Comments from the Devs

[Grey Jorildyn]

Yeah, story is great and it would be nice if people placed more stock in it, but gameplay and lore are far separated in mmo these days. Even in the quest based ones, what percentage of players really reads through every little detail. It's just click through and get your shopping list of crap to do for the expz.

I see your point and I like it too. I wish it were that way. I prefer roles to anything else, and I think if you can flesh out one class per roles, that's great, but variety is the spice of life. But we've got between-class balance and each class is trying to play one, two, or even three roles at once due to there not really being enough "DPS" abilities worth it to fill 64 AP, so you take one a second role that might be helpful.

I would love for there to be a tank that can really take hits and another that can evade and reduce damage. SE has trouble balancing that within-role stuff and spend a lot of time trying to balance between-classes and it just never works out.

[Hyan]

To be honest, they didn't even really try to balance the system. Its like every skill is a placeholder (everything costs 3AP?) and Yoshida went straight back to the drawing board back in december.

[Kensaki]

No they don't there's several 2 and 5 AP cost abilities.

[Hyan]

Yes, I remember seeing 4 AP too. But imo still very little fluctuation.

[Grey Jorildyn]

2 AP costs abilities are all mage ones and include cures, -na, and raise spells (the best two are class locked).
5 AP cost abilities are a bit stranger. A few are class locked and the rest either don't matter much or are kinda meh in their effects. Heck only Twisting Vice, Simian Thrash, and Pounce can be cross-classes it seems.

[Don Katsu]

Ya, no shit Sherlock. There's a thing called context.

Grey's arguement is that there should be certain things in the game. The same type of "should" (player feedback) that received a response from SE. Player feedback/ideas SAME context.

If we were all ok with "is" then we would still be spending 30 minutes crafting for one guildleve and dealing with Fatigue

[Katlan]

Yeah, story is great and it would be nice if people placed more stock in it, but gameplay and lore are far separated in mmo these days. Even in the quest based ones, what percentage of players really reads through every little detail. It's just click through and get your shopping list of crap to do for the expz..

Most mmo's that care about story are able to convey some scope of it through just doing quests w/o the need to read up on the quest dialogue. Rift, WoW, Aion are all examples of this. Though Aion was kinda iffy for the most part but it had it's moments. At least this applies to the "main" storylines of each zone or the overarching stuff you see throughout the game lore

[Gadritan]

Grey's arguement is that there should be certain things in the game.

Stop being so dense. That's not what we were discussing.

Go Shine in a Box or something. You pig rider.

[Spider-Dan]

I would love for there to be a tank that can really take hits and another that can evade and reduce damage. SE has trouble balancing that within-role stuff and spend a lot of time trying to balance between-classes and it just never works out.

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that (as opposed to the system where there are many unwanted classes) allowing different classes to tank, DD, heal, etc. in a very similar fashion is better than allowing them to do so in a markedly unique fashion (and subsequently, having a limited few classes becoming the preferred selection over the others).

Would it be nice if we could have a perfectly balanced game where all the unique butterflies are all equally valuable? Sure, but that's not going to happen, so the next best thing is to let all the classes borrow mostly everything from each other, and that way you can play the class you want (in the most basic sense) without being considered substandard.

Let's be honest, here... the vast majority of the playerbase are not really attached to the specific quirks of their class; they just want to be good (relative to the other classes). The number of DRGs who complained about AccBonusII, 2h buff, /SAM buff, and Drakesbane pushing DRG further along the cookie-cutter DD path (and further away from the wyvern support/enmity management path) was microscopic.

So I think the real "problem" with lack of uniqueness is the void people are feeling from not having a clear class hierarchy. It's the classic issue of the guy who doesn't care if he's homeless and living under a bridge, as long as there's someone else who is homeless and doesn't have a bridge to live under.

[Grey Jorildyn]

@Gadritan: your type of attitude is what is a detriment to this community. Treating people like that is just really disgusting imo, and I'm sure there are others reading who aren't speaking up. Try being a human being and not a complete asshole to people with an opinion.

@Spider-Dan: gotcha now. I think another one of the contributing reasons to lack of class uniqueness might also be the lack of abilities. I know that sounds crazy, but a ton of abilities are just plain useless, or in FFXI terms, situational. I know their current answer to the situation is to add jobs that have unique roles (theoretically), but that won't save the armory system methinks.

[Spider-Dan]

There's plenty of good abilities... you named off sixteen that are good for pretty much every DD and I'd say you even missed some (Feint, Shadowbind, Chameleon, Raise/Rez, SiphonTP).

[Grey Jorildyn]

Feint is good for awhile, but at higher levels it's pretty terrible for the TP cost. Until we see something like double attack or higher rates of attack, I can't see it making a big comeback. Shadowbind is good, but with the implementation of auto-attack, you can unbind the mob instantly which is just kinda lol. They might as well have locked that to Archer or ranged-only classes in the future. Chameleon is alright, I'm don't play DPS often (just gladiator) so admittedly I don't get a lot of experience with it. Raise/Res is a given right? But an elite group can do without it tbh. I like Siphon TP, but it's not always worth the cast time. I mean, the more abilities we add to the list, it just shows the lack of real class expression as all your classes approach 50.

[Thiefami]

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that (as opposed to the system where there are many unwanted classes) allowing different classes to tank, DD, heal, etc. in a very similar fashion is better than allowing them to do so in a markedly unique fashion (and subsequently, having a limited few classes becoming the preferred selection over the others).

Would it be nice if we could have a perfectly balanced game where all the unique butterflies are all equally valuable? Sure, but that's not going to happen, so the next best thing is to let all the classes borrow mostly everything from each other, and that way you can play the class you want (in the most basic sense) without being considered substandard.

Let's be honest, here... the vast majority of the playerbase are not really attached to the specific quirks of their class; they just want to be good (relative to the other classes). The number of DRGs who complained about AccBonusII, 2h buff, /SAM buff, and Drakesbane pushing DRG further along the cookie-cutter DD path (and further away from the wyvern support/enmity management path) was microscopic.

So I think the real "problem" with lack of uniqueness is the void people are feeling from not having a clear class hierarchy. It's the classic issue of the guy who doesn't care if he's homeless and living under a bridge, as long as there's someone else who is homeless and doesn't have a bridge to live under.

So what is the point for classes at all if you can just do everything?

Speak for yourself. I prefer a specialization. I don't mind if a smorgasbord playstyle, as long as they don't penalize the ones that prefer to commit to a class/job path, and be significantly better at it.

[Spider-Dan]

With the removal of the stamina bar, Shadowbind is just a 250TP WS (that has no trigger requirement) with a long-ish cooldown. Prior to 1.18, the primary drawback of Shadowbind was the 50% stamina bar cost.

Scouring Strike and Shrieker (which are both 500TP WS) also got a major incidental upgrade, for the same reason.

[Spider-Dan]

Speak for yourself. I prefer a specialization. I don't mind if a smorgasbord playstyle, as long as they don't penalize the ones that prefer to commit to a class/job path, and be significantly better at it.

In other words: the key is that your class is better than the other guy's class. I mean, why bother with specialization if you're just going to be equal, right?

This is my point. Argue all you want about lack of individuality, but the real primary mover here is that people want class hierarchy. And naturally, everyone presumes that their class will be on the top of this new hierarchy (or, alternatively, they are just frontrunners and plan to switch to whichever class wins the lottery).

[Hiruke]

In other words: the key is that your class is better than the other guy's class. I mean, why bother with specialization if you're just going to be equal, right?

This is my point. Argue all you want about lack of individuality, but the real primary mover here is that people want class hierarchy. And naturally, everyone presumes that their class will be on the top of this new hierarchy (or, alternatively, they are just frontrunners and plan to switch to whichever class wins the lottery).

Or maybe that people don't want to rank up 2-7 classes (possibly all the way to 50) just so they can equip the optimum skill set for 1 class? Seems likely, considering how many people cried about leveling up subjobs in 11, which was significantly easier than what we're talking about now.

[Spider-Dan]

Or maybe that people don't want to rank up 2-7 classes (possibly all the way to 50) just so they can equip the optimum skill set for 1 class? Seems likely, considering how many people cried about leveling up subjobs in 11, which was significantly easier than what we're talking about now.

So your solution to having to level up many different classes is... to completely remove that option and create class tiers instead?

Look, if you just want to be a "specialist" and not level up multiple classes, you can do that today. But no one would want to, because that would be inferior to someone who obtains the best of all classes.

Right now, the specialists in this game are the people who go out and get the high-end abilities from each class; in essence, the players who put in the most work are the players who have the best abilities and options. I think that system is far better than a system where certain classes simply win at the character creation/job change/equipment menus.

[Lucavi]

I'd agree, if it didn't simply come down to my main point: ranged DPS vs. non-ranged DPS. No matter how many abilities a close-range DPS stacks up, they aren't going to be as desired as an archer right now. You fix the overlying and underlying problems with the game, and then I think your words will have a bit more "umph" to them, SD.

[Spider-Dan]

Ranged vs. non-ranged has strictly to do with mob/specific-battle design, not class design. It's outside of the scope of specialist vs. multiclass.

[Thiefami]

In other words: the key is that your class is better than the other guy's class. I mean, why bother with specialization if you're just going to be equal, right?

This is my point. Argue all you want about lack of individuality, but the real primary mover here is that people want class hierarchy. And naturally, everyone presumes that their class will be on the top of this new hierarchy (or, alternatively, they are just frontrunners and plan to switch to whichever class wins the lottery).

How do you determine equality? A redmage can function as a healer on xi, outlast most mages, but just doesn't have the same exact potentials as a whitemage. Does that make a redmage inferior or unequal? In healing capability, yes, in other fields no. It is a point that flavorless game, is flavorless. You want equality - I never once said anything about equality in that sense. I have no issues committing to a class path. I don't feel the desire to do everything just as good as absolutely any class on the game. That makes for a very boring playstyle, especially in a game that pretty much caters already to switching jobs/classes. You have that, but you can't be everything at one time.