Why did FFXIV never go all-in on Jobs/Classes?

[EntelechyFuff]

Some may read the thread title and think a crazy person, so let me try and explain. TL;DR - the job system in FFXIV is hella simple and straightforward. But why?

When FFXIV relaunched as A Realm Reborn, it had a very specific Job/Class system. Essentially ever character starts out with a class which, after leveling to 30, can be promoted into a grown-up Job (basically a class, but stronger).

This mirrored the original Final Fantasy to a tee. The one exception was the Arcanist class, which can evolve into two different Jobs: Summoner and Scholar.

And that is as sophisticated as the system has ever gotten.

There is no alternative jobs/classes (i.e. a Tank version of a Dragoon, or a Healer version of a Paladin, for instance). There are no jobs that require having multiple classes leveled up. There are no jobs--besides Arcanist--that have more than one path forward. In fact, most new additions (except 1) to the game since it originally released completely discard the Class -> Job progression of the originals. They just start out as a Job, right out of the gate.

There's not even really any cross-job skills to speak of!

This seems strange to me in light of the history of Final Fantasy being known for Job systems: FF1, 3, 5, Tactics, 11, and 12 all dug into this and added their own twist to the idea. It can be argued that games like FF6, 7, 9, 10 and 13 had shades of the Job system in their DNA as well.

For context: I originally played A Realm Reborn in 2013 and am returning just now. Unlocking some of the newer Jobs has reminded me of how much I was looking forward to jobs being added, but back then I expected it to something more interesting than "do quest, unlock Job". I feel like WoW has a more interesting class system, which is frankly bizarre to type.

So why does FFXIV have such a vanilla approach to Classes and Jobs? Have the developers ever talked about it?

 

[skillzilla81]

Because ain't nobody got time for that. It's gatekeeping people from content they want for no reason at all other than arbitrary metrics.

When a new job comes out, I want to play that job. I don't want to do quests and level up a job that I might have never played just to get to that job.

 

[Brazil]

When you add cross-job skills and stuff like that... That's an insane amount of variables to balance.

Ragnarok Online had such a cool job advancement system, filled to the brim with everything you've just mentioned.

It was hell, balance-wise, and also very confusing for anyone who didn't want to put in dozens of hours grinding and/or reading guides.

 

[Darktalon]

Because it is an MMO, and it requires balancing. It would be impossible to balance if they allowed cross job skills, and ultimately there would always be 1 build that is the "right way", which completely removes any actual job customization anyways. It is better for the developers to focus their limited sanity elsewhere.

 

[Zuly]

FFXIV is very rigid when it comes jobs and job balance. They will squash anything that may or may not upset this balance because ultimately their job philosophy is that every single job in the game can perform just as well (or close as it can) to every other job in its category on the highest difficulty content. The one time they decided to add a job that might upset that balance would be Blue Mage and it is not allowed to do all content in the game and cannot use the Duty Finder (matchmaking) feature.

 

[Baliis]

There is no alternative jobs/classes (i.e. a Tank version of a Dragoon, or a Healer version of a Paladin, for instance). There are no jobs that require having multiple classes leveled up. There are no jobs--besides Arcanist--that have more than one path forward. In fact, most new additions (except 1) to the game since it originally released completely discard the Class -> Job progression of the originals. They just start out as a Job, right out of the gate.

There's not even really any cross-job skills to speak of!

Click to shrink...

Some of this did exist, it was a massive pain that people hated so they simplified it.

 

[Feep]

Simplicity/straightforwardness sells, especially in an MMO already known for being somewhat overwhelming to newer players. FFXI was extremely hardcore, and never grew to even close of the numbers of FFXIV.

 

[Emily_Lux_Noire]

Balancing aspect really.
Even with a simplistic approach to jobs and stats, the job balance is very often put in question when they become homogenized in what they do.
The original BRD lost it's songs since ARR, they were made into a simple Cross class skill last expac, and now they've been made entirely a pure DPS class. DNC now provides a similar ish function, but for DPS.

 

[Strings]

Because ain't nobody got time for that. It's gatekeeping people from content they want for no reason at all other than arbitrary metrics.

When a new job comes out, I want to play that job. I don't want to do quests and level up a job that I might have never played just to get to that job.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, they have to think about accessibility. The game is already stacked in terms of systems just by virtue of being an MMO.

 

[Sandfox]

I don't think players actually wanted that, especially new people. They stopped doing the cross-job stuff for example so that people can just focus on their one job.

 

[Dalik]

Cause it was really useless and added nothing to the game.

 

[Deleted member 2441]

Because most of those systems mentioned lead to game design issues, and they streamlined them over time to be more straightforward, more intuitive, and more cohesive.

Cross-class skills were generally either useless or overpowered depending on the combination.

Forcing you to level another class to 15 to unlock a level 30 job was essentially a waste of time if you weren't interested in that class.

Having different role options for each job would be a balance nightmare, since you'd essentially have 3x the number of jobs to balance.

It is much easier to create balanced jobs that are cohesively designed without poorly implemented systems that exist more for flavour than anything else.

The current version of XIV's job system is not only the best it has been, but the best of any MMO. Classes generally feel diverse, complete, and fulfil the fantasies people attach to them. I'm not sure why you'd want the game to be worse.

 

[Rainer516]

So, there used to be cross-class skills. They were removed because that was min-maxed by the playerbase. For the rest, I think the developers just want to make sure the game is as accessible as possible and they keep simplifying the game further with each patch lowering the skill ceiling and raising the floor.

Is that bad? Well, it depends. If you want to play a sandbox MMO, FF14 is not it. The development team realizes that they can't be everything to everyone and they e doubled down on being a theme park Final Fantasy game with multiplayer elements. This includes he head dev stating that he encourages the players to unsubscribe for long periods of time and to return later.

So, because of this focus, we have an excellent Final Fantasy title with MMO elements, rather than an unfocused jack of all trades.

If you want a sandbox, play ESO. It's great as that.

 

[Lump]

I never got into FFXIV until Shadowbringers came out. I wish they made Dancer more accessible to early level folks because that was a fantastic job for newbies like me, but they made it so you had to be level 60 and very used to another job to try it out.

 

[Irikan]

Way easier to balance, and now pretty much every job is viable for end game content, instead of having some specs being useless compared to others. Depends on what you prefer really

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Their battle system is too rigid to support any meaningful implementation of true cross class skills. The positive of that it that it allows them to build an actually balanced mmo. People may complain about 3% differences at the high end, but in reality barely anyone plays at that level and the majority of the fanbase don't care. They want to use the job they like in any content.

 

[Dark Knight]

It made sense early on, and increasingly less sense as time goes on and the game fills with actual content and not busy work I think.

 

[Village]

Some of that existed
No one cares or wants that, that's why is gone. This shit is a super streamlined experience so you can dress up your anime doll baby of choice and go on a self insert final fantasy adventure.

 

[Hero.of.Lgnd]

A couple of things; the arcanist split into SMN and SCH was a nightmare for the team to deal with and they have said that they regret doing it, and will never do it again. Having the base of two different jobs be the same made it more difficult to make changes that were needed by one job without affecting the other.

Also, the reason that they dropped classes is because their vision for them didn't pan out. Originally they wanted people to switch between classes and jobs depending on what the player was doing. But no one ever did that, as people just liked playing as jobs. So they moved away from the idea.

It terms of having alternate roles for jobs, it is simply about their approach. Instead of having a tank version of Dragoon, they would rather make a whole new tank job. If they made alternate roles for jobs, it could be more restricting on what they could do in the future.

And finally, unlike other games FFXIV is very scientific when it comes to stats and abilities. So even if they added a bunch of other options in terms of abilities for jobs, players would figure out what they absolute best combination was, and people would only ever use those actions. So all the work that goes into making those extra actions would be worthless.

 

[Chasing]

The removal of cross job skills was not mourned afaik.

 

[coredecepts]

In 2.0, you had to get one class to 30 and a different class to 15 in order to earn the Job that was the "advanced" version of the level 30 class.

Then there were also cross-class skills. Anyone who played Bard had to level Lancer/Dragoon to 45 to earn Blood For Blood, for example.

As other posters said, it was needlessly complex and the game is better off without it.

In a single player game, sure, go nuts. But for an MMO, when I buy an expansion with a new job and I want to play that job, let me just play the job.

 

[Deleted member 2441]

I never got into FFXIV until Shadowbringers came out. I wish they made Dancer more accessible to early level folks because that was a fantastic job for newbies like me, but they made it so you had to be level 60 and very used to another job to try it out.

Click to shrink...

People who've been playing the game for multiple expansions don't want to have to level the new jobs from really low levels. The current system of 10 levels below the previous cap allows players to learn their rotations as they level up to current content, without having to waste too much time levelling or being incompetent in dungeons.

 

[Rainer516]

Way easier to balance, and now pretty much every job is viable for end game content, instead of having some specs being useless compared to others. Depends on what you prefer really

Click to shrink...

This is another thing I love about FF14. Yes, you don't have freedom to spec, but did that ever really matter in an MMO where the playerbase would constantly min-max and then not be shy about letting you know you're playing the game wrong?

Lack of stat allocation and builds for classes does lead to a pleasant gaming experience.

 

[Deleted member 18021]

Some of that existed, but it's been slowly removed over time. Mainly because those systems were a pain in the ass, especially for Summoner and Scholar.

The devs specifically want to maintain a level of balance so that there is "no" true meta: Every job is perfectly viable in all content, so that parties (ideally) aren't denying people specifically for the class they play.

Expanding the job system in such a way isn't in the cards because they want to go the opposite way, homogenizing the jobs by their role. In some sense, I can agree with them, as builds in MMOs always were just the illusion of choice.

 

[Wrexis]

FFXI attempted that (sub-jobs and more specialized roles) and aside from the hard-core aspect it didn't give you the freedom you'd expect.
After 15 years there are only 5 or 6 job combos that are viable out of hundreds.

Want to be a Black Mage / Warrior? Well good for you snowflake, but you're wasting a party slot. GTFO.

 

[Dreamboum]

It might be straightforward but it's boring as fuck. Everyone is playing the same job with the same tools. Nothing is unique. Even the few stats variation with materias are now the same for everyone. I'm basically just a punching dispenser, they even removed most of my tools and added RNG mechanics to my Monk. They don't even want to make my job punch faster, which is the whole fucking point of a monk!

There is literally no strategy involved in this stuff. FFXIV is the ultimate example of vertical progression. This stuff has never been good in my opinion. Never fucking will. I want to fill a niche role that makes me feel unique.

That's why we have players reaching level 80 and have no experience about anything. FF14 isn't teaching shit, it's just removing every roadblock in the way so that the game becomes as smooth brain as possible. Go there, do that, now come back in three months to do the same thing. I was tired of it since Heavensward.

 

[Cyclonesweep]

FFXI attempted that (sub-jobs and more specialized roles) and aside from the hard-core aspect it didn't give you the freedom you'd expect.
After 15 years there are only 5 or 6 job combos that are viable out of hundreds.

Want to be a Black Mage / Warrior? Well good for you snowflake, but you're wasting a party slot. GTFO.

Click to shrink...

This is it 100%. Balance is neigh impossible sadly. And you may have freedom, but it ends up completely useless for most combos anyways

 

[Zomba13]

Balance and accessibility.

Easier to balance if all players of a job have access to all the same skills without there being certain combinations to look out for and accessibility for the players as there isn't any gate keeping or "mandatory" skills they will have to get (eg having Swift Cast tied to needing BLM at a certain level and so players who don't level BLM will not have access to instant-rez).

I personally like when we get to go crazy with cross class stuff or have sub jobs like in XI but I totally understand needing it to be simpler for both the devs and the players.

 

[Richietto]

Because the Class/Job system was a pain in the ass for them, especially for SMN/SCH and build variety was pointless because that shits minmaxed in a days time. Also having to level a job you don't want to level for a very essential skill is bullshit.

 

[Hero.of.Lgnd]

It might be straightforward but it's boring as fuck. Everyone is playing the same job with the same tools. Nothing is unique. Even the few stats variation with materias are now the same for everyone. I'm basically just a punching dispenser, they even removed most of my tools and added RNG mechanics to my Monk. They don't even want to make my job punch faster, which is the whole fucking point of a monk!

There is literally no strategy involved in this stuff. FFXIV is the ultimate example of vertical progression. This stuff has never been good in my opinion. Never fucking will. I want to fill a niche role that makes me feel unique.

That's why we have players reaching level 80 and have no experience about anything. FF14 isn't teaching shit, it's just removing every roadblock in the way so that the game becomes as smooth brain as possible. Go there, do that, now come back in three months to do the same thing. I was tired of it since Heavensward.

Click to shrink...

Then why don't you stop playing? You complain an awful lot about a game that no one is forcing you to play. People obviously like it, so they are doing something right. But that doesn't mean it is for everyone.

 

[Dreamboum]

Then why don't you stop playing? You complain an awful lot about a game that no one is forcing you to play. People obviously like it, so they are doing something right. But that doesn't mean it is for everyone.

Click to shrink...

I only posted once. What are you on about?

 

[Deleted member 10726]

Cross job skills did exist which you only unlocked if you were the respective level in another class (Swiftcast on Thaumaturge was a big one), initially to unlock jobs in FF14 you needed to be Level 15 in another class besides being Level 30 in the one that you wanted to unlock the job in, additionally there were also bonus stats you could assign on each level up.

All of those mechanics were crap and just unnecessarily convoluted the gameplay. Sometimes less is more, and thinking back to it now I really do not mind how they streamlined all of that.

 

[Deleted member 2441]

It might be straightforward but it's boring as fuck. Everyone is playing the same job with the same tools. Nothing is unique. Even the few stats variation with materias are now the same for everyone. I'm basically just a punching dispenser, they even removed most of my tools and added RNG mechanics to my Monk. They don't even want to make my job punch faster, which is the whole fucking point of a monk!

There is literally no strategy involved in this stuff. FFXIV is the ultimate example of vertical progression. This stuff has never been good in my opinion. Never fucking will. I want to fill a niche role that makes me feel unique.

That's why we have players reaching level 80 and have no experience about anything. FF14 isn't teaching shit, it's just removing every roadblock in the way so that the game becomes as smooth brain as possible. Go there, do that, now come back in three months to do the same thing. I was tired of it since Heavensward.

Click to shrink...

You're conflating two different issues.

If you want unique and niche builds go play a single player RPG where you can fuck around with whatever nonsense you want and not affect other players. Sorry, but I don't want to deal with players who insist they have some hidden OP build and end up dragging everything down for the sake of their "unique playstyle." Give me well-balanced classes with which I can optimise through practice, theorycrafting encounter-specific strategies, and learning from other people.

The game being less complex is not the reason players aren't performing well in content. You're right that the game doesn't teach people how to be good, but that's nothing to do with the above.

For one, the playerbase needs to want to actually get better. 99% of them don't. So I put a large part of the blame on the state of party finder and dungeons on people who aren't bothered, because all the info is out there, rather than the game itself.

It's really not hard to be passable at this game.

HOWEVER, the devs have decided that feedback mechanisms for performance are to be shunned rather than embraced. That's the road they've taken, I don't like it, but it is what it is.

 

[EntelechyFuff]

Thanks for all the replies--it makes a lot of sense. I completely forgot about the cross-class job stuff and level pre-requisites, even though I had a Bard and definitely leveled Lancer for that purpose. When I restarted I remember thinking it was weird that I had a rando level 20 some lancer.

A couple of things; the arcanist split into SMN and SCH was a nightmare for the team to deal with and they have said that they regret doing it, and will never do it again. Having the base of two different jobs be the same made it more difficult to make changes that were needed by one job without affecting the other.

Also, the reason that they dropped classes is because their vision for them didn't pan out. Originally they wanted people to switch between classes and jobs depending on what the player was doing. But no one ever did that, as people just liked playing as jobs. So they moved away from the idea.

It terms of having alternate roles for jobs, it is simply about their approach. Instead of having a tank version of Dragoon, they would rather make a whole new tank job. If they made alternate roles for jobs, it could be more restricting on what they could do in the future.

And finally, unlike other games FFXIV is very scientific when it comes to stats and abilities. So even if they added a bunch of other options in terms of abilities for jobs, players would figure out what they absolute best combination was, and people would only ever use those actions. So all the work that goes into making those extra actions would be worthless.

Click to shrink...

This is a great, informative post. I'm enjoying my time with the game for sure, and it really does seem like over time they broke away from a lot of FF traditions in the interest of making a good game. Which is sort of one of the biggest "FF traditions" of all.

FFXI attempted that (sub-jobs and more specialized roles) and aside from the hard-core aspect it didn't give you the freedom you'd expect.
After 15 years there are only 5 or 6 job combos that are viable out of hundreds.

Want to be a Black Mage / Warrior? Well good for you snowflake, but you're wasting a party slot. GTFO.

Click to shrink...

I know this too well: I did RDM/WAR, never apologized, and also never finished the story content or reached level cap. BUT...my fondest memory of the game was successfully tanking for a leveling party in Yuhtunga jungle for hours on end one night. That and "sneak/invis" escorting high level players through even higher level zones, when I was only level 40.

 

[Sandfox]

You're conflating two different issues.

If you want unique and niche builds go play a single player RPG where you can fuck around with whatever nonsense you want and not affect other players. Sorry, but I don't want to deal with players who insist they have some hidden OP build and end up dragging everything down for the sake of their "unique playstyle." Give me well-balanced classes with which I can optimise through practice, theorycrafting encounter-specific strategies, and learning from other people.

The game being less complex is not the reason players aren't performing well in content. You're right that the game doesn't teach people how to be good, but that's nothing to do with the above.

For one, the playerbase needs to want to actually get better. 99% of them don't. So I put a large part of the blame on the state of party finder and dungeons on people who aren't bothered, because all the info is out there, rather than the game itself.

It's really not hard to be passable at this game.

HOWEVER, the devs have decided that feedback mechanisms for performance are to be shunned rather than embraced. That's the road they've taken, I don't like it, but it is what it is.

Click to shrink...

I don't think they really care about people using a parser as long as you don't use it to trash people.

 

[Hero.of.Lgnd]

I only posted once. What are you on about?

Click to shrink...

And in that one post you made it out as if you couldn't fucking stand this game and hating everything about it. "Complaining a lot" does not require multiple posts.

 

[Kent]

The short version is that the classes and jobs system from A Realm Reborn is recognized as a failed experiment, and they've been moving farther away from that into something less-experimental more and more as time goes on. Same with cross-class skills - you just ended up with situations where you had to level up other classes in order to get what amounted to core skills for your main class. In a game driven by competitive balance between jobs, this ended up being something that was going to snowball out of control on multiple fronts if they didn't do something about it eventually.

The Arcanist -> Scholar/Summoner split is one of the things specifically called out as a failed experiment by the devs, and there have been mentions of separating the two at some point (though who knows when they'll get around to that point).

I agree that the original plan for the systems had a lot of potential, especially considering multiple different jobs branching off of specific classes, but they had very good reasons to ditch it considering the rigidity of design for the rest of the game.

 

[Deleted member 2441]

I don't think they really care about people using a parser as long as you don't use it to trash people.

Click to shrink...

Of course, but then that's not a feedback mechanism for most players, only for the relatively small percentage of players who are willing to delve into the grey area and care about their own performance.

It doesn't fix the issue that for the average player the game doesn't give performance feedback, only those who care enough to go seek it out.

It's just still crazy to me that a game with DPS checks in end-game content has no way to tell you if you're under-performing or if a member of the team is under-performing, and you have to go to a 3rd party tool that's technically against TOS to find out.

I world prog in the game, so me and my static all use it of course. Don't know how we could assess trialees without it.

 

[Taruranto]

FFXI attempted that (sub-jobs and more specialized roles) and aside from the hard-core aspect it didn't give you the freedom you'd expect.
After 15 years there are only 5 or 6 job combos that are viable out of hundreds.

Want to be a Black Mage / Warrior? Well good for you snowflake, but you're wasting a party slot. GTFO.

Click to shrink...

This is an exaggeration. Of course BLM/WAR is pointless, but on other hand BLM/WHM and BLM/RDM and BLM/SCH were all combos that worked and offered slightly different things. And of course outliers like WHM/NIN for solo play, RDM/NIN to solo stuff, etc. It wasn't a perfect system, but it offer an incredibly amount of freedom.

 

[Wrexis]

This is an exaggeration. Of course BLM/WAR is pointless, but on other hand BLM/WHM and BLM/RDM and BLM/SCH were all combos that worked and offered slightly different things. And of course outliers like WHM/NIN for solo play, RDM/NIN to solo stuff, etc. It wasn't a perfect system, but it offer an incredibly amount of freedom.

Click to shrink...

The game's still active and those combos haven't been used in a decade.
Don't get me wrong I used PLD/NIN to get me through some unusual stuff back in the day, but these days FFXI is Final Pigeon Hole Online.

 

[Dreamboum]

You're conflating two different issues.

If you want unique and niche builds go play a single player RPG where you can fuck around with whatever nonsense you want and not affect other players. Sorry, but I don't want to deal with players who insist they have some hidden OP build and end up dragging everything down for the sake of their "unique playstyle." Give me well-balanced classes with which I can optimise through practice, theorycrafting encounter-specific strategies, and learning from other people.

The game being less complex is not the reason players aren't performing well in content. You're right that the game doesn't teach people how to be good, but that's nothing to do with the above.

For one, the playerbase needs to want to actually get better. 99% of them don't. So I put a large part of the blame on the state of party finder and dungeons on people who aren't bothered, because all the info is out there, rather than the game itself.

It's really not hard to be passable at this game.

HOWEVER, the devs have decided that feedback mechanisms for performance are to be shunned rather than embraced. That's the road they've taken, I don't like it, but it is what it is.

Click to shrink...

The inability to experiment and try new things as a player is also directly responsible for so much of the poor performance. You can make a beeline towards endgame content without understanding anything because almost nothing about the game is organically teaching you as a player. There is no possibility to be curious about trying something new and understanding how the various systems are working together, because you just have one set of tools and this will never change. Let's be honest, most of the strategy is going online and finding the latest patch rotation to follow, and then repeat when they are changing the job in a patch.

How am I affecting other players if I want variation though? If you want to play meta, just select your meta in the party finder search and leave the others to actually have fun with the battle system lol. Yes, having a unique playstyle is unironically good. I'm not shitting other player's experience because I want horizontal progression. Even if I was, then you votekick and you go on. But can you imagine the amount of healers, DPS and Tanks I've seen who can't use even basic actions. We have replaced a problem with another. And FFXIV's solution so far is to lower the difficulty of all the content rather than fixing the root problem, which has turned into a cycle where the community is more focused on complaining something is too hard rather than foster a community focused on helping each other through communication. And that's why I always have Labyrinth of the Ancients now.

What's the difference between "let's get the latest set of gears, slot in the materias, repeat every patch" and "let's see how I can mix up my job for each new type of content and see how I can provide value to my teammates?". The difference is fun. One is me clocking in to work, the other is me trying something new and having fun with it. If we get to the point that Blue Mage is a "limited" job you can't even queue for normal content with, is that also for the best?

And in that one post you made it out as if you couldn't fucking stand this game and hating everything about it. "Complaining a lot" does not require multiple posts.

Click to shrink...

Look, I'm not a hater of the game. There is much more to FFXIV than the battle system to enjoy. I believe I can voice my criticisms of certain aspects of the battle and its progression. I've been playing this game since A Realm Reborn and I have 3000 hours clocked. I can recognize the evolution of the battle system and believe that there are some issues about it that are disappointing to me.

I'm not going to claim that I'm having fun farming tomestones for 6 years straight just because I love the game. I think a form of horizontal progression in the way jobs are playing out can be very beneficial to the game, and it wouldn't make it necessarily unbalanced too. Honestly I'm surprised to see pushback about it. To me it always seemed like horizontal progression is an ideal to reach for MMO players. I want more options, not just increase my ilvl to meet a stat quota.

 

[Kent]

This is an exaggeration. Of course BLM/WAR is pointless, but on other hand BLM/WHM and BLM/RDM and BLM/SCH were all combos that worked and offered slightly different things. And of course outliers like WHM/NIN for solo play, RDM/NIN to solo stuff, etc. It wasn't a perfect system, but it offer an incredibly amount of freedom.

Click to shrink...

You could also make BLU/anything work if you knew what you were doing. This is why they're afraid to implement BLU properly in FFXIV.

Spoiler

I'm still salty about it.

 

[Disclaimer]

I know this too well: I did RDM/WAR, never apologized, and also never finished the story content or reached level cap. BUT...my fondest memory of the game was successfully tanking for a leveling party in Yuhtunga jungle for hours on end one night. That and "sneak/invis" escorting high level players through even higher level zones, when I was only level 40.

Click to shrink...

FWIW, you can solo FFXI now with a party of trusts, and use whatever job combinations you feel like. Coming back to complete the story is worth it. :)

 

[Deleted member 2441]

The inability to experiment and try new things as a player is also directly responsible for so much of the poor performance. You can make a beeline towards endgame content without understanding anything because almost nothing about the game is organically teaching you as a player. There is no possibility to be curious about trying something new and understanding how the various systems are working together, because you just have one set of tools and this will never change. Let's be honest, most of the strategy is going online and finding the latest patch rotation to follow, and then repeat when they are changing the job in a patch.

How am I affecting other players if I want variation though? If you want to play meta, just select your meta in the party finder search and leave the others to actually have fun with the battle system lol. Yes, having a unique playstyle is unironically good. I'm not shitting other player's experience because I want horizontal progression.

What's the difference between "let's get the latest set of gears, slot in the materias, repeat every patch" and "let's see how I can mix up my job for each new type of content and see how I can provide value to my teammates?". The difference is fun. One is me clocking in to work, the other is me trying something new and having fun with it. If we get to the point that Blue Mage is a "limited" job you can't even queue for normal content with, is that also for the best?

Click to shrink...

I'm curious to know what you've actually accomplished in the game. I can experiment and try new things by exploring different roles and jobs that already exist. I don't need my MNK to be a healer, I can just go and play White Mage. I'm reclearing all the current ultimates on Summoner at the moment, having always been a melee DPS main on MNK and NIN, because it's varied and fun. I don't need arbitrary stats. I've cleared previous savage raid tiers on tank with a second group for that purpose too.

Again, this stuff isn't holding back the playerbase. The current playerbase can't even be trusted to seek out those rotations and execute them correctly. If they can't paint by numbers why would handing them a palette and a random assortment of colours suddenly make them care enough to put that effort in? If anything the disparity would only increase.

BLU being a limited job is for the best. It allows it to break the game in really unique ways that doesn't upset the balance of the game, but still allows for it to be fun content. Getting the Morbol mount by doing all the old savage raids on BLU with a group of friends was a huge amount of fun, and now I don't have to worry about someone RPing as a bomb in my dungeons and using self-destruct on every pack of mobs.

Miss me with that shit.

 

[Taruranto]

BLU really could have been another DPS job with some utility like RDM and DNC, or even a job capable of queing for DPS or Tank depending on your job stone like arcanist or something. FFXIV doesn't allow complex jobs, but the current state of the job is utterly miserable, it's a failure on all fronts, it's a "solo job" in a game were most content is done solo except it can't even solo most content because of the level cap, it can't enter actual solo content like the The Palace of the Dead, most of its spells don't even work on bosses and its "endgame" involves grouping with other players.

It's a bad minigame people do once they raise the level cap and then they forget it exists until next time, I think the Molboro mount is even less "popular" than Ozma or some pvp mounts, according to the census.

The game's still active and those combos haven't been used in a decade.
Don't get me wrong I used PLD/NIN to get me through some unusual stuff back in the day, but these days FFXI is Final Pigeon Hole Online.

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Last time I played actively (Which was a couple of years ago, so I did most end-game content) I'd say all SCH-WHM-BLM combos were mostly interchanble depending on what you wanted to do, I solo'ed T1 on Escha with SCH/RDM + thrusts but on other hand /BLM works if you want more firepower. Heck, I've healed content like Sinister Reign with my Geo with /WHM purely using my robust healing set. Obviously if you want to heal for more serious content you get a WHM with the right spells, but I think it's wrong to say the game completely pigeons you into using certain roles every time you want to do something.

 

[Deleted member 2441]

BLU really could have been another DPS job with some utility like RDM and DNC, or even a job capable of queing for DPS or Tank depending on your job stone like AST or something. FFXIV doesn't allow complex jobs, but the current state of the job is utterly miserable, it's a failure on all fronts, it's a "solo job" in a game were most content is done solo except it can't even solo most content because of the level cap, it can't enter actual solo content like the The Palace of the Dead, most of its spells don't even work on bosses and its "endgame" involves grouping with other players.

It's a bad minigame people do once they raise the level cap and then they forget it exists until next time, I think the Molboro mount is even less "popular" than Ozma or some pvp mounts, according to the census.

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If they did that people would complain about it not being a true blue mage. Blue Mage as a concept doesn't lend itself to the core loop of FFXIV and we all knew that for years.

It's also not a solo job anymore which is obvious, they haven't used that as a descriptor since it was released in Stormblood. The Shadowbringers update to it killed that idea completely and it's all the better for it.

I was not at all interested in the initial version of the job, but the Shadowbringers additions turned it into a different kind of grouped content that plays differently from everything else in the game without affecting the core game balance. It became its own kind of content and is a great excuse to go back and revisit some of the best content the game has to offer in Heavensward and Coil raids, but from a completely new perspective.

Morbol not being a prolific mount has more to do with the majority of the playerbase being unable to clear fights like Brute Justice Savage rather than the content being bad.

 

[Moara]

Getting the Morbol mount as Blue Mage was extremely fun. I'll be satisfied with the class if it ends up being more of that kind of content.

 

[Deleted member 2441]

Getting the Morbol mount as Blue Mage was extremely fun. I'll be satisfied with the class if it ends up being more of that kind of content.

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Hard agree.

 

[Taruranto]

If they did that people would complain about it not being a true blue mage. Blue Mage as a concept doesn't lend itself to the core loop of FFXIV and we all knew that for years.

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I really don't see why? BLU being a DPS with some utility would be no be different than FFXIV take on Red Mage or even Summoner, which are fairly removed from their classical incarnations. People know a blue mage similar to FFV or XI can't exist in FFXIV and would accept it as long it's true in spirit (Similar to how it happened with RDM). You can still have the whole "Learn spells from monsters" thing by using job quests, which is already a thing in the game anyway since they sent you into dungeons to learn Mind Blast and similar spells, you can't learn it on your own.

Morbol not being a prolific mount has more to do with the majority of the playerbase being unable to clear fights like Brute Justice Savage rather than the content being bad.

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I'm pretty sure BLU itself as actual content was still incredibly low popular, but I'd have to find the stats again to confirm it. Not really surprisingly given the best way to level it up is smash enemies in the over-world for 60 levels lol.

 

[Valkerion]

Because ain't nobody got time for that. It's gatekeeping people from content they want for no reason at all other than arbitrary metrics.

When a new job comes out, I want to play that job. I don't want to do quests and level up a job that I might have never played just to get to that job.

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Bingo!

14 even still has some slight gatekeeping in its more hardcore side of the community looking to maximize runs by shaving off meer seconds on their stuff. Keeping this to a minimum has been the best part of 14 imo, being able to jump in and out of it without being worried about completing content because I'm not the right class for a fight or have the right abilities is great.

Sure complexity can be fun, but in a mmo setting where im paying a sub, I wanna play when I log in, not get rejected from the next story/cool item drop area because I'm a Monk instead of Ninja or w/e. Returned to 11 for the last two months and despite it being massively easier and more casual now there is still a shit ton of job and gear gatekeeping by the community that I instantly had a distain for. You can do cool things with certain setups sure, but it feels really whack to cut people out of events.

It's a relic of a bygone era and I don't miss it.