XIV EW Job-Gameplay is Terrible... Why?

Would do them well to open a job position called "Get Player Feedback Outside of Reddit and twitter Analyst" The downward trend of xiv has a lot do from where they gather player feedback, most likely.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Needless to say, WhM isn't exactly a shining example of the good Stormblood's designs.

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I would generally praise Stormblood as the last time the job design was actually good.
Yes, I even liked SB Machinist...when it worked.

But Whitemage is certainly an outlier there, it was bad, really bad, and it was one of the first instances I can remember where the devs stubbornly insisted on a design that the playerbase told them in advance was going to be awful, only to then spend the rest of the expansion trying to fix said awful design.

Funnily enough even with SB WHM being terrible I preferred it over AST for O9S, simply because I couldn't trust my random pug co-healer to not eat dirt during Earthquake and leave me to solo that phase.

I'm gonna be honest, I think everyone seems to be hyper-fixating on how bad SB lilies were and dismissing the entire job.

I mained WHM for 2 tiers in SB and played it for every fight in savage multiple times. WHM wasn't bad, the only annoying thing about it was the aggro problem during aggro resets in O4S P2 and aggro issues in O8S P2 due to how early Heartless Angel is. WHM worked just fine, could heal everything, could contribute damage, it just didn't have a good job gimmick in the expansion that everyone got a job gauge and gimmick (also their capstone ability was garbage on release).

Part of it for me is also that the lv 90 bosses are very easy, bland and boring for the most part. Sure, there are a few stand out between them that require a bit of thought, but most of them just have 2-3 attacks that you just dodge left/right or out/in for.
The few that I have fun with are the likes of Peacekeeper, Proto-Omega, Scarmiglione and Durante.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

I'm gonna be honest, I think everyone seems to be hyper-fixating on how bad SB lilies were and dismissing the entire job.

I mained WHM for 2 tiers in SB and played it for every fight in savage multiple times. WHM wasn't bad, the only annoying thing about it was the aggro problem during aggro resets in O4S P2 and aggro issues in O8S P2 due to how early Heartless Angel is. WHM worked just fine, could heal everything, could contribute damage, it just didn't have a good job gimmick in the expansion that everyone got a job gauge and gimmick (also their capstone ability was garbage on release).

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The thing about it for me is, if we’re ignoring the lilies, what’s different about SB WHM that HW WHM didn’t have? Thin Air is their only good thing that came from SB WHM. Divine Benision is fine I guess, but is it really a noteworthy quality of WHM gameplay? I wouldn’t say so. And Plenary was just humiliatingly terrible, as you noted.

So sure, the rest of WHM might not have been as embarrassingly poorly designed as the lilies and plenary, but the rest of WHM was just HW + Thin Air.

The problem is it all becomes too stale too quickly. That's really the issue more than anything else and it carries over to PvP and other parts of the game. There's no way to shake things up in such a strict "do it right or not" type of rotation, and the game is super limited by the tab target system.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The thing about it for me is, if we’re ignoring the lilies, what’s different about SB WHM that HW WHM didn’t have? Thin Air is their only good thing that came from SB WHM. Divine Benision is fine I guess, but is it really a noteworthy quality of WHM gameplay? I wouldn’t say so. And Plenary was just humiliatingly terrible, as you noted.

So sure, the rest of WHM might not have been as embarrassingly poorly designed as the lilies and plenary, but the rest of WHM was just HW + Thin Air.

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And that's exactly the point. SB WHM is not so different from HW WHM.

That's why I said people are hyper-fixating on the lilies being bad and dismissing SB WHM as some kind of unplayable garbage when it wasn't. It was fine, not amazing, but also not unplayable garbage.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

And that's exactly the point. SB WHM is not so different from HW WHM.

That's why I said people are hyper-fixating on the lilies being bad and dismissing SB WHM as some kind of unplayable garbage when it wasn't. It was fine, not amazing, but also not unplayable garbage.

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Of course it wasn't unplayable, you could still clear all content just fine. It simply performed outright worse than both SCH and AST with it's only "gimmick" being that you could spam Cure 3 when needed, which was nice in situations where everything went wrong but isn't exactly a useful job identity.

And it being basically just HW WHM is exactly why it's considered bad, the job was already lagging behind at the end of HW and while the other two healers got actually useful new toys SB WHM got a completely dysfunctional job mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

And that's exactly the point. SB WHM is not so different from HW WHM.

That's why I said people are hyper-fixating on the lilies being bad and dismissing SB WHM as some kind of unplayable garbage when it wasn't. It was fine, not amazing, but also not unplayable garbage.

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Right but because both HW and SB WHM are basically the same, so if we’re trying to compare the two, we can definite SB specifically by what did change: less DOTs, Fluid Aura got kneecapped, the lilies were added and were an atrocity against the human race as was Plenary, Divine Benison, better MP management with Thin Air, and both the damage and healing of Assize now are had full functionality thanks the the Removal of old Cleric Stance. But in comparison to AST who was already outperforming WHM at the end of HW, they got more OVCD healing, more damage, a reworked Spear, higher buff uptime with Sleeve Draw, and a nerfed Balance. So the healing competition was now even further out of WHM’s reach despite little changing.

So while HW may have been almost the same, it represents what I would describe as a more competitive standing in the healer lineup and a better damage profile at the cost of a weaker MP economy.

MMOs sort of break when the game is in a content lul and it's on the final patch before an expansion. Basically our gear is equivalent to level 95 characters right now except we are doing level 90 scaled content, and they are sort of tweaking numbers on the stuff we are fighting at 90 as they go up the patches to cover that weird gear gap that you'd see otherwise. The reality is the job design is okay, there's just a lot of preferences going around as to what people want from the jobs they are running.

The only criticisms I have with the job designs right now is that Addersting is an annoying resource because of only being gained on a shield breaking, which is completely dependent on the content. DRK is still a bit confusing with what the expected rotation is supposed to be. I know the community has figured out an optimal rotation but anyone who is playing casually is just sort of left in the dark. They also need to just flatline every jobs skill unlocks for pre-50 and make sure everyone is getting an AOE at the same time, so there aren't any weird dungeons where some jobs have an AOE skill and others don't.

That being said, I feel that the healing role, which is psychologically taxing as is, probably deservers a bit of a break. Even if the designers make mitigation matter more, it still doesn't change the fact that using mitigation is an option not a requirement. Someone can choose not to use it even though it might be objectively better to use it then not, and if they make it harsher, the one who really gets punished is the healer. What I mean is that unless the healers has run the same dungeon a LOT of times, if the tank suddenly dies they likely wont know if it was their own fault or the tanks fault. This is especially true since earlier dungeons sometimes let tanks pull an entire hallway without using much mitigation while the healer spam heals them. From the perspective of the healer, it just seems like they didn't do a good enough job.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

But Whitemage is certainly an outlier there, it was bad, really bad, and it was one of the first instances I can remember where the devs stubbornly insisted on a design that the playerbase told them in advance was going to be awful, only to then spend the rest of the expansion trying to fix said awful design.

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Actually that was what ticked me about Stormblood. Throughout the entire expansion, they didn't do jack to improve the lily system. In 4.05, they made it that cure 1 was 100 percent instead of 50 and in 4.2, you didn't need a lily for divine bension. Other than that, they didn't try to make the cdr stronger or they could have to where each stage of the lily could of has different effects for the ogcds. ANd then in 4.5, it was them admitting defeat when they did those whm changes plus the most hilarious buff to a move I've ever seen in this game with Assize getting its cd changed from 60 to 45 seconds, and its heal and damage potency getting bumped from 300 to 400.

They could've fixed lillies during stormblood but instead elected to make it a selling "feature" of shadowbringers.
Everything with cub3 know is a "feature for next expansion."

Take viera and hrothgar hats for example, something they could roll out in patches during dawntrail will INSTEAD be sold a "FFXIV 8.0 feature" 3.5 years from now.

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Originally Posted by Rekh

They could've fixed lillies during stormblood but instead elected to make it a selling "feature" of shadowbringers.
Everything with cub3 know is a "feature for next expansion."

Take viera and hrothgar hats for example, something they could roll out in patches during dawntrail will INSTEAD be sold a "FFXIV 8.0 feature" 3.5 years from now.

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Inb4 somebody slides in to reply: "BuT tHeY hAvE tO sPaCe It OuT aNyHoW!! tHeY cAn'T pOsSiBlY kEeP uP wItH tHe PlAyErBaSe!!!"

/s

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Originally Posted by Colt47

The problem is it all becomes too stale too quickly. That's really the issue more than anything else and it carries over to PvP and other parts of the game. There's no way to shake things up in such a strict "do it right or not" type of rotation, and the game is super limited by the tab target system.

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I'd be lying if I don't partially miss Black Deserts combat system, even if it had a heavy emphasis on PvP. Where in the first few seasons? you could outplay someone with 5000$ under their enhancements with pure skill, was exciting... until of course the P2W scale went through the roof in a few months later...

Summary: Square can't or won't increase mechanic complexity of the dull/casual content that makes up XIV while simultaneously homogenizing Job-Designs with the solution being " Just go play Ultimate ".

Have I not seen this before in other MMO's in someway shape or form? besides some with P2W features and/or horrible Grind-Ladders towards RNG enhancements... even those, where they streamline the Class-Combat experience, Driving me away from those games? only to see it happen here... History repeats, it's just in a different game...

Isn't XIV simple enough for what the average player wants to clear? Or has the game been this bland for so long, that the meta-mindset has shifted in favor towards " Ugh! Lets get this over with pls " vs making it as exciting as it can be without forcing difficulty onto players? No, instead many players vouch for the opposite...

- I want less buttons for the sake of doing less
- I want it comfier, cozier
- I want to grind less and be rewarded for just login in
- I want margin for error to be even less
- I want easier mechanics and simplified Jobs
- I want a 0 button rotation Job don't stop at 1
- I want no gauge management
- I want no flavor no flare no excitement
- I want / I want / I want / I want / I want...

How much more dumber do players want it!? The game literally drags our dead bodies through the finish lines, do we want to start at the finish line? players get there as a freebee for spamming one button, then will players be happy that its easy and comfy enough? Its absurd...

Or perhaps Square expects all players to enjoy all Jobs and flex all Jobs at a basic level for all content as their definition of Job-Depth which boils down to forcing players to play Jobs they don't like ( think MSQ ) vs playing what many truly prefer for most of the time or most content? Who knows...

There are players who ask for the bare minimum of extra towards their Jobs... and that's somehow to much to ask, while Square shoves expensive $359.99 Figure into our faces on the Square Store. Can't improve your Jobs, but as consolidation? here's apparel of 59$ to 69$, use code " Just go play Ultimate " for a discount.

How is asking Job-Gameplay to improve so controversial...

I feel that Yoshida treats us like toddlers in kindergarten, as if he has to protect us from all the evil of the outside world and therefore has a duty to create a safe environment for everyone, without any risk of harm. As if he had to hold our hands all the time so we wouldn't get hurt. That's pretty stupid, man.

At this point, he should remove the battles from the game, after all, nothing is going to be easier and more comfy than a visual novel.

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Originally Posted by kuroashi_sanji

I feel that Yoshida treats us like toddlers in kindergarten, as if he has to protect us from all the evil of the outside world and therefore has a duty to create a safe environment for everyone, without any risk of harm. As if he had to hold our hands all the time so we wouldn't get hurt. That's pretty stupid, man.

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I've made these allegories in the healer section before, but I'll make them again:

My mother used to be big into gardening, and would use the top of a soda bottle (2 litre) to 'shield' the plants as they germinated from being picked away at by birds, dug up by cats etc. But after the plant got to a certain size, she removed it, so that the bottle didn't stifle the plant's growth. SE doesn't want to remove the protective bottle from players, and so instead of weathering the environment and growing stronger from it, the average player's growth potential is being stunted by the game refusing to offer any challenge unless it's specifically searched for. Effectively, we're like those bonsai watermelons that are weirdly shaped

A second analogy, a personal one. I never learned to swim for YEARS, because I was very tall for my age throughout primary school. As such, in the 'training pool' for lessons, I was too tall to actually 'swim' in it, instead banging my leg on the bottom of the pool rather painfully. Instead of just letting me into the shallowest end of the actual pool, the instructors kept me in the 'baby mode' pool until I showed I was competent enough to swim in deeper water, which never happened because of the aforementioned issue. Instead of helping my 'growth' in swimming skill, despite their well-intentioned decisions, they actually stopped me from learning to swim, and I even came to resent the school trip to the swimming pools for the lessons, because I knew it'd be more of the same: trying to reason with the instructors that their method is not going to work for me, as my unique circumstances (being tall as hell) required unique measures, and them thinking they could solve it with 'do it the same way we do with every other kid'. I ended up teaching myself to swim, several years later in high school, in an actual, full-depth pool.

But, even then with the swimming story, there's multiple ways to prevent someone from drowning, even in a pool with 'depth'. There's instructors on hand, there's a slope so one end of the pool is more shallow than the other, there's flotation devices like those pool noodles. And the same should/could apply with jobs. A job can have a very deep and technical rotation at it's peak level of optimization, but have 'accessibility' built into the basic kit. A good example from healer would be WHM, I think. You can use Misery whenever you like for movement. But ideally, you save it for raidbuffs. It, plus the three Rapture/Solace casts to prep it, give you four total GCDs of mobility, which can be moved around based on where healing is required vs movement required. If you don't care to optimize, you can smash Rapture in response to a raidwide without putting too much thought into it. If you want to perfect your gameplay, you can spreadsheet every healing GCD out

What's the problem with the stance of 'we have one system that is completely optional to optimize, and feels good to interact with because big damage number. What if we had two, that you can optionally combo together for one massive burst in raidbuffs?'

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Summary: Square can't or won't increase mechanic complexity of the dull/casual content that makes up XIV while simultaneously homogenizing Job-Designs with the solution being " Just go play Ultimate ".

Have I not seen this before in other MMO's in someway shape or form? besides some with P2W features and/or horrible Grind-Ladders towards RNG enhancements... even those, where they streamline the Class-Combat experience, Driving me away from those games? only to see it happen here... History repeats, it's just in a different game...

Isn't XIV simple enough for what the average player wants to clear? Or has the game been this bland for so long, that the meta-mindset has shifted in favor towards " Ugh! Lets get this over with pls " vs making it as exciting as it can be without forcing difficulty onto players? No, instead many players vouch for the opposite...

- I want less buttons for the sake of doing less
- I want it comfier, cozier
- I want to grind less and be rewarded for just login in
- I want margin for error to be even less
- I want easier mechanics and simplified Jobs
- I want a 0 button rotation Job don't stop at 1
- I want no gauge management
- I want no flavor no flare no excitement
- I want / I want / I want / I want / I want...

How much more dumber do players want it!? The game literally drags our dead bodies through the finish lines, do we want to start at the finish line? players get there as a freebee for spamming one button, then will players be happy that its easy and comfy enough? Its absurd...

Or perhaps Square expects all players to enjoy all Jobs and flex all Jobs at a basic level for all content as their definition of Job-Depth which boils down to forcing players to play Jobs they don't like ( think MSQ ) vs playing what many truly prefer for most of the time or most content? Who knows...

There are players who ask for the bare minimum of extra towards their Jobs... and that's somehow to much to ask, while Square shoves expensive $359.99 Figure into our faces on the Square Store. Can't improve your Jobs, but as consolidation? here's apparel of 59$ to 69$, use code " Just go play Ultimate " for a discount.

How is asking Job-Gameplay to improve so controversial...

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Western playerbase :^)

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Western playerbase :^)

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No, it's like this in all regions, the issue is that in gaming you have individuals who don't wanna play the game, they're used to a lot of other genres being baby easy and letting them get away with very little, then they play MMOs. MMOs at their core is based on DnD, which is adventure and working for cool loot, it's just been gamified. Now take the modern MMOs player who bases everything on stuff they heard from an older audience who played back in the 90s and early 2000s. NONE of the people have the original context for why MMOs were hard, why raiding, pvp, earning mounts, titles, and gear sets, were hard.

All of these people are baised based on second and third hand accounts of things and events they have no experience with, they watch youtube and talk to friends and read old forum posts and come to this hive mind like consensus that THIS MMO has to be easy because all the other ones are hard, and we all know it's just un-nuanced hate on whatever the MMO/Live service game thats not doing well atm.

The massive lack of Nuance on the subject of XIV being made more engaging is sad, and it;'s becuase most of these people don;t even know WHY they dislike raidimg and earning mounts or factions, or open world content. They don't have a nuance opinion why XIV should stay this way, and when they rarely do, it's boils down to, I don't wanna come home from my 3 jobs, 8 kids, and 9 wives and have to think.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

No, it's like this in all regions, the issue is that in gaming you have individuals who don't wanna play the game, they're used to a lot of other genres being baby easy and letting them get away with very little, then they play MMOs. MMOs at their core is based on DnD, which is adventure and working for cool loot, it's just been gamified. Now take the modern MMOs player who bases everything on stuff they heard from an older audience who played back in the 90s and early 2000s. NONE of the people have the original context for why MMOs were hard, why raiding, pvp, earning mounts, titles, and gear sets, were hard.

All of these people are baised based on second and third hand accounts of things and events they have no experience with, they watch youtube and talk to friends and read old forum posts and come to this hive mind like consensus that THIS MMO has to be easy because all the other ones are hard, and we all know it's just un-nuanced hate on whatever the MMO/Live service game thats not doing well atm.

The massive lack of Nuance on the subject of XIV being made more engaging is sad, and it;'s becuase most of these people don;t even know WHY they dislike raidimg and earning mounts or factions, or open world content. They don't have a nuance opinion why XIV should stay this way, and when they rarely do, it's boils down to, I don't wanna come home from my 3 jobs, 8 kids, and 9 wives and have to think.

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Sure, it happens everywhere, but western audiences lean more into a sort of 'x has to change, not me' mentality. Nowhere is this more evident than PvP which is full of leeches and carrot chasers who dont want to put the least amount of effort in. General inability to accept something might not be for them and not engage with it.

I dont mean to put JP on a pedestal here as they seem to lean more into a complaisant attitude if healer discourse is anything to go by.

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Sure, it happens everywhere, but western audiences lean more into a sort of 'x has to change, not me' mentality. Nowhere is this more evident than PvP which is full of leeches and carrot chasers who dont want to put the least amount of effort in. General inability to accept something might not be for them and not engage with it.

I dont mean to put JP on a pedestal here as they seem to lean more into a complaisant attitude if healer discourse is anything to go by.

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PvP doesn't reward winning it rewards participation. If they made it reward winning, it would turn into a sweat shop and most likely no one would even run casual matches anymore in CC. Also people genuinely burn out on CC after a while. After people grind rank 25+ once they usually don't want to go for it again since the way they got there was grinding endless CC matches.

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Sure, it happens everywhere, but western audiences lean more into a sort of 'x has to change, not me' mentality. Nowhere is this more evident than PvP which is full of leeches and carrot chasers who dont want to put the least amount of effort in. General inability to accept something might not be for them and not engage with it.

I dont mean to put JP on a pedestal here as they seem to lean more into a complaisant attitude if healer discourse is anything to go by.

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As someone whos played penty of JP based PvP games, plenty of them do NOt like not having sufficient rewards for their Time, LOL. Again thats just human nature.

And JP players have been telling Yoshida to off himself for a lot of the changes, It's p bad,

Im not trying to argue PvP reward structures, its just an extension of my point with differences in mentalities.

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Im not trying to argue PvP reward structures, its just an extension of my point with differences in mentalities.

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You mean how Jp, EU, and NA all hate the changes? The only difference in mentality is that JP isn;t afraid to tell Yoshida he;s fullof it and needs to do better and blatantly insult the man.

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Originally Posted by kuroashi_sanji

I feel that Yoshida treats us like toddlers in kindergarten, as if he has to protect us from all the evil of the outside world and therefore has a duty to create a safe environment for everyone, without any risk of harm. As if he had to hold our hands all the time so we wouldn't get hurt. That's pretty stupid, man.

At this point, he should remove the battles from the game, after all, nothing is going to be easier and more comfy than a visual novel.

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Yoshida has the philosophy that gamers want everything immediately, which he isn't entirely wrong about. A lot of players are impatient and want the cool thing to happen quickly. FFXVI is designed with that belief in mind hence why it's all flash but generally rather lacking in substance. FFXIV is much the same. If played in small doses, everything on offer is pretty solid. A shallow or simplistic gameplay system will last longer the less you interact with it. Pokemon has more or less built its entire existence on proving that theory. Unfortunately, that philosophy in a game that wants to keep you around becomes stale the more you engage with it.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Yoshida has the philosophy that gamers want everything immediately, which he isn't entirely wrong about. A lot of players are impatient and want the cool thing to happen quickly. FFXVI is designed with that belief in mind hence why it's all flash but generally rather lacking in substance. FFXIV is much the same. If played in small doses, everything on offer is pretty solid. A shallow or simplistic gameplay system will last longer the less you interact with it. Pokemon has more or less built its entire existence on proving that theory. Unfortunately, that philosophy in a game that wants to keep you around becomes stale the more you engage with it.

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Except competitive Pokemon is actually quite deep and complex. Scarlet and Violet are literally glorified freshman-year game design student projects with the polish of a rotting wooden cabin, but the actual competitive gameplay experience has retained the same level of depth and complexity, if not more from what new moves, Pokemon, and mechanics have been added.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Except competitive Pokemon is actually quite deep and complex. Scarlet and Violet are literally glorified freshman-year game design student projects with the polish of a rotting wooden cabin, but the actual competitive gameplay experience has retained the same level of depth and complexity, if not more from what new moves, Pokemon, and mechanics have been added.

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This is true. But most of the pokemon playerbase isn't the old school vets from back in the 90s who play competitive now a days and do nuzlockes and pokemon rom hacks, it's the latest generation of young kids, who are playing cus cute animals that fight. The main Audience plays it because ti's a shallow kids game. They may grow up or pivot while they;re young, and move into the more or less niche competitive scene and other sub communitires of pokemon.

So they're right, Pokemon proved shallow gameplay can and will sell.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

This is true. But most of the pokemon playerbase isn't the old school vets from back in the 90s who play competitive now a days and do nuzlockes and pokemon rom hacks, it's the latest generation of young kids, who are playing cus cute animals that fight. The main Audience plays it because ti's a shallow kids game. They may grow up or pivot while they;re young, and move into the more or less niche competitive scene and other sub communitires of pokemon.

So they're right, Pokemon proved shallow gameplay can and will sell.

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I don't really agree. Yes, the target demographic of Pokemon is young children, which is precisely why the games are very shallow on the surface. They want someone who's as young as perhaps 6 or 7 to be able to play through the story without getting hit with difficulty spikes they cannot surmount (which also brings into question the resistance against voice-acting since some kids at that age still can't read, or have limited reading comprehension, but whatever). But to circle back to that oh-so-subtle statement I made about "on the surface," that doesn't mean the depth and complexity doesn't exist.

Meanwhile, FFXIV, a game that has a target demographic of people who at least can purchase a subscription fee, so at minimum 18 years or older, is directly erasing depth and removing it from the game. Job design is being demolished at every turn to make the gameplay experience simple by force. Pokemon would would be more analogous to Heavensward. Because for as much as Heavesnward has a reputation of being the most complex that job design has ever been, nearly nothing in the game demanded you engage with that complexity at that level.

Similarly, in Pokemon, you can EV train your Pokemon. You can Breed perfect IV Pokemon. You can seek out Pokemon with hidden abilities. These are all things that you have the option to do even though nothing in the main story asks you to do it. Does that not sound similar to Heavensward FFXIV? Or even Stormblood?

Endwalker would be like Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, games that explicitly removed many different aspects of Pokemon's complexity. Abilities? Gone. Mega Evolution? Gone. Like 80% of the Pokedex? Gone. Sound familiar?

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I don't really agree. Yes, the target demographic of Pokemon is young children, which is precisely why the games are very shallow on the surface. They want someone who's as young as perhaps 6 or 7 to be able to play through the story without getting hit with difficulty spikes they cannot surmount (which also brings into question the resistance against voice-acting since some kids at that age still can't read, or have limited reading comprehension, but whatever). But to circle back to that oh-so-subtle statement I made about "on the surface," that doesn't mean the depth and complexity doesn't exist.

Meanwhile, FFXIV, a game that has a target demographic of people who at least can purchase a subscription fee, so at minimum 18 years or older, is directly erasing depth and removing it from the game. Job design is being demolished at every turn to make the gameplay experience simple by force. Pokemon would would be more analogous to Heavensward. Because for as much as Heavesnward has a reputation of being the most complex that job design has ever been, nearly nothing in the game demanded you engage with that complexity at that level.

Similarly, in Pokemon, you can EV train your Pokemon. You can Breed perfect IV Pokemon. You can seek out Pokemon with hidden abilities. These are all things that you have the option to do even though nothing in the main story asks you to do it. Does that not sound similar to Heavensward FFXIV? Or even Stormblood?

Endwalker would be like Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee, games that explicitly removed many different aspects of Pokemon's complexity. Abilities? Gone. Mega Evolution? Gone. Like 80% of the Pokedex? Gone. Sound familiar?

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All of tose things existed, but could you walk up to anyone back then and talk to them about that or did everyone who played pokemon, or even remotely knew about it just see it as a kids game? The point is rather simple, Game Freak doesn't market all of that or talk about it. they just sell cute pokemon and maybe one big competitive feature that most people won't think twice about. Like SE, Gamefreak sells simplicity to a fault. It's semantics to talk about the rest when again, everything else about pokemon is agressively niche, the wider audience isn't losing out on much for not playing into those things like how we're losing out if the majority of people keep refusing to acknowledge how XIV works and functions at it's core.

The inital sales of a single player game matters more then the people who stick around for official tournaments. So the children matter more. With an MMO, long term subs matter more then launch day numbers, so this is a bigger issue with XIV selling simplicity like Pokemon.

I feel like the fact there's the type matchup table in Pokemon to learn means it's already above current job complexity for... most jobs, really

And then you have extra things on top of that, like weather effects, STAB bonuses, held items... Yeh, even at it's 'most casual' level, Pokemon offers quite a lot of complexities

In FFXIV terms, having the complexity balance shifted away from jobs and into encounter design, imo, is like having the complexity of Pokemon be shifted out of how many Pokemon are in the dex, abilities, moves, held items, all that jazz, and said complexity being moved into the 'gimmick' of the generation. Be that Mega Evolutions, Gigantamax, or Tera-whatsit. Yeh, it looks cool when your Pokemon gets really big, or changes type, but is it worth it if it comes at the cost of having less overall moves to choose from learning?

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

All of tose things existed, but could you walk up to anyone back then and talk to them about that or did everyone who played pokemon, or even remotely knew about it just see it as a kids game? The point is rather simple, Game Freak doesn't market all of that or talk about it. they just sell cute pokemon and maybe one big competitive feature that most people won't think twice about. Like SE, Gamefreak sells simplicity to a fault. It's semantics to talk about the rest when again, everything else about pokemon is agressively niche, the wider audience isn't losing out on much for not playing into those things like how we're losing out if the majority of people keep refusing to acknowledge how XIV works and functions at it's core.

The inital sales of a single player game matters more then the people who stick around for official tournaments. So the children matter more. With an MMO, long term subs matter more then launch day numbers, so this is a bigger issue with XIV selling simplicity like Pokemon.

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You're missing the point. Just because the complexity and depth were not the main focus of the Pokemon franchise does not invalidate the existing of said complexity and depth. In fact, that complexity and depth existed in spite of the game's lack of focus on it. So the game was able to exist appealing to both the kids and casual Pokemon players who don't care about the competitive scene as well as the people who are interested in the deeper, more complex competitive scene. That is my point.

Why can't FFXIV, a game designed for a much older audience, do the same? Why can't it sell its more casual story mode and easier game modes while still offering jobs that have a level of depth and complexity not required to get through said story mode and easier game modes, but that players have the freedom to engage with at their leisure? Your point would make sense if every new generation, Pokemon sought to erase complexity and difficulty. While the story mode has generally become easier, and grinding has gotten faster, the competitive scene is if anything more complex than it has ever been before, not less.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I feel like the fact there's the type matchup table in Pokemon to learn means it's already above current job complexity for... most jobs, really

And then you have extra things on top of that, like weather effects, STAB bonuses, held items... Yeh, even at it's 'most casual' level, Pokemon offers quite a lot of complexities

In FFXIV terms, having the complexity balance shifted away from jobs and into encounter design, imo, is like having the complexity of Pokemon be shifted out of how many Pokemon are in the dex, abilities, moves, held items, all that jazz, and said complexity being moved into the 'gimmick' of the generation. Be that Mega Evolutions, Gigantamax, or Tera-whatsit. Yeh, it looks cool when your Pokemon gets really big, or changes type, but is it worth it if it comes at the cost of having less overall moves to choose from learning?

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So I'm looking at it like this right, for a 6-7 year old They aren't seeing all of that, some are, but not most, and that great, but in XIV, we have gotten as simple as possible and heres the crazy part, the comparison is possible becauase with how simple XIV is, a 40 year old who can drive and file his own taxes, can;t understand how to tankswap. Both games are at the apex of Extremely simple and a 40 year old who put his kids through college is comperable to a 7 year old whos just mashing A and laughing at big shiny monsters with no futher thoughts. Yes there is depth in pokemon, no there isn't depth in XIV, but the problem is we're treating a an adult like a child. Thats the point of the analogy. XD

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

You're missing the point. Just because the complexity and depth were not the main focus of the Pokemon franchise does not invalidate the existing of said complexity and depth. In fact, that complexity and depth existed in spite of the game's lack of focus on it. So the game was able to exist appealing to both the kids and casual Pokemon players who don't care about the competitive scene as well as the people who are interested in the deeper, more complex competitive scene. That is my point.

Why can't FFXIV, a game designed for a much older audience, do the same? Why can't it sell its more casual story mode and easier game modes while still offering jobs that have a level of depth and complexity not required to get through said story mode and easier game modes, but that players have the freedom to engage with at their leisure? Your point would make sense if every new generation, Pokemon sought to erase complexity and difficulty. While the story mode has generally become easier, and grinding has gotten faster, the competitive scene is if anything more complex than it has ever been before, not less.

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See what I just said to Forsaken Roe my guy. All we're saying is you can brute force both games, and thats bad given the VAST differences because between them xD

Pokemon has the cajones to at least wall bad players that refuse to learn the game's mechanics (e.g. brute forcing a gym with a type disadvantage). XIV doesn't even do that for the majority of its content because you're always at bare minimum accompanied by 3 other players to pick up your slack.

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Originally Posted by Mecia

Western playerbase :^) / Sure, it happens everywhere, but western audiences lean more into a sort of 'x has to change, not me' mentality.

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Ironic... I am finally not seen as a foreigner in the West and on the XIV forums off all places. Gotta say this made me smile, thank you...

Though I have to disagree on the mentality part. Because the fact I pay subscription is acceptance to a degree. I would even go as far as " Tolerate bad changes". Then again I shouldn't need to say this if I was truly satisfied with the Job-Design, I used to be? now I am not and I believe the game can still improve or redeem from it very easily even if my Faith in Square isn't there much to get to that point.

I don't believe my mentality is flawed in wanting the game to improve, and accept what I consider mediocrity when it comes to Job-Design. mhm

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

See what I just said to Forsaken Roe my guy. All we're saying is you can brute force both games, and thats bad given the VAST differences because between them xD

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I think there’s just some confusing between what you’re saying and what your main point is, at least for me.

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

Pokemon has the cajones to at least wall bad players that refuse to learn the game's mechanics (e.g. brute forcing a gym with a type disadvantage). XIV doesn't even do that for the majority of its content because you're always at bare minimum accompanied by 3 other players to pick up your slack.

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yep, I got personally walled by a dark/rock type Tyranitar when my strongest 'mon was an Alakazam (dark being immune to psychic/takes 50% less damage from ghost, the two move types my 'mon had), ended up having to RNG it with Metronome (and got the win via a Brick Break roll, which is fighting type, 4x effective against a dark/rock type)

At this point, tank selfsustain is now so high that I think you might actually be able to afk as a healer through every story-required dungeon and still get to the end of EW. The spookiest level bracket would ironically be the 45-50 area, but even then, GNB gets Aurora there so... GNB from 1-50, swap your carry-tank to WAR as soon as it gets Raw Intuition at 54/56 (whichever it was). I'd test that theory but I don't feel like griefing randoms for the sake of experimentation

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

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the issue with the jobs is the combat system and lack of overworld playing. i dont wanna farm the same fight over and over with the same buttons over and over.

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Ironic... I am finally not seen as a foreigner in the West and on the XIV forums off all places. Gotta say this made me smile, thank you...

Though I have to disagree on the mentality part. Because the fact I pay subscription is acceptance to a degree. I would even go as far as " Tolerate bad changes". Then again I shouldn't need to say this if I was truly satisfied with the Job-Design, I used to be? now I am not and I believe the game can still improve or redeem from it very easily even if my Faith in Square isn't there much to get to that point.

I don't believe my mentality is flawed in wanting the game to improve, and accept what I consider mediocrity when it comes to Job-Design. mhm

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It's because people dehumanize anyone East of the UK, Take how Mecia believed that Japanese players would be more compliant to healer changes, when in fact they're actively saying Yoshida is out of touch and doesn't play his own game. People seem to think if you;re an easterner you're just willing to take what gets thrown at you and thats it.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

It's because people dehumanize anyone East of the UK, Take how Mecia believed that Japanese players would be more compliant to healer changes, when in fact they're actively saying Yoshida is out of touch and doesn't play his own game. People seem to think if you;re an easterner you're just willing to take what gets thrown at you and thats it.

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I loved the post. I never get treated as anything but a foreigner in the West. " Go back to your own country " is something I haven't heard in a while? but when that happened was years ago where I did go to my home country, only to be treated as a white foreigner by supposedly my own people to whom I returned to... So being regarded Western, in the West by I am guessing someone from the Eastern player-base when I am technically not by origin or ethnicity? I loved it, that's comedy relief I didn't knew I needed XD Though I do play on NA mostly so they are not entirely wrong either ( but this is off topic >: )

What I wonder is if the Dev's are out of touch as well, regarding Job designs or how many they have employed on the Dev team. How many of them are actually playing the Jobs they are balancing for example. I read somewhere there isn't a healer main on the Dev team? not sure on this, need confirmation