[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Remilia]

BNS is an easy example. If you ever PVP'd in that game it quite literally felt like I was playing a fighting game. It's why I consistently rate it as the #1 combat system in MMO's. It was fast, fluid, had skill, was gear normalized, was rewarding (too rewarding).

Just played it like... half a year ago again, mix of PvP and PvE, it is not rewarding whatsoever now. :P
Cause of the bot issues they nerfed the hell out of PvP rewards. Then the lack of player means all the ranking goes down meaning even less rewards. So a diamond 2800 at launch is basically a platinum 1900. Where as 2300 or so is just an entry gold (basically where I got to when I stopped). Thus outside of win trading you're basically stuck at platinum at the highest level. Since reward levels are reduced and thus getting HM skills without massive amounts of gold or paying money it was more time consuming and at that point you're also extremely handicapped against those that do have it.

Also really hate the lag, input drops and stutters, it's even worse than it was on launch. At points I can smash my Q/E 5+ times before it does anything and my latency isn't that high (100ms or less, which is still bad but shouldn't be me able to mash a button so many times), and the usual eaten CCs. That's really the main reason I stopped PvPing cause it just got too obnoxious. Also fuck warlocks and destroyers as FM. WL just aerial juggle you to death and des just slowly beats you down, and there's a reason why they're the most prominent in the top 50, WL, Sins and Des, double escape and very sticky or too bursty with a lot of control. Honestly speaking though, most of the classes became one hit wonders, as in if they miss their combo initiative they may as well /quit or run away. BDs, BMs, SFs, KFMs, and GSes became one hit wonders. They're useless outside of their burst and as an FM I can just roll through them (excecpt for GS, cause they just run away into unchaseable land) after that. I've seen way too many of them just run away after initial burst and it does get annoying. The PvP balance has gotten very rock paper scissory on an equal skill level. Though apparently the newest reworks (all classes) they all got jumbled up again and everything has been changed, so I don't know how it is "now" (cause it's Korean servers atm) and apparently very dead as CC is not a huge factor anymore (burn till dead).

Honestly the best online combat PvP I've had (not an MMO admittedly) was Rakion. It had some serious p2w issues though.

Anyways, rant over.

[Zelliaind]

Allow me to add my two cents to this. From what I can see one of the arguments is that there are too many abilities, skills, or "buttons" on many of the Jobs in the game. Allow me to preface this by saying that I don't do a lot of higher end content in FFXIV. I might do a non-savage Deltascape or Sigmascape maybe even an Extreme primal or two, but I don't do bleeding edge content like I used to do in World of Warcraft once upon a time. I simply don't have the time for it anymore.

That being said, I want to caution against wanting skills removed or "pruned" as many in the WoW community might call it. While I don't think SE would go as overboard with it as Blizzard did but there is still the chance that they might. I agree, however, some of the jobs have a lot of skills and a lot of buttons. It's the problem with releasing expansions and trying to reinvent the wheel each time a new version of the game comes out. Adding new items for players to enjoy. However, I would say less pruning and more baking in certain skills into other ones to mitigate the amount of skills required to play at a higher skill level rather than just pruning them altogether. There has been extensive pruning done on abilities in WoW since MoP (two to three expansions ago) and the rotations for many of those classes are now only 4-6 buttons/abilities and are extremely boring.

TL;DR: I'm not saying pruning is bad, but SE has to make sure they don't over do it and ruin the feel of complexity of the jobs. A better option would be to bake in some skills into other to clear up how many abilities are on the action bar.

That's just my opinion though, take it with a grain of salt.

[StrawberryZebra]

Other classes don't really have a mechanic that identifies them, but visual flair to make them FEEL more iconic could be used instead, like Dragoon and Monk, where simply focusing more on the theme of the class rather than trying to create this iconic toolkit, you can provide visual uniqueness to the class.

Visual and animation differences between Jobs are basically where tanks are right now. It gives them a cohesive asthetic, but doesn't change the fact you've got three different flavours of the same Job. It's functional, sure, but it only offers one playstyle of tanking. Same with healing, you've got just one playstyle on offer. It's not a healthy state to be in when you've got players who'd enjoy the role if it offered more diverse choices.

Even something as simple as making tanks stronger in some areas relative to their peers would give each of them a sharper identity in the grand scheme of things. Right now they're interchangable to the point where you could swap the DRK and PLD's entire skillset over, rename and reanimate them, and barely anyone would notice the difference. Healers are in the same situation too, giving each of them a niche would go a long way towards giving them clearer identities and help decide how they should play going forwards.

TL;DR: I'm not saying pruning is bad, but SE has to make sure they don't over do it and ruin the feel of complexity of the jobs. A better option would be to bake in some skills into other to clear up how many abilities are on the action bar.

I think it's the opposite - Squenix need to add more complexity to most Jobs. Games are about making choices, the only real choice you get in FF14 is if you choose to stick to the script or play sub-optimally. That's not a choice at all, more an ultimatum.

The number of buttons hides the fact there's little genuine depth to the gameplay. They should strip away the pretense, get rid of all the filler, and look at ways to add mechanical depth to their Jobs.

BNS is an easy example. If you ever PVP'd in that game it quite literally felt like I was playing a fighting game. It's why I consistently rate it as the #1 combat system in MMO's. It was fast, fluid, had skill, was gear normalized, was rewarding (too rewarding).

I really did enjoy BNS PvP. A little too much, in fact. The problem I had with it though was that there was an MMO built around it. What would have been fantastic as a stand alone PvP game got bogged down with the mundanity of an MMO being in the mix too imo.

The only other example that I can think of is Cuphead, which took Street Fighter 3's parry mechanic and Super Meter. They did feel a little out of place in a run and gun game, but they didn't detract from the experience.

17 is one of my favs in the series. Glad he's playable. I wasn't satisfied with him as an 18 assist.

I feel like one of the few people who actually identify with Vegeta. Everything the Prince has and everything that he is he's worked hard for. Goku gets freebie power ups and techniques handed to him all the time, Vegeta is constantly striving to be better and pushing his limits. He's got lofty ambitions, but the drive and tenacity to make them happen. He is, in many ways, far more relatable than the rest of the cast of super powered fighters, gods and magical wish granting dragons.

[Granyala]

Even something as simple as making tanks stronger in some areas relative to their peers would give each of them a sharper identity in the grand scheme of things. Right now they're interchangable to the point where you could swap the DRK and PLD's entire skillset over, rename and reanimate them, and barely anyone would notice the difference. Healers are in the same situation too, giving each of them a niche would go a long way towards giving them clearer identities and help decide how they should play going forwards.

The number of buttons hides the fact there's little genuine depth to the gameplay. They should strip away the pretense, get rid of all the filler, and look at ways to add mechanical depth to their Jobs.

rant incoming, sick right now, so excuse me if my tone is harsher than usual:

1) That would never work due to balance and community acceptance. Raidtanks would be forced to play all three tanks and choose the optimal one depending in the encounter. Same would go for healers.

2) Please don't. I don't need "mechanical difficulty" in my class, esp not as a healer. I have enough difficulty saving asses of failing people and reacting quickly enough while obeying encounter mechanics. Heavensward BLM had mechanical difficulty and look how that felt. It felt like shit, esp with encounters that constantly go into "nanana can't attack anything" state.

3) All this yapping around "choice"... after 10+ years of WoW, people should finally realize that there will NEVER BE CHOICE in an MMO. There is always an optimal way to play, that's a mathematical fact you cannot design around, and the community will expect people to follow that way or punish them with the boot. Even WoWs choice driven talents only had one effect: you had to learn mutliple playstyles of your class because people expect you to choose the FOTM talents for each encounter.

If you want choice, a.k.a.: gimp yourself by playing suboptimally, go play a single player game. There DEVs AND players have the freedom to experiment, because no one gives a rats ass about balance and performance.

[StrawberryZebra]

1) That would never work due to balance and community acceptance. Raidtanks would be forced to play all three tanks and choose the optimal one depending in the encounter. Same would go for healers.

I wasn't suggesting things like making WAR the best at tanking massive hits and PLD the best at tanking adds, that's a balancing nightmare in the making. It gives each job a clear best case scenario.

I was thinking more along the lines of having PLD be "the raid support tank", where they bring tools like dispells or useful raid cooldowns. They're already close to the niche, it just needs to be sharpened up and given more focus. Maybe make DRK the "Utility tank", where they've got lots of interupts, mobility, maybe a couple of unique personal cooldowns etc.

Healers already, sort of, have their own niches. AST is already "the buffing healer", SCH is "the DPS healer" and WHM is "the cooldowns healer". They just need to tighten that up a little bit more and emphasise their intended strengths. I've yet to see anyone be excluded based on the healer they're playing, they can all do the role well enough.

2) Please don't. I don't need "mechanical difficulty" in my class, esp not as a healer.

I said depth, not difficulty. Depth is entirely a mental exercise, where you apply what you know about the games mechanics to make the best decision for any given situation. Healers already have more of it than other Jobs anyway, it's the pillar they're built on. DPS and Tanks... Eeeh, not so much. Their skillsets just don't really allow for those kinds of decisions to take place.

3) All this yapping around "choice"... after 10+ years of WoW, people should finally realize that there will NEVER BE CHOICE in an MMO.

On the whole, WoW did (does?) a decent job at in-combat choice with it's proc and cooldown based structure. You've got to decide what you use this GCD on. And the next GCD. And the next. It's rare you get to plan out what you're going to do for the next couple of GCD's because your priorities constantly change. Even things like deciding to move now or to finish you cast then move came up in WoW constantly.

The main form of interaction in a video game comes from solving small optimisation problems frequently. It's a rule that holds true no matter if that game is Super Mario Bros, Divinity Original Sin 2, WoW, DOTA or any other game you'd care to name.

FF14 solves the problem for you with it's combo system. It's combat doesn't lead to many divergent outcomes from the same ruleset despite having more abilities than you can reasonably keybind. Thats what needs fixing. Scope is not a substitute for depth.

[Granyala]

Yes, you can give classes niches but it will result in players wanting X for encounter Y and Z for encounter Y+1. No way around that if the particular "niche" makes any boss easier to deal with. That's the main reason why all tanks feel so ... well.. the same, if you ask me. Tanks only feel different once you go into "how to DPS" territory.

having more abilities than you can reasonably keybind. Thats what needs fixing.

No argument from me on that one.
Off the top of my head there isn't that much to prune from WHM though.

I don't see the difference between "depth" and mechanical difficulty, sorry. BLMs depth comes from needing good encounter knowledge in order to not lose Enochian. Planning instants and movement accordingly.
Lv 60 was cool on paper but in reality it was frustrating to play with SE's fetish for phase switching and bosses constantly hopping away.
Ican't speak for the other DPS, as I only leveled them, never played them once 60. ^^

[Faroth]

Honestly I wish FF14 would just overhaul the entire housing system for 5.0 or 6.0.

Make it instanced for EVERYONE. Screw this neighborhood crap. Nobody is there half the time anyway and when you see someone they are either afk or just there to craft in peace.

Wildstar and Rift are the 2 games that come to mind that did housing right imo. Just a shame they did everything else wrong or went to shit down the line.

On the note of button condensing. It needs to happen for combos imo. People crying about it have zero reason to. You would still be pressing 3 buttons to do a combo at the end of the day. Just less clutter on the action bars which in turn means they can add more spells down the line.

I'm all for condensing combos like they are in PvP personally.

But I picked my private house because of its neighborhood location. Don't take my hot springs away from me!

I think they should add to the apartments. Current apt is a studio. Add 2 floor apartments (small house), 3 floor apartments (medium house), and condos (mansion) to the apartment system.

Really, the apartment design should have probably always been private housing and neighborhoods should have been FC housing.

[lawow74]

Really, the apartment design should have probably always been private housing and neighborhoods should have been FC housing.

I disagree, I think both should be available to whoever can pay for it, just that instanced housing should be maintenance-free and persistent housing should require regular logins to maintain. For those who sub in spurts, the former is better, and those who stay subbed, the latter is a more realistic option.

[tikcol]

So when is the next expansion coming out? Next fall 2019? I always play a month or two of this game and have a great time doing so. Content is always very lacking which doesn't hook me in the long term.

[lawow74]

So when is the next expansion coming out? Next fall 2019? I always play a month or two of this game and have a great time doing so. Content is always very lacking which doesn't hook me in the long term.

My bet would be late spring/early summer 2019, around the same timeframe SB released in the year.

[Faroth]

On the whole, WoW did (does?) a decent job at in-combat choice with it's proc and cooldown based structure. You've got to decide what you use this GCD on. And the next GCD. And the next. It's rare you get to plan out what you're going to do for the next couple of GCD's because your priorities constantly change. Even things like deciding to move now or to finish you cast then move came up in WoW constantly.

Ehhhh, the change to Survival, which became Marksman, wasn't really much of a choice. You have 2 abilities. You spam your main attack until a proc is up and then you hit said proc. When you can no longer spam that single ability, you spam your resource generation ability.

Ret and Arms didn't feel much more in depth than that either, but I didn't get but a few levels into Legion with them. The basic design of them, though, felt pretty much like you were spamming a couple of abilities unless something lit up. If it was lit up, you hit it. No real depth of choice in when you should and shouldn't use an ability, just spam and procs.

I just don't see the depth and complex decision making people claim WoW's current design has. Maybe it's from just not playing enough higher level content.

[Katchii]

Visual and animation differences between Jobs are basically where tanks are right now. It gives them a cohesive asthetic, but doesn't change the fact you've got three different flavours of the same Job. It's functional, sure, but it only offers one playstyle of tanking. Same with healing, you've got just one playstyle on offer. It's not a healthy state to be in when you've got players who'd enjoy the role if it offered more diverse choices.

Even something as simple as making tanks stronger in some areas relative to their peers would give each of them a sharper identity in the grand scheme of things. Right now they're interchangable to the point where you could swap the DRK and PLD's entire skillset over, rename and reanimate them, and barely anyone would notice the difference. Healers are in the same situation too, giving each of them a niche would go a long way towards giving them clearer identities and help decide how they should play going forwards.

I didn't mean to imply that animations could be the only thing necessary. The move set has to make sense as well, I'm just saying the move set doesn't HAVE to be iconic as long as the animations and theme are on point. Granted, you'd still have to ensure the move set and game play of each similar class is different enough to make each class not only LOOK different but also FEEL different. But every move and ability doesn't have to be a super class defining, iconic ability if the animations and aesthetic of them give the feeling that it's a class ability.

For example, in WoW, for melee class DPS all of them have an AoE ability. I'll just pick on Warrior, Paladin and Rogues for this example. Warriors have Whirlwind, Paladins have Divine Storm and Rogues have Fan of Knives (in a specific spec) but all of these do the exact same thing, point blank AoE damage, it's just the animation, sound effect and overall aesthetic of the move that looks different. Aside from the mechanics on activating them and how they interact with the class mechanics themselves; Warriors can spam it as it doesn't cost anything and generates Rage, Paladins need to build up and then spend Holy Power to use it, and Rogues spend energy to use it but it generates combo points. So the variance in aesthetics coupled with how they interact with the class mechanic gives each ability a different feel and therefore makes each class feel and play differently. FFXIV classes all seem to have the same basic class mechanic; do stuff, gain resource, spend resource on some move...rinse and repeat. I know most things can be summed up as a build/spend mechanic but in FFXIV every class builds and spends pretty much the same way and the there's very little choice on the spenders.

I totally agree with you on tanks and healers right now, mostly. I think the core game play is too similar, for sure, but the class specific mechanic does give them a little class specific flavor that changes their game play a bit. To me, because of this mechanic DRK feels different to play than PLD, which feels different than WAR, but it's admittedly a small difference. Same thing with WHM, SCH and AST; their core game play is almost identical, but the class mechanic adds a little flavor that makes them feel just a little different.

I think it's the opposite - Squenix need to add more complexity to most Jobs. Games are about making choices, the only real choice you get in FF14 is if you choose to stick to the script or play sub-optimally. That's not a choice at all, more an ultimatum.

The number of buttons hides the fact there's little genuine depth to the gameplay. They should strip away the pretense, get rid of all the filler, and look at ways to add mechanical depth to their Jobs.

Totally agreed. I do honestly enjoy the combo system though, if only because it's different than many MOM's spam attack/proc type gameplay, I just wish they would make it much less scripted and binary, where instead of deciding "which combo" it's a more choice driven "which move" adding variability to the choices.

[Faroth]

So when is the next expansion coming out? Next fall 2019? I always play a month or two of this game and have a great time doing so. Content is always very lacking which doesn't hook me in the long term.

Agree with lawow. Everything is on schedule for late Spring/Early summer 2019. Square has at least been consistent on release schedules of patches and expansions, with a few variations here and there.

[Katchii]

rant incoming, sick right now, so excuse me if my tone is harsher than usual:

1) That would never work due to balance and community acceptance. Raidtanks would be forced to play all three tanks and choose the optimal one depending in the encounter. Same would go for healers.

2) Please don't. I don't need "mechanical difficulty" in my class, esp not as a healer. I have enough difficulty saving asses of failing people and reacting quickly enough while obeying encounter mechanics. Heavensward BLM had mechanical difficulty and look how that felt. It felt like shit, esp with encounters that constantly go into "nanana can't attack anything" state.

3) All this yapping around "choice"... after 10+ years of WoW, people should finally realize that there will NEVER BE CHOICE in an MMO. There is always an optimal way to play, that's a mathematical fact you cannot design around, and the community will expect people to follow that way or punish them with the boot. Even WoWs choice driven talents only had one effect: you had to learn mutliple playstyles of your class because people expect you to choose the FOTM talents for each encounter.

If you want choice, a.k.a.: gimp yourself by playing suboptimally, go play a single player game. There DEVs AND players have the freedom to experiment, because no one gives a rats ass about balance and performance.

1) Totally agreed on this, balance wise this would never work

2) I don't think anyone is asking for "more mechanics" just that each job doing the same role has different ones. As it is right now, a WHM, AST and SCH can all heal almost exactly the same. I have all three of these healers set up exactly the same way on my toolbars so even when playing them the only thing different is the weapon I'm holding because i"m hitting the exact same buttons for the most part. Same with melee jobs and tanks. The ranged/caster DPS in this game are really the only ones that play substantially different than their counterparts.

3) Fair point, I don't think anyone is arguing to allow multiple viable play styles, just that playing the "right" way means making the right choices at the right time as opposed to just following the highlighted buttons on the toolbar and not standing in fire (very simplified, but you get the gist). Your point that it's not REALLY a choice because there's really only one mathematically correct way to be optimal, is true, but there is a certain amount of satisfaction and enjoyment experience by executing well. That said, I don't think WoW or FFXIV are doing this particularly well at the moment because of how streamlined they've made the game play and class mechanics, reducing the disparity between "good" and "bad" players by simplifying things.

[Wrecktangle]

Just played it like... half a year ago again, mix of PvP and PvE, it is not rewarding whatsoever now. :P
Cause of the bot issues they nerfed the hell out of PvP rewards. Then the lack of player means all the ranking goes down meaning even less rewards. So a diamond 2800 at launch is basically a platinum 1900. Where as 2300 or so is just an entry gold (basically where I got to when I stopped). Thus outside of win trading you're basically stuck at platinum at the highest level. Since reward levels are reduced and thus getting HM skills without massive amounts of gold or paying money it was more time consuming and at that point you're also extremely handicapped against those that do have it.

Yeah unfortunately the game isn't the same to the point where I just login when a good 2-3 patches build up to do the story. I actually quite like the story. The music too.

I was a top 20 Sin for a long time, I could beat any other player, except the top ones, who consistently embarrassed me (lack of HM skills, dedication, skill, reflexes, etc.).

Also really hate the lag, input drops and stutters, it's even worse than it was on launch. At points I can smash my Q/E 5+ times before it does anything and my latency isn't that high (100ms or less, which is still bad but shouldn't be me able to mash a button so many times), and the usual eaten CCs. That's really the main reason I stopped PvPing cause it just got too obnoxious.

Honestly the best online combat PvP I've had (not an MMO admittedly) was Rakion. It had some serious p2w issues though.

Anyways, rant over.

Never heard of Rakion. I'll check some videos out.

I'm curious where you played to and from. I had ~40ms (bns buddy, RTT showed like 90). I didn't have any latency issues, but i know others did. The stutters were bad pre-bnsbuddy days, but went away when it went mainstream.

I really did enjoy BNS PvP. A little too much, in fact. The problem I had with it though was that there was an MMO built around it. What would have been fantastic as a stand alone PvP game got bogged down with the mundanity of an MMO being in the mix too imo.

I feel like one of the few people who actually identify with Vegeta. Everything the Prince has and everything that he is he's worked hard for. Goku gets freebie power ups and techniques handed to him all the time, Vegeta is constantly striving to be better and pushing his limits. He's got lofty ambitions, but the drive and tenacity to make them happen. He is, in many ways, far more relatable than the rest of the cast of super powered fighters, gods and magical wish granting dragons.

If I were to get a DBZ tattoo, it'd probably be of Vegeta. He's my boy. 17's my second fav, then ya boy Broly (even if he isn't fun at all to play in DBFZ ).

I actually like that BNS had good PVE/PVP mix. It kept me engaged in the game MUCH longer than I suspect it would have otherwise.

Ret and Arms didn't feel much more in depth than that either, but I didn't get but a few levels into Legion with them. The basic design of them, though, felt pretty much like you were spamming a couple of abilities unless something lit up. If it was lit up, you hit it. No real depth of choice in when you should and shouldn't use an ability, just spam and procs.

I just don't see the depth and complex decision making people claim WoW's current design has. Maybe it's from just not playing enough higher level content.

I can only speak for Ret. If you mash things on cooldown you will run into exorbitant downtime, which influences effectiveness of certain talents, thus reducing your performance (or increasing it by picking something slightly weaker, but easier to manage).

Ret has a pretty deep flow under the surface, but if you mindlessly mash you'll still be decent thanks to a high floor, but again, you can be decent in any game by simply pushing buttons as frequently as you should.

There are tons of little optimizations among the talents that directly impact how valuable they are to you. Remember that sims assume very high mechanical accuracy, which encounter design, unfamiliarity, and general skill divides can go against the grain, in a positive net fashion. I've seen it countless times.

That and Ret has incredibly robust utility this expansion. I'm more pleased with my utility than my rotation. I really think Ret could use an extra button or two and that's someone who uses talents that give extra buttons already.

rant incoming, sick right now, so excuse me if my tone is harsher than usual:

1) That would never work due to balance and community acceptance. Raidtanks would be forced to play all three tanks and choose the optimal one depending in the encounter. Same would go for healers.

2) Please don't. I don't need "mechanical difficulty" in my class, esp not as a healer. I have enough difficulty saving asses of failing people and reacting quickly enough while obeying encounter mechanics. Heavensward BLM had mechanical difficulty and look how that felt. It felt like shit, esp with encounters that constantly go into "nanana can't attack anything" state.

3) All this yapping around "choice"... after 10+ years of WoW, people should finally realize that there will NEVER BE CHOICE in an MMO. There is always an optimal way to play, that's a mathematical fact you cannot design around, and the community will expect people to follow that way or punish them with the boot. Even WoWs choice driven talents only had one effect: you had to learn mutliple playstyles of your class because people expect you to choose the FOTM talents for each encounter.

If you want choice, a.k.a.: gimp yourself by playing suboptimally, go play a single player game. There DEVs AND players have the freedom to experiment, because no one gives a rats ass about balance and performance.

I actually have to respectively disagree on at least 1 and 3.

I don't see this in WoW and I don't see it in FF14. Sure if you play at the top 20 world level they expect that level of versatility, but for 99% of the community? No chance tbh.

Choice is trickier because its subjective for everyone. To you a 1% difference in viability would not be considered choice, but to me it would. Especially if it allows a trade off with some kind of tangible benefit.

There have been many iterations where talents had very compelling choices and balanced ones. (From a Ret perspective).

[Graeham]

Agree with lawow. Everything is on schedule for late Spring/Early summer 2019. Square has at least been consistent on release schedules of patches and expansions, with a few variations here and there.

Yeah. The first Fan Fest is also only a couple of months away, so we'll be getting some solid information pretty soon.

[Remilia]

I'm curious where you played to and from. I had ~40ms (bns buddy, RTT showed like 90). I didn't have any latency issues, but i know others did. The stutters were bad pre-bnsbuddy days, but went away when it went mainstream.

Socal, not sure where the server is located. BnS buddy showed latency at 100ms~, though window's resource manager showed anywhere from 50-400ms. I'm not really sure which is more accurate. Majority of the time I'd say 100ms for interacting with NPCs and all that stuff, but combat it just doesn't feel like it.
BnS Buddy only helped the stutter up to a certain extent. I had to OC my CPU (5820k) from the clock stock (fine for most everything) to 4.5GHz to get something less stuttery.

[StrawberryZebra]

Yes, you can give classes niches but it will result in players wanting X for encounter Y and Z for encounter Y+1. No way around that if the particular "niche" makes any boss easier to deal with. That's the main reason why all tanks feel so ... well.. the same, if you ask me. Tanks only feel different once you go into "how to DPS" territory.

Healers already have their own, small, niches. I've yet to see anyone be excluded based on which healer they're currently playing. Groups tend to want two different ones, so theres no overlap of abilities, rather than wanting any two specifically. I know thats a small sample size, but I expect it lines up with what most players have experienced too.

I just don't see the depth and complex decision making people claim WoW's current design has. Maybe it's from just not playing enough higher level content.

I'm not really up to speed on WoW's current class design, the last I played was at the end of WotLK going into Cata.

At the time however, I mostly played Paladin. The Paladins Ret spec was based almost around it's short cooldowns, where it was entirely possible that you'd have two abilities coming off cooldown at the same time and have to decide which one to use next. You could decide to use them in an order to prevent more future cooldown clashes from occouring that would give you stable DPS over a longer period, or you could decide to use them in the order that would give you the most immediate DPS. There are situations where each of them was the best choice and you had to weigh up the opportunity costs appropriately.

Holy Paladins had a talent called, I think, Divine Favour that forced the next spell to critically hit, that by itself is pretty bland, but getting a critical hit with Holy Shock gave you either an instant Flash of Light or a 2 second cast reduction on Holy Light. Casting a Holy Light reduced the cast time of the next Holy Light by 0.5 seconds, allowing you to situationally get instant Holy Lights too. Even using said talent to get a critical on Holy Light is a gaurenteed big heal on demand. Using it on Lay on Hands gave you a full tank heal on demand. Getting a critical heal alone refunded most of the mana cost too.

Divine Favour brings up lots of best use cases. Do you use it for instant healing power while on the move? That's a solid, if situational, use. Do you use it to quickly transition your healing into high gear to deal with a boss mechanic? That's a good use too. Maybe you just need to get your tank back on his feet right now and use it with Lay on Hands. You could even use it along with your mana regen cooldowns to get a little bit more mana to play around with. It's a relatively bland ability with lots of interesting applications, and it's relatively short cooldown allowed you to use it multiple times a fight, so "wasting" it wasn't much of an issue.

FF14 on the other hand doesn't really have anything that's comparable to either. Combo chains prevent any form of ability overlap for melee classes, oGCD cooldowns are usually for too long to really weave into a rotation effectively, often being 30+ seconds long with timers that simply staggering their usage will prevent overlap. You don't really have passives that tie into a mechanic like Crit to make something like Divine Favour an interesting ability. It's rigid design prevents the player from ever needing to make those kinds of optimisations to their play on the fly. You don't need to decide your next move because the game has already done it for you, and you ignore it's sugestions at your peril.

I'm not suggesting that FF14 should just copy WoW - Many MMO's have tried and failed to do that already. I'm suggesting that by condensing their vast number of skills down to the essentials and by loosening up their combat mechanics to allow players to make more decisions on the fly in combat they can turn what is already a good game into one that's absolutely fantastic. They're in a position now where they can afford to take a couple of creative risks, they've played it too safe for too long and it's getting stale.

For example, in WoW, for melee class DPS all of them have an AoE ability. I'll just pick on Warrior, Paladin and Rogues for this example. Warriors have Whirlwind, Paladins have Divine Storm and Rogues have Fan of Knives (in a specific spec) but all of these do the exact same thing, point blank AoE damage, it's just the animation, sound effect and overall aesthetic of the move that looks different. Aside from the mechanics on activating them and how they interact with the class mechanics themselves; Warriors can spam it as it doesn't cost anything and generates Rage, Paladins need to build up and then spend Holy Power to use it, and Rogues spend energy to use it but it generates combo points. So the variance in aesthetics coupled with how they interact with the class mechanic gives each ability a different feel and therefore makes each class feel and play differently.

I would argue that how those abilities interact with the classes unique mechanics is what gives them their flair rather than the actual damage. Rage, Combo Points and Holy Power are all class specific resources which tie into the rest of the classes abilities. Building Rage or Combo points allows you to use more powerful attacks later on, it gives a sense of antipation, of working towards a short term goal. Spending Holy Power on it however feels like you're "cashing in" on your earlier play with a finishing move of sorts. They may all serve the same function, dealing AoE damage, but they don't all serve the same purpose. They all offer play opportunities unique to each class.

Thing is... A situation like this can't occour in FF14. All melee classes use the same resource, TP, for their attacks. You wouldn't get a skill that offers an opportunity unique to your Job, just one that's stripped down to it's function - Dealing AoE damage. It's much more aparent that you've got a reskin of the same ability when it does the exact same thing. There are no real unique class mechanics for abilities to play into outside of gimicky things like Mudras. It's not even as if managing your TP is something you need to be aware of most of the time.

[Katchii]

I would argue that how those abilities interact with the classes unique mechanics is what gives them their flair rather than the actual damage. Rage, Combo Points and Holy Power are all class specific resources which tie into the rest of the classes abilities. Building Rage or Combo points allows you to use more powerful attacks later on, it gives a sense of antipation, of working towards a short term goal. Spending Holy Power on it however feels like you're "cashing in" on your earlier play with a finishing move of sorts. They may all serve the same function, dealing AoE damage, but they don't all serve the same purpose. They all offer play opportunities unique to each class.

Thing is... A situation like this can't occour in FF14. All melee classes use the same resource, TP, for their attacks. You wouldn't get a skill that offers an opportunity unique to your Job, just one that's stripped down to it's function - Dealing AoE damage. It's much more aparent that you've got a reskin of the same ability when it does the exact same thing. There are no real unique class mechanics for abilities to play into outside of gimicky things like Mudras. It's not even as if managing your TP is something you need to be aware of most of the time.

Very good point. My point though was that the move itself is thematic to the class and IMO, doesn't come across as just a reskinned move from another classes tool kit, even though the end result is basically the same. I do concede though that their purpose isn't identical due to how they interact with the class mechanics. But I disagree that it couldn't be done in FFXIV with the introduction of class specific resources. Except in AoE situations, TP is almost a non-issue for most classes anymore, so it's not really a thing to be worried about. What they need to do is beef up the class mechanics and make them more robust and start really doing the whole build/spend anticipation you alluded to so people have more to look forward to, and make it more frequent than once every 2 minutes and make it more than just a damage buff or whatever like it is now until you blow the remaining cooldown on it to do some big move.

I'll admit, using those big moves at the end feels good. Building up to it for 1-2 minutes does not, especially when you end up wasting it because the boss goes immune or the trash pack dies before it can be used. I REALLY fucking hate that, it feels terrible. I end up just saving it for the bosses most of the time or severely gimping my output on the remainder of the current pack only to use it on the next trash pack, reducing my overall output just so I don't waste it. And on bosses....they need smoother and faster transitions so every fucking class doesn't lose their buff and have to start from scratch to begin ramping up their damage when the boss changes. It's old and frustrating as hell.

[Granyala]

Healers already have their own, small, niches. I've yet to see anyone be excluded based on which healer they're currently playing. Groups tend to want two different ones, so theres no overlap of abilities, rather than wanting any two specifically. I know thats a small sample size, but I expect it lines up with what most players have experienced too.

Pretty sure my group would prefer me to go AST for the card buffs instead of WHM. They're just too afraid to ask.

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I don't see this in WoW and I don't see it in FF14. Sure if you play at the top 20 world level they expect that level of versatility, but for 99% of the community? No chance tbh.

I never got the boot because I was a good and reliable 100% attendance player in general, but I had other players bitch and moan at me for my "choices" for years. So yeah, there's definitely pressure there.

SPriests talents never were very balanced. There was (at least in WoD, can't speak for Legion and beyond because I no longer raid) always a clear winner and if I didn't choose it, there was no longer a need to look at my logs and compare myself to my co-shadow (we were equal in skill, so even tiny differences in gear/talents/boss RNG became easily visible).