They are gutting Black Mage even more in 7.2

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Future battle design may cause difficulty with casting spells, so we have shortened the cast time for a variety of actions. Furthermore, the effect expiration of Astral Fire and Umbral Ice has been largely detrimental to attack power in situations where players must interrupt casting to address battle mechanics. For this reason, these statuses will no longer expire.

In Patch 7.1, Ley Lines became a charge-based action, which has resulted in movement restriction lasting longer than intended, so we have reduced its duration.

In light of all these changes, we have generally amplified black mage's firepower by increasing attack potency and adjusting the trait Enochian.

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Since I don't main BLM, the thing that really worries me about this is that it suggests future battle design is going to rely even more on running to safe spots.

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Since I don't main BLM, the thing that really worries me about this is that it suggests future battle design is going to rely even more on running to safe spots.

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Yes, I was thinking of you when I read that, so it seems to confirm they are going fully in that direction for the foreseeable future.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

Like, if he was actually serious about that statement, and they have legitimate plans to overhaul the jobs to restore their senses of identity in 8.0, how does he think tripling down on homogenization during the 7.x patches will help that? They’re simplifying the jobs to cater to the more challenging raid content, but if they actually do a serious overhaul of the jobs in 8.0, they’ll want to revisit the encounter design again after that because the overhauled jobs will no longer “fit” with the encounter design.

This is why it’s a fools errand to try and work on encounter design in a vacuum separated from job design. The two are intrinsically linked, and if you don’t build one with consideration for the other, you end up in a cycle of “fix encounters-fix jobs-fix encounters-fix jobs…” ad infinitum.

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The last time I played an MMO that promised an emphasis on class fantasy in an expansion, it deleted at least a dozen skills per class and gutted its talent trees. I'm expecting every job to turn into VPR or SMN.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

I think he was talking specifically about the content design, not the job design. And it's the content he's trying to address at the moment.

But since he has declared 8.0 as the expansion that will focus on job design in a number of ways (skill tree tease, making them unique tease, etc), they'll have to confront this sentiment eventually.

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Begs the question why they even bother making such drastic BLM changes now, considering it simplifies the job and they'd hypothetically be uprooting the changes in the very next expansion to address the over-simplification they've brought upon their current job design. There's the cited issue of future encounter design... but even the blurb doesn't sound confident it will be a genuine issue or not. Feels like SE is out of touch with dedicated players, and is in a total creative rut in terms of encounter design (relying way too much on just dialing up encounter speed).

Tbh, all of this seems like a big waste in dev time. Just taking BLM as an ex, they introduced unpopular changes in 7.0 that had to be addressed via subsequent patches. They're now creating brand new unpopular changes in 7.2, which may very well have to get addressed AGAIN in patches. ...And then they'll hypothetically be making big changes in 8.0 anyways? How fast is 7.3+ content going to be that the devs needed to gut the timers before big job changes in 8.0?

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Originally Posted by Daralii

The last time I played an MMO that promised an emphasis on class fantasy in an expansion, it deleted at least a dozen skills per class and gutted its talent trees. I'm expecting every job to turn into VPR or SMN.

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Good lord, perish the thought. Which MMO was that?

Now I get to imagine the 8.0 rework being so disastrous that we look back at the 7.x job design fondly...

I've been playing Black Mage since Shadowbringers, and this change was the 'straw that broke the camel's back' for me. I'm not outright quitting the game, but I definitely won't be resubbing until 8.0 comes out and shows that it's made significant strides towards being an actual game and not just a visual novel that you're not allowed to fail. Black Mage was the only job left that I felt had any sort of difficulty in its design, you had to learn a fight to know where you could stand to get the most out of your rotation, and when to utilize your limited mobility buffs. Genuinely disappointed in the direction this game's been headed, and while I hope it can change its course and win me back over, WoW has been doing well enough that I can hop into that for the time being.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

Like, if he was actually serious about that statement, and they have legitimate plans to overhaul every job to restore its sense of identity in 8.0, how does he think tripling down on homogenization during the 7.x patches will help that? If it were up to me, I would think it would make more sense to start restoring job identity piecemeal during the patches before the "big leap" in 8.0. From all appearances, they’re simplifying and homogenizing the jobs to cater to the "more challenging raid content," but if they actually follow through on a serious overhaul of the jobs in 8.0, they’ll want to revisit the encounter design again after that because the overhauled jobs will no longer “fit” with the encounter design.

This is why it’s a fool's errand to try and work on encounter design in a vacuum separated from job design. The two are intrinsically linked, and if you don’t build one with consideration for the other, you end up in a cycle of “fix encounters-fix jobs-fix encounters-fix jobs…” ad infinitum.

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Maybe they make 7.x job feel so bad that people will love 8.0 "rework" haha

/j in case (but also not really)

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Originally Posted by Kozh

Maybe they make 7.x job feel so bad that people will love 8.0 "rework" haha

/j in case (but also not really)

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The newest, boldest strategy! "If we make the design absolutely terrible across the board, then revert it back to ShB/EW era design, it'll look like a rework!" pointing at side of head meme

This is so sad, Feo Ui play Little Dark Age BLM edits on loop.

When you all told SE "make encounter design" better, what they heard was the old George Lucas chestnut... "Faster, and with more intensity." Classic "Misunderstanding" (TM).

Problem is, if make fight faster, job not able to do fight. So, have to make job move more.

That's the only way they know how to develop. So, to make the fight "better" they have to ruin the job.

Meanwhile RDM is still the same since SB release only with Potency buff, some tweaks on the gauge and manafication and more finisher :p

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

When you all told SE "make encounter design" better, what they heard was the old George Lucas chestnut... "Faster, and with more intensity." Classic "Misunderstanding" (TM).

Problem is, if make fight faster, job not able to do fight. So, have to make job move more.

That's the only way they know how to develop. So, to make the fight "better" they have to ruin the job.

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And thus, if the 8.0 job "rework" is an actual rework and not just gutting the jobs further (I expect the latter and not the former, sadly), then they will have completely broken the ability of the reworked jobs to engage with the encounter design, so they'll need to "fix" the encounter design.

Or, even if they rework the jobs, they will get right back to homogenizing them once they realize that reworking the jobs broke the encounter design.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

And thus, if the 8.0 job "rework" is an actual rework and not just gutting the jobs further (I expect the latter and not the former, sadly), then they will have completely broken the ability of the reworked jobs to engage with the encounter design, so they'll need to "fix" the encounter design.

Or, even if they rework the jobs, they will get right back to homogenizing them once they realize that reworking the jobs broke the encounter design.

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Translation: This game's screwed either way.

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Originally Posted by Lorika

Meanwhile RDM is still the same since SB release only with Potency buff, some tweaks on the gauge and manafication and more finisher :p

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Yeah, and BLM used to be that job that only kept getting better every expansion. See you in 8.0, RDMfriend...

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

Translation: This game's screwed either way.

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While I'm not sure I'm ready to outright call the game screwed yet, I'm extremely frustrated by the chain of decisions that are, if not outright bad, at least seem shortsighted and out of touch. I can understand why people are increasingly reaching this conclusion. The more time passes, the harder it is to see how these issues can be resolved without effectively going back to basics with the job and encounter design and starting from the ground up, and the harder it will be to go back to basics. The problems are now endemic, hard-baked into the foundation of the combat system.

SE would have to be willing to make a bold move, to decide what they want this game to be, and to take a firm stance on it. A true job design/encounter design rework cannot be a half-measure. It requires acknowledging the missteps that have been taken and leaning into those missteps to learn from them. Once they start, they can't waffle on it. Again... no half-measures. They would have to be prepared to alienate part of their player base - but since that's already happening, maybe the current direction is their "firm stance" and I just happen to be in the portion of the player base that's being alienated by the changes.

Class/Combat is core to the experience of any videogame. I don't think there are any easy answers or solutions here anymore. SE has developed themselves between a rock and a hard place, and I think any real, successful, lasting solution is going to require a lot of hard work to resolve.

Or, as I previously said, they've already determined their direction, are content with it, and I just happen to be part of the demographic that they are willing to alienate with their changes. In which case, I guess we are where we are.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

The newest, boldest strategy! "If we make the design absolutely terrible across the board, then revert it back to ShB/EW era design, it'll look like a rework!" pointing at side of head meme

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It's been always on my mind that they would think this is a good solution when it's the worst one they could choose, as evidenced with the current trend of events. If they truly did implement this, people who were patiently waiting for any sign of things to fix itself will just snap after being lied to for another couple of years and another large group of players will flood the forums while the rest just quietly quit. Just as it has happened multiple times in the forums throughout these last couple of years already.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

It's been always on my mind that they would think this is a good solution when it's the worst one they could choose, as evidenced with the current trend of events. If they truly did implement this, people who were patiently waiting for any sign of things to fix itself will just snap after being lied to for another couple of years and another large group of players will flood the forums while the rest just quietly quit. Just as it has happened multiple times in the forums throughout these last couple of years already.

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If they actually, seriously, took this approach with the "rework," I absolutely think this would be my breaking point with this game. There's been plenty that I am critical of/frustrated about with FFXIV, but I'm still currently deriving enough joy from the game to continue playing at this time - I've been all in on the crafting/gathering side of the game.

But them doing something like breaking the job system just to fix it and make it look like a rework, would drive me away, even if I was still having fun. It would demonstrate to me how utterly lacking in integrity they have become.

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Originally Posted by Illianaro

snip.

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Brother, how many MORE bad decisions must they make before it's enough? How many MORE times must they lie, or obfuscate, or just not give you what they promised, or innovate, or fail to deliver on what little they ALREADY do, before you're done with it?

They've already decided that mechanical designs of fights cannot be anything else but "The same thing but faster" and decided that jobs must therefore be more simplified and mobie to compensate. Basically, putting ALL the difficulty in the "fake difficulty" of the DDR dance pattern, and simplifying the jobs into oblivion. That's it, they've already shown you where they're going. The same way that "one-off changes" in prior expansions weren't acutally a fluke, but an indicator of the future. How many times does a pattern have to repeat before people see it?

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

Yeah, and BLM used to be that job that only kept getting better every expansion. See you in 8.0, RDMfriend...

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Here the thing : this is one the most stable and polished job of the game... Also one of the job with the most strongest identity of the game.
I mean, they don't know what to change or had except the finisher.

RDM design is simple yet very effective : everythng resolve around Dualcast and filling a gauge to use your melee combo and finisher.
RDM player have only few complaint about it (lack of damages, loss of Dualcast when you use your melee combo and some others minor issues) that can be resolved easily... But since RDM player don't really care (thoses issues are more of some little annoyance and inconvenience than game breaking one) and are now used to it... Because : This job is still freaking verFun and verStyled :p (and we have the best Job Armor :D)

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

It's been always on my mind that they would think this is a good solution when it's the worst one they could choose, as evidenced with the current trend of events. If they truly did implement this, people who were patiently waiting for any sign of things to fix itself will just snap after being lied to for another couple of years and another large group of players will flood the forums while the rest just quietly quit. Just as it has happened multiple times in the forums throughout these last couple of years already.

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BTW, remember, you only have the right to post here if you have an active sub. So, if you stop paying, you lose the right to complain in the only place you're told you can "officially" do it. And you will be gaslit with, "If you're subbed, you have no right to complain" by one half of the Great Community by the Way, and "If you're not subbed, its useless to complain cause it's not on the official forum" by the OTHER half of the Great Community by the Way.

So there's no way to complain without supporting their decision making, and there's no way to quit while still having your voice heard.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

BTW, remember, you only have the right to post here if you have an active sub. So, if you stop paying, you lose the right to complain in the only place you're told you can "officially" do it. And you will be gaslit with, "If you're subbed, you have no right to complain" by one half of the Great Community by the Way, and "If you're not subbed, its useless to complain cause it's not on the official forum" by the OTHER half of the Great Community by the Way.

So there's no way to complain without supporting their decision making, and there's no way to quit while still having your voice heard.

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And once you announce the "I will quit the game for xyz reason", you get the famous "Can I get your stuff" or "You won't be missed" answers first.
Unless it has become a critical situation wherein player retention and FFXIV profits go backwards. Then we add the :shocked_Pikachu_face:.

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Originally Posted by xbahax92

And once you announce the "I will quit the game for xyz reason", you get the famous "Can I get your stuff" or "You won't be missed" answers first.
Unless it has become a critical situation wherein player retention and FFXIV profits go backwards. Then we add the :shocked_Pikachu_face:.

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Wish I could upvote more than once, literally couldn't have said it better

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Originally Posted by xbahax92

And once you announce the "I will quit the game for xyz reason", you get the famous "Can I get your stuff" or "You won't be missed" answers first.
Unless it has become a critical situation wherein player retention and FFXIV profits go backwards. Then we add the :shocked_Pikachu_face:.

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Yes, or worse, people will come back with "sure, you'll be back, and then you'll say 'I'm leaving at x patch for sure if they don't fix y.'" Like there's always an excuse made to disregard somebody's stance or minimize the loss of players.

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Originally Posted by Auro_Seldaris

Brother, how many MORE bad decisions must they make before it's enough? How many MORE times must they lie, or obfuscate, or just not give you what they promised, or innovate, or fail to deliver on what little they ALREADY do, before you're done with it?

They've already decided that mechanical designs of fights cannot be anything else but "The same thing but faster" and decided that jobs must therefore be more simplified and mobie to compensate. Basically, putting ALL the difficulty in the "fake difficulty" of the DDR dance pattern, and simplifying the jobs into oblivion. That's it, they've already shown you where they're going. The same way that "one-off changes" in prior expansions weren't acutally a fluke, but an indicator of the future. How many times does a pattern have to repeat before people see it?

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Hey, look, I totally hear where you're coming from. At this point, the thing that is drawing me most to this game is crafting and gathering. I still enjoy that a lot, and frankly, it's my favorite way to wind down after a long day with work and the kids. *starts putting on clown makeup*... I'm sure they're not going to gut crafting and gathering to ruin that for players now, will they? ...*adds clown nose*

I will say that I have a while before my sub runs out, but I have not added time to my sub and turned off auto-renewal.

I do think its very funny that in an expansion explicitly about how you need hardships and strife to live a complete life and not become an incapable sheltered baby person they're going around lobotomizing every job and removing any possible pain point they can find to ensure things are as 'approachable' and frictionless as possible.

Been occasionally seeing some comments mention getting rid of the timer doesn't change anything and how it only punished inexperienced players, but I don't think that's right.

With 7.0-7.1x it limited Paradox's availability and otherwise you had to weigh your other instant cast options (proc'd fire3, triple/swiftcast, thunder, or a polyglot, etc) that likely may cause some amount dps loss, but now you can use it whenever during the fire phase for mobility/weave space. That tradeoff is just gone now.

If it was the punishment for dropping it that needed adjusting, wouldn't dropping a stack of Astral Fire and resetting the timer or so instead been enough?

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

If it was the punishment for dropping it that needed adjusting, wouldn't dropping a stack of Astral Fire and resetting the timer or so instead been enough?

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You could go one further and have Umbral Soul become 'Astral Soul' in Fire Phase, which costs a GCD, does nothing damagewise or MPwise, and instead just gives 1 AF stack. In regular gameplay, never touch it, and use Paradox to reset the timer as we currently do. In 'I have made a mistake' gameplay, it would allow you to set back up into AF3 to continue the rotation as before, but at the cost of spending 1 GCD on an action that deals no damage

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Originally Posted by xbahax92

And once you announce the "I will quit the game for xyz reason", you get the famous "Can I get your stuff" or "You won't be missed" answers first.
Unless it has become a critical situation wherein player retention and FFXIV profits go backwards. Then we add the :shocked_Pikachu_face:.

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It never ceases to weird me out how often MMO players celebrate people abandoning their... Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

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Originally Posted by Wired-Lain

It never ceases to weird me out how often MMO players celebrate people abandoning their... Massively Multiplayer Online Game.

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Well for the "Can i get your stuff?", the one to blame for that was over dramatic players doing a rage quit and writing a flamming post about it while saying they will never come back and that they are giving their gears and stuff away.... Then it get turned into a meme for when a player did a rage quit post on forum.

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Originally Posted by Wired-Lain

I do think its very funny that in an expansion explicitly about how you need hardships and strife to live a complete life and not become an incapable sheltered baby person they're going around lobotomizing every job and removing any possible pain point they can find to ensure things are as 'approachable' and frictionless as possible.

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Maybe they want us to suffer to teach us some hardships, by that they make every job unappealing and bland.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Maybe they want us to suffer to teach us some hardships, by that they make every job unappealing and bland.

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Farther still existed a star without strife...
...where none remembered life's trials─or its joys.
What its people had gained from ease, they lost to apathy.

I only started playing the game a couple months ago, really liked black mage and have played like, 400 hours just on black mage. I cancelled my subscription this morning after trying the changes because they just stripped all the intrinsic reward I got out of playing it. It's actually awful and I have no idea what, if anything, can be done to get them to revert this garbage.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Farther still existed a star without strife...
...where none remembered life's trials─or its joys.
What its people had gained from ease, they lost to apathy.

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A shockingly accurate description of the state of this game nowadays, one that seemingly went right over their heads.

They seem to have forgotten to grey out Fire IV at full Astral Gauge so you dont miss out on Paradox. Yoshi pls fix :)

Astral Fire is just spam fire 4 now, there is no complexity. Umbral Soul, Firestarter, Paradox have no or much reduced usefulness, and polyglot is just...a bonus resource you get every 30 seconds now, so why doesn't it just have Foul/Xenoglossy on a 30 second cooldown? So much of BLM is built around the Enochian Timer that just ripping it out has confused the entire thing.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

A shockingly accurate description of the state of this game nowadays, one that seemingly went right over their heads.

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I'd say it was easily heading that way the start of 6.0, its funny with each patch how much more true it gets though.

Help.

They won't go away anymore. It's basically DRK red glow all over again.

https://i.imgur.com/FMoE1Xj.png


Also, about the changes this only makes it easier to watch YT while running dungeons and don't fall to sleep.

WAR aura with any gauge < 50

also about as easy to use

Anybody have an idea what the JP or EU forums are saying about this? I really hope that the entire community is in agreement about this and being LOUD about their disapproval.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

WAR aura with any gauge < 50

also about as easy to use

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WAR at least has a buff to sometimes barely think about(for now).

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Originally Posted by HydraCentaurus

Astral Fire is just spam fire 4 now, there is no complexity. Umbral Soul, Firestarter, Paradox have no or much reduced usefulness, and polyglot is just...a bonus resource you get every 30 seconds now, so why doesn't it just have Foul/Xenoglossy on a 30 second cooldown? So much of BLM is built around the Enochian Timer that just ripping it out has confused the entire thing.

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Yeaaaah. It's very healer rotation now.

Given how fights were in Jueno and other content, I can kind of understand the reasoning for some of the changes, but the state BLM is in absolutely does not work. SMN has way more to do than this.