Was BLM not enough?

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Originally Posted by Raikai

The only way to find this justifiable is if there's a big amount of mechanics happening during 2min burst windows that would require a RDM to be in a ranged spot to resolve something.

There are? Because if so, there's no planning around that could save the lost dps by delaying it.

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Had in the last Arcadion fight issues that things lined up in a way that going into melee would get me hit by AoE's, so I cannot say it's BAD bad - It's still a "But why?" thing for me.

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Originally Posted by ElysiumDragon

So it seems like a clash of 'ideals' between two different kinds of people. Those who see 'pain points' as something that allows for skill expression, and those who see 'pain points' as a nuisance that gets in the way of skill expression.

Not sure how you can reconcile that tbh, and it seems like the devs are siding with 'pain points bad', so the first group are losing out.

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How can job constraints - and we're talking about actual constraints of design, not fighting against spaghetti servers - get in the way of skill expression?

I don’t like when jobs get changed just for raid design. Not everyone raids, and it kinda sucks when a job loses the cool stuff that made it feel unique. Like with RDM dashing in to slash was peak RDM fantasy, now they can just slash the air from range and it looks weird. That’s a downgrade in every way unless you raid and even then it’s not really ‘better,’ just more convenient. My bigger worry is what if they keep pushing it toward full ranged next expansion, stripping out all the melee flavor.

I think gutting jobs for raid convenience is bad. But at the same time complaining about skill expression feels kinda overblown to me, personally. It's not like RDM was hard before, the parts of RDM that were hard are still there, you just don't have to go into Melee anymore during burst. You still have to slidecast, squeeze in as many quickcasts of your big damage without having to use Jolt and so on.

I don’t like jobs being made rigid for raiding, but honestly this RDM change isn’t nearly as bad as what happened to Black Mage. That's just my opinion, though.

Let's take Dancer, for example.

Not being able to use Shield Samba during a Standard or Technical Step wasn't a 'pain point' that allowed for 'skill expression', it was a nuisance that locked out critically important mitigation during damage-heavy mechanics. Adjusting this didn't 'lobotomise' Dancer, or 'homogenize' the job, and neither would removing another notorious pain point, that being the Tillana Esprit issue, where you can quite literally overcap due to pure RNG entirely because of how Tillana works.

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Originally Posted by Ankhira

I don’t like when jobs get changed just for raid design. Not everyone raids, and it kinda sucks when a job loses the cool stuff that made it feel unique. Like with RDM dashing in to slash was peak RDM fantasy, now they can just slash the air from range and it looks weird. That’s a downgrade in every way unless you raid and even then it’s not really ‘better,’ just more convenient. My bigger worry is what if they keep pushing it toward full ranged next expansion, stripping out all the melee flavor.

I think gutting jobs for raid convenience is bad. But at the same time complaining about skill expression feels kinda overblown to me, personally. It's not like RDM was hard before, the parts of RDM that were hard are still there, you just don't have to go into Melee anymore during burst. You still have to slidecast, squeeze in as many quickcasts of your big damage without having to use Jolt and so on.

I don’t like jobs being made rigid for raiding, but honestly this RDM change isn’t nearly as bad as what happened to Black Mage. That's just my opinion, though.

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You can still dash into melee with Corps-a-corpse during Manafication, but now you got at least a alternative when you got stacked up buffs with other players but being or getting into melee range is problematic due to AoE or terrain hazards.
The only bummer for me is that Engagement is not also included to the melee range buff, since that's a oGCD for me during the Enhanced Riposte combo.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If you don’t like a “pain points are skill optimisation” job then play a different job.

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Same goes in reverse though. If someone doesn't like a job getting simplified, than they can go play a different job. 3 other casters sitting right over there for anyone who doesn't like the RDM changes.

Personally I don't get the big deal because it didn't have any radical impact on my performance, so they could have just kept the job the same for whatever difference it makes, but the change also didn't "ruin" or "lobotomize" anything that I can tell.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Same goes in reverse though. If someone doesn't like a job getting simplified, than they can go play a different job. 3 other casters sitting right over there for anyone who doesn't like the RDM changes.

Personally I don't get the big deal because it didn't have any radical impact on my performance, so they could have just kept the job the same for whatever difference it makes, but the change also didn't "ruin" or "lobotomize" anything that I can tell.

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Except that the other 3 casters either released simple or are shadows of their former selves.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Same goes in reverse though. If someone doesn't like a job getting simplified, than they can go play a different job. 3 other casters sitting right over there for anyone who doesn't like the RDM changes.

Personally I don't get the big deal because it didn't have any radical impact on my performance, so they could have just kept the job the same for whatever difference it makes, but the change also didn't "ruin" or "lobotomize" anything that I can tell.

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There are people who mained a job for longer than some here even play the game.
Telling them to suck it up and play another one because it's now for someone else is not how a game should be designed.

And no, this is not regarding the RDM changes but in general.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Except that the other 3 casters either released simple or are shadows of their former selves.

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What do you mean? BLM has always been harder to play optimally than RDM, and it still is despite the changes (RIP old BLM, I miss you). PCT is also more restrictive with cast times and painting. I don’t mean to push down your experience, but RDM was never that hard compared to the other casters. SMN is definitely the easiest, sure, but calling RDM the ‘last hard caster’ feels like a stretch when its whole thing is about utilizing instant casts.

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Originally Posted by Ankhira

What do you mean? BLM has always been harder to play optimally than RDM, and it still is despite the changes (RIP old BLM, I miss you). PCT is also more restrictive with cast times and painting. I don’t mean to push down your experience, but RDM was never that hard compared to the other casters. SMN is definitely the easiest, sure, but calling RDM the ‘last hard caster’ feels like a stretch when its whole thing is about utilizing instant casts.

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RDM's instant casts are far more rigid and RDM has the fewest tools out of all the casters for on-demand movement.

RDM optimization also involved minimizing fleche and C6 drift which was not always trivial because you needed to make sure your instants lined up on the correct GCDs.

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Originally Posted by bic12

RDM's instant casts are far more rigid and RDM has the fewest tools out of all the casters for on-demand movement.

RDM optimization also involved minimizing fleche and C6 drift which was not always trivial because you needed to make sure your instants lined up on the correct GCDs.

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And yet, that is all still there. The only thing you can do is use your melee combo from a distance, while I said before I also don't like this change, these optimizations are still there. Like, I got the Black Mage issues, I disagree with SE changing RDM this patch, but I feel like you're all acting like the job is completely ruined.. I genuinely don't get it.

Yes, I agreed, gutting jobs for raiding = bad, I hate it too, but RDM was not destroyed the way BLM was. Like...

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

People who are still hoping 8.0 will bring positive job changes need to wake up.

Not the worst changes in the world like it could have completely ruined the job, to me its more like what they did with ninja recently it's not the worst thing in the world but it's certainly a small step in the large amount of steps they've been making from SHB to now to make the jobs bland, remove all rigidness from any job that has it because 1 raider complained it was bad.

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That's the thing though. It isn't one raider complaining. Apparently, Red Mage going into melee range has been a particular vocal criticism from JP. As was Black Mage prior to its changes and Gunbreaker too. The more average JP opinion seems to be encouraging job simplification. Heck, their solution to Warrior being so overpowered in dungeons wasn't to nerf Bloodwhetting, but bring the other tanks in line with Bloodwhetting because "that makes it easier on newer healers."

Even amongst the more casual pockets of my NA friends, these changes are a lot better received than some here might expect. Which is unfortunate to say the least because I, too, don't like how they've dumbed everything down in the name of "accessibility." Like it not though, some of these changes have worked. Black Mage, for example, is more popular now than it ever was. And SE seems to gauge job design based on popularity rather than niche enjoyment.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

That's the thing though. It isn't one raider complaining. Apparently, Red Mage going into melee range has been a particular vocal criticism from JP. As was Black Mage prior to its changes and Gunbreaker too.

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Japan side was very vocal against the BLM changes though, even more than we were.
The job change notes back then and the comment from YoshiP also outright said that the changes were because the devs themselves thought the BLM design would clash with the new fight design.

The japanese forum is partly responsible for the current healer design but definitely not for the BLM changes.
It is widely hated there and they are as ignored regarding that as we are.

BLM also might be more popular nowadays but at the cost of very unsatisfied old BLM mains.
Part of that is also simply because of it's damage to easy playstyle. When the former falls off it might have the same fate as SMN in loosing popularity fast.
Also in my personal opinion, purely chasing popularity at the cost of driving away old veterans and job mains is a very questionable strategy because word of mouth is also important and that is that the jobs in this game are in a very bad place.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Well, sorry to say that "go play something else then" has become the default answer to anyone with any complaint ever when it comes to FF14. We've had people actively encouraging others to "shut up and quit" for over a year now (if not longer), whether they were someone getting bored over easier jobs, frustrated over harder fights, or lords knows what else was their final straw.

You're just not going to find much empathy or understanding between players anymore because everyone wants the game to be THEIR way regardless of who else gets culled in the process.

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Doesn't mean I accept it though, be it against the doomers or the defenders.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

There are people who mained a job for longer than some here even play the game.
Telling them to suck it up and play another one because it's now for someone else is not how a game should be designed.

And no, this is not regarding the RDM changes but in general.

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Well, sorry to say that "go play something else then" has become the default answer to anyone with any complaint ever when it comes to FF14. We've had people actively encouraging others to "shut up and quit" for over a year now (if not longer), whether they were someone getting bored over easier jobs, frustrated over harder fights, or lords knows what else was their final straw.

You're just not going to find much empathy or understanding between players anymore because everyone wants the game to be THEIR way regardless of who else gets culled in the process.

Sigh if manafication is change here to stay at least make it spawn a fray like clone of our character so something is attacking in melee range. Just preserve the job identity at the least instead of go go gadget rapier

I so hope you are right... So badly, but at this point I cant even trust them. Not becuase of DT but its been years they been just doing all this nonsense... Like there 0 faith to them, I get wow gets a lot of hate for screwing with players but at least they know what to expect. I dont have a clue here. Is my SCH gone be dumped down too now? 1 Button combos next? I dont know its a 50/50 to all of it now.

All this talk about how RDM sometimes can't get into Melee range for its combo, and rather than work out a way to work around that limitation (or for SE to stop designing mechanics to be so inflexible in their resolution), it's better to just remove the issue entirely...

But SCH still has the same 'issue'. Art of War is a gain on 2 targets, if you can A: hit them both with its pretty-small, centred-on-player AOE, and B: you are actually allowed to deal damage to them both (eg, if you have a debuff that says 'you can only hit A and not B', that doesn't count as an example). A prime example would be P6 of DSR, where you can hit both dragons at once. Based on the Normal mode for the latest raid tier, and assuming we don't just get 'haha sorry you can only hit one of the two because of your debuff' again, we'll have a raid fight wherein SCH will want to use AOW for its filler instead of Broil, and will need to be in Melee range to do so.

This niche optimization, however, has yet to be an issue for SCH vs SGE in terms of balance. SGEs have been able to clear DSR despite this trick that a SCH can do. However, for whatever reason, SE refused to let SGEs have a similar DPS gain with Eukrasian Dyskrasia, where in the Media Tour, a full-duration E.Dyskrasia was 40p more than a Dosis3. The cited reason for the change was something to the effect of 'JP players felt it would be annoying to monitor a second DOT (which was 30s so you'd just refresh both at once, but that's beside the point), and they didn't want to be forced into Melee range at inopportune times to refresh it (Phlegma says hello, but that's beside the point)'. Yet, that would have been a 40p gain, once per 30s, and had to be canned. SCH's tech, meanwhile, is 40p gain EVERY GCD (Broil is 320 currently, AOW on 2 targets is a total of 360p), and yet it continues to exist as a funny niche optimization we can enjoy.

So one of two things is going on with SCH. Either SE forgot it exists, and soon it'll be SCH's turn to get a niche and ultimately not-required-to-clear optimization removed, all in the name of 'less player stress in executing rotation'. Or, SE straight up does not understand basic mathematics, and could not foresee that 'hitting 2 enemies for 180p each, is more damage than hitting 1 enemy for 320p'


I should note, I do not want SE to remove AOW being a gain on 2. I think it's a cool, niche optimization that is not required to clear content, but can be utilized by skilled players to push their damage to its maximum. My question is, why don't other Jobs get to have similar 'cool, niche optimizations that are not required to clear, but are fun to incorporate to push your damage to its maximum'? Why does every Job need to have exactly two rotations: the 'correct' one, and 'anything else (incorrect)'?

Something interesting about all this is that, had they designed a skill on a super long cooldown that let RDM do this and released it with 7.0 I may have accepted it.
That way it'd only be an emergency tool that's only available in DT content. Would've been a much more interesting addition than Vice of Thorns too.

Just remembered

If this RDM change was 'to alleviate issues where RDM could not do its burst in the 2min window'

SAM still has cast times to worry about, which might potentially get interrupted by having to move. RPR also has a cast time to consider, and I remember a RPR losing their mind in P12S during Superchain because they had to move during their burst and couldn't find the time to cast the Communio, even with as short a casttime as it has.

So, what's next, SAM and RPR lose their cast times, too, because 'too stressful'?

How much more Job 'flavour' has to be burned on the pyre of accessibility, to make the Encounter Design functional for all Jobs in a role? How about SE considers going back to Encounter Design that doesn't have such inflexibility in its resolution? BLM had like, negative mobility in HW, no Triplecast, no Paradox instantcast, no Despair, and losing Enochian was FAR easier to do by accident, and FAR more punishing back then compared to something like EW, or pre-7.2 DT. And yet, despite this lack of mobility, it waas able to clear something like A7S with the big rolling ball you had to dodge, or A9S where you have to move around the arena to dodge which platform is going to sink into the lava pool. So maybe SE should stop changing Jobs to suit Encounters, and start considering that their Encounters don't suit the Jobs?

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

or for SE to stop designing mechanics to be so inflexible in their resolution

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That's the crux of the issue. The structure that RDM is inserted in won't allow you to 'be creative/skillful' about melee uptime, as it would require that ranged player to be in a ranged spot at a certain time to check past a specific mechanic. I didn't do last Savage / EXs to know if this wall appears so much that becomes prohibitive for a player to achieve a RDM's maximum potential.

BLM was a different example as the skill revolved around possibilities for the role.

I had this in mind, that CBU3 kind of cornered themselves with the "new and improved" fight design of Dawntrail. They'll have to keep dumbing down job skill expression because the structure just won't allow it.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Just remembered

If this RDM change was 'to alleviate issues where RDM could not do its burst in the 2min window'

SAM still has cast times to worry about, which might potentially get interrupted by having to move. RPR also has a cast time to consider, and I remember a RPR losing their mind in P12S during Superchain because they had to move during their burst and couldn't find the time to cast the Communio, even with as short a casttime as it has.

So, what's next, SAM and RPR lose their cast times, too, because 'too stressful'?

How much more Job 'flavour' has to be burned on the pyre of accessibility, to make the Encounter Design functional for all Jobs in a role? How about SE considers going back to Encounter Design that doesn't have such inflexibility in its resolution? BLM had like, negative mobility in HW, no Triplecast, no Paradox instantcast, no Despair, and losing Enochian was FAR easier to do by accident, and FAR more punishing back then compared to something like EW, or pre-7.2 DT. And yet, despite this lack of mobility, it waas able to clear something like A7S with the big rolling ball you had to dodge, or A9S where you have to move around the arena to dodge which platform is going to sink into the lava pool. So maybe SE should stop changing Jobs to suit Encounters, and start considering that their Encounters don't suit the Jobs?

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The current approach means that they effectively only need to design 5 jobs (and even then there's a lot of overlap) to fight a single digit number of "real" fights every 9 months. If the goal is to set a game to coast into the abyss while you rake in microtransaction money from whales, this is the way to do it.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

Japan side was very vocal against the BLM changes though, even more than we were.
The job change notes back then and the comment from YoshiP also outright said that the changes were because the devs themselves thought the BLM design would clash with the new fight design.

The japanese forum is partly responsible for the current healer design but definitely not for the BLM changes.
It is widely hated there and they are as ignored regarding that as we are.

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Not vocal enough, evidently. Just hopping over to their forum and the last two pages alone have several highly liked posts praising the BLM changes. Yes, there are some who dislike them, but only one post has garnered any sort of traction.

The devs aren't pulling these changes out from thin air. People have requested them, albeit perhaps in a roundabout way. Summoner is probably the best example of that. People wanted change to make it play more like a Summoner and SE's response was to that... at a Fisher Price level

A lot more of the casual demographic doesn't want friction. They want to mindlessly press buttons and everything to work itself out.

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Originally Posted by Voidmage

BLM also might be more popular nowadays but at the cost of very unsatisfied old BLM mains.
Part of that is also simply because of it's damage to easy playstyle. When the former falls off it might have the same fate as SMN in loosing popularity fast.
Also in my personal opinion, purely chasing popularity at the cost of driving away old veterans and job mains is a very questionable strategy because word of mouth is also important and that is that the jobs in this game are in a very bad place.

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Oh, you'll get no argument from me here. I hate how they've essentially pushed aside people who actively enjoy a given job in the pursuit of trying to make everyone enjoy it. Not only is that simply impossible, it completely dilute the creativity of each design for the same reason their obsession with simplification does.

Unfortunately, they're listen to what they seem to perceive is a huge majority of players unhappy with anything but easy play jobs. We'll see come 8.0 if that decision turns out to be very costly.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

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Oh, don't get me wrong.
I know there exist people there who actually like those simplifications and like I said, the japanese side is at least partially responsible for things like Healers.
The BLM changes when they were implemented though resulted in a big outcry to the point they even made additional threads which they usually don't do and even made a thread to post the opinions from us.

What I am basically trying to say in bad english is that it was negative compared to how they usually write and only the 7.0 story and Forked Tower actually were comparable to that ( though I do admit I haven't looked into their forum for some time now).
The japanese forum is pretty much known over there as a positive echo chamber same as this one here is known as a negative one.
The other sides are more "flowery" in their word choices.
There is a reason why we actually got Ice Paradox back despite it not bringing anything to the design table. the outcry over there and here was simply too big.

The BLM changes though actually are first and foremost of the devs own decision for their fight design or I think a better way to phrase it would be, that they choose feedback that aligns with what they actually want themselves (which is pretty often the way of less work for themselves), no matter how many people ask for it or how many likes such a suggestion has. They basically did it and then hoped for the complaints to go away.
Sadly though the player numbers of the job rose at the cost of SMN.
People always think they listen to the japanese side but in truth, they simply listen to no one really if there isn't an extreme outcry that reaches the media on some way or impacts their earnings.

I have no real hope for 8.0 regarding BLM tbh.
What I do disagree though is to see the fault with the casuals alone because a very good number of job changes actively came from raiders and content creators. Maybe not regarding BLM but definitely in regards to the tanks for example.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

That's the crux of the issue. The structure that RDM is inserted in won't allow you to 'be creative/skillful' about melee uptime, as it would require that ranged player to be in a ranged spot at a certain time to check past a specific mechanic. I didn't do last Savage / EXs to know if this wall appears so much that becomes prohibitive for a player to achieve a RDM's maximum potential.

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M7S was the big one - if you were a RDM in a ranged position then phase 2 and to a lesser extent phase 3 were nightmares. But, this was also alleviated by either having RDM as a fake melee, or having both healers take the tethers. However this also would require people to be flexible... and communicate... and that just doesn't fit with the current philosophy of "there is only One Correct Way to resolve this" for encounter design.


Also, was discussing the changes in a server I'm in and had another thought about something I commented about earlier in the thread - if the "suddenly you can melee from 25y away" buff was tied to the 3 stacks of Swordplay you get, that would actually have some room for skill expression since you'd have to figure out when the best moment to make use of those 3 hits would be. But as it is, "eh you just get free ranged melee attacks for 30s" is honestly a lazy decision. If they wanted to add a ranged option to the melee attacks, there were plenty of ways they could have done so without making the job feel dumbed down.

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Originally Posted by Jaltaer

Also, was discussing the changes in a server I'm in and had another thought about something I commented about earlier in the thread - if the "suddenly you can melee from 25y away" buff was tied to the 3 stacks of Swordplay you get, that would actually have some room for skill expression since you'd have to figure out when the best moment to make use of those 3 hits would be. But as it is, "eh you just get free ranged melee attacks for 30s" is honestly a lazy decision. If they wanted to add a ranged option to the melee attacks, there were plenty of ways they could have done so without making the job feel dumbed down.

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Just thought: Couldn't they have made Enchanted Reprise also consume Swordplay stacks, grant Mana Stacks, and function as the 'Ranged option for when you're not able to be in Melee distance'? Then you'd be able to choose between 'I can make it to Melee range, I'll use the standard combo' and 'I cannot safely get to Melee distance, I'll eat a small potency loss to access the safety of staying at range but still being able to execute my burst'

Melee combo is 340, 380, 560, for a total of 1280p. 3 Enchanted Reprise uses (420p) would be 1260p. All it'd need is some effect wherein it is a 1.5s GCD like the regular combo, and there'd be almost no difference in power between the two combos for most players, but for the optimizers, that 20p would still be important. And, for those people who keep asking for the Melee combo's 123 to become a 111 to 'reduce button bloat', this would accomplish that too!


Enchanted Reprise:
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420.
Balance Gauge Cost: 5 Black Mana
Balance Gauge Cost: 5 White Mana

Manafication Bonus Effect: Consumes a Swordplay stack if available.
Consumption of a Swordplay stack negates the Black/White Mana cost,
reduces the Recast time to 1.5s, and grants a Mana Stack.

Something like that

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

How much more Job 'flavour' has to be burned on the pyre of accessibility, to make the Encounter Design functional for all Jobs in a role? How about SE considers going back to Encounter Design that doesn't have such inflexibility in its resolution? BLM had like, negative mobility in HW, no Triplecast, no Paradox instantcast, no Despair, and losing Enochian was FAR easier to do by accident, and FAR more punishing back then compared to something like EW, or pre-7.2 DT. And yet, despite this lack of mobility, it waas able to clear something like A7S with the big rolling ball you had to dodge, or A9S where you have to move around the arena to dodge which platform is going to sink into the lava pool. So maybe SE should stop changing Jobs to suit Encounters, and start considering that their Encounters don't suit the Jobs?

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Even if Square-Enix wanted to go back and redo encounters, would players find that acceptable or just complain harder? Keep in mind this is the same community that howls in anguish every time they go back and change a dungeon to work with NPCs, and that's NORMAL content. I can't imagine the complete riots that would break out if Square-Enix dared to go back and alter high-end content to be "simplified" in exchange for making jobs complex again.

People apparently do not want a "easy/hard" mix (and certainly not "easy/easy"), they only want "hard/hard" regardless how much it would crater the playerbase.

And before someone starts crying out "BUT MY XYZ FAVORITE OLD EXPANSION WASN'T LIKE THAT, IT HAD PERFECT ENCOUNTER AND JOB DESIGN" you need to realize that if the game truly were so perfect back then, they would have changed NOTHING and we would still be playing with level 50, 60 or 70 kits and no new mechanics because they would have already achieved MMO nirvana or whatever. People can keep bringing up the "was falling asleep" quote from Yoshi-P about Endwalker, but clearly there were things he didn't like about ARR/HW/STB/SHB's fights and jobs too if he went through such great lengths to remove those elements with every patch.

I'm not rightly sure who they're trying to make the game for anymore if casuals and hardcores alike have nothing but complaints, and I don't really believe that "hard jobs/easy fights" will fix the issue so much as make the same people complain about something else.

And no, I don't have a solution because:

1. I'm not paid to fix the small indie dev's problems.
2. People would just endlessly argue that their solution is the "correct" one instead.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Even if Square-Enix wanted to go back and redo encounters, would players find that acceptable or just complain harder? Keep in mind this is the same community that howls in anguish every time they go back and change a dungeon to work with NPCs, and that's NORMAL content. I can't imagine the complete riots that would break out if Square-Enix dared to go back and alter high-end content to be "simplified" in exchange for making jobs complex again.

People apparently do not want a "easy/hard" mix (and certainly not "easy/easy"), they only want "hard/hard" regardless how much it would crater the playerbase.

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If simplifying an old dungeon so that Trusts can do them changes the dungeon's mechanics from 'easy' to 'even easier', then yeh, you're right in the second half. Because it goes from Easy Job/Easy Dungeon, to Easy Job/Easier Dungeon. The balance is already incredibly skewed, and so people fear the removal of what little 'interesting design' there is remaining. The old dungeon designs served as a sort of 'time capsule', of how things used to be

In other words, if we had more depth to the Job kit, the reduction of Encounter complexity in such a case (reworking old dungeon to allow Trusts to function within it) would not hit as hard

Consider a 1-10 scale for Job depth, and Encounter complexity, for a total of 20 points. We're at like a 2 for Jobs in some cases, and let's call it a 3 for Encounter complexity in the recent example of Aurum Vale. Reducing that to a 2 for the sake of the Trusts, is effectively taking that 5/20 score down to a 4/20, a 20% reduction in complexity. When the overall complexity is already so low, any small change feels like it has a massive impact. Now let's consider trying to be optimal as a SCH in a HW EX roulette, say, speedrunning Xelphatol for your Weekly Tomes. Juggling DOTs, placing Shadowflare in good positions to hit as many mobs as possible, combo'ing Faerie actions such as buffing Whispering Dawn with Rouse and Fey Illumination, etc. That, while optional (you could clear, albeit slower, by focusing on healing and not being a tryhard), would have been like... let's call it an 8, because Cleric Stance was kinda jank. In such a case, Xelphatol being a 3 still resulted in the potential for someone to enjoy 11/20 gameplay, by pushing their chosen Job to its limits. Someone who preferred to play more conservatively/more relaxed/didn't have the confidence/whatever reason, could instead play SCH at a 3/10 or so and enjoy a 6/20 experience, which is more their speed. And if Xelphatol had to be changed to fit Trusts at some point, and was reduced from a 3 to a 2, the 11/20 enjoyer would be knocked down to a 10/20, a reduction of 9ish% instead of the previous example's 20%.

Furthermore, the 6/20 player could think 'hmm, now that mechanics are simpler, I have more time to try and incorporate more optimizations into my gameplay', and push back from the 5/20 the changes left them at, up to a 6/20 again by leveraging more of the Job's depth

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I'm not rightly sure who they're trying to make the game for anymore if casuals and hardcores alike have nothing but complaints, and I don't really believe that "hard jobs/easy fights" will fix the issue so much as make the same people complain about something else.

And no, I don't have a solution because:

1. I'm not paid to fix the small indie dev's problems.
2. People would just endlessly argue that their solution is the "correct" one instead.

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Can't speak for everyone, nor for every role, but I can speak to what I'd like to see with Healers: A low skill floor, high skill ceiling, wherein each Healer has a certain baseline performance from pressing their filler spell, and optional optimizations on top for those who want to push their Job to the limit. For a SCH example, pressing Broil 48 times in a row as your 2min 'rotation' would be, by maths I've previously done, 97% of the damage output of optimally juggling the 3 DOTs I'd give the SCH (and 98% of the effectiveness of playing the current SCH 'optimally', which would be 44 Broils and 4 Bios). It would also, however, be much less mobile due to the cast times of using only Broil, so even someone who absolutely cannot stand DOTs at all, would probably still use them, if only as a mobility tool. But the point is, someone who doesn't want to press Shadowflare, or Miasma, would not need to. They could clear any content in the game, yes even an Ultimate, without pressing a single GCD DOT.

I do have a solution (for Healers), I am not paid to fix the multidollar company's problems either (but I've given my designs as 'feedback' of sorts, in the place they told me to, which is here), and I assume that someone would argue that my designs would not work for whatever reason, but I've yet to see someone come up with an actual reason they wouldn't work beyond 'I don't want to be forced to do all this extra gameplay', not realizing that the whole point of the designs is that you're not forced to do the extra gameplay. But you are right, I'll absolutely argue that my solution is the 'correct' one, because I don't see many other people bothering to come up with anything as a counterproposal. There seems to be a general apathy of 'well it's SE's call at the end of the day, and whatever they say goes', which is true to an extent, but I'm not a massive fan of the idea of 'just trust the devs that got the Healer role into this hole, to dig the Healer role out of the hole again' so I made my own wishlist. If people don't like what I ask for, that's up to them. Considering a lot of people ask for 'whatever SE has planned', it could be argued that I don't like what they're asking for either

But one thing I did ask for got added this patch, which can be seen in the above link, is in the WHM section: Plenary Indulgence granting a % Mitigation effect. In my version, it was 5% though. I won't be taking the credit because everyone and their mother has asked for WHM to have a crumb of Mitigation besides Temperance and 'Barrier but it's tied to Temperance'. Next up SE, please add Nocturnal Sect to AST again

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Originally Posted by Jaltaer

However this also would require people to be flexible... and communicate... and that just doesn't fit with the current philosophy of "there is only One Correct Way to resolve this" for encounter design.

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But it's not that - it's just a pf issue. I doubt in a static it is an issue to adjust. In PF yes bc Hector said that, Kobe said we have to do this, but i also partially understand. I wouldn't want to adjust and cause wipes bc muscle memory after weeks of prog and few clears kicks in and i forget i was supposed to adjust for a job that didn't play with before if it isn't necessary for other jobs. Not a reason to change a job i guess but still there is a reason for that mindset.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

If simplifying an old dungeon so that Trusts can do them changes the dungeon's mechanics from 'easy' to 'even easier', then yeh, you're right in the second half. Because it goes from Easy Job/Easy Dungeon, to Easy Job/Easier Dungeon. The balance is already incredibly skewed, and so people fear the removal of what little 'interesting design' there is remaining. The old dungeon designs served as a sort of 'time capsule', of how things used to be

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I seriously doubt anyone misses having to stand in crystal light or magitek buttons for Dzemael Darkhold (if anything I had people exclaiming their relief that it wasn't necessary now). And while I haven't played the new Aurum Vale, most players went above and beyond to skip as much as possible in the first room anyway, which is hilarious given how many of those same people insist on full-pull rushrushrush gameplay and yet cower at a room full of mobs ready to be gathered up with no walls. (Conversely, some of those same people never cease to whine about Cutter's Cry NOT allowing them to skip 1/3 of the dungeon anymore.)

In that regards, it sounds less like people care about job complexity but run efficiency, and just ASSUME having more buttons to press will "make things go faster" in the normal content that most of them seem to loathe doing anyway. (Case in point, the constant demands to see Crystal Tower thrown out of alliance raid roulette.)

But those complaints asking for CT raid to be thrown out aren't asking for raids to be made more 'efficient'/faster? I'm failing to see why this deserves a mention. I personally want them out because they pop up way too much times in a space where there is little intrinsic gain to look forward. People become this overtly 'reward centric' because devs had been shaving away more and more of the intrinsic satisfaction in favor of shallow extrinsic rewards. No wonder they draw in people who 'hates' playing the game; it's just an 'obstacle' for them to get to the end goal.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

But those complaints asking for CT raid to be thrown out aren't asking for raids to be made more 'efficient'/faster? I'm failing to see why this deserves a mention. I personally want them out because they pop up way too much times in a space where there is little intrinsic gain to look forward. People become this overtly 'reward centric' because devs had been shaving away more and more of the intrinsic satisfaction in favor of shallow extrinsic rewards. No wonder they draw in people who 'hates' playing the game; it's just an 'obstacle' for them to get to the end goal.

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It's relevant in the sense that the reason it pops so much is because its the only alliance raid people are required to unlock, and for many people its the ONLY one they unlock, sometimes on purpose to make sure they don't get dragged into doing Mhach or beyond. Same way how some people only unlock the first couple of Alexander raids to get access to its roulette and nothing more. As the saying goes, people will optimize the fun out of everything, and for some people that includes rigging the roulettes in their favor because they care more about getting done quickly, not because they care about being able to showcase "skill expression" in a piece of level 50 content.

For that matter, if job complexity became a thing, the other alliance raids past Crystal Tower would likely be "dumbed down" to its level (or hell, even lower) because Square-Enix insists on an "easy/hard" split when it comes to jobs and fights, and then we would just have people complaining about any/all the alliance raids at that point.

People asking for job complexity have to be willing to accept the possibility that there could be a cost for it, because that's just how Square-Enix works, and if they think the bulk of normal content is mind-numbing now... I don't think their job is going to provide them with enough spinning plates to make up for what gets removed in the encounters. Raising the ceiling means very little if the fights don't even come up waist-high, and that's keeping in mind that it may not be limited to JUST normal content.

Pretend for a moment that Crystal Tower remains as we know it, what possible extra buttons could one be made to press that would suddenly make it riveting content? Would even just allowing people to use their level 100 kit with drastically reduced potency across the board make it any more engaging? If one does Savage and such, what difficult parts of each fight are they willing to give up in exchange for their job getting the difficulty instead?

I’m an RDM / BLM dabbler at best but even with my extremely limited experience of the classes I can’t help but think ‘wtf’ at so many of the recent changes they’ve made.

Sure, it only removes the melee component during burst, but if you ask me it still sets a dangerous precedent. How many more aspects of job identity / design are they going to undermine all for the sake of ‘frictionless 120 burst’. Why even bother having anything else exist at this point? It’s like they won’t be happy until every fight just makes us auto-attack and our 120s auto-activate for burst and then back to auto-attacking. But it’s ok because you have to DDR I guess?

Honestly, I would have been fine with the changes to RDM if we got a new animation in the style of PLD's magic sword combo, but no, all we got is this sloppy animation that makes no sense. It just feels like a slap in the face the way it was implemented.

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

Pretend for a moment that Crystal Tower remains as we know it, what possible extra buttons could one be made to press that would suddenly make it riveting content? Would even just allowing people to use their level 100 kit with drastically reduced potency across the board make it any more engaging? If one does Savage and such, what difficult parts of each fight are they willing to give up in exchange for their job getting the difficulty instead?

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https://i.gyazo.com/7eb802e698959cef...85ff6e084e.png
https://i.gyazo.com/65dd558a01d38fe0...9b38f3cdb6.png

https://i.gyazo.com/dac12308e975780e...80f9606cee.png
https://i.gyazo.com/b5ed10ccba7b51f3...addcb99dec.png
https://i.gyazo.com/5fd5e9c290ee38fc...60b850726a.png
https://i.gyazo.com/de507801724300fb...e253de040c.png
https://i.gyazo.com/6a82362a5e1dbc97...e0e88bbe53.png

(ignore the 'Aethertrail Attunement' line, that was for a SMN system)

https://i.gyazo.com/8191b630402fee88...c597ffd907.png
https://i.gyazo.com/806bea5197795892...94a00696e6.png

None of these DOTs were 'A levels up into B'. You could apply Bio, Bio2 and Miasma to the enemy indepedent of each other, rather than the current game where Bio2 replaces Bio1. Additionally, SCH and AST could Cross-Class Aero from WHM, for another DOT if they chose. For AST, Aero was damage-neutral with their Malefic2 (200p) so it was used for mobility or opening up weave space (as Aero was an instantcast), while for SCH, it was a damage gain (Broil was 170p at one point)

And of course, can't forget:

https://i.gyazo.com/ee86d1277eb92ada...093e78b1da.png


See, the thing is, when we had 60 levels as our cap, but 30ish actions to learn to fill our bars with, it necessitated a lot more actions being learned in the 1-50 section of levelling. With the level cap being 100 now, but the same 30ish button limit, there's more focus on making the endgame feel like you're learning new things a lot (every 2 levels), which results in the early game for some jobs feeling empty. WHM, in particular, has an entire 12 level section of levelling where the only thing they learn is a trait that increases their damage by 10% passively. Look at something like RPR, or VPR, where their Enshroud/Reawaken, the core thing the Job is built around, doesn't unlock until 80/90 respectively, resulting in any gameplay below those levels feeling pretty bad by comparison. At least PCT gets to have Hammer and 2 of the 4 Mog/Madeen Muses (plus the Mog itself) at lower levels

This could be addressed somewhat by having lower level versions of actions, which later upgrade. For example, we were just given 'Plenary Indulgence now grants 10% mitigation effect' in this patch. Okay, that's cool. Why not have Protect come back at like, level 8 or 10, as a lower level version that only does the Mit, and not the bonus healing effect, which then upgrades to Plenary later whereupon it gains the bonus heal effect? Why not have Divine Seal return at level 40ish for WHM, providing a % increase to Healing Actions under its duration, which then upgrades later to Temperance, at which point it gains Mitigation in addition to the % Healing increase effect (causing Temperance to function as it now does)?

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

[...] Overall, I'mma give this a C. Has some good imo, can lead to some improvements and is now more baseline across the level sections, but the 25y range on melee skills was REALLY not necessary.

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I'm giving this second thoughts in retrospect, because certain aspects of the change were NOT clear to me until I actually fidgeted around with it.

Manafication's 25y range buff is not tied to the three stacks of Swordplay it provides, it is a 30s buff that you can attach to as many melee combo hits you can fit into it. At Lv100, with enough gauge, you can perform three back-to-back Swordplay combos in a row, disregarding the viability of such for now.

I'm basing my thoughts on my own experience & enjoyment from playing Red Mage as well that of a fellow friend who has been playing the job to great success since Stormblood and found great joy in finding the right times to hit melee attacks and disengage with Displacement:

• This most certainly is a way to ensure median damage goes up by making the 2min buff window easier to successfully execute as Red Mage
• This does virtually nothing (aside from other potency changes with it) to increase the damage ceiling of Red Mage, which along with Summoner has been greatly lagging behind.
• It absolutely demolishes the fun of optimizing the job, full-stop. The only time you now actually get to do fun melee combos is the one extra you do between 2min buffs.
• While already a niche tool for uptime to begin with, this just makes Enchanted Reprise even worse and more pointless.

Had it only been ONE of the two melee combos in an Embolden window, it would have been fine - you'd have to choose the start or tail-end of your Embolden window for the extended reach.

There are other avenues they could have looked at to make potential changes to Red Mage - an unexplored area could have been intentionally overaspecting into Black or White Mana to be able to use certain abilities (condition requirement) and spend accordingly a lot of that manatype to use it, which will lead into other ways to do damage or gain resources to get to more damage.

But this? I'm gonna be honest, this is a bit heartbreaking to see. We had three Casters to pick from if we specifically wanted something we could use safely at range, the fourth was not necessary.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

See, the thing is, when we had 60 levels as our cap, but 30ish actions to learn to fill our bars with, it necessitated a lot more actions being learned in the 1-50 section of levelling. With the level cap being 100 now, but the same 30ish button limit, there's more focus on making the endgame feel like you're learning new things a lot (every 2 levels), which results in the early game for some jobs feeling empty. WHM, in particular, has an entire 12 level section of levelling where the only thing they learn is a trait that increases their damage by 10% passively. Look at something like RPR, or VPR, where their Enshroud/Reawaken, the core thing the Job is built around, doesn't unlock until 80/90 respectively, resulting in any gameplay below those levels feeling pretty bad by comparison. At least PCT gets to have Hammer and 2 of the 4 Mog/Madeen Muses (plus the Mog itself) at lower levels

This could be addressed somewhat by having lower level versions of actions, which later upgrade. For example, we were just given 'Plenary Indulgence now grants 10% mitigation effect' in this patch. Okay, that's cool. Why not have Protect come back at like, level 8 or 10, as a lower level version that only does the Mit, and not the bonus healing effect, which then upgrades to Plenary later whereupon it gains the bonus heal effect? Why not have Divine Seal return at level 40ish for WHM, providing a % increase to Healing Actions under its duration, which then upgrades later to Temperance, at which point it gains Mitigation in addition to the % Healing increase effect (causing Temperance to function as it now does)?

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I assume they removed buttons because it "interfered" with combat design, and adding buttons back would mean having to revise said fights. For whatever reason, Square-Enix wants buttons presses minimized/focus on hotbars reduced for when they want people to dance around floor barf and be paying more attention to which side of their butt the boss is scratching to know where an attack is going to land.

They're unlikely to give back all those DOTs unless it comes with the caveat that the boss no longer makes you do anything that requires you to move around. In fact, that might even be WHY they changed it.

"Stacking DOTs and standing around sounds boring, let's make the player scurry and scatter instead." It's quite possibly the same logic they apply to healers in general. "Just spam your quick-healing/AOEs and let the tank help carry that load, you don't have time to cast or think, just MOVEMOVEMOVE."

Hell, nearly every job change can be zeroed down to those points: Does it interfere with mobility/take away the player's attention from the boss when they start casting? If yes, straight to the chopping block it goes. And it makes an unfortunate amount of sense because as someone else said, it's easier to balance fights around 5 roles (or 5 roles around fights rather) than 21 jobs. I'm curious if role quests dropped in the same expansion that Square-Enix started pushing jobs into those less than half a dozen boxes.

I almost play exclusively RDM, and well... I like the change
:D

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Originally Posted by Aidorouge

I'm curious if role quests dropped in the same expansion that Square-Enix started pushing jobs into those less than half a dozen boxes.

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You're not wrong. Shadowbringers was when they introduced role quests over job quests. They still did make one quest for every job questline, though mostly as an epilogue.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

You're not wrong. Shadowbringers was when they introduced role quests over job quests. They still did make one quest for every job questline, though mostly as an epilogue.

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The DRK one was cool at least. Every step would have a standard journal overview, you'd complete the objective, and that section would be replaced with "Fray" talking to you and reflecting on it.