Quote Originally Posted by Carighan View Post
No it is actually nearly exactly that.

Just like in WoW, we expect balance between various jobs (=specs) of the same role (=class) here. We can swap between them out of combat, some trade damage or tanking or healing output for some other utility, but overall we expect a rather balanced outcome. Really the only big differences are a) You need to level specs one-by-one here and b) You get very few shared abilities between jobs of one role (compared to specs of one class).

Why shouldn't we compare things that mechanically work the same or highly-similar to other games? Use available data, other games worked these approaches before, we can look at what did and did not work for them.
The main point of specs in ANY system that has it is to allow a player a customized experience with a standardized loadout. That's what spec means: specialization. Ffxiv's job system is the standardized loadout without customization options, otherwise known as not having spec options.

To suggest its our version of "spec" options is obsurd. It's basically the opposite: you get your kit. You have no further choices with your kit. It's like saying League of Legend champions themselves are different specs. It's just ignorance on how the entire system works in the context of mmos and games in general.