I wasn't playing in HW, so I did not play OG bow mage, but PVP BRD is kind of a bow mage, and it's a ton of fun! I really really hope its ideas get carried over into PVE in DT.
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I only play healers super casually, but I've been pointing out in the other 'boring healer' threads all the cool stuff that the pvp versions of healers can do. To me, PVP is proof that CBU3 knows how to design cool jobs, so a part of me thinks that the reason why EW jobs might feel kinda bare is because they're doing a soft reset on them.
Funny that new dps jobs end up being literally:
1 - Obligatory gimmick to resource hoard for the 2min marks;
2 - 1 or 2 big hitters or party dps buffs with 120s recast times;
3 - A few 30/60s recast oGCDs that makes up for a "try to not drift me" challenge;
4 - 1 or 2 personal/party situational utility buffs that ultimately ends up being irrelevant most of the time since healers (mostly) have zero issues with the damage;
What makes a dps gameplay unique is mostly just the gimmick, and after the 'minigame' novelty wears off you realize most of them aren't really that special mechanically and almost every one of them serve to the 'accumulate x resource at near capacity' purpose.
Healers aren't boring because of Final Fantasy XIV's design for them. Healers have been boring in absolutely every single MMO using tab targeting since the days of Yor. Healers also have to deal with the one thing that the developers of the game have no control over, which is human stupidity and the way people interpret or think of healing. In general, the better the healer is at their job the more stupid and idiotic things people seem to end up doing.
Edit: Sorry if this came off harshly. Just I was in Stone Vigil hard mode and people seemed to not take any time to try and understand Giruveganaus, and wanted to be continuously healed through being clawed, tail slapped, BBQed, and fireballed (which I suppose is an alternative form of BBQ), while I am clearly dodging every single mechanic even with two of them out at once. It has a literal debuff that reduces healing. We are level synced to 50 with hot bars that are less complicated than a TI-30X-IIS calculator. The boss is slowly winding his clawed arm back as the melee and tank are staring cross-eyed at the things burly chest doing a simple 2-3 hit combo. :(
I get what you mean, just this game also hates stupid people and puts debuffs on them that stack with the intent that they are supposed to die from the failure eventually. It's not a problem if only one person is screwing up, but from experience in this game vs others, I can heal multiple people screwing up without a hitch in WoW or Star Wars, but I really can't do it in FFXIV as easily, and then the healer gets blamed for the failure anyway. And FYI I am familiar with the difference in healing between the games.
XIV's combat system is very linear. Mobs are just dogs on a leash towards whoever has the highest aggro. Some might leap at you with a pre-emptive encounter, and that's it. Can give lots of critique on Boss designs as well. Paired with a very linear Job philosophy, where near nothing is multifunctional. All or Most Skills either...Very Linear. If the goal was balance? this is good. But it's very limiting as to what Square could do to make it have substance. I'm not suggesting to overhaul the entire PvE combat system vs pointing out how Square Pidgeon holed themselves into a corner...
- Does Damage
- Buffs / Debuffs for more Damage
- Heals / Regen / Shields
- Mitigates or reduces Damage taken
- Mobility Utility of some sort
- Does it in a Single Target or AoE fashion
- Charges your Gauge / Spends your Gauge
Square can't/wont increase the difficulty of Mobs / Bosses / Fights to keep it player-friendly (except Ultimate). Can't just overhaul the PvE system. Doing something drastic could disrupt Job Balance more. Devs also don't want backlash if performance numbers are off. Can't just randomly make Skills multifunctional either, it just wouldn't fit. Our gear-stats are all optimized already for us as well.
The only thing left is to add more things to do in our rotation, preferably as optional again to keep it player friendly. Many tiny detailed things done right as optional. It's about the only thing we have left Job-wise that can give some semblance of substance. But Square's direction seems towards erasing / simplifying / streamlining this last part as well.
Will I be surprised if Square turns DNC partner, Dragon Sight and AST cards into party wide buffs? Not really. You can name so many things Square could do simplify it more, purely cause of what they have done in the past and probably be told to like it all or go play Ultimate, mhm
They really are boring, even when you die in Myths of realm there's no fear of a wipe or big danger like in Nier raids or Orbonne. Even World of Darkness has more "mechanics life" to it than Myths of Falling Asleep. Sometimes it's not even difficulty, but about how fast can things snowball or not. in Thaleia nothing matters, just res again; couldn't say that in old Void Ark raids, when those were current.
Honestly, I say just pull a reverse Ivalice situation. Ivalice raids too hard so some people immediately leave? Maybe I'll just do the same. Maybe I will do the roulette, and every time I get Myths, I just leave. As a wise man once said:
"You've committed the cardinal sin of Boring me. And so, I shall retire to the shade."
Imagine if enough people were doing that that it was equally as "Bad" as Orbonne...