Do We Remember That a Game Is Meant to Be Fun?

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Originally Posted by Connor

‘Logs and performance ’. One of those things is not like the others. Performance being, how they perform mechanics and the like? Not their literal dps.




Because the point isn’t that ‘ultimates are/aren’t’ fun, it’s that ‘everything else isn’t’.) So saying ‘but savage/ultimates are fun’ is completely ignoring the issue. Just like saying ‘95% of players can’t do rotations and mechanics at the same time therefore job design should remain the same’ ignores the fact of why that’s coming about in the first place.



And it’s not possible in your view for someone to study and understand astrophysics without literally being an astrophysicist? Perhaps by, say, deferring to the research and understanding of others.





And what, the ‘silent majority’ is millions of people neither seen nor heard who all love the game just the way it is? Well my silent majority says something needs to change in encounter and job design to make it more about ‘fun’ and less about ‘raid balancing’. They’re also invisible.




And if people then complained about the lack DoTs (which they would)…they would immediately be back in the game. Like Energy Drain was, or Bard’s song buffs. Wouldn’t be surprised if we see Kaiten or Viper’s thing that disappeared idk a dot or something also come back; there’s been plenty of complaints about it.

Complaining ‘homogenises’ because so many players (including savage/ultimate ones and casuals) complain that they want more things homogenized. ‘Why should X have a DoT when Y doesn’t?’ ‘Why should Picto have strengths/weaknesses that other jobs don’t in downtime’ ‘why should Red Mage have to go into melee during burst’, etc etc etc.

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Ok actually gotta ask this because i'm curious now.
Why do you think nothing else but ultimates is fun? Who said that?
And please dont pretend i said it, because i didnt. Also how do you know that only ultimates are fun if you havent tried it?

Also the complaining part has got kaiten removed which got huge backlash, so i think complaining makes the game worse? Or not?
Like a lot of the things you listed are changes that got big backlash, rdm ranged melee, kaiten etc
And no i dont think kaiten or the "viper thing" will be back. I think that 8.0 will bring more changes like the recent gnb changes. Making jobs feel more busy, shortening cds to make them feel more "active". People want less risk more reward in this game, less ways to mess up or less punishment for mistakes. At least that is how i perceived things over the past 12 years.
If dots were removed from the game then i would see that as a definite decision not reintroducing them, only maybe in the way like smn has now with slipstream or drk's salted earth or having a dot with a set timer like 60cd but dot ticks for 30sec or so. Essentially being a button you press on cd.

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Ok actually gotta ask this because i'm curious now.
Why do you think nothing else but ultimates is fun? Who said that?
And please dont pretend i said it, because i didnt. Also how do you know that only ultimates are fun if you havent tried it?

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Me. I said / am saying it now. In my experience, particularly as a healer, the majority of content ends up being bland and unexciting because of issues with job design, speed of ‘out-gearing’ most content, homogenized and uninspired mechanics (I.E DDR as everyone keeps saying).

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Also the complaining part has got kaiten removed which got huge backlash, so i think complaining makes the game worse? Or not?
Like a lot of the things you listed are changes that got big backlash, rdm ranged melee, kaiten etc
And no i dont think kaiten or the "viper thing" will be back. I think that 8.0 will bring more changes like the recent gnb changes. Making jobs feel more busy, shortening cds to make them feel more "active". People want less risk more reward in this game, less ways to mess up or less punishment for mistakes. At least that is how i perceived things over the past 12 years.

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That’s my point. It’s not the complaining that’s the problem, it’s the things people are complaining about. If they shifted that to be less about ‘balance’ and more about the jobs themselves, it would be beneficial to the overall amount of ‘fun’ in the game. Because regardless of whether it’s right/wrong, devs seems to do it anyway. And frankly, in my opinion, I wouldn’t say players care about whether they can/can’t ‘mess up’ or not. They care about whether it’s ‘fun/interesting/unique/other buzzword’ (also it’s probably like 60% aesthetics lol)

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

If dots were removed from the game then i would see that as a definite decision not reintroducing them, only maybe in the way like smn has now with slipstream or drk's salted earth or having a dot with a set timer like 60cd but dot ticks for 30sec or so. Essentially being a button you press on cd.

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Yet people consistently campaign for every healer to have more DoTs than they do. Should they just give up and accept that ‘one-button filler’ spam is the best they’re going to get because it’s ’a definite decision’? Or are they going to give their opinion regardless of said decision because they disagree with it?

I mean people still ask for DoT Summoner back, and why shouldn’t they? Is it really ok to literally delete an entire playstyle because ‘we’ve made a definite decision [that we don’t like DoTs anymore]’? What about the people who found that fun?

Like, maybe their unwillingness to listen to players outside of ‘savage/ultimate’ balancing and making these ‘definite decisions’ without consulting/considering players is part of the problem? As is generally capitulating to the smallest amount of pressure created by ‘complaining’.

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Originally Posted by Connor

Because the point isn’t that ‘ultimates are/aren’t’ fun, it’s that ‘everything else isn’t’.

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By whose standard, and how do you decide what is fun and what isn't? Maybe it's not fun for you, but I do know a lot of them who are happy with it.

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And if people then complained about the lack DoTs (which they would)…they would immediately be back in the game. Like Energy Drain was, or Bard’s song buffs. Wouldn’t be surprised if we see Kaiten or Viper’s thing that disappeared idk a dot or something also come back; there’s been plenty of complaints about it.

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My dude, you've been playing since 2013, and you still haven't figured it out yet? The game is not trying to appeal to everyone. Sure, you might have enjoyed the job's design back in 2013. The game moved away from it. It is what it is. Going backwards is def not the way to go about things, and plus who can tell how jobs will actually be and play in 8.0?

If YOU think that YOU and 10-20 other forum posters represent the silent majority that you talk about, please carry on..

Look now we have a base where i can agree with you. People are complaining about the wrong things thats true, couldnt agree more, but it is also that hyper balance is the dev\\'s chosen design. Maybe if they focused less on balance and more on "identity" in the next expansion jobs would become more fun. But seeing Yoshi say "If you like FF now you will like 8.0" then i dont buy the identity talk at all. In the end jobs will be hyper balanced, smn even got emergency buffs because of jnderperformance in this tier.

If you look at people screaming for pld\\'s divine might and dedicated ranged tools for every tank and viper\\'s uncoiled fury system for all melees i dont really see much identity changes coming. It is always the same. A job has something you want for your job, because it puts another job at an advantage and then you get it added onto all jobs. Best example is gap closers.

I really would like healers to get a bit more dps options and not just 1 button spam, but i think healer kits are already way too bloated and they should address this first.
With how fight design is shifting i dont see a dedicated dot dps job in the near future. As long as the game is all about burst, dots will just fall short, also more and more downtimes get added recently.
A welcome change though i must say is the interesting add phases they implemented in the recent raids! I really liked that. Especially m6s was such a mess and it turned out no one can aoe properly xD
I\\'m sorry to have to bring up the heavensward example again, but i think the devs are still a bit traumatized by the bad balancing in heavensward, job exclusion, toxicity etc. You cant talk about balance without mentioning heavensward\\'s mistakes. That is when the hyper balance design slowly crept into the game.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

By whose standard, and how do you decide what is fun and what isn't? Maybe it's not fun for you, but I do know a lot of them who are happy with it.




My dude, you've been playing since 2013, and you still haven't figured it out yet? The game is not trying to appeal to everyone. Sure, you might have enjoyed the job's design back in 2013. The game moved away from it. It is what it is. Going backwards is def not the way to go about things, and plus who can tell how jobs will actually be and play in 8.0?

If YOU think that YOU and 10-20 other forum posters represent the silent majority that you talk about, please carry on..

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Except, the game is trying pretty hard to try to appeal to everyone.

It is the precisely this reason, why, after well over a decade into the content design pipeline -- They are still in a complete identity crisis with itself. It is also the reason we have this quasi situation with relics where they simultaneously want to try and turn it into a grind, and try to make it as simple as humanly possible (e.g., Tomestone repeatable steps).

I think you underestimate just how many design decisions are ultimately underpinned by "How can we try and please this crevice".

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

By whose standard, and how do you decide what is fun and what isn't? Maybe it's not fun for you, but I do know a lot of them who are happy with it.




My dude, you've been playing since 2013, and you still haven't figured it out yet? The game is not trying to appeal to everyone. Sure, you might have enjoyed the job's design back in 2013. The game moved away from it. It is what it is. Going backwards is def not the way to go about things, and plus who can tell how jobs will actually be and play in 8.0?

If YOU think that YOU and 10-20 other forum posters represent the silent majority that you talk about, please carry on..

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I can definitely see that being true. I have more friends that are satisfied with the game as it is. If you are satisfied then you dont complain, right?
I see the same names here and on reddit complaining about job design, hence why i said it's just a loud minority.
Reverting changes is not the way to go. Something new is the way to go and i dont envy the devs having to find that "new something"
Overall there wont be radical changes in 8.0. That is not their style of handling things. It will be very slow changes over a long time span if i had to guess based on ffxiv's history.

And ultimate is the best content imo ( i know i'm repeating myself)! It is where the devs put the most effort into and can be as creative as they want to.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

By whose standard, and how do you decide what is fun and what isn\\'t? Maybe it\\'s not fun for you, but I do know a lot of them who are happy with it.

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By my own standards. What is fun is literally any kind of job that has a clear and interesting design (and ideally somewhat lore-coherent if possible) that’s at least slightly unique and not several different flavours of ‘homogenized’. Jobs that are more than just following a conveyor belt of the same abilities with the same timings over, and over. Content where healers have an actual reason to exist beyond ‘you deal low dps relative to everyone else and let the tank do your job for you’. Where physical ranged have a reason to exist beyond ‘gives 1% party bonus’. Where jobs can actually be allowed to have strengths/weaknesses.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

My dude, you\\'ve been playing since 2013, and you still haven\\'t figured it out yet? The game is not trying to appeal to everyone. Sure, you might have enjoyed the job\\'s design back in 2013. The game moved away from it. It is what it is. Going backwards is def not the way to go about things, and plus who can tell how jobs will actually be and play in 8.0?

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Just…lol, to be honest. You really haven’t figured out that ‘trying to appeal to everyone’ is literally the root of the problem? Or one or them at least.

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Originally Posted by Kohashi

If YOU think that YOU and 10-20 other forum posters represent the silent majority that you talk about, please carry on..

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Or maybe the whole point about an invisible silent majority was to point out how silly it is to rely on such a thing? I don’t think I represent anyone else but me, and frankly whether others do/don’t agree is irrelevant to me; I’d be giving my opinion anyway.

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Originally Posted by Kishin12345

Look now we have a base where i can agree with you. People are complaining about the wrong things thats true, couldnt agree more, but it is also that hyper balance is the dev\\\\'s chosen design. Maybe if they focused less on balance and more on "identity" in the next expansion jobs would become more fun. But seeing Yoshi say "If you like FF now you will like 8.0" then i dont buy the identity talk at all. In the end jobs will be hyper balanced, smn even got emergency buffs because of jnderperformance in this tier.

If you look at people screaming for pld\\\\'s divine might and dedicated ranged tools for every tank and viper\\\\'s uncoiled fury system for all melees i dont really see much identity changes coming. It is always the same. A job has something you want for your job, because it puts another job at an advantage and then you get it added onto all jobs. Best example is gap closers.

I really would like healers to get a bit more dps options and not just 1 button spam, but i think healer kits are already way too bloated and they should address this first.
With how fight design is shifting i dont see a dedicated dot dps job in the near future. As long as the game is all about burst, dots will just fall short, also more and more downtimes get added recently.
A welcome change though i must say is the interesting add phases they implemented in the recent raids! I really liked that. Especially m6s was such a mess and it turned out no one can aoe properly xD
I\\\\'m sorry to have to bring up the heavensward example again, but i think the devs are still a bit traumatized by the bad balancing in heavensward, job exclusion, toxicity etc. You cant talk about balance without mentioning heavensward\\\\'s mistakes. That is when the hyper balance design slowly crept into the game.

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I’d argue said ‘hyper balance’ is a knee-jerk reaction to what they perceive as player complaints and less ‘a definitive decision’ they’ve made about job design. And it’s putting such constraints on job design / encounter design that it sucks the fun out of content where that ‘hyper-balance’ no longer actually matters.

I mean, look at PvP. It’s not like they’re absolutely against ‘imbalances’ or ‘jobs having clear strengths/weaknesses’ existing in the game, they just don’t want to touch PvE with those things because they fear player backlash or w/e their reasoning is (‘big wigs told us make it easy’, you never know).

Heavensward was a mess balance-wise but at least jobs felt less like ‘playing the role and not the job itself’. And I mean that was even with homogenisation already present like Machinist randomly getting MP/TP regen because Bard has it or Bard getting cast times on weaponskills because Machinist had Gauss Barrel. At least their support was a little different since one was instant but required placement and the other required a short cast time. We don’t even have that anymore; we have everything on a 120 second cooldown and the differences are idk in our imagination lol. My point isn’t ’literally restore us to old content’ it’s ‘maybe take some of what you did then and apply it to now’. I.E loosening up on constraining job design so tightly around ‘are they all balanced for savage’ (and no, not ignoring it entirely either).

And I mean that’s good that ultimates are fun but like why can’t they put that same effort and creativity into other pieces of content? Like Cosmic Exploration or the barely utilised Occult Crescent

I wonder if the lack of interest in content nowadays is in any way related to the general player disconnect with the story and the direction they've taken it in.

I feel like Dawntrail rendered a lot of the lore, world-building and atmosphere of the past arc completely meaningless, and there are no concrete rules or boundaries governing the story anymore. The consequent lack of identity makes the game feel soulless, and without that sense of investment the often tedious reality of MMO grinding becomes more difficult to justify. Yoshi P said something about the demands of the market changing and making the game require less time to play, but I think you find the time for something you actually care about.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

I wonder if the lack of interest in content nowadays is in any way related to the general player disconnect with the story and the direction they've taken it in.

I feel like Dawntrail rendered a lot of the lore, world-building and atmosphere of the past arc completely meaningless, and there are no concrete rules or boundaries governing the story anymore. The consequent lack of identity makes the game feel soulless, and without that sense of investment the often tedious reality of MMO grinding becomes more difficult to justify. Yoshi P said something about the demands of the market changing and making the game require less time to play, but I think you find the time for something you actually care about.

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I’d definitely have to agree. Additionally, things like Scholar’s Seraphism that ‘don’t make much sense relative to lore’ just contributes to the whole ‘everything feels the same’ / ‘there’s no life or soul to this’.
To put it dramatically it’s like they’ve forsaken any attempt at ‘identity’ in the story or job design (and mostly encounter design) to try and appeal to the widest demographic possible.

And when the story doesn’t feel engaging or interesting, it’s even harder to forgive issues with job or encounter design when the storyline also gives so little satisfaction in Dawntrail.

The game right now feels very much like a "clock in, study, and clock out" thing to me. The combat has been rendered so bland for their "super amazing encounter designs!" that 90% of the game suffers for it. If I'm not blinded by the VFX during a boss fight, I'm probably dead on the ground from getting hit due to reaction times. I've used the words tedious and tiring in the past when it comes to modern PvE because that's what it feels like to me. So I simply don't do roulettes anymore, and I know I'm not the only one.

The fights feel catered specifically for one subsection of players while completely ignoring the others, because that's where a fight's complexity lies now: centered uniquely on encounters instead of having the jobs do a part of the heavy lifting. If you have trouble with that type of battle content or aren't interested, the community is very eager to show you the door.

For MSQ...I've said my grievances in the DT criticism thread last year, but what's even the point anymore? I still haven't done 7.4's because I simply do not care. The stakes feel childish or non-existent, everything is messy, and I yearn for the days of ARR, HW and StB. Ironically, it feels too shonen-y for me so maybe that's why I don't enjoy it.

And for the OP, I personally enjoy content on the relaxing side. I like Housing (despite having grievances with the systems since I play vanilla - thus not having BtHD), I do some Big Fishing on the side, I enjoy maps night with my FC, I don't mind gathering 999 of an item if a friend needs it and I like PotD. I enjoy community stuff as well like Bozja or even visiting venues to check out how people decorated their pad.

But now the hubs are silent or spamming RMT when I visit, almost no one runs DD-style content, and I wonder why Eorzea is so quiet and lonely. Or maybe it's apathy settling in, who knows.