If its that bad in FFXI, then the developers have failed making it. One of the things that every levelbased mmo MUST have is balanced classes, else people get left out when they select the 'wrong' class as a nooblet. Very few mmo's manage this though for some reason. When I think about it, the only mmo I've played that managed to balance the classes quite good is WoW...Sad, but true. Even my favourite mmo of all time, Anarchy Online, is horribly unbalanced. The devs sit with their thumb up their ass and say the classes are balanced, the players say they aint. My class there was engineer. We used to be feared in pvp, but now we are just a 'cc the pet and kill that gimp'. Infact, dont bother cc'ing the pet, just kill the engineer cause the pet have extreme trouble pathfinding its way to its target, even when its a straight line to it or even standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT!!!, with nothing in its way except shitty coding. One funny thing in AO is that nanotechnicians used to be the laughingstock of that game. Nowadays they are feared for a nuke that hits 3 times bypassing all shields, ac's and reflects taking 70-80% of its targets life in one cast and castable every hmm..7th sec I think it was. Two nt's working in tandem is the new killsquad killing left and right and are almost unstoppable. And the devs call em balanced...balanced my ass. Well, when nt's got that, and engineers got yet another stealthnerf is when I left the game. Had enough of developers thinking out their ass and destroying what was once a great game. Anyway, sorry for dropping out of topic and rambling a little. But my point still ring true in my opinion. When your success in an mmo depends on cookiecutter builds, the devs have failed.
Feel free to ignore me as I will get into definitions and other boring specifics!
I agree to your point and your AO example. Also, WoW designers indeed do a great job at balancing classes - as they also excel at fighting off most design issues that older MMOs have encountered.
The "job" situation in FFXI is a bit different from the "class" situation in AO that WoW improved upon. For example, FFXI characters are able to switch jobs and make subjob changes, while AO characters are stuck with their class choice. When facing the problem of having selected the "wrong" class, new AO players are forced to remake characters (indicating a developers failure), while new FFXI players can change to the "right" job and play on from there.
Many of the problems addressed on this thread are either shared among most MMOs or were brewed up by the community tendencies previously summarized by wrongfeifong and others (which is a problem more universal among MMOs). There will always be community individuals who misinterpret what some argue as most effective to what all agree as most accepted. In the case of a WAR/MNK being told that he or she can't tank in Garlaige Citadel, please ask the teller, "How were parties able to tank monsters before Rise of the Zilart expansion?"
The "cookie-cutter" issues are generally not as severe as some have described. Asking for a certain subjob to serve a function is similar to preferring a healing druid to have talents in Restoration in WoW. Will you take in a Protection Warrior as your PVP Arena partner if you are serious about winning?
In my opinion, post-endgame FFXI offers a lot of room for individuality while maintaining very high levels of effectiveness. Achieving that level of freedom requires progress beyond reaching maximum level. Until then, it may be a bit narrow-minded to expect success by playing whatever you want, however you like, when a lot of the gameplay requires team effort.
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Feel free to ignore me as I will get into definitions and other boring specifics!
I agree to your point and your AO example. Also, WoW designers indeed do a great job at balancing classes - as they also excel at fighting off most design issues that older MMOs have encountered.
The "job" situation in FFXI is a bit different from the "class" situation in AO that WoW improved upon. For example, FFXI characters are able to switch jobs and make subjob changes, while AO characters are stuck with their class choice. When facing the problem of having selected the "wrong" class, new AO players are forced to remake characters (indicating a developers failure), while new FFXI players can change to the "right" job and play on from there.
Many of the problems addressed on this thread are either shared among most MMOs or were brewed up by the community tendencies previously summarized by wrongfeifong and others (which is a problem more universal among MMOs). There will always be community individuals who misinterpret what some argue as most effective to what all agree as most accepted. In the case of a WAR/MNK being told that he or she can't tank in Garlaige Citadel, please ask the teller, "How were parties able to tank monsters before Rise of the Zilart expansion?"
The "cookie-cutter" issues are generally not as severe as some have described. Asking for a certain subjob to serve a function is similar to preferring a healing druid to have talents in Restoration in WoW. Will you take in a Protection Warrior as your PVP Arena partner if you are serious about winning?
In my opinion, post-endgame FFXI offers a lot of room for individuality while maintaining very high levels of effectiveness. Achieving that level of freedom requires progress beyond reaching maximum level. Until then, it may be a bit narrow-minded to expect success by playing whatever you want, however you like, when a lot of the gameplay requires team effort.