The future of job design

Why not just turn the game into a real 90s space shooter? No need to play a pretend game.

It's pretty clear that the garbage engine this game was built on can't support anything other than kindergarten and ''know where to stand in 3..2...1..." mechanics. Which in turn has the negative side effect that they feel the need to make the jobs max bloated with complete shit like 123 dial combos, resources that feed into resources that feed into resources and idiotic cooldown X turns into AoE X garbage to at least create the illusion of compelling gameplay.

Ideally the jobs should function just like their PvP counterparts, where every skill has AN ACTUAL IMPACT on its own, give and take something here and there. Y'know, just how like actually good games like WoW work. But they can't do that or this will enter like Game Boy-level gameplay territory due to the aforementioned lack of game mechanics. This is what your lord Yoshida is very well aware of but can't admit and there's also no way to fix it.

They already gave the answer anyway. Why are the jobs not the same in both PvE and PvP? Answer: because in PvP the focus should be on the game, not on pressing button sequences and combos. That means the PvE has no actual focus outside of pressing your buttons right.

Black mage interacted with the "DDR" in a unique way, now its on the same level as every other job.

What's even the point of having different jobs beyond the aesthetic of the weapon you're carrying if every fight is just "memorize the exact spots to stand and when" while doing a braindead rinse-and-repeat rotation to get your 2-minute damage burst? They should just turn the fights into a slow-consecutive drain of the boss' health, that way they can implement all the DDR mechanics they want.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I thought that, but I had a think about it in another post:

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most of the things in your list are "DDR" mechanics, they are just visually different, there is techncally no difference between moving to a save spot or moving into a bubble to be save.
Killing an Add before it explodes/buffs the boss is the same thing , which you still have in some dungeons, you can argue that the time to kill that add is not short enough to even matter.

And i persoanlly dont like mechanics where you have to pick up or click on things, because that is jank and unintutive.

in the end all mechanics that requires you to think are memorizing games, but you just memorize 4 or 5 different patterns and go to the save spot, you have these mostly in savage raids, P8s & P12s would be a prime example for "Puzzle solving Boss"

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Originally Posted by Arohk

most of the things in your list are "DDR" mechanics, they are just visually different, there is techncally no difference between moving to a save spot or moving into a bubble to be save.

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If you think that, then unfortunately, all possible mechanics are DDR mechanics by your definition. The important thing is how they feel, so let's give an example of pacing:

Hitting a boss like a striking dummy for 1 minute and then entering a bubble to be safe is a lot less intense of a "DDR" than Valigarmanda is, which has you do the following:

• Avoid sequential rock explosions
• Avoid a volcano eruption
• Avoid the eruption splashes
• Pair stack + donut/out/cleave
• Run around to avoid being frozen
• Repeatedly move in front of Valigarmanda's angle to avoid their cleave
• Pair stack + donut/out/cleave
• Run around to avoid being frozen
• Spread
• Stack and avoid cleaves
• Stack and avoid cleaves
• Stack and avoid cleaves
• Plant defamations
• Avoid a diagonal cleave
• Avoid rock explosions
• Avoid a diagonal cleave

I could go on, but you get the picture. The examples I was giving are not quite as movement heavy in this way, even in their savage versions, and give you lots of time to just stand there doing nothing but your rotation while others do their unique roles.

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And i persoanlly dont like mechanics where you have to pick up or click on things, because that is jank and unintutive.

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I don't particularly and I thought it was jank as well, which is probably why they don't do stuff like that much anymore. I was just making a writeup on how it has changed, whatever people's opinions on that might be.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I don't particularly and I thought it was jank as well, which is probably why they don't do stuff like that much anymore. I was just making a writeup on how it has changed, whatever people's opinions on that might be.

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I understand you, about how fights are made different now than back in ARR or Haevensward, i don't find bosses like that one Dragonturtle you only shot with canons particularly interesting though.
Most of the variety in this game comes from visual spectacle and Music, more reactionary mechanics would not work because of the netcode. Just observe how janky some things move, like when an Orb follows you.


Here are some examples of Boss mechanics i had to deal with in other MMO's:

A boss that fires 8 rockets towards exploding walls, each player must stand infront of a rocket and active "block" the rocket, just standing infront of it didnt work. ( no job in FFXIV has active block)

A Boss that stomps the ground and causes shockwaves, the players had to acutally "Jump" over the shockwave to avoid them. (Jumping in FFXIV is weird)

A Boss that requires multiple players to interrupt a castbar or multiple stuns to stun the boss(Wildstar had bosses that required 6 interrupts) , (most jobs in FFXIV dont have interrupt or even crowd controls)

If you really want more interesting game mechanics that are actually possible to solve in this game , you need to :

Give all jobs a form of mobility skills, like Dancer has it, but on short cooldown.
Give all jobs Crowd control Stun/Knockdown/Snare/Interrupts and integrate them into boss fights.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

If you don't like "DDR" mechanics , what better and more fun alternative do you suggest?

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A return to XIV roots. If you haven't played before ShB/SB, you will probably not understand nor have a solid point of reference.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

If you don't like "DDR" mechanics , what better and more fun alternative do you suggest?

keep in mind that the FFXIV engine is probably not capable of doing anything else than that.

The game has no i-frame or active block mechanics, jumping over obstacles also doesnt seem to be a thing, most jobs dont even have mobility skills like a dash or a stun/interrupt.

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what are you talking about a lot of jobs have some sort of stun/silence/block even whm did back in the day. SE removed those elements/skills because some instances there were issues where it wouldn't work correctly and SE couldn't bother with fixing issues on their end. so the solution is to remove them. another thing to factor in is the player base did a lot of complaining i mean a lot on difficulty. they cried on how hard some of the encounters were because they simply didn't want to learn and wanted to be carried. People were impatient and *gasp* believe it or not, people were toxic back then. My favorite is still those damned bees from the temple one shot you if you didn't kill them before final sting before they nerfed it. But seriously lot of jobs had alot of utility no one really used them or cried about the difficulty of the jobs and people just wanted to smash buttons and do dmg. Personally, I think they were getting to an a decent spot at the end of storm blood in terms of job design.

But everyone wants a 123 nothing more and nothing less these days.

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Originally Posted by Arohk

I understand you, about how fights are made different now than back in ARR or Haevensward, i don't find bosses like that one Dragonturtle you only shot with canons particularly interesting though.
Most of the variety in this game comes from visual spectacle and Music, more reactionary mechanics would not work because of the netcode. Just observe how janky some things move, like when an Orb follows you.


Here are some examples of Boss mechanics i had to deal with in other MMO's:

A boss that fires 8 rockets towards exploding walls, each player must stand infront of a rocket and active "block" the rocket, just standing infront of it didnt work. ( no job in FFXIV has active block)

A Boss that stomps the ground and causes shockwaves, the players had to acutally "Jump" over the shockwave to avoid them. (Jumping in FFXIV is weird)

A Boss that requires multiple players to interrupt a castbar or multiple stuns to stun the boss(Wildstar had bosses that required 6 interrupts) , (most jobs in FFXIV dont have interrupt or even crowd controls)

If you really want more interesting game mechanics that are actually possible to solve in this game , you need to :

Give all jobs a form of mobility skills, like Dancer has it, but on short cooldown.
Give all jobs Crowd control Stun/Knockdown/Snare/Interrupts and integrate them into boss fights.

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In FFXI, when Odin did Zantetsuken players could dodge it by doing a /kneel emote.

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Future battle design may cause difficulty with casting spells ...

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I just don't understand why jobs keep getting dumbed down for this possible future content. Why do jobs need to feel worse and less skillful in everything that exists now for the sake of something that doesn't exist yet? Even when/if that stuff is added, the job will still feel bland in 99% of the content ingame just because it's had every bit of skill expression sandblasted away in order to be easier in these very specific instances. I don't get this design philosophy at all.