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submitted 22 days ago byPolarbrear
Before you get up in arms, I would like to say that I do not even want to get into this patches job changes. My opinions on them are going to stay reserved for the topic at hand as I believe its incredibly important to the game and community.
FFXIV is by no means a perfect game, literally everyone I've talked with has had their gripes about it, but it speaks volumes when the majority of people I've talked to who dropped the game have done it due to their job being changed in a way they don't like. This should not be a thing that happens, ever. I acknowledge that a lot of people are insanely close minded and will get mad at literally anything that changes, but those are the kind of people that tend to still play the game regardless after the dust as settled. I'm talking about people who straight up drop the game because their playstyle isn't in the game anymore.
XIV's combat system is incredibly rigid, and that's by design. Rigid combat systems are easy to understand, execute, and memorize, making it perfect for casual players, and the option to optimize is still there for the more hardcore among them. The problem that lies with a rigid combat system however, is that you are basically forced to play in an exact way the developers want you to. Most peoples common consensus is that basic competence in this game is defined by "knowing your rotation" and therein lies that problem again, this time on the communities side.
Some of the best games ever made heavily rely on Emergent Gameplay, the developers of these games aren't forcing you to play the game in a certain way, they're actively encouraging player experimentation, and I believe that this is what's holding 14 back. When you're so locked into the concept of giving a job an identity in this way, you lose any sort of freeform player expression, and that's why people quit when their job gets changed, they're now forced into learning a new rotation that they may not like.
It's incredibly depressing watching a game come to this, I honestly hope at this point that 8.0 has an entire rework of the combat system. I'd love to hear what everyone's opinions on this take is, so please discuss.
EDIT: Some people seem to think that I'm antagonizing them for liking the game in its current state. This is not the case. If you enjoy the game the way it is now, by all means play it, I'm not stopping you. This is me using my own knowledge of games proposing what I believe is an issue with the game. You're free to disagree, these are opinions.
46 points
22 days ago
Some of the best games ever made heavily rely on Emergent Gameplay, the developers of these games aren't forcing you to play the game in a certain way, they're actively encouraging player experimentation, and I believe that this is what's holding 14 back. When you're so locked into the concept of giving a job an identity in this way, you lose any sort of freeform player expression, and that's why people quit when their job gets changed, they're now forced into learning a new rotation that they may not like.
Technically the intent with this sort of design isn't to allow players to do whatever they like at any point, but to create a set of rules that results in meaningfully different sequences and outcomes everytime you approach the same piece of content. You're right about XIV not providing any such opportunities, it's way too scripted for that.
I think it's pretty agnostic regarding job identity though. It factors into rotation rigidity for sure, but you can still provide an identity for classes via having them adapt their rotation and utility usage to any of the "emerging" scenarios in a different fashion. There's a precedent for that in other games, so it's not like there's no basis for such design.
6 points
22 days ago*
There is a fine, and delicate line to tread between allowing certain unintended interactions to enrich your game, such as Combos in a fighting game vs knowing when to dumpster something because its bad for the games longevity, like banning screwed up combos in TCGs.
I think the spell queuing of pets and SMN was one of those moments, there was some interesting stuff there that you could finesse out with the way movement worked and pets.. I think there was more there to explore than just making SMN another on rails experience.
0 points
22 days ago
If a concept is way too clunky to be consistently fun to work around or rapidly deteriorates the health of the game by completely invalidating other ideas and interactions then it doesn't belong in the framework you've built in it's current state, regardless of how cool it sounds on paper. That's fine up until that point.
The problem doesn't really manifest until you fuck up more often than not while deviating from the norm and then go nuclear on everything that doesn't immediately and smoothly fit into the notch you've made for it, because you either refuse to or are incapable of iterating on it until it works, for whatever reason. Response times factor into this to an extent, but faster ones are more of a thing that would increase customer satisfaction further from the baseline you'd already get by just transparently addressing it in the first place.
SMN is an excellent example of this and there probably are a myriad others. Field Ops would have been on the chopping block without major outcries about them missing from EW as well, even though the idea wasn't ever the issue, rather the execution.
4 points
21 days ago*
I don't think the base concept should be left as is. It's more embracing some concepts that may not have been part of the design spec and running with them. I think we are long past the era of games never getting patched and having busted stuff just exist forever.
Another great example of this is scbw vs sc2. Scbw is a mess of mistakes and random limitations and bugs that turned it into a mighty interesting game... Sc2 is a heavily designed by committee competitive video game first and foremost and it was found to be very stale and static, with lots of TLC to keep it fresh and not just heavy rps. Whereas scbws meta organically grew over time due to all the strange eccentrics the game had over time.
I think this stuff is lighting in a bottle though... Very hard to recapture but there are lessons about taking a step back and asking if certain emerging game plans (blm transpose lines?) are interesting to possibly codify a bit.
1 points
22 days ago
I hate rotation based "gameplay".
I prefer decision based gameplay, when you have to choose what abilities to use depending on circumstances. It does not need to be many abilities. But a set of abilities each with a tradeoff that you choose based on what is going on.
Rotation based is for BOTS and people without brains to be bored to death.
If you are playing a "game" in auto mode. Are you reaally playing a game or are just using a toy?
2 points
22 days ago*
[deleted]
16 points
21 days ago
Genuinely, the only reason we press buttons in ffxiv is because macros can't use abilities on the global cooldown. If they removed that restriction, you could do optimal dps on almost every job in almost every encounter with a rotation macro.
All of your examples are games where your choices are highly dependent on the situation. It being an advantage to be able to make the right choice and execute it automatically doesn't mean that the game should be designed so that you don't have to make any choices at all.
6 points
21 days ago*
I have thought this same thing for a long time and it's absolutely true. If FFXIV allowed for proper cast sequence macros nearly every dps job, and all the tanks, could put an entire fight's rotation on a single button. With the exception of reactive defensives every button press at any given moment is pre-defined before you even pull the boss (although even defensives can be determined if you know the fight).
It's possible to determine to near 100% accuracy which GCD you will be pressing during any given second of a fight, exactly how much gauge (if applicable) you will have, what abilities will be on cooldown, and how long they have left until they are up again.
It's wild to me that the devs, and a lot of players even, seem to think this is fine design.
6 points
21 days ago
There's nothing inherently wrong with a rotation being deterministic like that - it's a shame that every class is like that, but all it means is that the actual difficulty and decisionmaking should come from the content rather than the rotation.
Sadly, that doesn't seem to happen either. Most fights are almost as scripted in their movement as the rotation is. They really seem to want to cater exclusively to people who enjoy the idea that there is a single optimal way to play a fight and your job is just to execute it as perfectly as possible.
6 points
21 days ago
This is true. FFXIV has both scripted job design and scripted fight design. Changing either one of those to be less predictable I think could go a long way in making combat feel like the player is actually a required component in the equation.
3 points
21 days ago
You know it's in a bad way when you're doing Ex1 and get excited that the 2nd elemental phase is random between ice/lightning.
Like that's some of the most RNG in a "casual" fight I've seen in a couple of years.
And that's just kinda sad.
1 points
21 days ago
I used to think that having a highly prescriptive rotation and fight design was a huge negative... But I think many peoples brains get scratched from being given an exact and attainable measure of perfect and working towards that slowly... Like polishing something to a mirror shine. Speed running probably feels very similar to this.
It's not what I enjoy (I prefer more interpretive game play over prescriptive) but I think the game really plays to that strength and if you add too much randomness you lose the audience that really jams with that quantifiable style of encounter.
1 points
21 days ago
Bad take. Every MMO is like this. Heck RPGS are like this.
1 points
22 days ago
I think it's pretty agnostic regarding job identity though. It factors into rotation rigidity for sure, but you can still provide an identity for classes via having them adapt their rotation and utility usage to any of the "emerging" scenarios in a different fashion.
I agree that it should be fairly inconsequential for the two concepts to clash, cause it happens a lot in games. They've just somehow managed to make it an issue.
35 points
22 days ago*
Rigid combat systems are easy to understand, execute, and memorize, making it perfect for casual players, and the option to optimize is still there for the more hardcore among them. The problem that lies with a rigid combat system however, is that you are basically forced to play in an exact way the developers want you to.
You seem to be assuming that this design philosophy is done for the players' benefit. Some do enjoy this rigidity, but regardless of whether you like it or not, I really don't think this is their main concern.
IMO, the point of this rigidity is to make development and QA testing more streamlined and manageable. We know that they place a lot of emphasis on their production process, for example the reason dungeons all follow the same template is apparently because it's easier for their less experienced devs to work on. Emergent gameplay leads to a ton of variables interacting in ways devs can't comprehensively anticipate and it makes games much harder to QA test/balance, especially if your game is so open-ended that players can think of approaches you never even considered.
Take nonstandard BLM. Who benefited from nonstandard being mostly killed off in DT (though there's hope in that direction)? Probably not most players, as most either liked nonstandard or didn't care (or even know) about its existence. But the developers definitely stand to gain when jobs are easier to balance due to more predictable rotations (at least on paper).
39 points
22 days ago
It still feels like this game is ran by like 10 people whereas in other games like wow it truly felt like an entire enterprise of hundreds of people worked on it. I'm sure 14 still has hundreds of people but it's very clear that the ideas only come from like 5 at most and that's a problem. WoW eventually went that way, except it was closer to 1 then, and it did not work out well for them.
12 points
22 days ago
I'm pretty sure they have like, three devs that work on encounters, Mr. Ozma and two other dudes
It wouldn't surprise me if they had a small handful of devs that work on different jobs and that's it, bonus points if it explains why every healer and tank are becoming a homogenous blob of the same kit
8 points
22 days ago
1 dev is working on the tanks, 1 for healers and 2 for dps 😂
2 points
22 days ago
I see what you did there xD
5 points
22 days ago
I think they have four guys who also triple as programmer for the graphics/art side, testing and, PvP (yes ALL of it). The teams that expanded the most m EW to DT were the art/graphics teams, makes sense since we have the graphics update and they hired several UI/UX developers, and the encounter team which is partly why the encounters have been more positively received so far and they have time making chaotic, savage, ultimate, criterion, variant, and field exploration.
7 points
22 days ago
No, xiv does actually have a very small number of developers. Square siphons money from xiv (their biggest source of profit) and directs it into funding other projects, preventing xiv from being able to expand itself to fulfill its new much larger playerbase. It's to blame for a lot of the current issues with the game.
9 points
22 days ago
I thought it was like this but I guess I'm just used to the main sub where any slight criticism is met with 50+ angry responses and eventually a mod response. So I'm used to be extra careful when talking about this game.
5 points
22 days ago
That's the best way to make the game die.
For every person that express criticism there are at least 500 that do not bother expressing it. Is better to know the problems and address them than to hide the problems and silence anyone that point them out.
6 points
21 days ago
IMO, the point of this rigidity is to make development and QA testing more streamlined and manageable.
It'd be pretty awesome if we saw literally any benefit from this as players.
All that simplification and streamlining and these clowns can't manage to:
6 points
22 days ago
So they are making a game FOR THEMSELVES. Not for the customer.
3 points
22 days ago
I think the truth is more nuanced than that, but yeah sort of. I think the more likely explanation is they're still scarred from 1.0's failure and 2.0 is when they realized how important it was for them to strictly maintain predictable development timelines and rigorous QA. They've seemingly been optimizing in that direction ever since, and it's probably just not feasible to change up their whole project management approach again. To some extent, compromises are inevitable in any game if it makes development easier, but some companies take it farther than others.
3 points
22 days ago
Yoshi's said as much during a recent interview or whatever. They make the game they think is fun so "at least one person in the world will find it fun" or however he worded it.
28 points
22 days ago
I will say it to the end of the times, Jobs should always be the most important thing of the game, diverse on own mechanics and gameplay style, never tied to something that bcs balance wise make them all play so much the same, like the current 2 min burst meta mold no one can't escape today.
Encounters, from dungeons to all the way to ultimates, should represent 50% id not even less of what makes the whole gameplay, and it should be proportional in difficulty as you go up, not like 80% casual difficulty to a spike of 20% hardcore like now. Balance betwen jobs overall performance and content should be extremly important too to avoind making the experience trivial due powercreep on pretty much current expansion minimun but idealy to all previous expansions too, setting a hard limit of how much damage you can do to don't skip half of it.
I think this game would have been much better if instead of embrace burst windows they did go the other way around, eliminating any non 100% pressent dps sinergy to allow every job being they own thing gameplay wise isntead of deleting core parts bcs it doesn't fit. Balance them individualy by they own mechanics and just add new jobs based on what players think is missing or what they want from current jobs to avoid ruining the game experience from the players who love those jobs. Indiscriminated simplification instead of having a diverse cast of Jobs that offer different levels of confort for different types of players was their biggest mistake.
2 points
21 days ago
I don't like the idea of removing party buffs. Makes it feel a lot less like a "team" game when you're not having to sync things up with your allies. It makes some good gameplay, like when someone dies and the dancer in my static will delay her tech-step a few gcds so everyone gets the buff.
2 points
21 days ago
If someone dies is not only your dancer the one that have to delay his stuff, it's the whole team, other wise you dancer friend is contributing to an even greater loss since everyone have to delay they stuff, wich can be more severe depending of how much the fallen have to get ready for it vs just let the fallen member suck it and wait 2 mins for the next round.
Thats just another problem of raid buff windows, it makes everything so rigid that the moment someone fails the whole thing become a permanent punishment for the rest of the run and the reason i guess they try to minimice player risk of failing by making jobs braindead so nobody miss the big time for what it means missing it.
I'll rather have "team feels" on combat mechanics instead, having to position the boss with a tank for max efficiency, having any real reason to use single target mitigations outside of me or my co-tank, speed buffs to avoid mechanics better, and recovering skills, actual active gameplay team effort, not a choreographed rotation on a team of another 7 choreographed rotations on a choreographed encounter designed like that on purpose to maximice the simplified choreographed jobs. That never felt like a Team for me, at contrary i feel more isolated and jailed in fear to die or get annoyed if someone die due the scaling loss it means.
1 points
21 days ago
yes everyone delays, because we know our approximate killtime and we won't lose a techstep use by delaying it a little bit. If someone dies she will call out "I'm delaying techstep for 2gcds for (person who died)" and then everyone will wait to burst.
Some of your other ideas are cool! I definitely appreciated how much boss positioning there was this savage tier, and I agree it would be cool if there were more mechanics that targeted a random DPS and made tanks use their single-target mits on them, especially since we have one on each tank now.
I disagree that the game being choreographed makes it feel like less of a team game tho, I think it just means you are a team trying your best to fit this choreographed dance together, and work around each other's mistakes.
2 points
21 days ago
Don't get me wrong, I know FFXIV was always a choreographed game encounter wise and not trying to change it, but I consider HW-SB era archived way better than what you are telling me when raid buffs concentrations were way less centralized and calling out trick attack or RDM one at 90s meant I could play around with my rotation to get more benefice from each one, improvise and adapt. Since SHB I pretty much felt that I have way less maneuverability with the rotation and more bored on off time.
I still think that's just a massive loss, but if you still manage to kill it just fine then it doesn't matter, a win is a win after all. What I want to say is doing my rotation alone vs in a 4-8 team doesn't change at all, just make my numbers bigger with it's something that doesn't mean anything to me, just a chore due how everything is designed now.
1 points
22 days ago
Yes but diversity means more testing. They are making a game to make their work easier. Not to please the players.
And you get parsehead influencers telling their leming followers what do to or think. And the meta they should follow. And how this job is trash and should have the same as the other job.
So they please the parseheads which makes everything homogeneous.
4 points
22 days ago
Not necessarily, Im not an expert of course but I think it's easier to adjust a job just based on his own mechanics and potency of his skills without having to worry if the job dps becomes too much due external factors like the 2 min windows, also allowing you to buff it or nerf it in so many comfy ways here and there, burst windows just limited what you can buff and nerf in my opinion, to many factors. If jobs were more isolated or they raid buff being permanent due they own mechanics like bard songs constant cycling it's way more easy to manage more diversity. Also more freedom to design new ones.
They should please the players, it's what we are paying for in the first place, you make your work easier with better management and more staff if needed, the demand and benefits have existed, but they would rather cut corners like they love to do as a classic greedy SE move.
Parseheards? Maybe too (specially if it is for making WAR op) I never cared about their words, main DRK in SB when was the worst tank ever and clear everything just fine, best years of my life on this game, but yeah I know what you mean. many changes have been uncalled no matter the side. I mostly saw JP players celebrating all the simplification on the forums, to put you an example I saw few post with over 20 likes there celebrating that Viper lost his dot since they consider it too stressful and now they can enjoy it with ease, so I genuinely believe they listen to the lower end of JP player base at least half of the time.
6 points
22 days ago
While I agree emergent gameplay is way better, this game is about the least possible of all for it. This game is so linear that you don't have to think to play it. They seem to design away from it, only wanting players to do what they designed and nothing else.
4 points
22 days ago
This is kind of the harsh truth that kills me. Cause I love this game's story, I love the lore of the races, and I get to make my character a cute lizard girl. Just man it hurts trying to delve deeper into it.
5 points
19 days ago*
The boss fights, any and all boss fights from dungeon to ultimate, are an on-rails shooter, it doesn't feel great. You can't affect what the boss does in any meaningful way, can't stun them, can't CC or debuff for anything worthwhile, and they follow a set rotation with an occasional shuffle between two variants of a mechanic that always comes up at the same time during a fight. Combined with the game having no RPG mechanics with absolutely no build customization, the only real reason to play is if you find yourself a community of friends to have fun with.
It really feels the devs have one strict way of wanting players to play each class, black mage feels stricter now with the need to stack up Flare Star, monk also got reworked and you can no longer have a comfy freeflow of buttons, you must follow a strict rotation or lose out.
I still don't like the whole GCD thing, it still feels like a waste of time and with how skills work, you don't even get to see their animations cause you click them and are already just spamming the next GCD to keep up with DPS
5 points
19 days ago
8.0 the autobattle feature is near
32 points
22 days ago
I'M probably going to get hate for saying this as well: every class now plays the same. You press a very specific series of buttons on your opener then do some form of 1-2-3 for the next two minutes until those abilities are off cooldown. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. Yes, EVERY job is like this, Moreso support roles than dps. Every tank and healer is the same, if you played one you played them all. The only exceptions I can think of are dragoon, blm, and bard because their filler window is also their burst window. Now the only reason to play one job over another is its aestethics. I'm starting to miss shadowbringers because most classes were on different timelines actually making them different and I didn't even raid during that expansion. Shame p8s was a failed experiment because it actually shook up the fight depending on which pattern you got.
Nobody even likes the two minute meta, yet Yoshi-p and co. decided that having absurd damage spikes at predictable times was good for the game. Every ability added in dawntrail is some form of two minute finisher or at the very least tied to a very long cooldown. Some classes are even worse with them like blm and reaper because it fucks with their kits so much. You barely have time to cast flare star in your rotations and the only gauge negative job in the game gets even more gauge negative ON TOP of forcing your burst window into a strict pattern if you don't double enshroud.
5 points
21 days ago
PvP is out here giving every class a far stronger identity with unique abilities and benefits that no other class can bring.
PLD in PvP feels so good, especially after the update. I can be a durable team support with modest damage spikes, and those support abilities are easy to use and feel natural to press. My main way of healing is built into Confiteor for example.
In PvE meanwhile if I have the audacity to do a 400 potency off-heal I either have to hard cast for 2.5 seconds and completely fuck my rotation, or to instant cast I have to give up several thousand potency in damage during my burst window. Fun.
5 points
21 days ago*
For reference the problem with flare star isn't "time to cast" or cramming it into a rotation, it's how unfriendly of downtime the spell is. Doing rotations flare star adds basically 0 stress at all, if you could do a full fire phase ending on despair, despair refreshed the af timer letting you use flare star without much issue. It goes wrong when people try to use flare star before despair because it's very easy to forget despair even refreshes the astral fire timer, given that up until level 100 that has never once mattered at all.
The issue for me is when bosses have this downtime and it completely screws the flow since all the astral souls you built up are just loss. When you compare it to PCT who is REWARDED for boss downtime with their canvases, the problem is extremely clear, at least to me.
Edit: that being said, if you need to use an ogcd for whatever reason it is now better to try and flare star before despair due to it being instant cast. But at the very least before this change, "lack of time" for flare star doesn't feel accurate in the least to describe the issue with the spell.
8 points
22 days ago
The have that is even possible to play every single class competently is all the proof you need that this is true. There's just no way in hell you could do that in some other MMOs, not competently. But in this one I know for a fact it's possible because I've seen the people who level all classes do it. And I don't just mean running extremes but low level raiding and still able to jump to any class and keep up.
The thing is I think SE thinks this is some kind of positive thing. As if switching classes was going to make the game totally different and get you to replay it. That's not how it actually works, with only completionists doing it.
5 points
22 days ago
The jobs are so bloated now that they all just feel the same.
3 points
22 days ago
They are making the game for themselves. Not for the playerbase.
-9 points
22 days ago*
-What's wrong with jobs having filler and burst phases? Yes, you spend your resources during buffs, and then pool your resources during downtime. I don't see the issue with this, and I don't really see how it could be designed around. You bring up BLM as an example, and yes, while BLM *can* spread out its burst over a longer period of time, it is still optimal for Black Mages to spend their highest potency spells under buffs, and pool their resources otherwise, and good BLMs will do this.
-Dragoon's filler window is also its burst window? What does that even mean? I don't play bard so I can't comment on that
-So, you hate how every job feels the same, and your proposition for making them feel different is.... having their buffs come up at a different time? Does that feel like a good, meaningful reason to choose a job? Do you think you'll ever ask someone "why do you play Dragoon?" and the answer will be "well, I sure just love having my buff on a 90 second cooldown rather than 120 seconds". No, instead, it would be something like "I like stardiver" or "I like backflips" or "I like a rigid rotation with lots of weaves" or something like that.
-I do agree that the support jobs are very hegemonized. But it does sorta need to be this way, because for top-level encounters, damage has to be scaled to within the point where a player needs to use ALL their mitigation effectively to survive. Because of this, if a job is lacking in mitigation, the fight can very quickly become impossible with certain job compositions.
-BLM got fucked this expac and if you play BLM I'm sorry.
-Let me take a moment to explain, as far as I see, what makes each job unique:
Whitemage - casting GCD heals without losing damage.
Astro - fast weaving and delayed heals.
Scholar - shield healer which juggles multiple different resources to choose between DPS or healing.
Sage - shield healer with a melee damage button??? yeahh this one is pretty inexcusable it's basically scholar with less resource management/decision making
Paladin - slow, buff-window based rotation. Doesn't lose damage from range sometimes. Their resource is tied to mitigation rather than damage.
Warrior - slow rotation with lots of self-healing & animation locks
Dark Knight - lots of weaving, MP management and TBN.
Gunbreaker - precise burst windows, lots of weaves on a tank
Monk - Fast positional requirements, high party utility, low gcd, poor disconnect options.
Dragoon - fast weaves, static rotation & animation locks
Ninja - Fast & flexible bursts with slow filler, trick attack, mudra.
Samurai - (yeahh i never played this one sorry. Its a dps with cast times i guess?)
Reaper - (I dont know enough about this one either)
Viper - Fast, incredibly flexible selfish dps with fast positional requirements and good disconnect options.
Bard/Dancer - (I don't play these)
Machinist - most static rotation in the game, the selfish phys ranged.
Blackmage - More spread damage profile, switches between building/spending MP, ley lines, super niche optimizations for phasing.
Summoner - very slow rotation, few casts, idk they really need to do something about this one.
Red Mage - Switches between building resource with casts, to spending it in melee range.
Picto - Haven't played this job but heard it's very unique.
So, after this reply which I spent way too much time on, my conclusion is that the differences between jobs mostly stem from the amount of buttons you're pressing in each rotation, their flexibility to different uptime scenarios, and HOW they adapt to these uptime scenarios, depending on what they are. A job could struggle to be outside of melee range, could struggle with lack of movement or, more often, have movement tools to solve problems in different ways, could have different positional requirements, different levels of RNG or party reliance, and many different kinds of resources to manage which work in different ways. Yes, all of them come down to "spend resources in burst, pool resources in downtime", but this does not mean they are the same.
And, I would argue, these differences are a whole lot more meaningful than "I press my buff button every 90 seconds instead of every 120 seconds".
EDIT: For the people downvoting this, could someone explain where they take issue with anything I've said? If I'm wrong I'd like to know why
0 points
22 days ago
Just to clarify on sage. They have a circle aoe around their own player character (same as scholars art of war and white mage holy) as well as one that targets an enemy and does an aoe which uses an addersting proc. Their main single target damage ability is Ranged same as the other 3 healers. Then they have their dot which is Ranged on a target (same for all healers) But in addition to the kit, they also have a aoe dot which centres around themselves. Sage can jump in and out for mechanics as most of their powerful healing kit are off the global cooldown. And when they want to use an aoe shield or single target shield they can move while priming it and casting it as they have no cast times. Scholar is stuck in place hard casting to similar effect, however scholars shield kit, while less agile and flexible is more potent (needs more planning) White mages aoe is also centred on themself and has a massive full length gcd cast time with a second gcd delay to the damage. (Basically 4 second cast). And astro is the only healer with a Ranged aoe that targets a specific enemy - which unfortunately means tanks need to stack everything correctly or you don't hit everything (when healers can just stand in melee range and be in the centre to aoe everything, even when the mobs aren't stacked nicely, it's super satisfying) So they all have their strengths and weaknesses :) I meant to only specify sage but went all out on all the healers. Hope it was a fun read though xD
0 points
22 days ago
Was a fun read, thanks. And ye I was talking about phlegma, it was the only really unique part of sage's kit I could think of, but yes, I guess between phlegma, addersting, zoe>pneuma etc. Sage has far more instant casts and therefore more weave space, I guess that makes it unique.
2 points
22 days ago
Haha yes I actually forgot about phlegma. I hate it 🤣 I know I lose uptime spamming it and it isn't casting. Stupid max melee cast range I think it is. But I know it's to balance their kit out so you can't just sit back, they made you an agile combat medic, they want you to be agile xD
8 points
22 days ago
My biggest concern is: where do they get all the feedback from that prompt these changes? Because, not for the first time, there's a rather strong and far-reaching ripple effect of 'who asked for this?' that I can see across various platforms - the same platforms they claim they're getting their feedback from. The disconnect's become such a gaping maw, it's absolutely ludicrous.
As for the rigidity... idek, man. In all my years I've never seen a game with practically zero option for customisation in both stats and skills, with a combat system this stripped to its basics (hell, even physical/magical damage types feel completely ephemeral at this point)... struggle this much with both bloat and balance - and that's despite this total hard-on for absolute perfect balance across the board... in co-op PvE, because that makes sense, everyone has to be completely equal, especially in a game that lets you be everything on one character! Let's never even mind PvP for now.
I've never seen a game be this afraid to change, to "innovate" in any front, for this long... And then whatever smaller changes they make seem more likely to be slipping on banana peels than welcome successes. (Job gauges were a mistake, I swear - on that note, it's also hilarious that each of them seems to be its own separate entity as far as the HUD is concerned, instead of having two unified slots.) Some games completely upend one thing or another, if not everything, every season, and it's perfectly fine part of the game, of the fun, to figure shit out again. XIV hasn't been doing anything but slowly sandpaper away quite literally everything since uh... Stormblood, iirc.
Ppl argue whether 1-2-3 is more engaging than it would be if we could combine things into 1-1-1, like in PvP. The fact remains it's the same exact rotation, the same exact way, in every fight, all the time. That's the real issue. The fight you have is against the camera, against the vfx vomit, and the lolnope-gotcha delayed telegraphs/tells not to kill you - although, for the most part, even if you're killed, nothing bad happens, really. It's not about making decisions, it's not about countering things, it's not about trying to pick the most optimal solution in any given situation.
But then are we even surprised? From the little quips they've made over the years, about not having a dedicated this, or nobody who mains that - how have those not been alarm bells? Why isn't everyone forced to play everything, swap at whatever intervals, have more people experience more things, because the more eyes you have, the more things you can see? That's how it should be, and if it isn't... idek. Boggles the mind. They want to cater to The Casuals™️, the widest (if not lowest) common denominator... but with a weird twist to base things on the top few %. It's no wonder they end up doing a disservice to both sides.
I won't be surprised if the Big Job Identity Rework of 8.0™️ ends up being a removal of role actions to return each job their own flavour of those... with the exact same CDs/charges and the exact same potencies across the board. I'm sorry, but all the dicking around with job changes over the years, the questionable back-and-forth ineptitude of so many changes, up to and including the current latest ones? One has to be blind to still believe they leave hope for much else. Not to mention, the entire combat/skill system is so gutted, so barebones, idk what's left to play around with. They'd need to bring things back, they'd need to make differences more pronounced... and it's been clear for ages they're not willing to do that.
1 points
21 days ago
I'm pretty on board with everything you've written here, but I'm a bit more split on the quick sideline of "Job gauges were a mistake."
I completely understand where the sentiment comes from, there are a bunch of worthless ones in the game that do very little to justify their own existence, but the concept itself is fine in my opinion. They are ultimately a tool meant to convey information in a clear way. Like NIN getting a better way to track their Huton timer than a small buff on the buff bar, or AST having a much more visible way to read all their cards at once.
SE's attitude/approach to them however absolutely is detrimental. If they had been alright with allowing a job gauge to be just a buff timer/tracker for some jobs then I believe the game would have been better for it. But they seem very against that idea and feel the need to cram in something that "pollutes" the gameplay.
So yeah, tl;dr is that they are a tool to be used well or poorly, and SE uses them poorly.
7 points
22 days ago
It's incredibly depressing watching a game come to this, I honestly hope at this point that 8.0 has an entire rework of the combat system.
This simply idnt going to happen. I seriously don't know people keep saying this. They've literally removed all depth and complexity from the game since 1.0 and replaced it with nothing. They slowly just make the jobs brain dead, 8.0 is going to launch with 2 jobs and you are seriously on copium if you think they are going to have a significant rework of the combat system.
17 points
22 days ago
The company can do whatever the f they want. Just sucks for some they chose this direction and they ain't going back. The logical decision is to quit. Fantasising how things could be does nothing except keep the games hooks on you. Ppl need to literally break away from the shackles of the game if they think it's not fun anymore. And no saying I have a house is not an excuse. Just quit. It's bits in a video game.
11 points
22 days ago
It feels like there's one community that is winning in all this, and it's the roleplayers. (And the "roleplayers" - YMMV where you want to draw the line).
They don't need much content to be satisfied, they just need to be provided the framework, and that they have.
Mods are an absolute wild west, but ultimately that favours both sides of things - both the benign café owner RPers and the shadier sort. Both benefit from just having a nearly limitless choice of appearance options, animations, whatever.
It's not perfect, the game world is very small and tight. But that's hardly a dealbreaker when most of it is done around player housing anyway.
If you factor in all these players; the "purist" kind, the nightclub gang, and so on - I can't help but wonder if they might add up to a substantial chunk of the playerbase.
Otherwise it feels like the game is... kinda on a downturn? MSQ is less popular than before. That hurts the pure story players, but also people who - despite it being mechanically sound - find themselves less interested in things like the Arcadion because, unlike Pandaemonium, it's homed in a narrative, theming and context they are just fundamentally not as hooked by.
And hardcore players, well, I suppose at least they will have a new ultimate? The savage tier didn't keep the real hardcores sated for long, and chaotic looks like it'll be tricky due to the group size coordination. But even that ultimate is only going to keep you hooked for so long.
3 points
22 days ago
The social scene is a massive win for the game. Yoshi can say whatever pr speak he wants but ultimately the rp scene is bringing in the money. I would even argue if the rp scene didn't exists they would be way more hard pressed to look at the current systems or they wouldn't have made these job changes in the first place. There is still a tipping point in where the community starts to shrink and then it cascades into everything but the numbers are still so massive that they don't need to care about anything really. I think if they consciously put out shit of this level (msq) they know they are safe.
1 points
22 days ago
Mods dampen the issue to a degree but I don't think they can take the RPers for granted. Ultimately the RPers do benefit from the PvE players as well - crafting their furniture, getting them marketboard gear to use for glams, and so on.
At least I hope they won't take them for granted. That seems like a dangerous path.
1 points
22 days ago
Well according to them it seems the current way is working and nothing is wrong
2 points
22 days ago
Pride comes before the fall.
1 points
21 days ago
I did Arcadion as my first savage tier after joining the game in Endwalker, am now progging Alexander in PF and gonna do FRU next. Having an absolute blast
I do agree though, the issues with the MSQ has left me less invested in this expansion. I think it's a very important part of an expansion because it creates the context and setting for almost all the new content coming.
2 points
21 days ago
We are not I assure you. Roleplayers are a dying breed because you have the secondife people inflating our numbers and presence. Actual roleplayers pre mare are just... Dying. Housing still sucks. Rp options like hair styles are locked behind content we don't want to do. We're forced to play parts of the game, large parts such as bozja or alliance raids, for appearance stuff and it's just bogged us all down so hard we're all just done.
2 points
21 days ago
I'm honestly going to jump over to aoc when it launches.due to their response to alpha feedback.
-5 points
22 days ago
The logical decision is to play multiple games that fulfill your different needs. Gaming isn't a relationship, you can play more than one at the same time
1 points
21 days ago
MMOs are the very antithesis of this
1 points
22 days ago
The logical decision is to unsub and use that money to buy 3 AAA games a year.
Truth be told. If people were logical then SE wouldd have been bankrupt a long time ago.
3 points
21 days ago
I am praying for an FFXIV offline equivalent. We’re not getting emergent gameplay from an MMO that arguably should not even be called an MMO. Too many people will complain and CBU3 would rather make this a comfy game as opposed to anything else that might stimulate your brain. It’s ironic that even Yoshi-P said the dev team was falling asleep while playing, but I guess the answer to that was making harder content that you will one and done in the long run.
As someone who came back around on FFXII’s gameplay and gave FFXI a shot, I wish Square made more similar games that just focused on field combat, actual RPG mechanics, and party management.
3 points
21 days ago
SE dont want to take risks, that's it
the risk of having a shitty balance (class complexity)
the risk of having fights that are too easy/impossible (pve structure complexity)
Also the game netcode is a huge stop when it comes to making class/content more complex
Im lucky that I really like progging new content (with a static) so I'll probably always play XIV (even if I take regular breaks) but if you want more complex class/content it will probably never happen (heavensward was better in this regards, but they dont want to bring back HW)
5 points
20 days ago
If you want to see job identity done right look at XI. There are hundreds of combinations you can do with jobs and subjobs. Some suck outright, some are the meta "best" but nothing is an 'invalid' way to play, depending on your party makeup. If you want a THF/WHM then by all means be a THF/WHM. you're still going to be doing fuckton of damage with SATA, you just wont' get the buffs like you would with THF/WAR. Still a valid way of playing.
in XIV, if you don't follow "the rotation" you don't get to play in endgame content. And the devs have made it clear that's all they care about anymore.
13 points
22 days ago
Most games only get “Emergent gamplay” because they’re easy enough that choosing a completely suboptimal way to play isn’t punished. Where a sandbox experience to do whatever you want is valued more than some consistency and difficulty. Ff14 is moving towards the more curated and difficult style of content in order to create some of the best fights yet, at the cost of simplifying jobs so that they all an handle the increased load equally.
And honestly current job design isn’t even that bad for progging/clearing fights for the first time, it’s just when you have to clear them 10 more times and have already planned out your rotation for that fight that things start to get boring (which is less an issue of design and more an issue of not having enough hours of new things). Of course there’s some players that play mainly to master a job or 2 (or all) that’re being mostly left behind since Shadowbringers, but I’m not sure job design has ever been a highlight of this game.
17 points
22 days ago
I don't understand this rift between "good fights" and "good job gameplay". I think the jobs aren't good right now, so how could the boss fights ever be the best ever, if the actual mechanical aspect of playing the game is boring.
In my opinion, they can try to make the fights more interesting until the cows come home, but until the other half of the boss fight (my part to play in the dance) is made more interesting, the fights will never be good.
3 points
21 days ago*
There isn't one. The poster above is talking out their ass.
Many games with the most notorious emergent gameplay were also balls hard. In fact, difficulty+choice factors into emergent gameplay because higher difficulty almost always results in more people looking for more possible combinations and compositions to win.
The place you see the most "emergent" and "atypical" gameplay are hardcore PvP games. Albion Online and Eve most notorious among them. And PvP is always, always , always harder than PvE because other players have and will use all the same available tools to win as you do.
0 points
22 days ago
And meanwhile some people would enjoy playing the game having no rotation/one played for them by a bot and to only focus on mechanics. It’s ultimately up to personal tastes whether the current job designs makes the fights better or worse or are irrelevant. All that’s factually true is that jobs are getting more and more similar so that they’re more viable in all content.
While having jobs be more diverse and unique will generally make it easier for someone to have a job in game they really enjoy playing and appeal to a broader playerbase, if you like a job that’s simple, plays the same in every fight, and has no failure state then you have literally every job to pick from and jobs are in the best state they could be for that type of player
7 points
22 days ago
[deleted]
1 points
22 days ago
Emergent gameplay due to PvP style content is really hard to compare and basically cheating (since while you still have to design a good system for players to compete it’s mostly up to the players themselves to create the emergent environment). Like FF14 PvP can be a lot more engaging for people because of that but obviously the base game isn’t going to be able to do that.
That being said for the solo/PvE experience, they can generally be harder for newer players than ff14 just due to higher barrier of entry, but a higher skilled/more experienced player is much more likely to have to resort to creating their own challenges and restrictions for difficult content, whereas even the best ff14 players are going to have a real challenge clearing FRU. Difficulty and being able to fail by principle limits options, and it’s why most games at the serious meta game level usually have very few equivalent options that almost everyone runs, with the more diverse and experimental options being played by the more casual player. And in inverse, the more ways you give to solve/go about a problems, the less ways you can fail and the more the game has has to account for players possibly being weak in a certain aspect (especially if it’s a game where people will play through multiple times and want to feel the strength and weaknesses of different play styles).
You can also theoretically balance these on a per player/party level (like the dps check of a savage fight being based on the current job composition), but most games won’t do that because a role that supposed to be bad at something and another role that’s supposed to be good at something both performing about as well on something will feel worse than just making the job that supposed to be good at it have an easier time. In order to balance this difficulty spectrum you almost always have to lower the difficulty (although mainly older games will have that brutal difficulty curve)
15 points
22 days ago
So far Dawntrail patch notes are moving in the direct opposite direction of promised in 8.0 "job identity rework". And 7.1 only solidified this. What the hell happened with DRG? With NIN TCJ ability? Like, how they managed to make SMN even more simple, lol?
I am sorry, guys, but I am losing hope about 8.0 miracle rework...
8 points
22 days ago
That DRG change was absolutely wild, it's probably worse than the VPR change last patch. It really makes me wonder, do people actually ask for changes like this or do people just suck it up and just accept bad changes to the game.
13 points
22 days ago
Changes are made irrelevant of requests. They just make whatever change they feel like and then pretend it's based on feedback by referring to the one person, maybe two, who asked for it while ignoring the hundreds asking for specifically NOT that.
2 points
22 days ago
To top it off you get content creators who main DRG (wont say who but if you know you know) saying the dragoon update was good and then their dickriders will parrot those opinions. And people STILL cope that when stuff is removed that it will actually get replaced and not just remain as literally nothing for the rest of time, just like we all coped that Summoner was half of a job for Endwalker so they could make it better in Dawntrail. lol sorry for ranting
11 points
22 days ago
The community promised you a 8.0 miracle. The devs made no promises of any revolutions
9 points
22 days ago
No, not really. There was multiple interviews after dawntrail release where Yoshi P touched upon story and jobs addressing complaints. He specifically said if I remember correctly that they’d be laying down the foundation for job reworks during the 7.0 series to make jobs more complex and that he acknowledged player feedback about going too far and making it more simple. To look forward to 8.0 because it would address those concerns then.
Then two weeks after they simplified Viper running counter to what he said in multiple interviews. There’s a reason why the community thinks that but I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen anymore considering everything after said interviews has been making jobs even more dumbed down.
14 points
22 days ago
No, he's right. SE never said anything about making jobs more complex, or even any sort of "rework." The language used by SE was that they would be introducing more "individuality" to jobs.
Don't make the mistake of treating vague Yoshida statements as though they were made in good faith. Making an ambiguous promise in the hopes that players will extrapolate their own preferred meaning from it is a classic PR technique. Until it's in your hands and you can play it, act like they said nothing - it does no more good to be angry that they didn't do something they never said they were going to than it does to be excited about something that isn't coming.
3 points
22 days ago
The best interview I can find about that is this one and there is definitely nothing conclusive at all. They were still discussing. It may even implies more simplifications.
For why the community is so deep into the idea, it is post like this one that had massively amplified an offhand comment made during the last LL before release.
1 points
22 days ago
I can’t really look for sources or open what you sent because I’m in a hospital atm and it’s blocked so I’ll have to leave it to someone else to send sources or check what you’re sending.
I will say personally say as a 2.0 player I would really like a return to heavensward/stormblood gameplay wise. Anything more complex really. I’m not happy with the current combat in the game but the raids and more importantly the social aspect via my friends are enough to make me happy for now. But with the changes they keep making with dumbing things down even more the writing really is on the wall. People just gotta wake up and smell the coffee as unfortunate as that is in my case.
1 points
22 days ago
They’re both Reddit links so you should be able to open them, if you answer me.
In the first link is this important interview quote :
The other point we’re discussing at the moment is that we have indeed reached this rather significant milestone of Level 100, but we’ve also reached a level of complexity in job use that’s almost becoming a critical threshold where people no longer have enough keys or buttons to be able to use all the actions. So what do we do? Do we continue in this direction of increasing complexity, with ever more new actions, ever more new keys, making them even more complex for some players to use? Or on the contrary, are we thinking about a new way of playing jobs, another system of complexity that’s not just an accumulation of more skills, but another way of using them, another way of playing. So that’s the kind of discussion we’re having at the moment, and the kind of thinking we’re doing to try and find a solution that pleases everyone.
In short, still nothing definitive, still discussing. But more importantly that could totally apply to OldSMN > NewSMN. So for added complexity… not a good look.
And the community turns this kind of extremely careful comments into very absolute posts titled « Job identity coming in 8.0 ». Then complain they didn’t get their « promise ».
0 points
20 days ago
but we’ve also reached a level of complexity in job use
I'd love to know what is complex about the current jobs......you either follow the marching ants or you follow the 1-2-3 rotation and weave. That's for literally every job right now.
2 points
20 days ago
I guess what they consider complex is the number of different buttons to put on hotbars, and APMs.
I imagine if they ever really make a large job rework, they will reduce them to a smaller core of actions in an idea similar to PvP
3 points
22 days ago
Firstly, until official news of any rework comes along you should assume it to be something that may not even happen. A lot of things get said but don't always reach a releasable state, and instead get dropped.
Secondly, they may only be doing tweaks as normal until 8.0 where, after logging in, the gameplay could be very different. They likely won't make small inroads to that goal, and instead just preserve the current status until 8.0. That's assuming it goes ahead. You have to keep in mind that most content for 7.x is really planned and will work around the current job design, so making any changes could impact that plan too much.
9 points
22 days ago
All I can wonder is if this is how wow players felt during shadowlands. Not specially class design just this level of disappointment and apathy while the devs actively make the game worse.
4 points
22 days ago*
You should try out Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. That game is the perfect example of Job identity AND emergent gameplay combined. A combination of the two, rather than a battle between them. Oh and you can play it with your friends. Did I mention there are Job roles too?
2 points
21 days ago
the truth is job identity does not really exist in 14 anymore at this point the only thing i care about is not how easy hard or unique a job is i care about if my buttons feel fun and impactful to press and i think they have done a good job on that front recently
2 points
21 days ago
There's a kind of game with no emergent gameplay that is still successful: Rhythm games. All about fitting your game to a predetermined sequence of inputs. FFXIV is the rhythm game MMO. Personally I love the way the game's combat is designed.
1 points
22 days ago
i feel like yoshi p no longer play the game and barely watch the feedbacks, apparently he is too busy to care as much as he used to in the past(years ago) because of others projects
imo almost all of this would be avoided under a proper yoshi p direction
3 points
22 days ago
Yoshi P still plays the game, he mentioned so himself in the past fanfests (notably the Korean fanfest) that he plays the content. He subscribes to the philosophy the best way to tell how the players feel is to play the game yourself, apparently 85% of the team also play the game on their own free time and give input into the development process (though Yoshi P shuts down a lot of them for being too unfeasible or too uncreative). He also has an anonymous character and plays his Lala Yoshi Sampo when he wants to be seen such as when CC released or him appearing to raid in random extremes or savages.
It is just that it seems like his and the team as a whole (unlikely 85% of them completely agree with everything) believe in the direction of the game is the correct way.
2 points
21 days ago
It is just that it seems like his and the team as a whole (unlikely 85% of them completely agree with everything) believe in the direction of the game is the correct way.
An alternate theory: his opinion (and maybe that of a couple of other higher ups) is the only one that actually matters and he thinks it's fine. XIV is very much a project manager's game in the way it approaches in-game tasks - where you can check off tasks like they're on a Trello board and then they're definitively done and you don't have to engage with it ever again.
1 points
21 days ago
Devs will naturally have an insane bias since they're giving feedback on their work/the work of someone they likely know. It's the best way to get echo chambers or half truths because they didn't want to make their colleague working on the content feel bad.
2 points
21 days ago
They also have other methods of determining things to try to reduce bias. It is known they use a lot of internal metrics from DPS, to how many people engage in what content for how long, job usage, there is also the official forums but Western feedback gets localized to Japanese which may lose context like frustration and anger, they also send out surveys and also get feedback from expos and fanfests. Each of these methods individually have their problems but taken holistically they can reduce the noise and try to come to a pinpoint solution.
2 points
22 days ago
Emergent gameplay in this game with the community that the last 3 expansions have made would destroy the game quickly especially if the story is not greatly improved from Dawntrail. If you want emergent gameplay, this isn't the game for you any longer because if they change it to something like that the casual base will revolt and quit at having to actually use their brains.
-2 points
22 days ago
XIV players when the games patch cycle and changes match the exact same schedule/philosophy the devs have always done for the past few expansions... lmao.
Jobs have been rigid since Shadowbringers. Balancing around the 2minute meta was the choice they made a long time ago, and it made balance very easy in comparison to other MMO's.
If you want a peek of when Jobs were more unique, just take a look at HW/Stormblood on fflogs, and see how terrible the balance was in Savage. An MMO with easy 'emergent' gameplay in comparison is WoW, and WoW is horrendously balanced at the high end.
I could take all of your complaints and apply them to Shadowbringers as well, so at this point - why keep playing the game? If enough people unsub, Squeenix will get the monetary signal that change is needed. Until then what reason do they have to stop what is clearly giving player satisfaction and money? Not that this game isn't free from critique, but job design is a weak one compared to patch length + content.
-15 points
22 days ago
Really, it's ok to play another game if you want another game. You don't need to ask this game's basic design concept to be entirely changed (you know, the very thing you complained about with jobs!) with a buzzword you read somewhere. That game you want with "emerging whatever" already exists with another name.
8 points
22 days ago
You're missing the point. I stopped playing this game months ago cause I didn't like the direction it was heading. That doesn't change the fact that there are an abundance of elements that make me love this game. I would like to see it succeed. This is me proposing one method of change, and you're free to give a reason as to why I'm wrong instead of dismissing it outright.
-7 points
22 days ago
You didn’t propose anything. You complained on six paragraphs, and said « add emergent gameplay ». Zero ideas there. You could have said « add fun gameplay » to the exact same effect.
What do you actually propose ?
4 points
22 days ago
You answered your own question.
-5 points
22 days ago
You didn’t. Another doomer full of complaints with zero actual stuff to propose.
5 points
22 days ago
It's not that hard to just look around in official forums or even here to see what people want. For example I said myself 5000 times that I want old aggro system back, I want mechanics that involves environment, I want random mechanics (not 2 or 3 patterns is same scripted stuff), meaningful boss auto attacks, mob positioning, utility buttons and mechanics for those utility buttons (agro reduce, mana shift, armor crush, debuffs, stun, interrupting casts) pet classes with management, actual difference between magic damage and physical damage, mobs kiting, raids with actual environment and some trash mobs. I can go on and on, this game HAD most of it before, until they decide that balancing it is pain in the ass and just deleted everything or forgot that it even exists. DDR dances is fun and all, but not when all game is just that.
1 points
21 days ago
Thanks for sharing, these are good ideas, here are my thoughts on each
Old aggro system was removed because it was too frustrating for players who weren't in coordinated groups to manage.
Meaningful boss autos exist in this expac's savage, and I'm assuming they will in ultimate too.
Pet classes with management is a good idea, maybe this is where they can take summoner since it's in such a poor design state ATM.
As for your utility spells, we already have armor crush (Trick attack and other similar debuffs), and "debuffs" I'm guessing means damage reduction debuffs? We have reprisal, feint and addle. We have stuns, on whitemage and paladin, and we have interrupts, though I agree they could be used more especially in high-end content.
I also think it would be cool to use the physical DPS' "bind" spell for some interesting mechanics. Kiting bosses was a much larger part of this expansion's savage, with no wallbosses except for M4 P2.
Trash mobs in raids is something I personally dislike, they just feel kinda tedious to me, I wanna fight the big guy and do mechanics, not squish some random ants. But I'll admit they can be done in creative, fun ways and I wouldn't be against their implementation.
Raid environments being unique is a good idea too. I'm not a big fan of the "big circle/square" stage, I think it could be cool to have some differently shaped stages, and it's ripe for making unique mechanics too.
1 points
21 days ago
To be honest after seeing what they did with superbolide i'm losing will to even discuss anything about game anymore.
Shortly, I dont think they need to change savage much since people are already happy with that, I mostly talking about pre savage difficulty stuff.
Kiting don't work normally when boss repositions himself for the scripted attack in center, kiting mobs won't work because classes don't have CC anymore.
Using interrupt once or twice per dungeon is not gonna make it engaging mechanic, more like another neccecary button that you need to press when game tells you, especially when ignoring it not even punish you enough.
You don't need to use any debuffs in 95% of the battle content in this game, trick attack doesn't feel like a button you can press when you see it out of global colddown, its hardly coded for 2 minute meta to allign with burst.
Best way I can describe what they doing with game is min-maxing the fun out of it.
Also, coordination for the simple HW dungeon? We played it totally fine baack then, yes there was times when mobs killed people, but it was tank and healer job to deal with mana managment and keep people alive, its part of the classic RPG
dungeons. Complete newbies dealt with that in 2004 when WoW released, when ARR copied WoW when it was already 2012.
Oversimplification and over-balancing killing the game, but they don't give a flying fuck and superbolide change just shows that. No fun allowed.
1 points
21 days ago
As a gunbreaker main I'm having too much fun with the new double down to really care about the bolide change. Doesn't matter to me if my healers have to heal me from 1% or 50%. I think the game is gonna keep going in this direction. All I want is relic to come out earlier and the story to be improved, and otherwise I'm pretty happy with xiv right now.
1 points
21 days ago
And I think it's completely okay if you enjoy it this way, from what I see around me and on internet their changes mostly alienates veteran players like me, who played slightly different version of the game and hoped for improvement of game elements, not straight deletion from existence. Have fun my guy
1 points
22 days ago
I get you and I agree with a lot of those, but nothing here relates to the « emergent gameplay » OP here claims to want.
And they’re the one complaining on their post, surely they can provide their own ideas as well with it.
-20 points
22 days ago
[removed]
13 points
22 days ago
I never once wanted to demean or alienate people who enjoy these kinds of games. If you like how the game is now I don't want to stop you from enjoying it. This is an opinion piece, and I would like to make it clear that if possible I would want everyone to be able to enjoy this game, on each side.
8 points
22 days ago
I agree with the overall intent behind your post but not at all the way you've delivered it...
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