Comments from the Devs

[Hyan]

It's the freedom which is the real...'problem'.

There are always likeminded people for anyone to play with. If you can't accept that you can't be a part of ThoseGuys and main a PUP at the same time, tough shit. You join a shell which let's you do that. They may not be the best, but neither is your job.

[tol]

NO, im a special snowflake

[Spider-Dan]

Until SE ever adopts bring the player, not the class this will always be a problem with the general playerbase. The content is and has always BEEN doable with a plethora of setups using whatever DD's you want but its the playerbase that will always find the superior setup thats the most faceroll because all classes aren't close to equal, its been a staple problem with them for almost a decade in XI and continues in XIV.

The reason why it's a "problem" in XIV (other than ranged vs. melee dynamic, which can be resolved in many ways) is because the playerbase specifically complained about every class being able to do (nearly) everything; i.e. "there's not enough class uniqueness. And so we are getting jobs, where everything will become MORE specialized and we head MORE to class tiers.

This is no different than all of the whiners who screamed at SE for years, "Why don't you just make the bad jobs better instead of nerfing the good ones?" and then, when SE followed their request to the letter with the original 2h buff, quickly deluged all forums with their salty tears.

You (plural) want more class individuality? You're about to get it. Don't bitch when you do.

[Priran]

It's the freedom which is the real...'problem'.

It's suggestions like this that are the real problem. You're not the only one making them, but at least there's a sociological justification for people who are, for example, pissed that not everyone will have to put up with the same bullshit crafting system they did. You just seem like some Amish kid who gets fucking jacked to churn butter when the rest of us have gameboys.

Why don't you go play Darkfall or one of those other MMOs developed and solely populated by the dozen or so other MMO players whose sense of what is fun is so irreconcilably alien to anyone with a working definition of the word "game"?

[Grey Jorildyn]

That, and it helps nullify pooptastic players.

While I agree with this, I would say this is a bit lower down on the list than "Doesn't allow people to just play the class they really want."

[Magi]

The reason why it's a "problem" in XIV (other than ranged vs. melee dynamic, which can be resolved in many ways) is because the playerbase specifically complained about every class being able to do (nearly) everything; i.e. "there's not enough class uniqueness. And so we are getting jobs, where everything will become MORE specialized and we head MORE to class tiers.

This is no different than all of the whiners who screamed at SE for years, "Why don't you just make the bad jobs better instead of nerfing the good ones?" and then, when SE followed their request to the letter with the original 2h buff, quickly deluged all forums with their salty tears.

You (plural) want more class individuality? You're about to get it. Don't bitch when you do.

Why are you suggesting that having classes play differently from each other automatically means the balance between them becomes worse? It IS possible to have classes play differently and be well balanced, but there's a catch: the developers actually have to TRY AND BALANCE THEM. Not 'fix' the balance issues by having every class play exactly alike. They didn't DO anything to create decent balance initially because they took the laziest and cheapest way out by making them all the same with tiny slight differences.

Being lazy and cheap is what they did in XI because they could get away with it and in this failing MMO people are suggesting that being lazy and cheap is still the way to go? We have people who are saying SE doesn't need to try like all the other MMOs out there when it comes to class balance? MMOs that have classes more varied and unique than anything found in XIV AND with better balance!? How is that possible?? It's called effort, but you are apparently telling SE that they don't need to bother with that? That everything is fine because being able to change classes freely in the field solves any pesky balance problems? That instead of being able to change classes at a whim being seen as a positive, unique gameplay element in FFXIV, it's mainly viewed as a bandaid to fix glaring balance issues because half the cast of classes are basically useless? This is how SE makes a competitive game in the MMO space? I had it all wrong, I assumed time, effort and money had to go into making these things a success, but apparently not.

It doesn't matter that having classes play wildly differently from each other makes balancing them harder. That just means SE has to put in a little more effort. Damn people for wanting SE to put in more effort into that specific aspect of the game, damn them I say!

[Hyan]

It's suggestions like this that are the real problem. You're not the only one making them, but at least there's a sociological justification for people who are, for example, pissed that not everyone will have to put up with the same bullshit crafting system they did. You just seem like some Amish kid who gets fucking jacked to churn butter when the rest of us have gameboys.

Why don't you go play Darkfall or one of those other MMOs developed and solely populated by the dozen or so other MMO players whose sense of what is fun is so irreconcilably alien to anyone with a working definition of the word "game"?

It's fantastic that you could further develop your false perception of me by analyzing the words in that quote. There's no other way but for me to be an extremist that only likes totally sandbox MMO's with no developer control whatsoever and absolute freedom. You read me like a chimpanzee reads an open book. You also manage to make as much noise, unsurprisingly.

[Spider-Dan]

Why are you suggesting that having classes play differently from each other automatically means the balance between them becomes worse? It IS possible to have classes play differently and be well balanced, but there's a catch: the developers actually have to TRY AND BALANCE THEM.

It's a lot easier to balance classes when your gameplay system is not designed around letting them have abilities from other classes (which, incidentally, also "reduces uniqueness").

They didn't DO anything to create decent balance initially because they took the laziest and cheapest way out by making them all the same with tiny slight differences.

Please explain how a MRD (with only MRD abilities) is "the same" as a LNC (with only LNC abilities).

The only reason anyone would make that ridiculous claim is because, after you mix and match the best abilities from all classes, the differences are largely eliminated. So SE has two options:

1) balance the classes' native abilities against other classes' native abilities (which is a waste of time if the overwhelming majority of abilities can be cross-classed)
2) enact more restrictions on the cross-classing of abilities

And here we are.

It's called effort, but you are apparently telling SE that they don't need to bother with that? That everything is fine because being able to change classes freely in the field solves any pesky balance problems? That instead of being able to change classes at a whim being seen as a positive, unique gameplay element in FFXIV, it's mainly viewed as a bandaid to fix glaring balance issues because half the cast of classes are basically useless?

I like how immediately after claiming that the classes are all the same, your next move is to insist that half of them are useless. Which one is it?

[Celeras]

Nupe. It's just as fast, if not faster. There's absolutely no increase in risk either.

There's several factors you're not taking into consideration that greatly affect the overall damage dealt, including damage mitigation.

Edit: Btw, the Ouryu fight itself is so vastly different it's retarded to use it as an analogy.

tl;dr - Suck less.

You're an idiot if you actually feel that way. Archers do so much more damage then the other melee classes, it's not even close. I really don't think anybody is trying to say its impossible to do the fights without them, just that it's less than ideal.

Seriously, there's no way its 'as fast or faster'. That's a pretty asinine statement to make in front of people that actually have played the dungeon. Save that shit for PMs with Hyan and Lucavi while they argue about fundamental principles to MMOs.

[Priran]

It's fantastic that you could further develop your false perception of me by analyzing the words in that quote. There's no other way but for me to be an extremist that only likes totally sandbox MMO's with no developer control whatsoever and absolute freedom. You read me like a chimpanzee reads an open book. You also manage to make as much noise, unsurprisingly.

lol wut

Me mocking your assertion that freedom in a game is bad tells you that I think you only enjoy sandbox games? That's almost as divorced from reality as your concept of what human beings find fun.

[Lordender]

You're an idiot if you actually feel that way. Archers do so much more damage then the other melee classes, it's not even close. I really don't think anybody is trying to say its impossible to do the fights without them, just that it's less than ideal.

Thats what i'm trying to get at, no one is going to do anything that is less than ideal when it comes to XIV, its almost like me trying to say we need to find a magic staggerer for abyssea and only finding a BLM and SCH are seeking with 1 slot available, who do you think i'm gonna pick?

Sure other melee's can deal damage and the content can be done by other setups but why do it in less than ideal situations? ARC do so much more damage than every other melee DD, you can be out of range, 99 out of 100 times i'm going to take the "easy route" instead of praying that x or y melee is going to be smart enough to move out of the dangerous tp attacks or position themselves correctly to avoid damage.

You get more damage, + you get to avoid tp mechanic's with ranged DD, this is why the "Balance around the tp system" is fail and the reason why players are going to latch on specific setups just like everyone did in XI, continues to do in XI.

So the issue is, I need to invite some DD to run content, do I take a chance with a melee who might or might not be smart enough to move or position themselves correctly, or do I take a ranged DD where I don't even have to worry about it at all plus get better damage potential.

[Hyan]

Me mocking your assertion that freedom in a game is bad tells you that I think you only enjoy sandbox games?

Lol, wow.

I did not say freedom in a game is bad. I stated what people's perception of freedom is (even though they can rarely pinpoint it). And to separate myself from these people, I said it in a not-so-serious manner with '' and shit. And I even further contradicted the statement in my second paragraph, to show that this...'problem', as they say, is not really that much of a problem since the freedom to play with likeminded people exists, removing the negative aspects entirely.

Especially since Darkfall was mentioned (which is frankly closer to EVE than WoW) don't blame me for thinking what I did. Not to mention the fact that less freedom allows devs to create better gameplay scenarios (less variables to control).

Thats what i'm trying to get at, no one is going to do anything that is less than ideal when it comes to XIV

People did so in XI and will do so here. If for nothing else, there will be people who want to do all the shit with their less than ideal jobs and those people will find and play with themselves.

Archer issue is so easy to fix I wonder why it is still even mentioned. If there is no primarily ranged DD, there is no problem to be had. And archer already has another role set for it that doesn't conflict with any other role unless plans change drastically.

[Corrderio]

It's a lot easier to balance classes when your gameplay system is not designed around letting them have abilities from other classes (which, incidentally, also "reduces uniqueness").

This is another issue that needs to be taken into consideration. I don't mind the freedom of being able to mix and match abilities from other classes, but it needs more restrictions, such as:

1. Double the cost of actions from other classes.
2. Make higher tiers exclusive to that class.
3. Weaponskills can only be used on the class that unlocks them.
4. Reshuffle actions. (Give GLA the Defender abilities, and in exchange give Still Precision to MRD, etc.)

With something like this a class would have to rely on their own abilities, but at the same time allow some customization.

[Toth]

Can this game please get RERAISE. Please....Especially since you added durability down with every cheap imp death.

[Magi]

It's a lot easier to balance classes when your gameplay system is not designed around letting them have abilities from other classes (which, incidentally, also "reduces uniqueness").

I agree. Then why did you say this?

And so we are getting jobs, where everything will become MORE specialized and we head MORE to class tiers.

This is making it sound like the opposite of what you just said, that somehow the more specialised jobs will definitely lead to more imbalance. I guess that would be true if you expected SE to sit on their ass and not attempt to balance the jobs, but I am of the hopes that they will.

I don't care about classes when they're going to become solo focused, I'm only interested in jobs. The issue I have with your post is you're saying people who want diversity in their MMO classes should somehow expect more imbalance as a trade off and that the best way to fix that is not demand SE puts in more effort into balancing but instead make those classes (jobs) less unique. I don't agree. If that isn't what you were saying I misread your post completely.

Please explain how a MRD (with only MRD abilities) is "the same" as a LNC (with only LNC abilities).

You know how the 500 TP weaponskills were the best weaponskills to use for damage, and that MRDs was the best simply because it did extra DoT damage? This is the type of stuff I'm talking about. Everyone has a bunch of weaponskills that are copy and pasted with slightly different properties. LNCs 500 TP move does the same damage as MRDs but adds a heavy status effect instead of damage over time. That isn't different enough. And from what I remember aside from the level 50ish weaponskills that are class specific (that may or may not do extremely similar damage to each other also?) they're all the exact same thing just a little bit different (blunt instead of piercing, increased damage versus plants instead of birds etc.). Having identical weaponskills but slightly different added effects onto them isn't creative or unique, I expect better from my RPGs. Let's not even get into the fact that these generic weaponskills often have a second version also, but hey some of them attack from above instead of below, amazing!

When it comes to abilities like "Increases parry rate, ends after parrying" which then allows you to do a 250 TP weaponskill only after parrying, it sounds a bit like the two abilities PUG also gets, funny. The LNC attack buff sure sounds a hell of a lot like the attack buff ARC gets, and so on. There are a few unique abilities for each class, but the amount of generic crap everyone else gets but with slight differences (that I view as mostly irrelevant, you may view differently) drowns those out. You might think sticking class only abilities on and not mixing and matching makes classes play entirely different to each other, but I'm not seeing it at all. I expect more. I want all those crappy abilities that are copy pasted with slight differences remade into something entirely different and unique. That isn't going to happen for classes, but I'm hoping for jobs to achieve this.

I just spent that time detailing why the classes are too similar to each other for my tastes, but like I said I don't care about classes that are going to become solo focused. I do want jobs to be far more unique when compared to each other and the problem I had was you saying the issue was people wanting uniqueness instead of the issue being, simply, SE sucks at balancing their game. The blame lies with them, not people wanting diversity. The answer isn't to make classes less unique so SE has to work less hard to balance them. That's my view.

The only reason anyone would make that ridiculous claim is because, after you mix and match the best abilities from all classes, the differences are largely eliminated. So SE has two options:

1) balance the classes' native abilities against other classes' native abilities (which is a waste of time if the overwhelming majority of abilities can be cross-classed)
2) enact more restrictions on the cross-classing of abilities

And here we are.

I agree with this. The damage has been done for classes and I don't care how they adjust them from here on. I should have made it clearer that I was talking about balance and uniqueness specifically regarding jobs and not classes. Being excluded from raids and whatnot isn't going to be an issue for classes in the near future because they won't be designed for them, but it might be an issue for jobs.

I like how immediately after claiming that the classes are all the same, your next move is to insist that half of them are useless. Which one is it?

I claimed that all classes were initially designed extremely similar in an effort to be lazy and not have to bother with balancing classes. When I said half of them are useless I'm talking about if the game continues in the path of SE not giving a damn about balancing their game. But seeing as how the endgame dungeon supposedly is "level ARC or a mage or don't come" right now, I guess half of them being useless is kinda accurate for that one instance.

That problem is ranged vs melee like you said. I view that issue as poor dungeon design where being at a distance gives those classes a distinct advantage that isn't as prevelant in other areas of the game. The classes still are extremely similar to each other, the only difference is that ARCs and mages are fighting at a distance while the others aren't and the monsters inside that dungeon are better suited to damaging players up close rather than afar. So yes, the classes are essentially all the same and yet still half of them are useless because of one key difference. How they fix that, I don't know or care, it's completely seperate to that fact that all the classes have so many copy and pasted abilities on them making them not very unique when compared to each other.

[Gadritan]

You're an idiot if you actually feel that way.

The classic circular argument rears its head again...This is the super-secret method that BG uses to troll millions of scrubs...

...I'm the idiot?

Like LE said, players are always going to go with the path of least resistance. It's up to the devs to balance it to allow various classes to stand on equal ground in events.

[Spider-Dan]

This is making it sound like the opposite of what you just said, that somehow the more specialised jobs will definitely lead to more imbalance.

Um, yes. When everyone can do everything, the classes are balanced almost by definition. When jobs come out, and some of them get things that others cannot access, it will make some jobs/classes better than others, which will increase uniqueness.

The issue I have with your post is you're saying people who want diversity in their MMO classes should somehow expect more imbalance as a trade off and that the best way to fix that is not demand SE puts in more effort into balancing but instead make those classes (jobs) less unique.

Yes. Or, worded another way: in a game where classes have an extreme amount of freedom to use abilities from other classes, you cannot effectively balance class vs. class without enacting severe restrictions on that freedom. (This is why, as XI progressed, you started to see more and more job-balancing abilities like Yonin/Innin and Afflatus being made expressly unavailable to subjobs, originally by level requirement and later by simple fiat.)

The moral of the story is that the more freedom you have, the more YOU are expected to use that freedom to balance your own character. XIV players interpret this freedom as a problem that needs to be corrected.

You know how the 500 TP weaponskills were the best weaponskills to use for damage, and that MRDs was the best simply because it did extra DoT damage? This is the type of stuff I'm talking about. Everyone has a bunch of weaponskills that are copy and pasted with slightly different properties.

When it comes to abilities like "Increases parry rate, ends after parrying" which then allows you to do a 250 TP weaponskill only after parrying, it sounds a bit like the two abilities PUG also gets, funny. The LNC attack buff sure sounds a hell of a lot like the attack buff ARC gets, and so on.

So in other words, LNC and MRD have some moves that are similar, but then MRD has some moves that are similar to what PGL has (but nothing like what LNC has), and LNC has some moves that are similar to what ARC has (but nothing like what MRD has), and hey, MRD also has some other moves that are similar to what GLA has (but nothing like the other three).

So yeah, if you look at all the classes combined, I guess the classes all have something that's similar to another class? Except for, you know, the stuff that isn't, like Multishot or Speed Surge or Light Strike or Disorient or Twisting Vice or Bloodletter or Accomplice.

Generally speaking, for damage-dealing classes, all of their abilities will be some variation on "deals damage" or "increases your ability to deal damage." I'm not sure exactly what you are expecting, here.

I claimed that all classes were initially designed extremely similar in an effort to be lazy and not have to bother with balancing classes. When I said half of them are useless I'm talking about if the game continues in the path of SE not giving a damn about balancing their game.

Or, if SE continues to release exactly one endgame event at a time, and all of those events have a boss that permits ranged and discourages melee.

If you'd like to explain how half the classes in the game are useless everywhere that is NOT Dzemael Darkhold, I'm all ears.

[Lucavi]

You're an idiot if you actually feel that way. Archers do so much more damage then the other melee classes, it's not even close. I really don't think anybody is trying to say its impossible to do the fights without them, just that it's less than ideal.

Seriously, there's no way its 'as fast or faster'. That's a pretty asinine statement to make in front of people that actually have played the dungeon. Save that shit for PMs with Hyan and Lucavi while they argue about fundamental principles to MMOs.

Yea boi'. You did realize that it was a troll, right? Aside from that; you did realize it was an absolutely correct statement about XI and XIV players, right?

SE could have provided "balance" to unique jobs, but they chose to instead build the game around balances after decreeing that it was far less work to do so (either that or they simply loved imbalances like utsu and chainspell stun) than to actually maintain a decent patching/balancing/updating rotation.

Granted, one could simply throw out the "it was a different era - nobody patched and balanced frequently back then", and one would be inclined to agree. One would also be inclined to agree, however, that nobody made billions in revenue back then, either, unlike a certain game that modernized the era of "patch it constantly, even if it results in a merry-go-round of a different class being top dog - at least every player will be happy for at least a little while, instead of some players always happy and most players never happy".

SE chose to once again cater to the old days with XIV, either through laziness, stubbornness or sheer stupidity, and go figure that they reap the rewards of their choices with a floundering game.

[Spider-Dan]

If you really think that the reason for XIV's lack of success is the balance, you're delusional.

[Hyan]

And even now, only one company makes billions of revenue. The rest more or less struggle to even stay afloat, even while using the exact same tactics. How much weight should be put onto this freak of nature when pondering what to do next with our own MMO, is debatable. Indicating that lack of balance acts is the culprit here is seriously stretching it, as Dan said.

I can only repeat so many times that MMO's are by their very nature, rather shitty games. You can try to change that, but when you go far enough the game stops being an MMO altogether. So why take it to such extremes? To please, who exactly? The gaming Gods who have determined that Tales of-series has superior gameplay over Final Fantasy (yet the latter outsells the former by a wide margin for having appealing non-gameplay related aspects)? And your MMO still won't be a Bayonetta that is now diamonds (the game that didn't even sell that well for the status it has in the gaming community. Oh, and Vanquish which pretty much flopped financially). There will be the 'obvious' shitty parts, like the actual leveling process made with the lowest common denominator in mind. The open world with less stellar gameplay aspects. The grind, no matter how much you try to avoid it, will be there. And it all has to last for as long as possible, in best case years. Bunch of 'trash' to kill to get to the parts that are quoted in 'this vs that MMO' debates (its great ammunition, I give you that much), but don't amount to much with all the shit you have to go through in the game that also looks like crap most of the time, both technically and too often artistically.

Most people don't need complex gameplay and truly challenging encounters to be entertained. And those who do picked the wrong genre.