Tank Roles, DPS Roles, Healer Roles... No Support Roles?

[NintenPyjak64]

Good luck finding a bard that will sing and reduce their damage by a massive amount in a DF party.

Regardless, to answer the OP- A support job isn't casual. So Yoshi didn't want it. Support is sorta spread out between all classes.

As true as it may be, these people would also be idiots to not use thier songs. I would kick them if I ever ran out of MP once just because they wanted to do more DPS (If I had the power to... but of course you can't in DF parties...)

[Septimus]

Looking at FFXI, every party wanted a support job but few people wanted to play them. The long and short of it is that pure support jobs are fairly boring, tedious, and thankless to play for extended periods of time.

[rzr22]

Looking at FFXI, every party wanted a support job but few people wanted to play them. The long and short of it is that pure support jobs are fairly boring, tedious, and thankless to play for extended periods of time.

I must not have been playing the same game. BRD is one of the most active and fun jobs I ever played in any MMO ever.

[Urthdigger]

Pure support jobs are a NIGHTMARE balancewise, because you typically wind up with one of two situations. The first issue, which mostly crops up with debuffs, is that they're pretty much useless. Either too many things resist their status heavily (Or are outright immune) or their effects are small enough that just adding in another DD would be preferred.

The other example is what we saw happen in FFXI, where they're so powerful that nobody will want to do anything without them. Usually this is a case of buffs that increase damage (Since faster kills is generally preferred more than being invincible), but it can also be the case with downright broken debuffs. While it's possible to play without these debuffers, because they make all the party members so much better, it's considered not worth it to do an event without them.

Anyway, in FFXIV it seems what they've done instead is spread debuffs out across many jobs. You've got Virus from arcanist, slow from Lancer (via feint), as well as a wide variety of poisons you can use as items to inflict debuffs on a monster. Plus most DoW have their own self-buffs, and CNJ comes with party buffs of it's own. By spreading the support out, it's easier to balance without ruining a class. They can keep the buffs to an extent where they're useful, but not REQUIRED (Nobody would take a buffer class if the buffs were only "ok" rather than "essential"), while the class can do their main role in addition to their buffs.

[Citizen_Thom]

In my opinion, DRG is something of a support role DD.

[Duelle]

No seriously - why no support roles?

Short Answer: They don't fit in a modern MMORPG and good riddance.

Long Answer: Debuffing and buffing are tertiary class aspects, and modern MMO design blends them into tank/heals/DPS for the sake of giving parties the tools they need in terms of cooldowns and CC while giving the aforementioned 3 roles depth in gameplay and performance. Building classes around tertiary aspects leads to classes that are in high demand but are not popular to play, creating a situation where one or two classes can hold an entire raid hostage. They also lead to infamous bait and switch scenarios, as hybrids tended to get the short end of the stick by being used for "support" in late/end-game, screwing over all those who liked the hybrid concept or aesthetic of the class in question.

[Tanoshii]

Did you really say that a support role is the most important role and that tanking/healing/dpsing are secondary to it? Good lord.

As everybody else stated, playing support tends to be a thankless job and games have a hard time getting people to play them without it being tied to a different role.

[Asiaine]

Forget 'Modern MMORPG' (aka: what everyone else is doing). This is not 'New MMORPG 2.0' this is 'Final Fantasy'. And one of the hallmarks of all Final Fantasy games is some sort of support role. Even their latest console games still have support roles. Therefore, for this to still deserve the title of Final Fantasy, they need to retain their support roles.

But because they need to simplify things for people, they may disguise the 'support' role as a 'DPS' or 'Healing' role (people who complain about text in an RPG can't handle more than 3 types of options ; .

So one day we may find RDM, Synergist, Dancer, whatever, in the future, but disguised and tweaked a bit to push them into one of those categories.

(Maybe one day I can be an RDM again and poke things with my sword!)

[Duelle]

And one of the hallmarks of all Final Fantasy games is some sort of support role. Even their latest console games still have support roles. Therefore, for this to still deserve the title of Final Fantasy, they need to retain their support roles.

For this to still deserve the title Final Fantasy it has to have Final Fantasy written on the name. Close-minded fanboys will wank to pictures of chocobo and airships while saying any game not showing them off ad nauseum is not worthy of the title, but that's the truth of it.

Your nonsensical "different for the sake of being different" thing aside, console games do not need the trinity because tank roles don't really exist in them, and everyone is either DPS or some variation of DPS with a gimmick or three, barring the mandatory healer. This is why FFXI's class and role distribution was so lopsided: they were using an approach that only works for single-player console RPGs.

But because they need to simplify things for people, they may disguise the 'support' role as a 'DPS' or 'Healing' role (people who complain about text in an RPG can't handle more than 3 types of options.

Rather than simplification, it's more the fact that like with every concept that gets adapted from one genre to another, some parts of the concept will work as they are, others are altered to fit the new genre while others will get dropped entirely. "Support" is literally the 5th wheel in this case and as such was blended into the trinity.

PS: Your claim of BRD being disguised as DPS would have merit if BRD was just slightly above PLD in DPS while trailing FAR behind everyone else. Turns out BRD is up there with the best of them, hence their being a DPS with group cooldowns like a WoW enhancement shaman.

[Asiaine]

....

Without the traditional concepts of 'Crystals', 'Jobs', 'Chocobos', 'Magic', it is hard to live up to the Final Fantasy franchise... It may well be a great game, a better game, but it will be missing the elements that one expects in a game labeled Final Fantasy. Much like one would expect the next 'Star Wars' game to feature space, and ships. If it featured only Cars and a cooking simulator, people would be woefully disappointed.

And he specifically stated he wants to keep the elements and essence of Final Fantasy alive (which is why its so Final Fantasyish if you look at it). So it is quite reasonable to expect support like roles in the future.

Me, I'm looking forward to the 'Supportish' role of RDM returning, hopefully as a DPS, which can do both attacks and support the party!