New Missaphenchair video makes great point about the direction of job design

There is a difference between accessibility and a job being mechanically complex.
Accessibility is done through the ways the game's controls are made mostly. It is indeed an important, very important topic that is not discussed enough.
It isn't however the topic we are discussing here.
That some jobs are easier to manage than others is fine, however have subtleties between different jobs is nice, having meaningful mechanics within a job is satisfying. It is pleasant to feel yourself progressing and using your kit better when you want to progress.

And I am not talking about raiding and stuff, I don't even touch that content.
For all the clunk HW jobs might have had, I enjoyed it. It gave room for expression and learning how to work with it. It was fun, to me at least.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

I don't disagree with that but aesthetics is a huge factor in htis game.. the problem is with the jobs your heavily limited on choice.. if you like big bad battle axes, there's only one hob to play. If you like bows only 1 job. If you like hand to hand.. just one job. So in many ways playing another class isn't really an answer. Because aesthetics is such an important factor in this game and the devs know it. Its exactly why they made darkk knight a tank. Because its an aesthetic many people wanted shoved into a role they didn't.

I love bows but don't really play bard much the singing dancing aesthetics doesn't appeal to me. But if they added a new bow job. A more traditional glass cannon "ranger" job. I'd pick that up in a heartbeat

The other issue comes from a level of hypocrisy.. players want balance balance balance. But at the same time its OK if some jobs are harder to play than others... but players also want jobs that are harder to play to perform better or reward that hard work.. why should a job thats braindead easy do the same dps as my job that takes a phd in rocket science to master. which then breaks the balance. Because those jobs would then be the only ones anyone ever wanted in there parties..i

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I could complain about aesthetics being bad in-game too rn. DRK in the Franchise are more like their PvP version, to me it is somewhat a stupid concept to put the '' I use hp to deal big damage'' class as a tank and just turn it into a guy with darkness and sword edge thing. Why is my summon punny as SMN? We used to be able to summon Alexender Core as a pet in XI now we can summon egi and they ain't pet anymore. They killed the game pet dot class just so people could DPS with a book. See, making the class more accesible don't solve the problem.

Also, there is another way to reward harder/weaker class than damage. BLM is a harder class than deal tons of damage but does nothing else, it rewards you for playing it correctly by doing more damage. SMN is easy braindead to play, you deal way less damage, but you got mobility so it's easy to adapt to the pattern, more room for error, you get a raid buff, and you get battle rez.

Unless you're doing Extreme, Savage, Ultimates, you are not forced to play optimally as some people would prefer to play. You can press whatever button, miss positionals, drop dots occasionally. There's nothing wrong with that and you can still clear the content. Forcing players that enjoy having jobs that have a certain level of complexity so they can enjoy at high level content is fine too. The idea that "I can't play the job at 100% efficiency, make the job conform to me and everyone else should play to my own capability" is down right selfish and hurts the game long term. Also name calling people that are of different opinion of you an 'elitist' is just telling that you don't care of anyone else's enjoyment of the game other than yourself by attempting to invalidate them.

Also, there are handicapped players, but they still are still capable of playing high end content by working around it. Don't invalidate their efforts to overcome their own limitations. Is there certain aspects that can be tuned to make it more accessible? Sure, Remove all complexity? No.

This is an MMO. There are players of different play skills that find different parts of this game fun. One of the big things that's been pointed out is that FF14 end game is what you make of it. The devs have to find a balance that allows players just wanting to clear normal content and have fun without stress, and players who want to take it further in high end content. It's been said before, jobs should be designed with low floors for entry and accessibility, while providing varied high barriers to master for prolonged engagement. Never should the devs develop or tune all jobs for only one half of their community while alienating the other.

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Originally Posted by SilverSkyway

Says the elitist.
Some people can't or handycap, and yes want easy. Not everyone going be a pro at games.

Good day.

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You don't have to be a pro to play any of the jobs. That's point. There's zero reason to dumb them down when you can already play them dumb and clear all normal/old content. It's the opposite elitism: People are telling you no one cares if you play a DPS job badly until you go into current savage.

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Originally Posted by Kulve

Unless you're doing Extreme, Savage, Ultimates, you are not forced to play optimally as some people would prefer to play.

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You don't need to play optimally for Extreme either. Not meeting the DPS checks almost always comes down to the number of KOs. Their anecdote about "almost rage quitting" because the normal trials were too hard is a completely nonsensical argument for any kind of job difficulty - You practically never fail normal mode trials because of job difficulty, you fail them because of encounter mechanics. They don't even know what they are arguing (or are just trolling).

I love that he's the type of guy square enix listens to for job changes.

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Originally Posted by SilverSkyway

Says the elitist.
Some people can't or handycap, and yes want easy. Not everyone going be a pro at games.

Good day.

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If you think I'm an elitist, then you really have no clue what anyone here is saying.

Good day, sir.

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Originally Posted by SilverSkyway

Says the elitist.
Some people can't or handycap, and yes want easy. Not everyone going be a pro at games.

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Gaining Flare doesn't suddenly make Fire II do literally nothing. If you were AoEing before, you would still be AoEing thereafter.
Switching between Fire and Ice doesn't suddenly implode because you haven't yet gotten used to using Umbral Hearts.
Your Astral Fire usage doesn't suddenly break apart because you haven't learned to end your AF phases with Despair.

What is easy within a kit is always there. A kit will never stop offering what is easy. It merely adds onto it, to use if you so wish.

And when you're doing casual content, most are satisfied with your just Sprinting before entering combat, using AoEs when there are 3+ targets, and not too often dropping your core rotational buff. The bar is not high.

There is no reason to be disturbed by there being more in the game than you personally wish to interact with, let alone any reason to demand that span's removal.

I hope yoshi and the dev team actually listens to our plead. Unfortunately I doubt they will.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

There is no reason to be disturbed by there being more in the game than you personally wish to interact with, let alone any reason to demand that span's removal.

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I think this is such an important point.


Using an example from a different game -- once upon a time, I played Horizon Zero Dawn. Unfortunately, the combat just didn't land at all with me. I hated it, and it felt like an obstacle to getting what I actually wanted out of the game -- the storytelling elements. You know what that game offered to me? A easy difficulty, so I could breeze through combat and much more quickly get to the parts of the game that were enjoyable to me. You know what else the game had? Harder difficulty modes, for people like my friends who adored the combat design, and wanted to challenge themselves and push the game to its limits.

Final Fantasy 14 needs to thread this line, by creating content that has simple enough DPS checks in story-mandated content that a player doesn't have to engage with the 'optimal' way to play their job in order to drag themselves through the combat, if they're not interested in it. We're already doing that in an even better way by providing the trust companions to run dungeons with in ARR content, soon to be more. Trials and other normal-difficulty content specifically don't have enrages because the developers understand that there are more draws to this game than combat. This is a good thing, even if it makes my roulettes painful sometimes when someone doesn't want to go at the same pace as I do.

Outside of story-mandated content, there is no obligation for content to be made easy enough for someone who doesn't want to engage with the combat system to clear. In the same way that I didn't expect the combat-related achievements to be handed over to me in Horizon Zero Dawn, as I wasn't interested in engaging with the combat, players shouldn't expect Extreme and Savage-level content to be made easy for them, because it's not for them in the first place. It's battle content for people who enjoy battle content. Why be interested in it if the content itself doesn't seem fun to you?

Of course, this ignores people with disabilities that impede their ability to play the game. I'm a huge advocate of making the game more accessible, but this absolutely has no need to come at the cost of job complexity. Things like being able to adjust the colour scheme of mechanics in fights to better help people with colour blindness (or simply designing them to be visually distinct from the outset), offering jobs with a variety of APMs, providing compatibility with a variety of different types of controllers, allowing heavier customisation of the UI to increase font size across the board, making the tab-targeting system suck less are all things FF14 can do to improve the accessibility of the game without impacting the complexity of the encounters or jobs.

I really liked this video a lot and generally agreed with him on almost everything here; I hope the game designers watch it, with a community manager or other staff member doing translation instead of the video maker having to if needed.

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Originally Posted by tearagion

Then learn, or if you are unwilling go to an easier job. Acquiescence will only deteriorate gameplay further.



I refuse to believe more than a tiny fraction of the population would legitimately have this issue. A week of effective practice at an entry level will see significant progress in any skill, let alone a not-overly-difficult video game.

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pretty much this.
anyone can learn anything if they put the time and effort into it, you might not find it interested and that will hinder your progress, but that's on the player, unless like 85% of the playerbase despises it, then yeah it's the design.
i wasn't sure about red mage when i started it, i do enjoy it, i went from an 0-10 parser in savage to an 75-85 parser in savage, the only fight i haven't got atleast an 75 on was p4s part 1, but that fight is crazy optimised, so i don't mind it that much.
i put in the effort to learning the rotation, when to use abilities and when not to, now to the point i'm doing ultimate content on rdm and i'm fine with it.

i always despised the notion of "some people can't learn this" ... no, everyone can, but are you willing to, that's the real question.
i find politics extremely boring, i could still learn politics, would i do it as fast as someone who is passionate about it? not really, but i could learn and master politics, at that point it becomes an "am i willing to spend the time and effort into learning politics" if that's an yes, then i'll learn it, if no, then simply i'm not doing it, but that's not the politics fault, not everything is for everyone.
some people like healing people, some don't, can those who don't like it learn healer? absolutely, it's also been proven that most handicaps only hinder your progress, not make it impossible, seen quite a few disabled players on the forums lately stating that they would like the option for an 1 handed controller style (keyword is option, they're not demanding it or forcing the rest to adopt it) so in most cases anyone can learn everything, just a matter of if they want to.

I wonder if people ever remember that other people play this game and consulting with your peers if you don't quite understand how to play a job would help you learn how to play the job in question. At least, I thought that was what you could do.

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Originally Posted by Ruminous

I wonder if people ever remember that other people play this game and consulting with your peers if you don't quite understand how to play a job would help you learn how to play the job in question. At least, I thought that was what you could do.

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What are you talking about? Final Fantasy is a single player series. XIV is no different.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Forum ate my post TWICE:

1) No one things people complaining hate the game or want it to fail. People just disagree on if their solutions are good or not.

2) Changes are probably for the mid-core; people that are mostly casual but just a nudge away from trying harder content.

3) Homogenization comes from incremental changes that MAKE SENSE AT THE TIME. Continuation getting range makes sense...but so does Overpower being a circle instead of a cone. Enough changes, argued under the best of intentions, eventually add up to bland homogenization. A vocal minority (because it always is) complained about WAR's cone AOE. Now that it's gone, another group is complaining that it's gone. Complaints lead to homogenization; ALMOST every change towards homogenization FFXIV has seen has been in response to players asking for it in some way or another, either directly or getting it in a sort of "corrupt-a-wish" result of other complaints.

4) It cuts both ways as well that skill ceiling can be raised without touching skill floor. Likewise (in line with the next point), it's fine if some Jobs have higher skill floors (BLM) and others lower skill ceilings (SMN). And there are enough Jobs in each role (the SMALLEST roles have 3) that you can have a easy, medium, and hard in each role and people can play the one they like best.

5) "It's okay that some Jobs aren't for everyone" needs to become our collective national anthem of FFXIV. If more people understood this, it would be far better for the community and for the game. I love SCH's class fantasy, but some of its nuance is too galaxy brain for me. I still learned it because I liked it and can play it passably...but when given the choice, I tend to do more content on WHM because I like its direct and straigtforward kit better. I dual main both, but I don't AST because I get that it's just not for me...and that's okay, because it IS for some other people, as is SCH.

Lets see if THIS ONE posts... <_<

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EDIT:

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

In fact, who asks for free space on their hotbar? As far as I know there's 1 controller player out of 20 who's complaining about not having enough space.

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Me personally, I think 30 buttons is enough. If a Job needs more than 30 buttons, something's wrong. Think about how many buttons 30 buttons IS. In WoW, I had two line bars (1 to =, so 12 buttons per bar, I believe - been a while since I played) with buttons for most classes. That's 24. I had the side hotbars up for other things like mounts, teleports, professions, and so on. All those flavor/utility/field skills that FFXIV doesn't have outside of Bozja/Eureka.

29 abilities can fit on two sets of crossbars (easy tabbing between them with a single press of right bumper) leaving space for Sprint, LB, and Potion (which can be swapped for mount of your choice when not zoned into a boss fight)

That said, I have no trouble with Jobs that have more, I just don't play them much/at all. AST has massive button bloat, WHM and SGE can fit all their buttons just dropping Repose or something (which you can't use most of the time anyway, and can swap the spot on your bar between Rescue and Repose in the field). And I don't see a good argument for "If a Job has less than 30 distinct hotkeys, it's boring". That's like saying a musical instrument which doesn't have MORE THAN 3 octaves is somehow not a real or good musical instrument.

Moreover, this doesn't even mean a Job can't have more than 30 overall ABILITIES. Every Job in the game has more than 30 (especially including Role Actions), but some Jobs are smart about how they employ them, such as RDM's Enchanted, Verholy/Flare, Scorch setup where individual buttons pull double duty. WAR also does this with Fell Cleave and Decimate. And this also doesn't mean Job's can't have upgrades through the course of leveling, such as the healer nuke spells which upgrade every 30 levels or so-ish.

Again: Nothing wrong with having something for everyone. We certainly have enough Jobs to allow for that, do we not?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Forum ate my post TWICE:

1) No one things people complaining hate the game or want it to fail. People just disagree on if their solutions are good or not.

2) Changes are probably for the mid-core; people that are mostly casual but just a nudge away from trying harder content.

3) Homogenization comes from incremental changes that MAKE SENSE AT THE TIME. Continuation getting range makes sense...but so does Overpower being a circle instead of a cone. Enough changes, argued under the best of intentions, eventually add up to bland homogenization. A vocal minority (because it always is) complained about WAR's cone AOE. Now that it's gone, another group is complaining that it's gone. Complaints lead to homogenization; ALMOST every change towards homogenization FFXIV has seen has been in response to players asking for it in some way or another, either directly or getting it in a sort of "corrupt-a-wish" result of other complaints.

4) It cuts both ways as well that skill ceiling can be raised without touching skill floor. Likewise (in line with the next point), it's fine if some Jobs have higher skill floors (BLM) and others lower skill ceilings (SMN). And there are enough Jobs in each role (the SMALLEST roles have 3) that you can have a easy, medium, and hard in each role and people can play the one they like best.

5) "It's okay that some Jobs aren't for everyone" needs to become our collective national anthem of FFXIV. If more people understood this, it would be far better for the community and for the game. I love SCH's class fantasy, but some of its nuance is too galaxy brain for me. I still learned it because I liked it and can play it passably...but when given the choice, I tend to do more content on WHM because I like its direct and straigtforward kit better. I dual main both, but I don't AST because I get that it's just not for me...and that's okay, because it IS for some other people, as is SCH.

Lets see if THIS ONE posts... <_<

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We see you patriot! These points? Yes! This, so much.

But I will say the WAR circle was dumb. Overpower worked fine. But worse still, SAM tenka goken circle? Baaaaad. Real bad.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

We see you patriot! These points? Yes! This, so much.

But I will say the WAR circle was dumb. Overpower worked fine. But worse still, SAM tenka goken circle? Baaaaad. Real bad.

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No disagreement with me on WAR. Not to give anyone any ideas, but BRD and MCH still have conal AOEs, and they work just fine. I don't get how a circle is so much better. A bit less movement, I guess? But it's minuscule.

SAM I can't speak to since I don't play it, but it does seem to be a NEAR universally disliked change (there are some people that say it was basically a pointless button before and they're fine with it being removed, though, so it does take all kinds)

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Originally Posted by Renathras

No disagreement with me on WAR. Not to give anyone any ideas, but BRD and MCH still have conal AOEs, and they work just fine. I don't get how a circle is so much better. A bit less movement, I guess?

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Given the sacrificed range, for anyone who knew how to target, the circle requires more movement and more restricts one's hits when it most matters.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

SAM I can't speak to since I don't play it, but it does seem to be a NEAR universally disliked change (there are some people that say it was basically a pointless button before and they're fine with it being removed, though, so it does take all kinds)

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Imagine if MCH bioblaster dropped in Potency to be about equal to spreadshot or scattergun and lost all its range and forced you to cast it in while standing on the tank in w2w trash pulls.

That's basically what happened to SAM 2 sen spender Tenka Goken.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Given the sacrificed range, for anyone who knew how to target, the circle requires more movement and more restricts one's hits when it most matters.

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I don't disagree. Someone noted (we did the math to verify) that the circle has a larger total area, but my conclusion was you still have to be in the middle of the pack. While you might have to dance around a BIT with a cone (because if you pull MANY enemies they tend to fan out and encircle your hitbox), but all you have to do is scoosh a little and you're still hitting most or all of them. But with the circle, you have to be pretty centered and can't snag those enemies a bit out of range.

I think my only complaint was I kind of wished they'd have 2 cones instead of 1 cone + 1 circle (or 2 circles). 2 cones would have been nice since you would have the same range/angle with both attacks. But 1 cone + 1 circle was still better than 2 circles, imo

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

Imagine if MCH bioblaster dropped in Potency to be about equal to spreadshot or scattergun and lost all its range and forced you to cast it in while standing on the tank in w2w trash pulls.

That's basically what happened to SAM 2 sen spender Tenka Goken.

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That sounds...pretty terrible, actually. :O

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Originally Posted by Renathras

4) It cuts both ways as well that skill ceiling can be raised without touching skill floor. Likewise (in line with the next point), it's fine if some Jobs have higher skill floors (BLM) and others lower skill ceilings (SMN). And there are enough Jobs in each role (the SMALLEST roles have 3) that you can have a easy, medium, and hard in each role and people can play the one they like best.

Me personally, I think 30 buttons is enough. If a Job needs more than 30 buttons, something's wrong. Think about how many buttons 30 buttons IS. In WoW, I had two line bars (1 to =, so 12 buttons per bar, I believe - been a while since I played) with buttons for most classes. That's 24. I had the side hotbars up for other things like mounts, teleports, professions, and so on. All those flavor/utility/field skills that FFXIV doesn't have outside of Bozja/Eureka.

29 abilities can fit on two sets of crossbars (easy tabbing between them with a single press of right bumper) leaving space for Sprint, LB, and Potion (which can be swapped for mount of your choice when not zoned into a boss fight)

That said, I have no trouble with Jobs that have more, I just don't play them much/at all. AST has massive button bloat, WHM and SGE can fit all their buttons just dropping Repose or something (which you can't use most of the time anyway, and can swap the spot on your bar between Rescue and Repose in the field). And I don't see a good argument for "If a Job has less than 30 distinct hotkeys, it's boring". That's like saying a musical instrument which doesn't have MORE THAN 3 octaves is somehow not a real or good musical instrument.

Again: Nothing wrong with having something for everyone. We certainly have enough Jobs to allow for that, do we not?

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kinda funny how you mention that black mage has an high skill flooring, generally BLM is fairly simple in concept, but the ceiling (being encounter specific) is incredibly high (hense the high amount of bad black mages)

i'm on controller and most jobs can fill the vast majority of 2 hot bars (16 buttons each so 32 slots free, i generally use an 3rd for stuff like sprint and other things that i don't need in most encounters)
on controller you can even enable to just double tap L2 or R2 (the triggers) to access an 2nd hotbar, so honestly their excuse is just bland and doesn't work.

hope this bad trent will die soon, since it'll ruin the game for a lot, even some casuals are complaining about how each job is the same.

its it wrong to say, that out of all the comments in this thread i found "says the elitist" the funniest out of all of them

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Originally Posted by Renathras

I don't disagree. Someone noted (we did the math to verify) that the circle has a larger total area, but my conclusion was you still have to be in the middle of the pack. While you might have to dance around a BIT with a cone (because if you pull MANY enemies they tend to fan out and encircle your hitbox), but all you have to do is scoosh a little and you're still hitting most or all of them. But with the circle, you have to be pretty centered and can't snag those enemies a bit out of range.

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but the thing about circle aoe is that tanks tend to not bother with positioning the mob since all they need is be in the middle of the pack. it is extremely frustrating when you can't hit all the mob with a cone aoe. As you said, i wish they give 2 cones instead.

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Originally Posted by Sorzai

but the thing about circle aoe is that tanks tend to not bother with positioning the mob since all they need is be in the middle of the pack.

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This is laughably bad practice that I'm sure not a single caster (using enemy-centered circular AoEs) will ever appreciate.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

What are you talking about? Final Fantasy is a single player series. XIV is no different.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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Yeah, totally forgot I play this game with 7 other bots. Man, guess I need to upgrade if my progress is slow! Or git gud. I mean I have to but still...Wow. Didn't know this was a single player game.

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Originally Posted by darkdyllon

hope this bad trent will die soon, since it'll ruin the game for a lot, even some casuals are complaining about how each job is the same.

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I've tried using the double-tap and tap-and-hold, and it just feels like total trash. No thank you.

Again, we have AT LEAST 3 Jobs in each role. And further, if we had some with just 29 buttons (which is already A LOT OF BUTTONS - I'll note you didn't contest the actual point) while having others with 35-40, this WOULD make the Jobs seem less similar, wouldn't it? Whereas making all Jobs 35-40 buttons would run into them all feeling the same s the Devs just copy and paste abilities between Jobs to fill out the mandatory button quota. "Oh, this Job needs two more buttons..." "Well, did we give it a 30 second DoT and an attack damage upkeep buff yet?" "No! We can totally do that! Yay, now we've filled out their hotbar!"

Doing what I'm suggesting - which I should note is already what we have in the game to some extent - could actually make Jobs more distinct. Having an arbitrarily high button count quota for no good reason has no real benefit, a lot of detriments, and likely would make Jobs overlap far more.

Most jobs are fine. What I dislike is needing a completely separate hotbar for aoe as drg.

Usually keep ST and aoe on right and left triggers respectively.

I picked up MNK again after abandoning it in EW and I feel like it's pretty unique and plays really well with Optimal Drift.
On the other hand I also feel like there's something missing and that it's too repetitive outside of the PB burst phases.

Then again...
People seem to have genuine issues even learning Optimal Drift altogether, I really dunno why it's not that complicated but I've read so many people say it's borderline impossible.
Which is kinda sad because I feel like this kind of design makes MNK feel incredibly flexible and makes you feel like you actually know what you're doing and are making actual decisions.
But if people are already struggling super hard with it I doubt they'll add more on top of it...

But I think the overall philosophy of MNK makes it well-designed and I'd like to see other Jobs designed that way too.

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Originally Posted by SilverSkyway

Says the elitist.
Some people can't or handycap, and yes want easy. Not everyone going be a pro at games.

Good day.

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all i'm hearing from you is "waaah, game too hard, please pamper to my specific needs waah"
some jobs could easily be made harder and then be like "if you don't like this difficulity, too bad. while still maintaining the status quo of only needing the bare minimum to clear any casual content (MSQ/alliance raids/normal trials/normal raids)
go back to your corner since you apparently need to be spoonfed at all times, anytime you have to think even in the slightest you yell it's too hard. (because if you think learning an rotation is hard ... oh boy, just don't anything in life then)

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Originally Posted by darkdyllon

hope this bad trent will die soon, since it'll ruin the game for a lot, even some casuals are complaining about how each job is the same.

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They aren't totally off the mark. A lot of the jobs, tank and healers specifically, are really carbon copies of their job role. For example, All healers deal with a "3 resource" system, i.e. 3 lilies, 3 aetherflow, 3 cards, 3 addersgal. Don't forget they each have the same dps buttons. The tanks all have the same enmity trait and tank stance. In addition to same 30% def cd and access to rampart. While each job does have its quirks to make them unique in a sense, all the jobs within the roles for tank and healers play about the same. It's not long before the "feel" of the jobs starts to feel the same and that's where you start getting issues with gameplay depth.

Good or bad its up you to decide. Personally, while I prefer the 2.0-4.1 design I cannot deny that 5.0+ homogenizing of jobs has introduced more ppl into the game and has benefitted FFXIV as a whole (though that could also be timing with current market optics on other games in the same genre). Ultimately, making the game easier removes the aspect of learning. If you don't learn, you don't improve.

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Originally Posted by Marxam

They aren't totally off the mark. A lot of the jobs, tank and healers specifically, are really carbon copies of their job role. For example, All healers deal with a "3 resource" system, i.e. 3 lilies, 3 aetherflow, 3 cards, 3 addersgal. Don't forget they each have the same dps buttons. The tanks all have the same enmity trait and tank stance. In addition to same 30% def cd and access to rampart. While each job does have its quirks to make them unique in a sense, all the jobs within the roles for tank and healers play about the same. It's not long before the "feel" of the jobs starts to feel the same and that's where you start getting issues with gameplay depth.

Good or bad its up you to decide. Personally, while I prefer the 2.0-4.1 design I cannot deny that 5.0+ homogenizing of jobs has introduced more ppl into the game and has benefitted FFXIV as a whole (though that could also be timing with current market optics on other games in the same genre). Ultimately, making the game easier removes the aspect of learning. If you don't learn, you don't improve.

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I honestly do not believe that the 5.0+ and onward homogenization and simplification of jobs has made people join the game. It seems a bit ludicrous to imagine someone thinking "hmm, they made all 3 healers have the exact same playstyle for 80% of their casts? Awesome, I love 1 button spam! Time to finally play FFXIV, I'm glad they got rid of all those things preventing me from playing the game!"
Rather, I think the story and all of the other positive aspects of the game are the reason it grew. ShB's story being incredible well received and considered by a lot to be "the best FF we've gotten in 15 years", Nier collabs (I know a friend who started playing because of this), the pandemic making people stuck at home with nothing to do, and then what happened with WoW last year. I think XIV is doing well despite its more abysmal job design decisions, not because of them.

Where was this energy years ago when they made drastic changes to jobs back then?

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

Where was this energy years ago when they made drastic changes to jobs back then?

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A lot of people seemed to believe there was an actual vision for these job changes that we'd be seeing in Endwalker, and so were otherwise content to just say "wait until 6.0 for job changes." Endwalker being ShB 2.0 has really shown a lot of people that the "vision" was one of mediocrity and neglect.

Most job homogenization is driven by player demand, unfortunately. The instant you introduce something cool and unique on a job, other players in the same role will be petitioning to see the same feature ported over to their main jobs the following expansion. It's the nature of competition.

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I honestly do not believe that the 5.0+ and onward homogenization and simplification of jobs has made people join the game. It seems a bit ludicrous to imagine someone thinking "hmm, they made all 3 healers have the exact same playstyle for 80% of their casts? Awesome, I love 1 button spam! Time to finally play FFXIV, I'm glad they got rid of all those things preventing me from playing the game!"
Rather, I think the story and all of the other positive aspects of the game are the reason it grew. ShB's story being incredible well received and considered by a lot to be "the best FF we've gotten in 15 years", Nier collabs (I know a friend who started playing because of this), the pandemic making people stuck at home with nothing to do, and then what happened with WoW last year. I think XIV is doing well despite its more abysmal job design decisions, not because of them.

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The simplicity of the combat certainly wasn't what brought me to the game back in Stormblood- if anything it was the potential for how unique jobs could be with a system that allows you to freely swap between them. Nowadays it feels like PvE gameplay is treated as a nuisance that's just in the way of the MSQ. Can't get new players without inane streamer reaction content I suppose.

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

The simplicity of the combat certainly wasn't what brought me to the game back in Stormblood- if anything it was the potential for how unique jobs could be with a system that allows you to freely swap between them. Nowadays it feels like PvE gameplay is treated as a nuisance that's just in the way of the MSQ. Can't get new players without inane streamer reaction content I suppose.

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I was drawn to FFXIV due to it being PvE focused. Having played multiple PvP mmo's, I have had my fill with it's Excessive hardcore / hearing shouting Shotcalls / P2W / Korean-grindstyle experiences etc, I wanted something different. FFXIV definitely delivered a different type of fun.

The Story hooked me at 1st, but after the story ended it's like a book that finished. I am not going to re-read a book 100.000 times... something else has to keep my attention, which was the enjoyment of a particular job I came to love, " Samurai ".

I'd spam Dungeons, Fates, Extreme's, Raids just purely cause it was that fun with my Samurai. Passing gear, Passing loot, helping get mounts, help get people glamour from the Ghimlyt Dark once again why not. Or farm that Triple Triad Card, the Orchestrion scrolls from the Eden fights Lets go! I had so much fun doing it simply cause I get to play Samurai. That's it.

That's ruined now... nothing is interesting by simplifying the combat. I don't feel like doing anything, because it isn't fun anymore to me. And knowing I used to have so much fun, compared to now... due to simplifications is utterly stupid. The only reasons I am still here is housing and friends, glorified chatbox of which is littered with RMT shouts and DM's, not the job design anymore or the combat that actually was what was fun to me. Whatever their Job design direction is? it has got to stop going towards simplifications.

All I know is this: The upcoming Live Letter on the 1st of July is going to decide whether or not I stick with this game. If what they say during the Job change section makes it clear that they're just going to keep stripping away all the cool stuff (IE: Kaiten, Seigan, alternating AoE shapes AKA: AoE positonals) for the sake of keeping things "simple" (Read: Boring and easy to digest), then I'm unsubbing for good. Because by that point, it will be abundantly clear to me that they just plain DON'T CARE about the opinion of players who believe the game's combat is becoming too shallow (which they already sort of stated in the LL right before Endwalker launch, now that I think about it).

If they want to just turn this game into a TV show with RP venues and mind-numbing "combat" sprinkled in, then I might as well just get a crunchyroll subscription or something. Because why pay a monthly subscription for one anime when I can pay a sub (or just pirate) for hundreds?

I suggest others who are unsatisfied with the game's direction unsub as well. Not because we're "voting with our wallets", but because it's in your best interest for staying happy. I genuinely can't see this game's community coming together to organize a mass-unsubbing just because the game's combat is getting bland. Since, unfortunately, people who hopped on this train for the combat seem to be in the minority. At least that's how it is from my perspective. People who aren't SAM mains act like I'm crazy, flame me, or just respond with dead air whenever I express my discontent with the 6.1 changes. I was once told that I shouldn't complain because "You Samurai's still get your big damage and top DPS". Wow, cool, I don't care. I would trade my top DPS for Kaiten in a heartbeat, even if they nerfed us down to Ranged Physical levels of damage. That's how little I care about my place in the meta. So yeah, unsub for your sanity once it becomes clear that things won't get better.

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Originally Posted by YellowLine

All I know is this: The upcoming Live Letter on the 1st of July is going to decide whether or not I stick with this game. If what they say during the Job change section makes it clear that they're just going to keep stripping away all the cool stuff (IE: Kaiten, Seigan, alternating AoE shapes AKA: AoE positonals) for the sake of keeping things "simple" (Read: Boring and easy to digest), then I'm unsubbing for good. Because by that point, it will be abundantly clear to me that they just plain DON'T CARE about the opinion of players who believe the game's combat is becoming too shallow (which they already sort of stated in the LL right before Endwalker launch, now that I think about it).

If they want to just turn this game into a TV show with RP venues and mind-numbing "combat" sprinkled in, then I might as well just get a crunchyroll subscription or something. Because why pay a monthly subscription for one anime when I can pay a sub (or just pirate) for hundreds?

I suggest others who are unsatisfied with the game's direction unsub as well. Not because we're "voting with our wallets", but because it's in your best interest for staying happy. I genuinely can't see this game's community coming together to organize a mass-unsubbing just because the game's combat is getting bland. Since, unfortunately, people who hopped on this train for the combat seem to be in the minority. At least that's how it is from my perspective. People who aren't SAM mains act like I'm crazy, flame me, or just respond with dead air whenever I express my discontent with the 6.1 changes. I was once told that I shouldn't complain because "You Samurai's still get your big damage and top DPS". Wow, cool, I don't care. I would trade my top DPS for Kaiten in a heartbeat, even if they nerfed us down to Ranged Physical levels of damage. That's how little I care about my place in the meta. So yeah, unsub for your sanity once it becomes clear that things won't get better.

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Around the same for me, though I'd like to see the direction for NIN in the Live Letter as well to see if maybe at least that one's an improvement. I don't have much hope that the next savage tier will be any better so pretty much the only thing keeping me around is DSR reclears to not screw over static members

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Originally Posted by Neoyoshi

Where was this energy years ago when they made drastic changes to jobs back then?

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It's a complex answer. For myself, I had faith in the team after having seen the game from the perspective of a 1.0 beta player until the (at the time) present day. WHM was in a bad spot and AST wasn't much better, albeit guaranteed a slot in any serious group due to Spread Balance. Both were overshadowed by SCH which - while fun - was absolutely OP. So much healing, so much capability for damage and so much utility all rolled into one. It had to be toned down, as WHM was effectively locked out of non-friend-focused groups in SB, even after SB saw SCH being toned down a little. So in the spirit of understanding job balance, I supported the SCH changes (and still do).

But then they went full homogenization with ShB and it was like the finger of the monkey's paw curling. "Not like this!" I said, clutching my head.

The same kinda goes for tanks; WAR was so dominant for HW and SB but it at least required some decent personal skill to do correctly, as well as team work to manage aggro. That kinda stuff was fun for me as a tank. The current braindead "tank stance on, aggro is mine" approach sucks Thal's balls, to say nothing of rotational issues that tanks suffer from. The idea there I THINK was to introduce tank complexity via the fights themselves. And that would have been fine if shit like positioning, aggro management and fight knowledge mattered in anything less than savage content. Two out of three Endwalker trial bosses cannot be moved in any way while the third re-center's herself constantly. P3S and P4S both have elements of proper positioning, both of the bosses and the tanks/players themselves, but the fact that you have to go into a savage raid to get that kind of experience is just disgusting. I'm not saying there needs to be that kind of difficulty in a 4-man, but I'd like there to be at least something! You don't even need to turn most bosses away from the party anymore. The only place where you can feel rewarded for doing tank stuff nowadays is in the top-end of savage content, and that's not ok.

I once believed a similar thing would happen for healers, that SE would provide fights that actually needed healers to utilize their entire healing kit instead of just being glorified green dps, but that clearly hasn't happened outside of savage either.

Ok, so I was wrong. Faith shattered, lesson learned. Time to change course and start introducing actual rotational complexity to tanks and healers. This will have the side effect of making MSQ stuff far less boring too, since the core kit of tanks and healers will actually be interesting in and of itself. Getting all tanks to the level of GNB or burst-phase DRK in terms of rotational challenge would be a start, while all healers could stand to be somewhere between current BLM and old SMN, but dumbed down a bit with the assumption that at least some of the GCD's will be heals. To be clear, I don't want WAR and PLD to be clones of DRK and GNB, but rather I want the same level of mental engagement at a minimum. I don't expect tanks to be where a player goes for massive rotational skill expression, but there needs to be at least some height to the ceiling. Likewise, if a player wants full caster dps skill expression then I don't think healers should be the job for that but the skill floor also doesn't need to be in the fucking basement.

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Originally Posted by Quor

but that clearly hasn't happened outside of savage either.

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It happens in savage too. And in ultimate. An AST solo healed DSR and was still glaring half the time.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Y411T74m