Samurai changes are unacceptable in the current iteration

I have no emotional investment in Samurai whatsoever. I am a strict omni-tank in content. A solid 90% of the posts I have made on this public forum have been either long form analysis and discussion posts or posts meant to inform/dissuade misinformation. The exceptions are posts like these, where it's either in a joking tone, or direct confrontations to my opinions. Due to the absurd length of my posts, and the fact that I played the long-game in terms of not just job design, but also the myriad of almost every sub-system inside of XIV's content sphere, I would like to say I am the opposite of impulsive. When everyone was ready to crucify SE for not reworking DRK for the 4th time, I was one of the people who set aside my personal love for the job to objectively analyze it as an improved version of a mediocre at best rework.

I am simply observing what it's like to be on the other side. To witness another job that focuses highly on aDPS, personal responsibility, a higher than normal skill floor/ceiling distribution, with a somewhat maligned community perception, get thoroughly wrecked like this in the eyes of it's playerbase. Because it in turn, reflects upon me, and my own approach and hopes towards striving for more engaging design. My perspective as a result, is naturally going to be skewed after seeing my own role obliterated. But I need to see those perspectives to center my own compass for what I'm looking for in my gameplay experiences, even going beyond XIV.

I know what it's like to lose the job you love to people who don't care about it or for reasons that no one, not even the developer team, can adequately explain. I will never play HW/SB DRK again. The muscle memory is still there after years of it being gone, like a phantom limb. It's a betrayal, even if it technically shouldn't be at all. Job identity flows into player, or even personal identity more often than most would like to admit. I myself am guilty of this.

This has been handled, by all parties, in the worst way possible. The only people who are justified are the SAM players regardless of their actual opinions on the change itself, since none of them signed up for this. I wonder if the focus on "evening out DPS discrepencies" came from DSR, and the focus on shorter, 1 minute bursts that made SAM too powerful in that content. But then NIN exists, with it's massive Hyoshos, so I'm not too sure. As I'm not a DPS player, I seek more knowledge. That's the only reason I'm here at all.

As I play more and more lately, I've found myself gravitating away from Samurai and more into playing my Summoner and am thinking of picking up Reaper as my main melee DPS.

The problem I'm having with Samurai, a job I still love and enjoy after the Kaiten removal, is more of an overall feel thing. It goes beyond removing Kaiten, which I still don't think is a huge deal, but it does show how limited the job is.

You look at something like Reaper and how it plays. It's incredibly fun. You've got a smooth combo rotations multiple gauges to spend and a burst phase that's pure joy with the increased attack speed and beautiful animations.

Dragoon also has a smooth combo and a plethora of various buttons to weave in with unique animations.

Samurai is very static in its rotation. You do three combos, your Iai, and Shinten spam with a couple extra button presses every 2 minutes. Oh and the occasional Shoha and Third Eye woven in. The combos also aren't as smooth, requiring filler to hit burst phases. Tsubame gives us an extra button to press every minute, but it's also just a copy paste of your last Iai and doesn't add anything "new" to the job.

I honestly feel the thing that hurt Samurai the most was the changes to Hagakure. A huge part of the fun of the job was the flexibility it gave you during the rotation.

I'm fine with SE keeping Samurai as slower, more hard hitting DPS. But it needs some shine and more to do than Shinten spam between two minute burst phases with the occasional Shoha. It needs more variety, and some shine. I can deal with the Kaiten removal. But the job needs more to it. It feels stagnant.

If all they did after Kaiten's removal was tack its full potency directly onto Iaijutsu and then reduce Kenki gain to tone down the the spam, I could at least understand the logic behind this decision even if I still can't fully agree with it, because its removal still causes the cascade effect of removing conscious gauge management as a concept. They wouldn't have even needed to mention things like "action bloat" or "this skill was holding back SAM's design in the future" if they went this route.

But, they didn't do this. Instead, not only did they use these reasons to justify its removal, they completely ignored several other more obvious routes to take that would have significantly reduced bloat in a meaningful way without even affecting the overall feel of SAM.

Even more bewildering though was the change to Tenka Goken. Not only does this have nothing to do with action bloat, it actually makes SAM more dangerous to play regardless of skill level, which hinders their mission to make FFXIV more inclusive. Nobody wants to hard cast a tiny point blank AoE in the middle of 6+ overlapped monsters with their own hostile AoE. There is already enough skills where we have to dive in, and it was fine because they were all instant abilities. With the recent Famitsu interview regarding 6.2 features, the only possible reason I can imagine for this change is the fact that they are implementing a Bozja / Eureka-like Duty Action system that will enable jobs to effectively swap roles within the new Variance / Criterion Dungeons, so within the context of potentially playing SAM as a tank in more easily accessible content, this was maybe their reason. Except WAR mains are also clamoring to get their cone AoE back, and even some suggestions of going further and making Mythril Tempest a cone as well, and I agree with them.

In case SE is reading this, I want there to be no ambiguity here: Do not make Tenka Goken an instant cast skill or a 30y radius circle to compensate, just give us the 8y cone and the rest of 6.08 SAM back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Reese_Clairdale

In case SE is reading this, I want there to be no ambiguity here: Do not make Tenka Goken an instant cast skill or a 30y radius circle to compensate, just give us the 8y cone and the rest of 6.08 SAM back.

---

Heh. I still laugh at the fact that it's basically the equivalent of a wet fart now. Drop one in the middle of the group and catch a beating from everything because no one like the smell and all you did was annoy them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

...

---

It's very rarely so neatly compartmentalized, and you can always count on players to act based on short-term self-interest above all else.

The problem is that the argument for buffs is always predicated on the claim that 'I' play a more difficult job than 'you', which very rarely has an objective basis in fact. I very rarely see someone discussing job IQR within a role (which is an interesting discussion in itself), and most mentions of complexity are invariably made to freestyle gameplay on a job that you don't actually play. In the short term, this gets players the buffs that they want, in terms of both damage output and utility. In the long term, however, the dev team invariably simplify the jobs in question down to address the 'complexity' discrepancy, which makes this all come karmically full circle.

But it's a nuisance for players on other jobs in the short term as well, because historically powerful jobs are going to also have a lot of vocal backing to keep them that way. All of DRK's problems in Stormblood were a direct consequence of the overpowering debate around making WAR more powerful again. DRK provided low reward for effort despite being dismissed as being easy to play by an overly jingoistic WAR playerbase who had no clue about how the job was actually played. And it's because we were willing to patiently keep silent and watch that we spent the better part of four years at a massive disadvantage to everyone else.

I don't think there would be any significant job adjustments or controversy in the melee dps section this expansion had they not happened to release a new job into the category. And that's really what prompted the turf war around 'complexity vs. performance' at the start of the expansion. Unsurprisingly, we yet again see short term buffs to all melee followed by long term plans for simplification. A lot of heartache could be saved if the devs simply saw through why people have these 'complexity' discussions in the first place and just ignored it. This exact same problem will repeat itself with Casters next expansion if they release a new Caster.

I wish that players could have discussions based on their love for a particular job and talk exclusively about making things more fun without impacting other jobs in the process. But it's very rarely so simple, and everyone in the category ultimately has a stake in the discussion.

We're not asking for buffs, we're asking for a revert of their ruination on a beloved Job. Since I am reading justifications on requesting Buffs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OdinelStarrei

snip

---

Plenty of Samurai's have stated that the 6.1 changes were negative, where the Dev's robbed how satisfying Samurai felt to play, without fixing anything and to replace that void they created with nothing. Thus an uproar happened.

Complexity for the sake of Complexity is as meaningless as removing Buttons to remove more Buttons when it's all made un-rewarding. It's also Ironic... To consistently see the same points repeated, worded differently which essentially boils down to

• 6.08 Kaiten and Kenki management for DPS execution made SAM to difficult
• 6.1 Kaiten removal lobotomized the resource gauge and made SAM to easy

Unpacked? Samurai was never difficult enough to holdback players from finishing any content. And at Normal content, which I regard as MSQ/Dungeons/Normal Trials and Normal Raids/Fates etc? players require near no understanding of a Job to succeed and clear all of it. Hence the " Job becoming to Complex " argument fails in my eyes, unless it comes from a player who genuinely enjoys simplifications.

Thus, raising the Skill-floor isn't always bad? but it's worse to turn that floor into a swamp, no matter how much players want to express their job they now can't cause we keep sinking downwards. SE's methodology to try and please a player-base by making Jobs continuously easier and more lazy to execute? results in that player-base to eventually request to make it even easier, cause it can never be lazy enough for them. You can see that back in plenty of MMO histories. Making gameplay simpler and easier purely for the sake of pleasing an audience who do not want to learn how to play? is not healthy for an MMO.

And that's just Kaiten and kenki management. We haven't even dabbled into anti-synergy of Job interactions and buffs due to the " Auto-Crit " changes to Ogi Namikiri and Iaijutsu, which was meant to reduce DPS variance? of which was a never existing problem to fix nothing when it comes to clearing any content. Plus the negative AoE nerves and changes without good reason to also fix nothig.

Reminder, plenty were just pleased with 6.08 Samurai. That's it. But 6.1 just ruined it, simplified it, made it hollow and nerfed dungeon running and fate grinding tremendously for others. All to fix completely nothing, even their statement 5 months ago of a new direction means that's 5 months of nothing new but a discount version of what we used to love.

I do not believe in this " War of Complexity " either, every Job has their Skill-Floor and every Job can have their Complexity and Skill-Ceiling for Skill-Expression. I am not sold ever, that we can't have both for any Job, and that there is some (made-up) scarcity that only so much Complexity can go around for each Job requiring homogenization and Simplification of our gameplay.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lyth

It's very rarely so neatly compartmentalized, and you can always count on players to act based on short-term self-interest above all else.

The problem is that the argument for buffs is always predicated on the claim that 'I' play a more difficult job than 'you', which very rarely has an objective basis in fact. I very rarely see someone discussing job IQR within a role (which is an interesting discussion in itself), and most mentions of complexity are invariably made to freestyle gameplay on a job that you don't actually play. In the short term, this gets players the buffs that they want, in terms of both damage output and utility. In the long term, however, the dev team invariably simplify the jobs in question down to address the 'complexity' discrepancy, which makes this all come karmically full circle.

But it's a nuisance for players on other jobs in the short term as well, because historically powerful jobs are going to also have a lot of vocal backing to keep them that way. All of DRK's problems in Stormblood were a direct consequence of the overpowering debate around making WAR more powerful again. DRK provided low reward for effort despite being dismissed as being easy to play by an overly jingoistic WAR playerbase who had no clue about how the job was actually played. And it's because we were willing to patiently keep silent and watch that we spent the better part of four years at a massive disadvantage to everyone else.

I don't think there would be any significant job adjustments or controversy in the melee dps section this expansion had they not happened to release a new job into the category. And that's really what prompted the turf war around 'complexity vs. performance' at the start of the expansion. Unsurprisingly, we yet again see short term buffs to all melee followed by long term plans for simplification. A lot of heartache could be saved if the devs simply saw through why people have these 'complexity' discussions in the first place and just ignored it. This exact same problem will repeat itself with Casters next expansion if they release a new Caster.

I wish that players could have discussions based on their love for a particular job and talk exclusively about making things more fun without impacting other jobs in the process. But it's very rarely so simple, and everyone in the category ultimately has a stake in the discussion.

---

I personally don't believe in the complexity argument. RPR for example is pretty brain dead easy to play and I'd have no problem with them doing high dps. My only view point on how much DPS a job should output is based on their kit, not how easy or difficult they are to play. SAM and BLM for example imo should ALWAYS be the top DPS because they offer nothing else to the raid. Their utility is their damage output. If another job is outperforming them then the BLM and SAM should be buffed or the overperforming job should be nerfed. Outside of that, the range of dps output should come down to how much utility you offer. The more raid utility you offer the lower your DPS should be.

Its a simple viewpoint, but that's generally how I believe the balance of the game should be. Like in ARR it was difficult to deal with the double bard meta because bard had amazing raid utility to go along with high mobility to deal with mechanics easily and pretty good damage, especially paired with a dragoons piercing debuff, which lead to the design of adding a cast bar to bards "dps stance" in heavensward which naturally most people hated. Its also why MCH is so low in the damage category because they effectively have 100% uptime and no casting. I do personally think their output is a little too low though, but I agree with the design of them not competing with melee dps numbers. They should be outdpsing bard and dnc easily though.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ransu

I personally don't believe in the complexity argument. RPR for example is pretty brain dead easy to play and I'd have no problem with them doing high dps. My only view point on how much DPS a job should output is based on their kit, not how easy or difficult they are to play. SAM and BLM for example imo should ALWAYS be the top DPS because they offer nothing else to the raid. Their utility is their damage output. If another job is outperforming them then the BLM and SAM should be buffed or the overperforming job should be nerfed. Outside of that, the range of dps output should come down to how much utility you offer. The more raid utility you offer the lower your DPS should be.

Its a simple viewpoint, but that's generally how I believe the balance of the game should be. Like in ARR it was difficult to deal with the double bard meta because bard had amazing raid utility to go along with high mobility to deal with mechanics easily and pretty good damage, especially paired with a dragoons piercing debuff, which lead to the design of adding a cast bar to bards "dps stance" in heavensward which naturally most people hated. Its also why MCH is so low in the damage category because they effectively have 100% uptime and no casting. I do personally think their output is a little too low though, but I agree with the design of them not competing with melee dps numbers. They should be outdpsing bard and dnc easily though.

---

I like this line of thinking. Though I don't think jobs should be brain dead easy to play (I don't think reaper is that brain dead, it does have nuance to it because of how it builds and manages its resource), they also shouldn't involve finger ballet either. Heavensward was an example of where jobs had way too much to do in your opener that it might be hard to get it all down if the boss did anything other than just a typical raid or tankbuster. The machinist opener back then was...Something else, and for how hard you worked, the payoff just wasn't that great as the fight wore on.

That being said though, complexity and nuance is nice in a job, as it allows you to sort of think about how you want to approach it beyond simply hitting 1-2-3. But also a job shouldn't be too hard that you're staring at the keyboard or controller because you have to push 15 unique buttons to do an opener and filler rotation. Strike a good balance between the two, I say.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ruminous

snip

---

I also agree that the " Complexity " argument is flawed.

More Buttons for the sake of more Buttons can be as equally devastating as Less Buttons for the sake of less Buttons. Same goes if you replace the word " Buttons " with to much or to little - Nuance / Complexity / Actions Per Min etc. Gotta strike a balance that will appeal to the majority, or at the very least? allow it to be good enough to do " Most Content ". And then I started thinking of the other Argument I read in the past...

" Stop Gate Keeping by keeping Jobs to difficult! "
Valid opinion. Some games genuinely have content locked behind very difficult content as a secret bonus, just to name 1 example. Imagine for FFXIV that all mounts are locked behind Savage content as 1 awful example.

So! Imagine a Pizza Diagram, with High-End Raiding content making up " 5% " of the slice, then Most Content would make up " 95% " of the remaining Diagram of which does not require mastery of a PvE combat or a Job to truly clear.

Kind of reverse psychology. Cause if the argument was gate keeping due to Job complexity? it must mean content that's to difficult which would be Raiding which barely makes up 5% of the game. Well then what is the other 95% made of that isn't gate kept?

• MainStoryQuest
• Most YellowQuests
• JobQuests
• Most Dungeons
• Glamour
• Gold Saucer
• Crafting
• Gathering
• Fishing
• Sightseeing
• Jumping Puzzles
• Gold Saucer
• Housing
• Obtaining Most Mounts
• Obtaining Most Minions
• Triple Triad or Any Mini-Game honestly
• Playing Instruments
• All BeastTribes
• All Fates
• Hildebrand
• Venues
• Heck any RP of any Kind
• Squadron Barracks
• Firmament
• Deep Dungeons
• Every Cutscene ever
• Every Seasonal event
• Most Achievements
• Most Titles
• Bluemage Content
• Any Trial before Extreme difficulty
• Any Raid before Savage difficulty

The list can go on... of which Job Complexity does not get in the way. I would even Argue high-end raiding isn't gate kept by Job Complexity, since the Enrage requirements overtime gets reduced with available iLvl... it's GateKept by players who are afraid to fail, but that's my opinion.

Even so... it shows that Raiding truly barely makes up 5% of the game. How much of this tiny piece of Pizza slice? needs to be catered to the rest of the player-base? How much easier do we need to make jobs or even compromise making the Raiding difficulty easier?

This is where I just Hard Disagree with the complexity argument. 6.08 Samurai or Kaiten or any difficult Job execution does not stand in the way of clearing most content, which outside of raiding makes up a lot. And even then? it doesn't stop anyone before from clearing any Raids.

However... if the argument is they enjoy Simplifications, Homogenization? Okey, but I would say that's also flawed justification to the changes because that's equal to just never performing or learning Jobs properly, until it's watered down to a point it is " Tasteless without Flavor ", without some identify. Feeling different in Gameplay, none-stale that ruins gameplay designs

As much as Kaiten meant so little to many? it meant a lot to a lot of us. And you can name any lost Skill from any Job. I do not agree with the changes. Even if we never get 6.08 Samurai back, that's just a standpoint I will not change from until they present truly something that is better and improved which is an expectation I won't dare to hold from a Company that willfully acts silent to the feedback they requested.

Complexity should exist and it should be rewarding. My only point was I don't think a games balance should be determined by complexity. That said, I don't think SAM was really all that complex and the removal of kaiten made it too simplistic while not really addressing the reasoning they proclaimed to be removing it for.