Trick Attack

While I agree that people who don't like change, like me, are more likely to voice their opinion, i think its safe to say we can pretty much already judge how new mug is gonna feel and whether we like it not. Anyone who has levelled a class with a raidbuff that isn't ninja will be familiar with a 2 minute burst. If they were gonna reinvent the 2 minute buff just for nin, you would think they would give it the spotlight in the presentation to balance backlash from the gutting of trick. It is just an assumption, but I think the devs purposely didnt explain mug in great detail because they knew it was underwhelming and didn't want even more backlash.

I must say, when people say "gameplay/rotation wise it won't change too much", it doesn't make me feel much better. With trick's identity being changed drastically, i would like something to make up for it in the enjoyment and fun factor. Monk had something similar, with greased lightning being replaced by nadis, although that did take a while. It may seem contradictory, as I have come off as anti-change in these threads, but if they're gonna change trick, nin players will need a new clear thing to be their new identity. The devs in my opinion are both doing too little, by not giving nin new toys to play with, and too much since trick is being changed with little to make up for it. But who knows. Maybe mug of all things will be the next big thing in the ffxiv meta, and will have deep and interesting mechanics surrounding it. With the ffxiv devs, I believe the chances of that coming true being slim.

All other jobs click 1 button to activate buff. It makes sense for them to change ninja to activate buff with 1 button - MUG. I wouldn't even be surprised if the new trick attack doesn't require suiton anymore.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RaevusAstra

Simply removing criterion dungeons instead of balancing the few jobs that need adjustments for it is a poor idea imo. People have been begging for small scale hard content, and it'll definitely be more casual than 8 man raids, but the answer isn't to delete it if two or three jobs have trouble, just to balance for it instead.

The answer could also be non obvious. Perhaps throughout certain parts of a criterion, certain parts of the dungeon experience are more streamlined. Perhaps AOE dps is more important in certain sections than single target performance is, and ranged dps could simply be better at this than what's available to most melee dps. Perhaps black mage is stronger than Red Mage at single target, but weaker at AOE. The balance team could be crafty about how to deal with that while keeping raid balance intact.

However, specifically in the case of Trick, more frequent buffs is proportional to more party reliance, as we've determined time and time again on this thread. Bringing the party buff alignment up to speed with every other melee makes the melee role easier to balance within itself, no doubt.

---

I'm sorry, I think my phrasing was a bit unclear in my previous message. Removing the criterion dungeons was not a serious suggestion -- rather, I wanted to emphasize that we should not be prioritising the balance of a currently untested type of difficult content over that of the tired and true 8-man raid series.

It's true that we can't comment on what exactly criterion dungeons might be like, given that they are currently unreleased. However, they will not be released until 6.2, which makes it baffling as to why they would release such a change now. I would much sooner they leave Ninja intact, and make adjustments after gathering some data if necessary. Though I'm working with limited data myself, I don't see anything that suggests Ninja is inferior for endgame dungeon speedrunning (the closest comparison I could find) -- perhaps the damage lost from no longer having 8 party members is restored through frequent use of Hide to restore mudras.

In any case, while sure, changing NIN's party buff to be 2 minutes is technically easier to balance for, why? I could be wrong, but as far as I am aware the developers have not cited 'Ninja is hard to balance' as a reason for this change. It was simply 'to increase synergy with other jobs', which has been discussed frequently in this thread, and I and many others disagree with this sentiment. Rather, I believe it decreases synergy with other jobs that are able to burst at 1 minute intervals.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ayden

All other jobs click 1 button to activate buff. It makes sense for them to change ninja to activate buff with 1 button - MUG. I wouldn't even be surprised if the new trick attack doesn't require suiton anymore.

---

Dancer's Tech Step is 6 individual button clicks. Bard's full Coda Radiant Finale needs 3 songs setup beforehand, on top of Battle Voice needing another song played to activate. Let's not even go into Astro's personal buff...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ayden

All other jobs click 1 button to activate buff. It makes sense for them to change ninja to activate buff with 1 button - MUG. I wouldn't even be surprised if the new trick attack doesn't require suiton anymore.

---

That's not true as someone else already mentioned.
I'd rather not get even more homogenization too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dadong

You can have a full burst trick (sans tcj) on limit cut in p2s if you open with a first gcd trick, and the rest of your group is doing the 5 min pot window.

---

Yeah I am not in a static tho :P, I was mainly talking about it from the pov of PF.
Most ppl in PF don't even use pots a lot don't even use food buffs.
If everyone is doing their standard thing then it's better to delay.

Pretty sure Ayden was being sarcastic kek

Only the most dedicated square bootlickers would advocate for such a change. Although I wouldn't be surprised if square's reasoning for brothermug really was because activating trick was too complicated.

Here's my question: is this whining a testable hypothesis?

6.1 comes out next week. Give it a few weeks for people to play with it. Say, a month after 6.1, will there have been a mass exodus of NIN mains, or will it be like SMN? The forums/Reddit/Discord were nigh unanimous in declaring SMN dead forever, but I've never seen as many SMNs as I have since 6.0 (and I believe that there was some evidence that there were, in fact, more people playing SMN, though I can't find it atm).

I'm old enough to remember forums/Reddit/Discord declaring NIN unplayable because of Raiju—in hindsight, obviously wrong. I'm sure that this time will be different, though—this time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

Here's my question: is this whining a testable hypothesis?

6.1 comes out next week. Give it a few weeks for people to play with it. Say, a month after 6.1, will there have been a mass exodus of NIN mains, or will it be like SMN? The forums/Reddit/Discord were nigh unanimous in declaring SMN dead forever, but I've never seen as many SMNs as I have since 6.0 (and I believe that there was some evidence that there were, in fact, more people playing SMN, though I can't find it atm).

I'm old enough to remember forums/Reddit/Discord declaring NIN unplayable because of Raiju—in hindsight, obviously wrong. I'm sure that this time will be different, though—this time.

---

Lucy Pyre showed a pretty drastic increase in SMN players in a video about the OTHER horrible DPS change (Kaiten); 2.4k vs almost 13.5k; I think that the numbers were parses (not sure if it was distinct player parses, or total parses or what though).

I can't see this being a large enough change to have any effect (positive or negative) to the number of people playing NIN, but who knows.

Whining is gonna happen if the devs aren't being transparent. If you don't like people complaining due to lack of dev transparency, there is a thread in general discussion discussing dev transparency, feel free to put your points there. I would personally not like to whine. That would be alleviated if the devs can communicate like normal human beings. All you've done so far is tell people “don't worry, it'll be fine, let's wait for 6.1”. Which is fine, but you are doing square's job for them. No offense, but I will only consider such statements seriously if the devs come out and say it themselves. The devs could elaborate on changes via a two sentence tweet, 2 minute YouTube video, forum post, they have a multitude of options. The fact they can't get the unpaid intern to make an extra ppt slide is kinda funny.

No one here is saying nin is dead. It'll be fine, metawise. Even when nin had 6 gapclosers in a row it was still fine, just annoying to deal with. Nin will be fine, even without trick. Will it be as fun, which is what most of us are concerned with? The devs haven't shown us any info to suggest otherwise. I will personally still keep playing nin. I can't change to other classes since I need to keep my raid gear and not grief ny static. I have doubts I will enjoy it as much as before.

Complaning now, instead of Complaing later when 6.1 nin is out, isn't gonna change anything either way tbh. Let's not kid ourselves, I'm not even sure they read the jp forums, much less the eng ones.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

Here's my question: is this whining a testable hypothesis?

6.1 comes out next week. Give it a few weeks for people to play with it. Say, a month after 6.1, will there have been a mass exodus of NIN mains, or will it be like SMN? The forums/Reddit/Discord were nigh unanimous in declaring SMN dead forever, but I've never seen as many SMNs as I have since 6.0 (and I believe that there was some evidence that there were, in fact, more people playing SMN, though I can't find it atm).

I'm old enough to remember forums/Reddit/Discord declaring NIN unplayable because of Raiju—in hindsight, obviously wrong. I'm sure that this time will be different, though—this time.

---

The reason you see alot of smn has nothing to do with how good the remake was, its because it's a really easy job to play and has pretty lights. Jobs like SMN and WHM will always be popular because they are simple and easy jobs to get into. That in fact doesn't mean the decisions SE made for that job were right or fun for all. As a long time smn main the new smn is watered down and unfun in most higher content. Did I enjoy leveling to 90? Yes but after a month or so with new smn the new worn off and shiny animations got old quickly. Now when I do play it I have all the summons set to small to not block my veiw of bosses and mechs in savage. My point is if a job is widely popular that does not mean it's not mechanically flawed. Making jobs easy to play does make them get played more by people who want an easy job to play but it also isolates the long time job mains who found the complexity of a job fun. SQ should be trying to find a happy middle between these two groups but right now they seem like they rather cater to the lowest denominator.

I wonder when "giving feedback to the developers in the format that they ask for" turned into "whining".

Regardless of that point, we have already been told very clearly that Trick Attack is being turned into a personal buff and Mug is going to be the new party buff, given that nothing was ever said about the timers on those abilities being changed, we can be certain that nothing will change in that regard, so everything we know so far is based on fact. Another fact that we know is that having the sole remaining 60s party buff stripped away will make everything more samey and boring. So these are all known facts so far.......what hypothesis are we making again? What shot in the dark are we taking?

Feedback is best given before a change is made, because once change is made, it would be easier to do nothing than to revert it.

If they didn't want feedback/whining/whatever you wanna call it, they would just not have announced or shown any changes in the live letter, quite simply. Perhaps I am näive, but I think they announced the changes so they know whether the fanbase hates it or not. Sams are unamused, I think the same can be said for nins. A casual glance at their own forums would show people disapprove of these changes.

But then, drks and whms, Healers and tanks in general have been saying square is crap at designing their role, and nothing has changed as far as I can tell. Probably wishful thinking on my part the devs actually care tbh

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

Feedback is best given before a change is made, because once change is made, it would be easier to do nothing than to revert it.

---

To be fair; I would take feedback prior to the change with a grain of salt because the customers don't know all of the changes being made and how those changes interact and how everything coalesces.

I'm not saying that they will stop ignoring the feedback after the change is made nor am I excusing all of these threads being seemingly "ignored" right now. I also know that a lot of players can easily see how this is going to play out (and are probably right about it). But I'm also sure that they did some testing and someone thinks that this change is going to work well and their experience with the change and the rest of the changes that we might not know about is more tangible than people's feedback based off what they _think_ it's going to be like based off of partial information.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Equitable_Remedy

Here's my question: is this whining a testable hypothesis?

6.1 comes out next week. Give it a few weeks for people to play with it. Say, a month after 6.1, will there have been a mass exodus of NIN mains, or will it be like SMN? The forums/Reddit/Discord were nigh unanimous in declaring SMN dead forever, but I've never seen as many SMNs as I have since 6.0 (and I believe that there was some evidence that there were, in fact, more people playing SMN, though I can't find it atm).

I'm old enough to remember forums/Reddit/Discord declaring NIN unplayable because of Raiju—in hindsight, obviously wrong. I'm sure that this time will be different, though—this time.

---

There's already been a mass exodus of NIN mains -- the very Raiju changes that made NIN 'unplayable' (at least in Zodiark EX) caused the population of Ninja players to plummet through the floor. Ninja is still the least played job in Endwalker, though it is finally recovering as of the 6.08 changes. The gap between it and MCH has been reducing every week.

You say that the forums declaring NIN unplayable was obviously wrong, but the fact that the NIN population dropped so dramatically relative to Shadowbringers (we must consider RPR being introduced, of course, but I imagine we'd have seen the drop spread more evenly across the other melee jobs) and the fact that Square Enix made very rapid changes to how Raijus worked seems like quite clear evidence to me that Ninja was indeed in a dire state and needed to be rectified quickly -- which it was, thank god.

It was still in a weak state until the 6.08 changes, which arguably made it too strong, but with the 6.05 and 6.08 changes, the number of NIN players began to increase again.

Will it be different this time? Maybe. Maybe not. I'm certainly not a fortune teller. I can, however, confidently say that these changes are unwanted, do not make sense alongside the given reason for the change (increased synergy with other jobs), and corrode what is considered by many the identity of Ninja at this point in time. Ergo, I would like these changes to be strongly reconsidered.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Manofpassion

But then, drks and whms, Healers and tanks in general have been saying square is crap at designing their role, and nothing has changed as far as I can tell. Probably wishful thinking on my part the devs actually care tbh

---

I know that Tanks/Healers mains have been jumping into all of these threads with firsttimememe.jpg, but I think there's some differences between these changes and the complaints that tanks/healers have. Given the role restrictions in most content, the ideal population ratio would be 2:1:1 D:H:T; MOST MMOs have a crazy high number of DPS players and a small number of healers/tanks I imagine that 6-8:1:1 is believable. The changes that they have made to Tanks/Healers have likely seen an increase in the number of people playing those roles which is good for EVERYONE. Lowering the skill floor of Tanks and Healers allows for more people to pick them up which lowers queue times for everyone. I'm not saying that they couldn't have done that a better way, but I strongly believe that has been pushing a lot of the changes over there that people complain about (Job specific complaints surrounding WHM/DRK are separate and just a lack of good design).

For DPS, they don't need to worry about increasing the number of players playing it and it's unlikely that a DPS player will stop playing NIN/SAM and start playing Tank/Healer; So really there isn't a whole lot of "gain" for them making this change and as such it is certainly more possible that they will back out these changes. Definitely more likely than Tanks/Healers getting any of the changes they want at least.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

To be fair; I would take feedback prior to the change with a grain of salt because the customers don't know all of the changes being made and how those changes interact and how everything coalesces.

I'm not saying that they will stop ignoring the feedback after the change is made nor am I excusing all of these threads being seemingly "ignored" right now. I also know that a lot of players can easily see how this is going to play out (and are probably right about it). But I'm also sure that they did some testing and someone thinks that this change is going to work well and their experience with the change and the rest of the changes that we might not know about is more tangible than people's feedback based off what they _think_ it's going to be like based off of partial information.

---

I wish I could be as optimistic as you mate, that the devs will actually make sure the changes work well. Having to put throwing daggers in trick during zodiark ex was a very low point in my ninja career. And they truly playtested 6 gapclosers in a row, and thought to themselves “one of the most flexible melee dps in game would surely appreciate being animation locked for 10 secs every minute”. Kind of shows their play testing is a joke imo. Will the changes work, at the basic level like the attacks registering? I am confident it will. Will it be fun? No confidence at all. I appreciate people giving square the benefit of the doubt, but I think me and a lot of nin mains in ew have had their patience worn thin. Apologies for being too cynical, but square should know nins are sick of their crappy designs and need more info to mitigate any backlash. Whoever the community manager is at square needs to pull their finger out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

To be fair; I would take feedback prior to the change with a grain of salt because the customers don't know all of the changes being made and how those changes interact and how everything coalesces.

I'm not saying that they will stop ignoring the feedback after the change is made nor am I excusing all of these threads being seemingly "ignored" right now. I also know that a lot of players can easily see how this is going to play out (and are probably right about it). But I'm also sure that they did some testing and someone thinks that this change is going to work well and their experience with the change and the rest of the changes that we might not know about is more tangible than people's feedback based off what they _think_ it's going to be like based off of partial information.

---

Even so, I think it's fairly self-explanatory why phrases like "We can't be sure what the devs are doing, but I'm sure they know what they're doing!" is doing nothing to assuage fears and dispel doubts. That's why we're giving our feedback in the hopes that the devs understand there is a dislike towards the direction they're intending to take NIN in. Yes, none of us know what they're planning, the point we want to make here is that we don't like what they plan and we want them to reconsider, many users have already mentioned that even their explanations as to why they're making this change don't even make sense, there's a lot of uncertainty right now and so there's nothing to do but leave feedback.

To put it simply, I would much rather complain and be wrong than stay silent, receive awful changes, and have the developers say 'we received no feedback'.

Yoshida will still gleefully read out the patch notes and say something like “wow, people have given feedback they really like this change to trick! Please look forward to it” with a massive smile on his face, but at least if we complain now we know we tried.

Some people have said trick is too hard to balance, but to be frank, that is their job and something they have to deal with, not us. It's been balanced around for 4 expansions, and now they just suddenly can't be arsed? That is hard to swallow. Of course, we can only assume, for the devs don't know how to communicate.

Furthermore, it'll at least make even more clear where we stand with the job balance devs. Next time around I will know there is no point in giving feedback and can just go watch netflix instead. It is what it is.

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...c253b189f43f0e

Well, trick isn't mentioned anywhere. Or any of their proposed changes in the live letter. This either means they're walking back all their changes or they just couldn't be bothered to update us while continuing to commit to their dumb decisions. The changes to bard and dancer seem good I guess.

I'd probably be more accepting of it if they had some bigger rework in mind and they actually came out and said it and told us what they had in mind even if it wouldn't come this patch.
Imo I'd probably be fine with this if they made our downtime more interesting like if they added a Shadow Dance mechanic or whatever it's called in WoW and brought back Sneak Attack or something and made that something else to do during downtime than 1 2 3.
But atm I just kinda feel meh about it?
TA already lined up fine... And a party buff every 60s just feels more engaging and helpful than every 120s.
I just feel like the identity of NIN is being diminished with nothing to bring it back up again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Manofpassion

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...c253b189f43f0e

Well, trick isn't mentioned anywhere. Or any of their proposed changes in the live letter. This either means they're walking back all their changes or they just couldn't be bothered to update us while continuing to commit to their dumb decisions. The changes to bard and dancer seem good I guess.

---

The full notes won't be out until patch day.

Yeah, I'm aware, I just find it funny they are willing to copy paste the ??? quests 15 times instead of giving us any new info at all

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Manofpassion

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...c253b189f43f0e

Well, trick isn't mentioned anywhere. Or any of their proposed changes in the live letter. This either means they're walking back all their changes or they just couldn't be bothered to update us while continuing to commit to their dumb decisions. The changes to bard and dancer seem good I guess.

---

Full job balance changes routinely come in the patch day notes rather than the preliminary notes.

If you're going to be sarcastic, at least be right.

They got time to announce changes to dancer and bard Job gauges though lmao

Good job intern-kun, we appreciate the update

Is what is going to make Ninja kind of wonky, is mug has always been used on cd for the ninki gain. Now it's in a weird state where it is a party buff, but also a selfish ninki gain as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Is what is going to make Ninja kind of wonky, is mug has always been used on cd for the ninki gain. Now it's in a weird state where it is a party buff, but also a selfish ninki gain as well.

---

The LL did state that there would be other changes to the job, so perhaps I'm huffing copium, but they may have shifted the ninki gain elsewhere, or at least adjusted it somewhat.

If not, well, I guess we get to pool 40 less ninki, as we'll be looking to enter burst windows with a maximum of 60 as opposed to 100. That'll mean one less Bhavacakra in burst windows, which is a damn shame. It was a nice little optimisation to deliberately drift Mug into Trick after your opener to maximise the Bhavas you received under Trick.

Dawn of the final day, 24 hours remain

Let's all leave our good memories of trick here before we get turned into worse monk

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Manofpassion

Dawn of the final day, 24 hours remain

Let's all leave our good memories of trick here before we get turned into worse monk

---

I'll probably keep having fun playing NIN.

Sorry, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nothing wrong with enjoying things people don't like. I don't like superman, but he is still a very popular character

We could be optimistic and think we will be better monk, that's something I haven't considered. Being meta will be nice I guess

Well see I guess, if they make Mug just another 5% dmg buff then I might actually consider switching.
If they remove Kaiten too then well...
Ffs................
SAM was my second Job after NIN this exp...
Uh...
I guess I'll switch to RPR or something......

All NIN becomes then is just another DPS only one that shares gear with no one.
I play NIN because I want to be the damage utility DPS, applying TA felt great imo especially on a more regular basis every 60s.
If it's just 5% every 120s then wtf it's just like everyone else then.

Same lmao, I was counting on Sam to pull through if nin gets screwed. The fact both weeb jobs going through the same thing in the same patch is just plain bad luck.

I guess I could go dancer, at least the raid accessories carry over. I think making dancers and bards have the most impactful buffs means more people will play phys ranged now at the very least

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kolsykol

Well see I guess, if they make Mug just another 5% dmg buff then I might actually consider switching.
If they remove Kaiten too then well...
Ffs................
SAM was my second Job after NIN this exp...
Uh...
I guess I'll switch to RPR or something......

All NIN becomes then is just another DPS only one that shares gear with no one.
I play NIN because I want to be the damage utility DPS, applying TA felt great imo especially on a more regular basis every 60s.
If it's just 5% every 120s then wtf it's just like everyone else then.

---

Come join me as a MCH, it's been a pretty rough time for a bit.

everything else was more or less expected but what the fuck why did they kill prepull doton

Wow

It really is brothermug

I was hoping trick would be like no mercy and boost damage by 20% at least. Riddle of trick and brother mug are now an actual reality.

Prepull doton wasn't that crazy either, I'm not sure why they removed it. Was anyone crying for its removal?

'' Mug The additional effect "Increases target's damage taken by 5%" has been added with a duration of 20 seconds. ''











...................... BORING.

Also '' Hide Now dispels the effect of Doton upon execution. ''...

BOOOOOOOOO, the Mudra reset in AoE was so much fun :(....
They wanted us to not do the opener I guess...
But ffs Mug is so damn boring, NIN is officialy just yet another DPS but also the only one that doesn't share gear with anyone... What's the point...

Mug is just worse brotherhood too. At least brotherhood generates chakras. Mug is just .... mug. Feels like the devs mugged us off kek

Out of all the jobs they chose to make NIN similar to, they chose the melee that doesn't even have an identity for itself.

My expectations going into these patch notes were low and yet I'm still disappointed.

Apparently the chances weren't even for balance. It was just to put everything on a two minute timer.

And the doton removal was because having it in the opener was annoying for tanks.

I... What a big middle finger to ninjas. Jesus.

I guess tbf the average tank in pf doesn't even know how to turn on tank stance, much less pull the boss into doton

But the damage isn't that crazy, so why remove that small optimisation? Feels like square is saying “you will only have fun my way” now

I can't even think of an optimisation left in NIN now. Optimising Aeolian vs Phantom in your opener based on whether Doton was possible, and drifting Mug into Trick to gain more Bhavas under Trick.

Neither of these are possible anymore. I guess you just hit buttons on cooldown and the job plays itself.