Comments from the Devs

[Takiwaki]

I do not think we will ever get away from specified classes being lone healer since Final Fantasy thrives on Job = Role. If for some miracle this is changed where Jobs are allowed to take on multiple roles by using a different skill build out and gear sets, it would be a totally different story. But as it stands WHM = Healer, I really do not see the dynamic changing much. The direction they would take would be having enough jobs as healers, tanks and dds, and having each job that shares a particular role actually play differently than the other, and having some benefit for having that particular job in the party that the others cant give. This will give each a fair chance.

[Spider-Dan]

Regardless of how you want to parse "you don't need to party with anyone for anything, ever," the plain and simple fact is that in ARR, you will be required to party for MANY things. XIV is still going to be a party-oriented game, and if you're planning on judging the game on whether or not melee classes can heal themselves just as well as a dedicated healer could, you should save yourself some disappointment and write the game off now.

I am talking about solutions in the context of a game that is still party-oriented. If you want to talk about different solutions in the context of a game where "you don't need to party with anyone for anything, ever," then feel free... but that game is not, and will not be, XIV, old or new.

[Lucavi]

Regardless of how you want to parse "you don't need to party with anyone for anything, ever," the plain and simple fact is that in ARR, you will be required to party for MANY things. XIV is still going to be a party-oriented game, and if you're planning on judging the game on whether or not melee classes can heal themselves just as well as a dedicated healer could, you should save yourself some disappointment and write the game off now.

I am talking about solutions in the context of a game that is still party-oriented. If you want to talk about different solutions in the context of a game where "you don't need to party with anyone for anything, ever," then feel free... but that game is not, and will not be, XIV, old or new.

Nobody said or even asked for every class to be able to do everything themselves; that's not the issue, or even close to it. Why you even chose now to bring up a previous comment (pages ago, really) about GW2's party system is a mystery to me. Nevertheless, the issue is healing in an entire game consisting of nothing but various tiers of "cure" and "cura", and thus, all non-whms being given a shitty version of either of the two spells to constitute the entire game's healing dynamic. I brought up many examples of party-centric games that still have FAR more of a variation of healing than 1.0's abomination of the tank/healer/dps paradigm, as well as a myriad of different examples of how to actually heal in the game in order to keep the concept of healing others fresh, and thus, keep an active amount of healers available in a game that will undoubtedly focus on party play at its highest levels. To say anymore would be breaking NDA, so I will not.

Regardless of how much parties are required within various areas of the game, its completely laughable - and will not be accepted by the non-white knight community that SE so desperately needs to accept - to have nothing but a variation of the standard "cure = one target / cura = le party" in a modern MMO. You're free to disagree if you'd like, but once again, I ask that you save my aforementioned quote, just in case my fear comes true in the future.

Your head will be one of the first to be bludgeoned in with all manner of "I fucking told you so, goddammit!" rage posts.

[Takiwaki]

I do not think that there is an issue with the party mechanic at all either, the issue lies in the actual archaic mechanics of every Job relying on MP,TP and Abilites tied to its FF single player origins. This is causing it to be very restricting, when it comes to party mechanics and battle, when sooo much more is possible. I just hope Yoshi takes a chance and steps outside of the box.

[Lucavi]

I kind of disagree; I don't mind healing and attacks being tied to TP and MP. SE just has to do work making more ways to heal! Instead of cure costing 8MP or whatever and being a direct heal, include another type of heal that costs 12MP and heals in player-set area. For a melee job that has a supplimental heal, make it run on TP and give it a secondary modifier that the melee job has a lot of, like, once again, a Samurai having the Murasame AOE heal from FFT, and just set the Primary and Secondary stat modifiers as MND and STR. Remove the secondary modifier if another class uses the ability, or simply make it Samurai-only.

I can see some, but not many issues related to TP/MP. The biggest issue I see is ardent anti-change traditionalists that want to see Thf have nothing but steal and sneak attack and whm have nothing but Cure and Cura. We've been there, we've done that, and its not going to sell enough to keep the game running because its not innovative or different enough.

You don't have to copy WoW or Rift or even TERA or GW2 to be known as a "modern" MMO. You just have to stop doing the same old shit you've been doing for the last 25 years and ONLY the same old shit you've been doing for the last 25 years. They've got this part down pat in some areas, but need a lot of work in other areas.

[Takiwaki]

I kind of disagree; I don't mind healing and attacks being tied to TP and MP. SE just has to do work making more ways to heal! Instead of cure costing 8MP or whatever and being a direct heal, include another type of heal that costs 12MP and heals in player-set area. For a melee job that has a supplimental heal, make it run on TP and give it a secondary modifier that the melee job has a lot of, like, once again, a Samurai having the Murasame AOE heal from FFT, and just set the Primary and Secondary stat modifiers as MND and STR. Remove the secondary modifier if another class uses the ability, or simply make it Samurai-only.

I can see some, but not many issues related to TP/MP. The biggest issue I see is ardent anti-change traditionalists that want to see Thf have nothing but steal and sneak attack and whm have nothing but Cure and Cura. We've been there, we've done that, and its not going to sell enough to keep the game running because its not innovative or different enough.

You don't have to copy WoW or Rift or even TERA or GW2 to be known as a "modern" MMO. You just have to stop doing the same old shit you've been doing for the last 25 years and ONLY the same old shit you've been doing for the last 25 years. They've got this part down pat in some areas, but need a lot of work in other areas.

The issue with having all Jobs using the same resources makes every job basically play the same and easily allows for jobs to easily outclass and replace others, which happens all the time. TP MP is fine, yes If they add a second major mechanic specific to each job to make them stand on their own. Otherwise a DD will always just be a DD that can be replaced at any point with another. I would love for instance a party say you have a monk? cool MNK can do this or that we can manage, not oh we rather have a dragoon, cus well its just a better DD for this particular fight. I should have said TP/MP being the only main resource for every job, it also restricts what can be done with battle mechanics also. Not arguing with you, as I do agree with everything you said, I just think there is more to it.

[Charismatic]

Lucavi, I sure as hell hope you're having similar discussions on official Square forums and such...

[Takiwaki]

Lucavi, I sure as hell hope you're having similar discussions on official Square forums and such...

The battle system thread is quite interesting lol, thing is, my only concern for the game atm is the battle system. I am 100% certain graphically and technically the game will be outstanding, I just worry the gameplay will not match.

[Lordender]

We should just call tp = Stamina now, imo.

[Charismatic]

We should just call tp = Stamina now, imo.

Honestly, I have a problem with the name 'TP' simply because it isn't actually used for anything but weaponskills. Not that stamina would be any better/different and it is a minor gripe but...
I've never liked that; if we want to call these "tactical points" shouldn't there be some other ways they can be used? I'd certainly love to see that. Not only other ways they can be used but also other ways they can be gained with those ways different per class/job to lend a little spice to its playstyle.

[miokomioko]

Isn't it a hybrid of the two now?

[Enygma55]

Tp regens at a fixed rate so its pretty much just like stamina.

[Lucavi]

Lucavi, I sure as hell hope you're having similar discussions on official Square forums and such...

Why's that? Do you think I'm making good or bad posts in regards to these issues?

And yeah, TP is essentially stamina, with all (known?) attacks operating under the same global cooldown. I'm sure that its subject to change, though. I wouldn't be surprised if Beta had a tweaked system.

I'm already excited for Beta. I've made a few routine posts on the Alpha forums, but Beta is where I'll really be making my thoughts known to Yoshi and crew. For now I'm trying to stick to what others have said and just wait it out, seeing as how Alpha is here for stability tests.

[Lokus]

The issue with having all Jobs using the same resources makes every job basically play the same and easily allows for jobs to easily outclass and replace others, which happens all the time. TP MP is fine, yes If they add a second major mechanic specific to each job to make them stand on their own. Otherwise a DD will always just be a DD that can be replaced at any point with another. I would love for instance a party say you have a monk? cool MNK can do this or that we can manage, not oh we rather have a dragoon, cus well its just a better DD for this particular fight. I should have said TP/MP being the only main resource for every job, it also restricts what can be done with battle mechanics also. Not arguing with you, as I do agree with everything you said, I just think there is more to it.

Aren't those statements a bit contradictory? If the game is properly balanced, any DD should theoretically replace another with ease. The only thing that should matter is how you go about DDing. 1.0's DD classes were honestly the same in function with the only difference being the look and how you started your dial-a-combo. SE did try to differentiate the jobs a bit with MNK using MP as a resource along with TP to perform whereas DRG used HP/TP but I honestly hope ARR makes the classes/job play wildly different. And another note, just because the classes share the same resources doesn't really mean they are restricted. That would only be the case if they used these resources the exact same way across the board which is what SE has done so far.

@Lucavi: whether good or bad, it brings a new perspective to light which alot of the OF is likely oblivious to. Then again, datgrass.

[Lucavi]

I'll make sure to make a thread or two when the time comes. I'm going to make an alpha thread surmising my feelings about the first one when the next server opens up. I wanna at least wait till the OF's quiet down a bit; there's a lot of static in there right now and I doubt Yoshi could hear me clearly if I added to it right now.

[Lordender]

I'll make sure to make a thread or two when the time comes. I'm going to make an alpha thread surmising my feelings about the first one when the next server opens up. I wanna at least wait till the OF's quiet down a bit; there's a lot of static in there right now and I doubt Yoshi could hear me clearly if I added to it right now.

Theres going to be so many tears flowing over 2.0 for those "FFXI purists" I can't wait. I think its going to be one of the most glorious days across the internet.

[Lucavi]

I've nothing against them in their personal lives, but goddammit, stay the fuck away from my 2.0. This thing can be really, really good, dammit.

[miokomioko]

Tp regens at a fixed rate so its pretty much just like stamina.

Ah, I thought it was both fixed and from hits.

Yeah, that's Stamina.

[Elcura]

Aren't those statements a bit contradictory? If the game is properly balanced, any DD should theoretically replace another with ease. The only thing that should matter is how you go about DDing. 1.0's DD classes were honestly the same in function with the only difference being the look and how you started your dial-a-combo. SE did try to differentiate the jobs a bit with MNK using MP as a resource along with TP to perform whereas DRG used HP/TP but I honestly hope ARR makes the classes/job play wildly different. And another note, just because the classes share the same resources doesn't really mean they are restricted. That would only be the case if they used these resources the exact same way across the board which is what SE has done so far.

@Lucavi: whether good or bad, it brings a new perspective to light which alot of the OF is likely oblivious to. Then again, datgrass.

The only real difference between DDs in 1.0 was close range (everything but...) or long range (...blm/brd), so the choice was mostly pretty clear in terms of difference. If you wanted a long range DD which was used for everything, you used BLM most likely. If you needed close range anything else was mostly fine.

The specifics of who does the best close range damage was usually pretty balanced, DRG and MNK were often interchangeable, though when one did better (DRG usually) the scales were tipped pretty heavily in ones favour to the point where the others don't really matter and since there's no benefit to having a job that does less damage, you get a lot of class stacking. WAR was always a lot weaker unless superbly geared, but then it could function as a tank so that was OK. PLD is weak but was supposed to be a much better tank to compensate, but this wasn't really the case so in most places PLD was simply inferior.

So in the end if all things are truly to be equal, SE needs to realise how coveted long range/safe damage is and how much better close range damage needs to be if you have to substitute safety for it. They also need to realise that all jobs need unique ways to contribute to the efficiency of the party beyond straight up dealing damage.

[Lokus]

The only real difference between DDs in 1.0 was close range (everything but...) or long range (...blm/brd), so the choice was mostly pretty clear in terms of difference. If you wanted a long range DD which was used for everything, you used BLM most likely. If you needed close range anything else was mostly fine.

The specifics of who does the best close range damage was usually pretty balanced, DRG and MNK were often interchangeable, though when one did better (DRG usually) the scales were tipped pretty heavily in ones favour to the point where the others don't really matter and since there's no benefit to having a job that does less damage, you get a lot of class stacking. WAR was always a lot weaker unless superbly geared, but then it could function as a tank so that was OK. PLD is weak but was supposed to be a much better tank to compensate, but this wasn't really the case so in most places PLD was simply inferior.

So in the end if all things are truly to be equal, SE needs to realise how coveted long range/safe damage is and how much better close range damage needs to be if you have to substitute safety for it. They also need to realise that all jobs need unique ways to contribute to the efficiency of the party beyond straight up dealing damage.

Encounter design plays a lot into it as well. SE made some pretty awkward choices with encounters in relation to their battle system. Case in point, the NMs to flag for Moogle Mog. Not only did SE release the battle changes that required melee to move around the target to maximize their damage, they put them in an area that actively punished you for moving around in combat. They basically shat on the melee classes' chest and told them to change to range to be useful. If anything, SE needs to design content that brings a certain amount of danger to both range and melee, preferably something that breaks the "stand still" combat of 1.0.