If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Oh honey, two can play this game. Lets see how an ACTUAL Dark Knight Controller hotbar is like. Thats right Im flexing here.

https://i.imgur.com/qSWluee.png
https://i.imgur.com/nkDeKFC.png

These are my 2 hotbars used for Dark Knight. Barely any skills gets copied into the other and in this case I still lack buttons for adding in all my role action skills like shirk and arms length. I have to actually remember to slot those in whenever I do fights that require tank switching or KB immunity but the case made here is that I barely have enough space to fit in the entirety of DK's skills set into 2 hotbars. Am I gonna complain about it?...No...not really, I'm currently mostly satisfied with the amount of buttons used for DK. However I wont mind removing or altering some to reduce button bloat. I refuse to have a 3rd hotbar just to comfortably slot all of my toolkit.

Bottom line is, you sir are THE LIAR, Some classes do indeed suffer from button bloat. Especially on controller. Thank you and good night.

---

u arent using the switch menu are u lol where u just hold l2 and r2 and auto pop a cd when u need it lol apartly before u flex get better organization skills trash

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nekokaori

u arent using the switch menu are u lol where u just hold l2 and r2 and auto pop a cd when u need it lol apartly before u flex get better organization skills trash

---

Im playing how this game presented to me its cross-hotbar interface out of the box. Using R1 to cycle between the sets. I managed to get it down to a science when it comes to switching sets on the fly.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

snip.

---

Why do you have Sprint and Flood of Shadows on your hotbar twice? Interject is barely relevant and can be moved to an auxiliary hotbar. You can also set Sprint to a specific keybind like R3 so it's universal on all jobs. This alone saves you three buttons, though I don't entirely disagree Dark Knight has some bloat. Frankly, Abyssal Drain should be deleted after the sad state they've reduced it too. I also dislike Salted Earth and the comically bad bubble effect of Salt and Darkness. Nonetheless, they don't need to be removed as Dark Knight still has enough space to work with. These are simply pet peeves of mine.

Correct me if I'm wrong but controller also has the Expanded Cross Hotbar where you can different bumper buttons to bring up additional hotbar to work with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Im playing how this game presented to me its cross-hotbar interface out of the box. Using R1 to cycle between the sets. I managed to get it down to a science when it comes to switching sets on the fly.

---

regardless that is 2 bars u have 13 action bars so it is no where near button bloat

I'm able to play Astrologian at a fairly high level on a controller just fine. There are many many options to access every skill on every job in this game on controller. The CrossHotbar system is actually genius and the double shoulder hold gives access to anything else you might want on your bar (pots, LB, rescue) 5.3-.5 SMN and MNK felt amazing on controller as well

The argument that the watering down of the combat and jobs is due to console/controller players just doesn't hold up to my experience in the game. The systems are there, and they work beautifully.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Why do you have Sprint and Flood of Shadows on your hotbar twice? Interject is barely relevant and can be moved to an auxiliary hotbar. You can also set Sprint to a specific keybind like R3 so it's universal on all jobs. This alone saves you three buttons, though I don't entirely disagree Dark Knight has some bloat. Frankly, Abyssal Drain should be deleted after the sad state they've reduced it too. I also dislike Salted Earth and the comically bad bubble effect of Salt and Darkness. Nonetheless, they don't need to be removed as Dark Knight still has enough space to work with. These are simply pet peeves

---

Basically I want to make sure I comfortably have sprint available between my 2 hotbars whenever I stick to a set for a very short period of time. Granted there's a 3rd hotbar I have to cycle through anyway where all the miscellanous MMO/interface buttons tend to go such as mounts, emotes, logs, etc. But as a super casual player, where I dont want read up a novel about how to set up your UI properly. Trust me I watched countless UI hotbars guides and none of them worked for me. So I decided to say heck it and just learn to adapt to the playstyle the game had for me right from the get go.

And yeah, I know some role skills arent used heavily anyway but isnt it better to still keep them on your bars for the occasion that they do need to be used? I want to make sure I have all my skills available comfortably and the reason I have flood of shadow repeated is that my 2nd hotbar is basically my mob phase where I have my AoEs and FoS is an AoE skill that I would like to use for mobs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

Basically I want to make sure I comfortably have sprint available between my 2 hotbars whenever I stick to a set for a very short period of time. Granted there's a 3rd hotbar I have to cycle through anyway where all the miscellanous MMO/interface buttons tend to go such as mounts, emotes, logs, etc. But as a super casual player, where I dont want read up a novel about how to set up your UI properly. Trust me I watched countless UI hotbars guides and none of them worked for me. So I decided to say heck it and just learn to adapt to the playstyle the game had for me right from the get go.

And yeah, I know some role skills arent used heavily anyway but isnt it better to still keep them on your bars for the occasion that they do need to be used? I want to make sure I have all my skills available comfortably and the reason I have flood of shadow repeated is that my 2nd hotbar is basically my mob phase where I have my AoEs and FoS is an AoE skill that I would like to use for mobs.

---

You've basically summarized a myriad of excuses for why you've created your own button bloat issue; going so far as to completely ignore a system designed specifically to address hotbar concerns for controller players. If your second hotbar is your "mob phase," then why have it on your single target equivalent? And no. I'm Ultimate raider and don't even bother with Interject or Low Bow unless a fight demands it. They're simply too infrequent to matter. In casual content, on the rare occasion they do crop up, they barely do anything. Take Hermes, for example. His buff in the 87 dungeon is so pitiful, it doesn't matter if you Interrupt it. He'll still hardly do any damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nekokaori

regardless that is 2 bars u have 13 action bars so it is no where near button bloat

---

I suppose I take button bloat differently as in, trying to fit every available skill into your hotbars rather than something that is used in frequent rotations. In terms of how I play thats still 1 or 2 buttons that I have to annex to make room for this 2 bar minimum setup that is used to being able to play "comfortably" with the controller hotbar design that was given to me from the start. Im aware that this game has numerous customization options to play around with accessing your skills. Such as with your bars where you hold down the trigger buttons to gain access for it apparently? That I'll admit didnt knew that was a thing but wasnt surprised really since there's a lot of options in this game that I have yet to learn how to use.

Granted, I wasnt really complaining about the number of buttons for DK anyway since like I said, I'm able to play optimally with just the trigger button cycling that Ive grown to adapt too. But still, there is some button bloat for classes, AST is a good example of that. I dont want for all jobs to be relegated to just 1,2,3 or heavens forbid healers 1,1,1,1,1 but its never good to have too many skills that you're worrying about forgetting to press or you mess up your rotation on the fly when doing harder content.

Probably just me though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Faafetai

This is kind of how I felt about the BIG RED THIS IS A TANK BUSTER bull they just added. Like because I play a tank I am big dumb and need a huge telegraph to figure out the very easy this is tank buster this is aoe hit reprisal that is the mechanics for most dungeon bosses. It is even in savage

---

I pity you if you never engaged in raiding in World of Warcraft. To be clear, you might get a red 'tank buster' warning here, but you'll definitely get more than that in an instance on World of Warcraft because of an add-on called "DBM" which is a required add-on for those in the raiding tiers.

Player in FFXIV: OMG! Square Enix added a Telegraph! It's the end of the world!
Player in WoW: Don't bother raiding if you don't have DBM installed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bad_Luck

Want something else? Go do something else.

---

What a terrible take. I love this game and I am sad to see the direction the job changes are going in. Take your trash takes and go back to reddit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kira_Yaeger

What a terrible take. I love this game and I am sad to see the direction the job changes are going in. Take your trash takes and go back to reddit.

---

They only manage to get by with these trash takes on the hugbox mainsub, where anything even remotely 'negative' or related to DF/class/playerbase issues gets deleted within an hour and any dissenting opinions are downvoted to heck. They'll even downvote the heck out of people asking if anyone else is having connection issues, it's insane. The XIV mainsub is even more of a joke than the forums, and for the exact opposite reason; we have barely any moderation here, and they have toxic positivity-spewing overmoderation.

Also, it's still a toxic af response to tell people dissatisfied with a product, who are voicing why they are and what they would prefer to see from a product they pay monthly for, to "just leave if you don't like it, all of us simps are happy here and we're the only ones who matter". Some of you need to grow up and/or touch grass.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Colt47

They're trying to figure out how to design the game from a new baseline. It's possible the new style of game they want will be too easy, but they can go from there to change and rebalance things. The things they are streamlining involve content that was built for the transition period when the game went from 1.0 to 2.0. Good old days of stone skin, getting knocked off a platform because ping was horrible and Titan was a nightmare, etc. Also I wouldn't call the changes to jobs streamlining as much as "how do we get this thing to work on controller as well as these other jobs?"

---

They got rid of the multiple dots and abilities for healers.That’s pretty streamlined. Also the dungeon streamlining i’m not inherently talking about the adjustments to ARR dungeons. I’m talking about later expansion dungeons. Yoshi P went on record in ShB saying he wanted future dungeons to be streamlined(even though shb dungeons were already pretty….simple, especially the expert ones). Then we got Endwalker dungeons which are full of forced small pulls and hardly any engaging dungeon mechanics barring like, tower of zot and the dead ends.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kaoru_Nagisa

Also, it's still a toxic af response to tell people dissatisfied with a product, who are voicing why they are and what they would prefer to see from a product they pay monthly for, to "just leave if you don't like it, all of us simps are happy here and we're the only ones who matter". Some of you need to grow up and/or touch grass.

---

nooo like you don't get it like you are destroying my vibes with ur negativity uwu think of all the soft beans that ur scaring off the forums with your unnecessary hate on yoship!!!!!!!!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DPZ2

I pity you if you never engaged in raiding in World of Warcraft. To be clear, you might get a red 'tank buster' warning here, but you'll definitely get more than that in an instance on World of Warcraft because of an add-on called "DBM" which is a required add-on for those in the raiding tiers.

Player in FFXIV: OMG! Square Enix added a Telegraph! It's the end of the world!
Player in WoW: Don't bother raiding if you don't have DBM installed.

---

To me, DBM is precilesy the reason why raiding in WoW is not good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Grann-Goro

To me, DBM is precilesy the reason why raiding in WoW is not good.

---

Yeah, if the raids are developed with a 3rd party program in mind being used...are they actually well designed to begin with?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Grann-Goro

To me, DBM is precilesy the reason why raiding in WoW is not good.

---

I feel like dbm also allows for preimtive healers to exist in wow with it's random nature in mind. Disc priest would be impossible to exist without dbm/bigwigs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Yeah, if the raids are developed with a 3rd party program in mind being used...are they actually well designed to begin with?

---

I would say that wow raids are more diverse with mechanics rather then ffxiv spread, stack, and stand in a certain place or die extravaganza.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Acece

I would say that wow raids are more diverse with mechanics rather then ffxiv spread, stack, and stand in a certain place or die extravaganza.

---

But if they can't be done without a 3rd party program helping...then should they really be in the game?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

But if they can't be done without a 3rd party program helping...then should they really be in the game?

---

I mean they can be, but it'll be more difficult. I consider dbm and such just part of the homework for raids, like watching guides or reading timelines if you're a healer. I only heroic raided for two tiers in shadowlands but I don't remember any mechanics needing dbm, though I used it cause I was a disc priest lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

But if they can't be done without a 3rd party program helping...then should they really be in the game?

---

Don’t many people use some form of 3rd party program for UWU titan gaols or something? I’ve only done the fight a few times total but i’ve heard that that mechanic is what makes people use a specific program because something about the mechanic is incredibly clunky.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Imoye

Yoshi P said in a video that FFXIV wouldn't exist were it not for WoW. The game was a major inspirational source for this game. My question really is: Is the dev team willing to learn from the mistakes Blizzard made?

Blizzard literally went on a raging simplification spree. Notably pruning and removing tons of abilities from each class and specializations in the name of "accessibility". Shortly after the game went downhill big time. Skill expression is today completely gone in WoW. Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

I truly do not understand why the developers want to do the same thing to FFXIV. Heck, Blizzard even recently stated that pruning was a mistake. They're now trying to "undo" the damage, but that's likely going to take multiple expansions of work. Why on earth would you want to repeat this same mistake in FFXIV?

Having easy jobs is perfectly fine, but there needs to be jobs that offer also medium difficulty and high difficulty. Pruning and dumbing down existing jobs is not in any way acceptable, and is an insult to players who main those jobs. If you want to make something simple, then you need to create new jobs that are simple from the beginning - period. People are invested in their jobs and you're actively disrespecting their affection by making changes none of them asked for.

By all means, continue to remove abilities and make the game play itself. You will not gain more subs; but you will lose half your player base from your arrogance.

---

Have you ever played wow? It had nothing to do with pruning. It had everything to do with cultivating toxic group play and linking progression to endless daily treadmills for artifact power that didn’t transfer to alts.

It really shit the bed while jumping the shark when they tried to turn it into an esport with excessive mythic+.

Every time WoW tried to go a more hardcore high end player route, it lost massive subscriber numbers. Cataclysm, WoD, BfA, Shadowlands. It has never worked for them. It didn’t even work in TBC where 80% of the raid content was locked to 1% of players. TBC probably hurt their growth more than it helped.

This is the type of thing I'm certainly keeping my eye on because I refuse to watch yet another MMO die a slow painful death due to not learning from the mistakes of others. If I see the same old trends from other games propagate here, I won't make some grandiose post about "I'm leaving because blah blah blah". I'll just leave. I'm hardly alone in this, and eventually you'll end up with nothing but an echo chamber of people saying "this is fine" while the whole thing burns down around them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ransu

WoW's problems were content and a myriad of other things, not "simplification."

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roflcopter

Have you ever played wow? It had nothing to do with pruning.

---

Except for the years of constant feedback from players that hated the prune all the way up to the director of the game himself admitting the devs were wrong and reversing course. :rolleyes:

Quote:

---

In last week’s Dev Insights video, Ion Hazzikostas confessed that Blizzard went “too far” on class balance and pruning in the past few expansions. There is clearly some regret over various abilities that were either watered down or removed from the game entirely, and Blizzard may be restoring these in the future, offering more options for hybrid play and stronger class identity.

“A consistent point of feedback has been the concern that we’ve gone too far,” Hazzikostas said. “And after a lot of reflection and ongoing discussion, ultimately I would like to say that we agree with that feedback. There are places where in Warlords and Legion we were probably too focused on button count as a measure of complexity. There’s a lot more nuance to it than that.”

---

Source: https://massivelyop.com/2019/06/22/b...-gone-too-far/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roflcopter

Every time WoW tried to go a more hardcore high end player route, it lost massive subscriber numbers.

---

As long as you ignore the 12 million subs they amassed during their most "hardcore" era.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roflcopter

It didn’t even work in TBC where 80% of the raid content was locked to 1% of players. TBC probably hurt their growth more than it helped.

---

WoW gained 2.5 million subs during TBC.

I'm pretty sure Yoshi P said that the limit to buttons per job is almost reached and therefore condensing actions into a single key to make room for more skills?

I assume if each expansion gives one or two abilities, that might be an easy 10 additional skills in the next 10 years.

You mean the time when it was the most casual game on the market by a longshot? I came from EQ and EQ2. WoW was candyland in comparison. WoW built a massive game community by being casual. That is a fact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roflcopter

Have you ever played wow? It had nothing to do with pruning. It had everything to do with cultivating toxic group play and linking progression to endless daily treadmills for artifact power that didn’t transfer to alts.

It really shit the bed while jumping the shark when they tried to turn it into an esport with excessive mythic+.

Every time WoW tried to go a more hardcore high end player route, it lost massive subscriber numbers. Cataclysm, WoD, BfA, Shadowlands. It has never worked for them. It didn’t even work in TBC where 80% of the raid content was locked to 1% of players. TBC probably hurt their growth more than it helped.

---

Lol

But really. Lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Lol

But really. Lol

---

How am I wrong? The majority of raiding content past T4 wasn’t experienced by a huge majority of the player base. Subs didn’t grow nearly as quickly as they did in classic. The same is true for their classic reboot. TBC just isn’t as popular. Most people in classic at least got to see up to AQ20. Most didn’t see Naxx and that was all. Very few in TBC saw beyond Kara.

Except XIV so far is seeing the opposite when they reduce Tanks/Healers stances/buttons we seen only increase in numbers similar with SMN I've only seen way more summoners with it's button reduction.

I'd further add more buttons does not = complexity, complexity is being able to completely change a role & put in multitude of inputs like a fighting game despite so few buttons they can be used in way for very complex outcomes. XIV is not you press the same buttons over & over with almost zero change fight to fight to fight XIV has never really been a complex game in it's battle system & just mostly bloated it's fine to remove the bloat. Further add Stance Dancing wasn't complex because outside of maybe Cleric it didn't matter if weren't terrible you stayed in DPS stance for 99% of the fight never needing go back to Tank stance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roflcopter

How am I wrong? The majority of raiding content past T4 wasn’t experienced by a huge majority of the player base. Subs didn’t grow nearly as quickly as they did in classic. The same is true for their classic reboot. TBC just isn’t as popular. Most people in classic at least got to see up to AQ20. Most didn’t see Naxx and that was all. Very few in TBC saw beyond Kara.

---

Played WoW, still regard TBC as one of the best early expansions. Vanilla WoW finished off with 8 million. The fact that TBC still gained over 3 million subs is absolutely insane. TBC had an easy entry into the raiding scene, starting off with the 10 man Karazhan. TBC's 25-man raids made it even easier for people to continue up the raid tiers which saw a lot of people raiding.

Quote:

---

Lol

But really. Lol

---

https://dotesports.com/news/nearly-1...illion-in-2021

the easier the mastery barrier seemed the more profitable is it. Complexity in games is a thing of the past as corporations wanted the biggest share of the market . Difficult games are a labor of love and from what I heard, FF14 isn't going the way of min max profits, I think the current outrage on button condensation is a knee jerk reaction as devoted players have their muscle memory trained but assuming the trend of skill per expansion, we should be getting like 10 new skills in the next 10 years xD

Although its worth noting that age of the WoL supposedly reflect the playerbase average age. I'm not sure If I can play Apex as well rn when I'm 40 xD but fr, the skill condensation will allow a better impact on play and easier on the more senior gamers :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MisterNublet

Played WoW, still regard TBC as one of the best early expansions. Vanilla WoW finished off with 8 million. The fact that TBC still gained over 3 million subs is absolutely insane. TBC had an easy entry into the raiding scene, starting off with the 10 man Karazhan. TBC's 25-man raids made it even easier for people to continue up the raid tiers which saw a lot of people raiding.

---

so what you're saying is. TBC had an increase because it was easy to get into. Hmmm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roflcopter

How am I wrong? The majority of raiding content past T4 wasn’t experienced by a huge majority of the player base. Subs didn’t grow nearly as quickly as they did in classic. The same is true for their classic reboot. TBC just isn’t as popular. Most people in classic at least got to see up to AQ20. Most didn’t see Naxx and that was all. Very few in TBC saw beyond Kara.

---

And in wrath of the lich king most people never got farther than the lootship...the expansion which had greater player numbers than any mmo before or since. What's your point?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Umbra

Except XIV so far is seeing the opposite when they reduce Tanks/Healers stances/buttons we seen only increase in numbers similar with SMN I've only seen way more summoners with it's button reduction.

---

I think the only reason why we saw as many SMNs as we did is because it was practically a new job, and having actual summons is pretty badass.

I hardly see them any more, except for my buddy that uses the one button dps rotation macro so he can watch Netflix.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by hagare

so what you're saying is. TBC had an increase because it was easy to get into. Hmmm

---

Sure. It's a lot easier to organize 25 man raids than it was 40 man raids.

But just because the content was easier to access didn't mean the content itself was easy. Don't conflate the two.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Valkyrie_Lenneth

There is no way anyone can handle 208 buttons. Please.
And there are less for keyboard.

---

First time I think we'd agree on something lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Umbra

Except XIV so far is seeing the opposite when they reduce Tanks/Healers stances/buttons we seen only increase in numbers similar with SMN I've only seen way more summoners with it's button reduction.

I'd further add more buttons does not = complexity, complexity is being able to completely change a role & put in multitude of inputs like a fighting game despite so few buttons they can be used in way for very complex outcomes. XIV is not you press the same buttons over & over with almost zero change fight to fight to fight XIV has never really been a complex game in it's battle system & just mostly bloated it's fine to remove the bloat. Further add Stance Dancing wasn't complex because outside of maybe Cleric it didn't matter if weren't terrible you stayed in DPS stance for 99% of the fight never needing go back to Tank stance.

---

First, you are seeing more healers and tanks, because there are more players now. I know plenty of people that quit healing because of clerics stance changes, I know more healers that quit because of MP homogenization. I also know a lot of poor healers that have stuck to if with a false sense of hope that it will get better. I know ALOT of tanks that quit when stance dancing was turned to emnity on / emnity off. Cause lets be real stance dancing wasn't actually removed. we still have to dance between emnity on/ emnity off mode, it was just made less impactful as a whole. Why would a tank want to play a 4 button dps with emnity on / emnity off mode and a couple defensive CDs when they can just play a dps. I really miss emnity mechanics, it truely gave the game an extra layer IMO. You see more summoners cause it was reworked into what a lot of players wanted. I don't see many of them that have stuck with it so far. Summoner was a step in the right direction, but a bigger step in the wrong direction. I think it can be fleshed out into something awesome, but not this expansion and not with these devs. In the end, you are really just seeing what you want to see, not what is really happening.

Now you are right more buttons doesn't always mean more complex, but it also depends on what those buttons do. Remember my stance dance thing, it was one less button but it made a huge difference in tank identity and a huge cut to over all game play for tanks specifically. So yes you are right more buttons does not matter no one will argue this game just needs more buttons like why can't my combo be 18 hits instead of 3. It is more about what those buttons do and how they function in the class specifically that matters. Many of the buttons that have been getting cut have been very vital to many classes identity as a whole and that is where the problem lies. So stop talking about the amount of buttons that is not what the complaints are about, it's about the specific buttons. Maybe take a literature class, or something to help your reading comprehension during your break from telling us more buttons doesn't mean more complex.

WoW's problems started a long time ago, and it was NOT with pruning and simplification. That is but a drop of water in a nearly endless sea of design issues.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Imoye

Yoshi P said in a video that FFXIV wouldn't exist were it not for WoW. The game was a major inspirational source for this game. My question really is: Is the dev team willing to learn from the mistakes Blizzard made?

Blizzard literally went on a raging simplification spree. Notably pruning and removing tons of abilities from each class and specializations in the name of "accessibility". Shortly after the game went downhill big time. Skill expression is today completely gone in WoW. Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

I truly do not understand why the developers want to do the same thing to FFXIV. Heck, Blizzard even recently stated that pruning was a mistake. They're now trying to "undo" the damage, but that's likely going to take multiple expansions of work. Why on earth would you want to repeat this same mistake in FFXIV?

Having easy jobs is perfectly fine, but there needs to be jobs that offer also medium difficulty and high difficulty. Pruning and dumbing down existing jobs is not in any way acceptable, and is an insult to players who main those jobs. If you want to make something simple, then you need to create new jobs that are simple from the beginning - period. People are invested in their jobs and you're actively disrespecting their affection by making changes none of them asked for.

By all means, continue to remove abilities and make the game play itself. You will not gain more subs; but you will lose half your player base from your arrogance.

---

Numbers have actually gone up as they've tried to improve quality of life. Anyone that's been around long enough speaks of when things were more punishing. That's clearly not a good direction if you want a game to have longevity and attract / keep more people around.They're not dumbing things down, but making them more consistent. It's been needed for the longest time, especially cleaning up the markers in older zones, so we remember when to stack and when not to. I'm most looking forward to that boss in Sohm Ai being corrected to stop using that red marker for a stack mech.

I get that change is difficult to accept, but it's generally been for the better. It's an MMO things are bound to change. Learn to stop taking things so personally and try to enjoy what's given to you.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Imoye

Yoshi P said in a video that FFXIV wouldn't exist were it not for WoW. The game was a major inspirational source for this game. My question really is: Is the dev team willing to learn from the mistakes Blizzard made?

Blizzard literally went on a raging simplification spree. Notably pruning and removing tons of abilities from each class and specializations in the name of "accessibility". Shortly after the game went downhill big time. Skill expression is today completely gone in WoW. Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

I truly do not understand why the developers want to do the same thing to FFXIV. Heck, Blizzard even recently stated that pruning was a mistake. They're now trying to "undo" the damage, but that's likely going to take multiple expansions of work. Why on earth would you want to repeat this same mistake in FFXIV?

Having easy jobs is perfectly fine, but there needs to be jobs that offer also medium difficulty and high difficulty. Pruning and dumbing down existing jobs is not in any way acceptable, and is an insult to players who main those jobs. If you want to make something simple, then you need to create new jobs that are simple from the beginning - period. People are invested in their jobs and you're actively disrespecting their affection by making changes none of them asked for.

By all means, continue to remove abilities and make the game play itself. You will not gain more subs; but you will lose half your player base from your arrogance.

---

This game is not complex by design, so there's no point in showing complexity when it doesn't exist.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WhiteWitch

Honestly I would rather them condense the combos on the tank and dps classes. They already did it during the roleplay quests on MSQ. It would reduce the button bloat. pressing one button 3 times isn’t any easier than pressing 1-2-3.

it wouldn’t even matter for healers because they have two dps skills anyways

---

I'm curious if 1-2-3 to 1-1-1 will affect any co-op gameplay? I don't think it will affect much in MSQ tho

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deveryn

Numbers have actually gone up as they've tried to improve quality of life. Anyone that's been around long enough speaks of when things were more punishing. That's clearly not a good direction if you want a game to have longevity and attract / keep more people around.They're not dumbing things down, but making them more consistent. It's been needed for the longest time, especially cleaning up the markers in older zones, so we remember when to stack and when not to. I'm most looking forward to that boss in Sohm Ai being corrected to stop using that red marker for a stack mech.

I get that change is difficult to accept, but it's generally been for the better. It's an MMO things are bound to change. Learn to stop taking things so personally and try to enjoy what's given to you.

---

Barely any of the changes they've made to job design reflects consistency. There are still a large number of jobs that lack global quality of life and all SE does is skirt around the problems they've made themselves.

SAM has a few useless buttons caused by unnecessary additions like Shoha 2 and Senei, despite SE giving PLD an AoE upgrade that doesn't take its own slot for no reason.
DRK and MCH still lack a charge system on Blood Weapon, Hypercharge or Wildfire, despite SE doing just that for other ping dependent abilities like Delirium, Perfect Balance, Inner Release, Bunshin, etc.
GNB's Gnashing Fang combo being condensed into one button, yet not doing this for other abilities like Ikishoten -> Ogi or Iaijutsu -> Tsubame.
BRD being given charges on Bloodletter for leniency, yet doing nothing for MNK's Chakra which has been dealing with overflow since Stormblood.
WHM's MP and cure potency problems, despite SE fixing that same issue with AST.

I could go on for days about this.

Thinking about it... Rhythm, sound design and responsiveness probably play a bigger role to making a job/rotation satisfying, not the quantity of buttons.

• Least the jobs i have most problem with is those i can't get a good rhythm/pattern with their rotation, notable job being Dragoon and their 11 step base rotation which doesn't translate well over to controller.
• Sound design for skills affects just how fun it is to use an ability.
• And responsiveness... well Ninja is a good example of what can happen with poor responsiveness with their mudras, slight latency and now your rotation of messed up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Deveryn

Numbers have actually gone up as they've tried to improve quality of life. Anyone that's been around long enough speaks of when things were more punishing. That's clearly not a good direction if you want a game to have longevity and attract / keep more people around.They're not dumbing things down, but making them more consistent. It's been needed for the longest time, especially cleaning up the markers in older zones, so we remember when to stack and when not to. I'm most looking forward to that boss in Sohm Ai being corrected to stop using that red marker for a stack mech.

I get that change is difficult to accept, but it's generally been for the better. It's an MMO things are bound to change. Learn to stop taking things so personally and try to enjoy what's given to you.

---

I don’t understand how you guys can make statements like they aren’t dumbing things down when the healer situation exists and they’ve literally gone on record saying they want to streamline future dungeons…They objectively are dumbing things down.