LogFAQs > #923391687

miki_sauvester posted...

Also, to highlight the rigidity of the fact that any new job HAS to fit into one of the three archetypes, they made bards and dancers DPS in this game. Seems silly to completely kill the identity of a job just so you can force it into the "tank/healer/dps" triangle.

Great point. To add, all gear progression in this game is vertical in nature - that is, the only function of gear is to increase your various numbers, so as a consequence there will always be a best in slot. The game does not encourage build diversity; it stifles it. Every class will always have optimal gear and an optimal rotation. A black mage cannot specialize in either fire or ice spells; every single black mage will follow the same rotation. What, then, separates two players playing the same job?

Worse, what separates one melee dps from another when damage output takes precedence over utility? You run a parser, see which jobs have the greatest damage output, and create the exact same party compositions for raid progression as everyone else. Every raid group will look the same and act the same. Since thats the case, why have jobs at all?

This new expansion is planning to homogenize jobs further - an attempt to lessen the communitys attachment to preferred jobs for raids. Due to the nature of skill properties and combos, this is a goal that is impossible to reach without distilling the game to exactly three jobs and eliminating the rest. Square Enixs stubborn adherence to the formulaic 2 tanks/2 healers/4 dps party composition is stifling game design and creativity. And people have argued with me throughout the years that they dont care - the game is fun, and theyre having fun playing dress up. Its one thing to appreciate a game for its depth of cosmetic customization, but when I play a computer game, Im looking for gameplay depth, which to say FFXIV lacks is an understatement.