Giving feedback in this game is pointless (Viper changes)

I was just liking VPR after leveling it and now it's being dumbed down even further? Cool, guess I'll have to play something else since having a single thought of optimizing your own gameplay for fun is back seated once again.

At this point 8.0 job re-designs are probably just gonna be this why should I even bother anymore? And on Savage release no less.

Kind of a bit ridiculous they didn't even bother just increasing the debuff timer first to see how people handled a small change like that. Naw, now you just get near top DPS for turning your brain off.

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

I have actually, it's called the Japanese forums.
This is the Viper thread in their DPS Forum: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...3%83%AC/page49

Using a bit of Google Translate and my own knowledge, the reactions seems to be more or less positive to the changes.
They applaud the holding off on the positional requirements, and there's a few posts that are sad about the removal of the poison changes, but overall people seems to be welcoming and willing to try the changes at least.
Which feels for me a huge contrast to how our forums are discussing the changes.

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JP were whining how they can't even do solo MSQ battles without addons. It's pretty clear who this game is being designed for and it's not the western demographic with at least two decades of tab target MMO knowledge from games like World of Warcraft who would like to use some braincells every now and then. No, it's for people who like fashion, ERP and their cutesy characters.

God forbid we have to actually watch a timer in combat and remember to refresh it before it drops off. Nah, lets just remove 1 out of 3 buff timers and also make the combo finisher timers so long you literally can't fuck it up unless you forget to attack the boss. Who needs things like preparing for a burst window in advance when you can just have 6 positionals, a mechanic from 2013 and nothing else, to differentiate good and bad players? Don't worry about learning how to use two Reawakens correctly, now you can just use it when it glows just like all the other Viper abilities.

They are ruining my main jobs so consistently I'm running out of jobs to play. BRD, DRK, AST, SMN and now VPR. Which one is next? Can I please play PCT without someone idiot-proofing that too?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

I have actually, it's called the Japanese forums.
This is the Viper thread in their DPS Forum: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...3%83%AC/page49

Using a bit of Google Translate and my own knowledge, the reactions seems to be more or less positive to the changes.
They applaud the holding off on the positional requirements, and there's a few posts that are sad about the removal of the poison changes, but overall people seems to be welcoming and willing to try the changes at least.
Which feels for me a huge contrast to how our forums are discussing the changes.

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Quoting this for emphasis

Do not waste your time creating a lot of threads on EN forums about this, they do not listen to us

I doubt anything will come of it, but I can't believe this is what pulled me onto the forums. For any job to be interesting, there needs to be some semblance of a difference between the skill floor and skill ceiling. Now, everything should just be used off cooldown. Just press the glowing buttons and you'll be just as good as anyone playing this job. The sense of min-maxing that came from managing the debuff was legitimately the one thing that I cited when I would tell people that this job wasn't just braindead. What is there to the job, now? What sense of identity does it have? You might as well give me the level 50 rotation for all the difference it means. Just chase the dotted lines.

I would legitimately have preferred that they remove the positionals over NG. I know this is true, since I still find Viper very fun in walled bosses like EX1. I guess it was just too much to have any semblance of job design in Viper. It's just so... stupid. It feels so obvious that this is the wrong direction to go in, and yet...

The funniest thing is that this change was basically a nothing-burger it didn't need to happen at all.

Gonna reply here to show my support, I hate these changes and won't be playing Viper anymore because of it. They need to revert Viper back, specifically add back Noxious Gnash. This fun new job had timer management that reminded me of my favorite job in Endwalker, Monk, and even though Viper's was one debuff that was easy to maintain they still had to go and remove it. I enjoyed having to plan having the timer be high enough to do my burst without it running out, and this wasn't even a hard thing at all to do. Thankfully they somehow realized Pictomancer was also a great designed DPS job and didn't touch it at all, sadly they didn't with Viper.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

JP were whining how they can't even do solo MSQ battles without addons. It's pretty clear who this game is being designed for and it's not the western demographic with at least two decades of tab target MMO knowledge from games like World of Warcraft who would like to use some braincells every now and then. No, it's for people who like fashion, ERP and their cutesy characters.

God forbid we have to actually watch a timer in combat and remember to refresh it before it drops off. Nah, lets just remove 1 out of 3 buff timers and also make the combo finisher timers so long you literally can't fuck it up unless you forget to attack the boss. Who needs things like preparing for a burst window in advance when you can just have 6 positionals, a mechanic from 2013 and nothing else, to differentiate good and bad players? Don't worry about learning how to use two Reawakens correctly, now you can just use it when it glows just like all the other Viper abilities.

They are ruining my main jobs so consistently I'm running out of jobs to play. BRD, DRK, AST, SMN and now VPR. Which one is next? Can I please play PCT without someone idiot-proofing that too?

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I'll reply with this: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6560552
Which is a fair and good explanation why these jobs are changed the way they are.
SE is tuning the game so that everyone can enjoy this, and not just a select few.
And from a long-term perspective, this makes way more sense than catering to a niche group of players.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

I'll reply with this: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6560552
Which is a fair and good explanation why these jobs are changed the way they are.
SE is tuning the game so that everyone can enjoy this, and not just a select few.
And from a long-term perspective, this makes way more sense than catering to a niche group of players.

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What square is doing is making the skill ceiling accessible to people who don’t want to try, that’s a totally different thing

People shouldn’t be excluded from jobs but you shouldn’t hit the skill ceiling 0.00000002 seconds after you reach the skill floor and that’s basically what modern 14 job design is

There needs to be a sense of progression in your understanding and execution of a job as you get better at it or nobody will stick to any of the jobs

- Previously: Meaningful brain usage in deciding whether to refresh the 20s (up to 40s) debuff with 2, or decide it's still running long enough for you to go into Reawaken combo, start with 1 instead, perform a sequence off 3, what have you. Genuine decision-making. All the time.

- Now: 1 gives a one-time buff to the next 2, 2 gives a one-time buff to the next 1. Lasts for 60s, so no pressure. You just alternate how you start the main combo. Always, with all the time in the world to insert Uncoiled Fury or Reawaken. There is no thought to it, no timing, no deciding how much time you have - you just 1[...] 2[...] 1[...] 2[...] and pwess de beeg bottenz wen off CeeDee in between, with all the time in the world.

The thing that gave Viper actual thought was when to insert Reawaken or Uncoiled Fury besides main combo and Dread, and whether to start with 1 (deeps) or 2 (debuff) when Dread was down. Without literally pitch-perfect 100 % uptime and memorization of an absurdly long string, there was no autopilot with this - there was a decision required. Skill expression. A functioning brain in your cranium.

Was it some gigabrain stuff? No. Of course not. But in a game whose jobs are at this point largely dumbed down to the point where you could make a macro or bot press buttons in sequence while you use the arrow keys, it was a little wrinkle that kept your brain active while playing.

There is no need to think about that now - there is no debuff to keep up on any targets, you have all the time in the world to just completely linearly press Reawaken or Uncoiled Fury in any thinkable scenario when off CD, and you will always strictly alternate between 1 and 2 linearly on main combo start each time. Just try not to drool while your neurons flake to the bottom of your skull.

TL;DR: [See described decision-making above] was removed, and the job is now "222 112 221 111 + pwezz beeg bottenz wen iz off CeeDee". That's the job now. I just explained patched Viper. In its totality.

Was fun for the brief time it lasted. I'm... so... sick... of this lowest common denominator game design.