They're thinking about job identities for 8.0

Damn. That's crazy.

Anyway, anyone remember when they said that they were going to focus on encounter design six years ago for the Shadowbringers fanfest, when they decided to begin gutting jobs?

Or how about when they repeated the sentiment again, during the Endwalker fanfest, after essentially deleting SMN and gutting job identities further?

Or how Yoshida actually said, "well, everything being on a literal 2 minute cooldown would be a bit boring," during an interview?

Or how about them promising Reaper would be a complex and difficult job.

It's comical at this point, lol. But don't worry, I'm sure continuing to attach damage buttons to heals you rarely need to use or to buffs that you'll monotonously press every two minutes will really help with engagement this time!

They also caught on that they made the MNK rework really fun in this expansion and are making sure to rectify that. Ugh, lol.

Sorry to doom post like this, but, god, what a tone deaf promise. I'm sure the average encounter design will continue to get easier--as it has been since SHB--and anyone who wants to try reaching the skill ceiling will find themselves quickly bored yet again. I'd love to be proven wrong, however.

It's just nuts how Heavensward continues to have been the best expansion and I'll just never get to experience anything close to how fun and absolutely cracked all jobs were back then. u__u

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I think this is an unfortunate consequence of tying "major" job changes to expansions, and the long development cycles for expansions.

1. Developers release X.
2. Players provide feedback on X, while developers have already started work on X+1.
3. Developers release X+1.
4. Players complain feedback on X was ignored, while developers have already started work on X+2 and are taking into account the feedback on X.
5. …

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Originally Posted by Aelin_Ashryver

Wouldn't shock me if they want to see how we handle this new style of encounter before introducing sweeping job changes. They might have felt doing both in one expac could risk overwhelming the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by CStrife912

You do know they plan ahead right any mmo is probably working on the roadmap or planned content goals for the next expansion before the current is out.. it’s why they have to lock in design decisions early so basically how it ‘should’ work is feedback here won’t be addressed likely till 8.0. Think about it people complained during EW but by that time they already said jobs aren’t going to change much for dawntrail this was stated they’re just adding or tweaking the existing. 8.0 I can see a stormblood combat overhaul situation where the Meta could go and some wider changes.. especially if they don’t add anymore jobs… we have enough now just add identity to the existing pool.

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Great points here.

It may be difficult to endure, but a game like this being incredibly slow at course correction makes a lot of sense- encounter design and job design are intertwined. A major change in one might require major changes in the others, which might then require huge delays to readjust and redesign certain aspects.

This kind of this is made worse by working in a giant corporation- such delays wouldn't generally be allowed, and might put the entire project in jeopardy because executives and shareholders are stupid and only understand 'Line Go Up'

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Originally Posted by Doopliss

I'd love to be proven wrong, however.

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We can only hope- I'd love to see the game regain its footing in regards to interesting design

I don't know if I want to give them until 8.0 since complaints about job identity have been present since 5.0.

Yeah, the issue by now is that myself and others might not be willing to just wait another 2 years. We have been hearing the same answers, the same promises for years and years and just nothing of consequence did happen in regard of class design. There is just no longer any trust left.

At this point they should just use the PvP base template and rebuild the Jobs on top of them. PvE keeps getting less fun the longer this finisher upon finisher in buff window goes.

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Originally Posted by ThaCa

At this point they should just use the PvP base template and rebuild the Jobs on top of them. PvE keeps getting less fun the longer this finisher upon finisher in buff window goes.

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I'd always wondered if they were using PvP as an experiment to try focusing each Job's kit.

That'd be kind of cool, I think, though it would be a huge change. That said, such a drastic change might be something they have to do, since the current state of job design doesn't seem sustainable.

That's how feedback has always been. Development pipelines are long and span years. They've not even released Dawntrail yet and they're already in early stages of working on 8.0. It was same way before. Any feedback that was given during Endwalker won't be implemented until 8.0 and feedback during Dawntrail will likely wait until 9.0. The development process is always way ahead of what people actually receive, and they're not going to scrap things theyre already working on right now to respond to feedback in the middle of process, they'll just slot it in for when they start working on new expansion from scratch again, while keeping the work on current next one going as is

i’d really rather they thought about Job Identity now, thanks.

Well, we're here without job identity reboot, so as much as I agree with everyone saying we should've had it for 7.0, what can we do about it now?

If there is a genuine desire to restore job identity and address the concerns about homogenization and the aggressive simplification of the game, then we need to see some development toward that preferably before 1.5 months before 8.0's release. Can we please have some communication? Talk about what your goals are with each job, what feedback are you getting for each job. Create a public testing environment for this reboot, or at least open up about these ideas to the community and create an environment for receiving feedback on these jobs. Why not poll the community on what different players feel is important about each job?

The problem is we're almost certainly getting none of that. Maybe come 8.0, job reworks will be talked about much earlier IF job identity is really going to be the focal point--early enough for players to actually give feedback on whatever plans are being made. Or 8.0 releases December 2026 and we know not a peep about these changes till November of that year. Without any real assurance, why should many of us who have been unhappy with job design stick around till then?

DUH! Its been explained hundreds of times, YES, devs listen but it takes them ages to accomplish anything that "they" dont deem completely fucked or broken. Very much a "look forward to it" sooo far forward it'll be forgotten and end up as another complaint of "why did they change this?"