%. That's balancing for difficulty.

So, this comment is where I think this is where maybe there's a difference to how I see the phys ranged situation vs some peeps in this thread.

I think way back in the day the dev team intended all dps to be equal in contribution. This was way back in 2.0 when there were far fewer jobs and yoshi P made the comment about difficultly=increased output

Since then, we've gotten a ton more jobs and for (lol)balance's sake, a lot of the game has been simplified and shoehorned into categories.

I think the intent with this was so that rather than balancing across the entirety of the job roster, devs could balance between roles. Those roles being Tank, Healer, Melee, Magical and Physical ranged DPS. (whether or not this has been successful I think a lot of people think otherwise :P)

So, just like it's not a fair comparison to say a top 1% healer should do more damage than a 50% tank. MAYBE, it's not a fair comparison for phys ranged to be judged against melee, or caster. While the differences between a phys ranged and melee may not be as on the clear as tanking vs healing. I see them as different by way of how they function in a raid setting.

It only takes making a melee job do all the typical phys ranged mechanics in a raid to very quickly see that they're not built the same.

A fairer comparison in DPS might be between a phys ranged and a melee dps that has to do all the phys ranged mechanics. It is still possible! but you will very quickly see how much the melee takes a nose dive in DPS. between similarly skilled players phys ranged will come out on top every time.

They are not the same role.

You might then say well casters, how do casters fit into all this? The line is admittedly a lot blurrier especially with the advent of smn (and now picto), but I feel like those issues are fundamental oversights by the balance team rather than them being examples of why the view or balancing within roles is not the intention. However, for argument's sake having to cast vs not having to cast may have been the excuse for assigning different roles (admittedly a weak one).

Additionally, I do believe that there has been a huge push toward making the game more accessible to new players, in general and in raids. Phys ranged seems to have been allocated the entry point, the role with the lowest skill floor and lowered stakes. How much more comfortable are you taking a new phys ranged player with you into raid vs any of the other roles. And I don't mean you're a nice person and it doesn't matter, which role can you compensate for the easiest as a team?


There is an argument to be made for keeping an entry point role like this in raids to encourage inclusion of new players.

Finally, I will say again, I am not opposed to improvements people are asking for across what is being discussed, just offering another viewpoint that isn't simply gamedev bad. I mean they can still have all the best intentions and end up making a poor decision, but maybe its worth also discussing the intention as well as the result