FFXIV Job Design Feedback

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

Gonna have to be more specific on that, namely in terms of in what context and in what thread. Depending on where you put that it's either going to get brushed away or it's going to get paid attention to.

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Oh uhh, it was on mainsub, link here

maybe I worded things not so well, I dunno, but an attempt was made

The number of troglodytes who don't know the difference between design and balance is just equally hilarious and depressing.

This is where we are, people who thinks you can only balance jobs by making them play the same.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Oh uhh, it was on mainsub, link here

maybe I worded things not so well, I dunno, but an attempt was made

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You mentioned sharing the thread on Twitch before. How did that go?

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

You mentioned sharing the thread on Twitch before. How did that go?

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Might link the thread on the main sub later if I can think of a way to word it. It's also been posted in MrHappy's Q+A submissions, so it might get read about on the next Mondays with MrHappy episode. That'd be a nice amount of traction for the thread, and a whole video worth of content for him, so I think that's a win-win situation. Also got a few people from a streamer's chat to come in and give their takes (including the streamer). Couldn't think of a way to broach the subject with Zepla's chat though, that was the big one I was hoping to reach, but I've never actually sent a message in her chat (only 4 gift subs for the mount event), so yeh it'd be kinda awkward. Not to mention, she's having fun on Genshin, not thinking about FFXIV, and I feel like making her think about 'current state of the game' would just be a source of frustration

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lmao

For slightly more detail, the streamer that I managed to get to look at it was Serenaya Carrin. Was good content for an hour or so, gave him an excuse to not do UWU pugs for a bit. Tried Arthars, he didn't notice the message, one person asked for a link and I whispered it to em (didn't want to post links in twitch chat cos it's potential ban in some streamers chats and idk Arthars rules), didn't try asking again because don't want to be 'that one idiot who keeps spamming'. I've yet to watch MrHappy's latest Mondays w/ MrHappy, so IDK if he saw it or not there. Not tried anyone else yet, as I said before I think the biggest one would be Zepla, but I really don't want to drag her mood down with making her think about the current state of the game, while she's on her Genshin marathon. I do remember seeing her mention she LOVED loved SB AST though (kinda mood, though I was tank at the time, HW AST was my jam though), so she's got some strong opinions about how things are now compared to previously.

edit: MrHappy did in fact see the post which is unexpected. What is completely expected though is his response to it. It's a self-fulfilling cycle. If 'influencers' tell people 'there is no point trying' then people will think 'there is no point trying', and that leads to 'influencers' reading the room and saying 'wow looks like there's no point trying'

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

edit: MrHappy did in fact see the post which is unexpected. What is completely expected though is his response to it. It's a self-fulfilling cycle. If 'influencers' tell people 'there is no point trying' then people will think 'there is no point trying', and that leads to 'influencers' reading the room and saying 'wow looks like there's no point trying'

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Mrhappy laughing at the thread went about as well as I imagined it would be. He's done a couple of videos where he looks at the forum and talk down on some threads or call them troll threads (like the big story thread). For him it's mostly just his small group of influence that matters and everything else is mostly wrong.

That was discouraging.

I thought it was really interesting at the very least. Maybe I just shouldn't put it here next time.

I wouldn't get too discouraged honestly, if you've ever seen any video MrHappy has done on jobs then it's always been apparent that he lets changes just wash over him and be easily placated by whatever SE does in that department.

We'll see for ourselves if it doesn't amount to anything or not, considering the state of PvE gameplay is the most forefront criticism the game is facing as of now. Am I huffing copium? Perhaps.

I mean he’s got his reputation for a reason.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

That was discouraging.

I thought it was really interesting at the very least. Maybe I just shouldn't put it here next time.

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Just think about it the way I do: Endwalker's message was 'never give up, even when all hope seems lost', and that one person can be enough. He seems rather ambivalent, and completely fine with 'the Final Days' destroying things re: Jobs, possibly because it's not happened to a job he mains. As soon as DNC and MNK get obliterated by godawful design decisions, maybe he'd start paying attention more. Or maybe he'd just hop mains to something else

Least Serenaya was willing to look at the responses, even if he disagreed with... basically everybody's suggestions. But that's what surveys are for I guess, finding everyone's responses and finding the gems in the dirtpile

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

As soon as DNC and MNK get obliterated by godawful design decisions, maybe he'd start paying attention more. Or maybe he'd just hop mains to something else

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I've got some bad news LOL. MrHappy has always been fine with how MNK has played and rarely if ever says anything negative about the job, even when it was complete garbage in Shadowbringers. You could probably SMN-ify Monk and he would still play and be fine with it.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Least Serenaya was willing to look at the responses, even if he disagreed with... basically everybody's suggestions. But that's what surveys are for I guess, finding everyone's responses and finding the gems in the dirtpile

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When a company gathers data officially, that's exactly what they do. Written feedback does not mean "do exactly as everyone says." As the expert, it's your job to parse through that data and identify key stress points that are generating a negative response. Generally, you'd have a community feedback manager with a small team whose entire job is about collecting all that data, parsing through it, and deliver a report that filters through what aspects should be adjusted in a future update. That should go without saying, I think.

Mr Happy rarely says anything negative about the game that Yoshida hasn't already admitted to.

Too afraid of losing that influencer relationship IMO.

I mean thats the FFXIV community in a nutshell though, if you express any discontent about this game they spit venom really quickly.

As much as I wish this wasn't the case, what MrHappy said isn't completely untrue. As far as I know, this forum - being the official one - would be the most likely place that any feedback from the community would be taken into consideration by the devs. Now I don't know about JP side, but despite this being the place to go, it feels like the devs very much ignore what goes on here judging by their outgoing communication. Or they say "we hear you, but we're not going to do that," in the live letter. Or it is a passing remark in a Q&A: "Healers don't like their rotation? Hmm. I think I do remember hearing something along those lines before... Anyways." Because of this lack of an outlet of any consequence, the threshold of how much a person must want to voice their feedback before they actually do is much higher.

OP, I really appreciate and support the effort put in to push for feedback to heard. I don't know if it's a language barrier getting in the way, or a culture difference, or a prioritization of communities, but we who want change have to temper our expectations of Square Enix.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Mr Happy rarely says anything negative about the game that Yoshida hasn't already admitted to.

Too afraid of losing that influencer relationship IMO.

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Not that he even bothered to look at the thread of course, but it's not like the feedback documents are entirely negative. BLM, RDM, and DRG all have very strong overall reception, and while other jobs tend to have more mixed scores, there are several that still have modes of 10 across the board, like WAR.

Honestly you’d have more luck getting Xeno or arthars to make content about this thread. Happy is good for news but he’s pretty milquetoast about criticizing the game on really any level. Can’t jeopardize his media tour spot after all.

As I mentioned previously, I did ask in Arthars' chat but he didn't see the message and I'm not the kind of person to spam it over and over until I get timed out. Xeno might give it a look, no doubt he'd have a great time getting hella mad about people's ideas for the tanks.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Not that he even bothered to look at the thread of course, but it's not like the feedback documents are entirely negative. BLM, RDM, and DRG all have very strong overall reception, and while other jobs tend to have more mixed scores, there are several that still have modes of 10 across the board, like WAR.

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Will be interesting to compare DRG to the 7.0 version, wonder if it'll also drop like a rock, like SMN did, or if it'll sort of stay 'ok i guess' like PLD

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

As I mentioned previously, I did ask in Arthars' chat but he didn't see the message and I'm not the kind of person to spam it over and over until I get timed out. Xeno might give it a look, no doubt he'd have a great time getting hella mad about people's ideas for the tanks.



Will be interesting to compare DRG to the 7.0 version, wonder if it'll also drop like a rock, like SMN did, or if it'll sort of stay 'ok i guess' like PLD

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I'm very curious to see the reworks for DRG and AST. I know there's a lot of doubt in how those will turn out, but I have a lot more faith in DRG than I would most other jobs.

A thread and discussion about a SCH proposal that addresses some/many of the issues raised by SCH feedback to the survey:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Proposal-SCH

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Summary:

Ruin II replaced with Miasma: Instant cast, 400 MP cost, GCD that deals 200 Potency on initial hit (down 20 from current Ruin II), but has a 30 potency DoT for 15 seconds (5 ticks for 150 more, a total of 350 Potency or 55 gain over Broil IV), generates 5 Faerie Gauge per tick (for use on Aetherflow mini-Lustrates or Energy Drains). Useful as a movement tool for a relatively low DPS loss, useful as an upkeep DoT for a marginal gain over Broil IV spam, ideal 4x per min refresh.

Physic upgrades to Adlo: New Adlo has 450 Potency of healing, 120% shield (same 540 size as today), 700 MP cost (same cost as alternating Adlo/Physic casts today) [OPTIONAL: Reduce cast time to 1.5 sec to match Physic.]

Lustrate upgrades into Excogitation, Excogitation CD removed: Excog is now an AF dump and general use spot healing tool, in addition to its delayed use tool, opening it up for a lot of uses.

Dissipation: No longer dismisses Eos/Selene. That's it, and is the most fantastic change in the history of changes.

Aetherpact: Now a mini-Lustrate single target direct heal. Shares Faerie Gauge with Energy Drain, allowing a trade-off between damage and healing, and doesn't lock your Faerie out of other uses. Useable under Seraph now.

Energy Drain decoupled from Aetehrflow: Now costs Faerie Gauge, having a trade-off with the mini-Lustrate Aetherpact instead of locking players out of Soil, Excog, and Indom. More uses with good Miasma uptime, especially in AOE situations.

Whispering Dawn upgrades to Fey Blessing: All this does is add Blessing's AOE heal onto the front of Whispering Dawn's HoT. Simple change. Fey Blessing is now usable under Seraph as well in this new form. (OR combine Illumination with Blessing, but I think Whispering/Blessing is better...)

Broil IV now spreads DoTs from its target to enemy targets within 5y, giving SCH some cleave potential as well as making the AOE rotation even less Art-centric.

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By combining Physic/Adlo, Lustrate/Excog, and Whispering Dawn/Fey Blessing, it frees up a total of 3 Hotbar slots (not a ton, but it's something to fight the scourge of button bloat), it also makes the DPS rotation in both single target and AOE FAR more active than it is today, since you'll be generating a lot more Energy Drains (especially with good Miasma use), actually using Miasma (where Ruin II is often unused), and even mix up the AOE rotation by adding in Biolysis, Miasma, and Broil IV before returning you to your regularly scheduled Art of War spam. Energy Drain becomes a pseudo Thundercloud-ish proc (generated faster by DoT uptime on Miasma) that still trades off with healing (Aetherpact) while not cutting players off from Soil/Excog/Indom. Aetherpact becomes more generally useful. Faerie Gauge becomes a thing you won't just sit on 100 of all the time. And Excogitation becomes a useful AF dump in addition to its general use as a strong spot heal option.

The changes don't significantly change much, and add no new buttons/abilities (other than converting Ruin II into Miasma), but leave SCH with the same general playstyle it has now, but with small additions to make some of its abilities slightly more usable (mainly Aetherpact and Lustrate/Excogitation, Soil and Indom by not having to compete with ED, Adlo to an extent), give a slightly higher skill ceiling (good Miasma uptime might actually lead to a somewhat significant DPS increase if it's kept up all the time and the Faerie Gauge funneled into Energy Drains, but in a general sense, Energy Drain isn't a HUGE damage gain, and Miasma not a HUGE damage gain over Broil, so this doesn't highly gimp players not optimizing those tools while still allowing those that do some room for skill expression), a more engaging single target rotation, a MUCH more engaging AOE rotation, and consolidates some abilities to tamp down on button bloat.

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EDIT2:

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Just think about it the way I do: Endwalker's message was 'never give up, even when all hope seems lost', and that one person can be enough. He seems rather ambivalent, and completely fine with 'the Final Days' destroying things re: Jobs, possibly because it's not happened to a job he mains. As soon as DNC and MNK get obliterated by godawful design decisions, maybe he'd start paying attention more. Or maybe he'd just hop mains to something else

Least Serenaya was willing to look at the responses, even if he disagreed with... basically everybody's suggestions. But that's what surveys are for I guess, finding everyone's responses and finding the gems in the dirtpile

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A trueism of game design:

Players are VERY good at spotting problems with games.
Players are also VERY bad at coming up with solutions to those problems.

Feedback is useful for finding problems that need addressed, but the reason Devs rarely do what players ask for specifically is because those are usually (not always, but very often) bad ideas. Devs try to take the good ones, or the "good enough" ones and massage them into something workable, but there are as many or more bad ideas for solutions as there are good ones.

That doesn't mean the Devs shouldn't (or don't) listen, it just means the best solution isn't always what players think it should be. Heck, most of the reason MMOs get homogenization - a thing players then complain endlessly about - is because players ASKED for it, either directly or indirectly, over and over again.

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And to be fair, though his initial response was kind of...borderline callous, his point was correct. Not the it being worthless part, but his "the loudest group of people" and how few people are going to go to the forums/that it won't be an accurate representation. He's right about those things.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Feedback is useful for finding problems that need addressed, but the reason Devs rarely do what players ask for specifically is because those are usually (not always, but very often) bad ideas. Devs try to take the good ones, or the "good enough" ones and massage them into something workable, but there are as many or more bad ideas for solutions as there are good ones.

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They straight up said 'we didn't really know what to do with SCH'. So if people give ideas for SCH and 90% of the ideas are bad and 10% are good, that's still better than what the devs have got, which by their own admission is 'idk lmao'. If what they came up with when 'they didn't really know what to do with SCH' is a partywide sprint/mit, and whatever Protraction is trying to be, then 7.0 will likely have even less to go with because the few passable ideas they did have, were added in with 6.0. Even if the 'bad ideas' here make them think 'this is such a bad idea, in fact it is so bad we should do X instead', then the bad idea prompted that 'good idea' from the devs and that's still a win indirectly caused by someone giving their feedback

Protraction is pretty much a targetable thrill, dunno seemed a nice callback to the whole scholar/marauder thing they were going on about in the job quests. It’s also completely unnecessary, but for flavour reasons it’s kind of nice.

You know, I hadn't made that connection, but it does make sense.

(Wanted to bump for new people, but that's also something to say).

As for the feedback...hard to say......

I forgot I took some of those polls already, but thanks for the thread!

I was looking at the answers and one of those caught my eye, and it's for Dancers:

"A combat rez for their dance partners on a 2-3min cooldown"

That's actually a pretty neat idea of some unique defensive utility. I would even go further and raise the cooldown even more to 5 or 6 minutes and add the effect of this being a raise without ressurection sickness. It could be really nice as a maybe once-a-fight recovery because obviously your dance partner rezzing with lower dps impacts on your own dps.

Are they still open? I don't remember if I ever closed them.

I would really like to revamp the survey and share it more places, but it feels like it'd just be repetitive to do it now. I might consider doing another one after the media tour showcase to see what everyone's first impressions are, so hopefully that one will have a lot more polish and feel more professional so that I feel comfortable sharing it more places.

Raikai: Well, DNC is, of the Ranged, the one right now least in need of any aid. I do agree it would be an interesting bit of flavor utility. But then, Monk in FFTactics had a (somewhat hit or miss) raise, the Revive ability. But despite it being thematic, it isn't in FFXIV. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it just seems that DNC is the Ranged least in need of it. (BEFORE they (re)added MCH's Disassemble, I would have thought it getting a AED/Defibrilate or something would have made sense, but it seems to be doing a lot better now.)

Ty: It wasn't bad at all, and the data was useful, even with the caveats I've mentioned before. I think a few "lessons learned" could go a long way to making your next iteration even better. Some things are just hard to sus out of people (e.g. did SMN get low marks because people genuinely don't like it, because people that liked old SMN are upset and give it low marks regardless of how good it is because they blame it for losing the version they loved, or people who oppose "dumbing down" of the game in general giving it low marks regardless of the merits of the Job itself - it's VERY hard to actually tease out an answer to that). And it's also hard to control for samples (e.g. BLM is the least popular Job in the game excepting possibly MNK, and yet gets the highest rating of all Jobs in this survey, indicating either the sample was significantly different than the playerbase at large or included a lot of people that really like BLM in it somehow and/or the bulk of the people that rated BLM were those who like it with those that do not largely abstaining from it). And We've mentioned the issue of 1-10 vs 0-10 before, as well as how things like minor/major/total rework are...uh...vague and mean different things to different people.

But notwithstanding that, I still think you did a good job and I felt the results were interesting to read through and consider. A poll doesn't have to be perfect to still be useful.

I'd 100% support another in the future, and I think you're right that around the Media Tour would be a good time to see people's first impressions, and possibly a month or two after 7.0 launch itself to see how people feel with the Jobs once they've been released. Sort of a comparison of "what we thought it would be like" and "what it actually was like", which are always interesting.

The biggest mistake I made was having the option to fill in things you want to see more or less of. Because this was the outcome:

https://i.imgur.com/BMV33TR.jpg

It's too much information that can't be parsed through and doesn't really show how many people are of the same mind. I want to redo those segments to offer more specific options that can be shared on the public data far more clearly.

Yeah, makes sense.

When I went through and tried to catalogue all the responses I got from Reddit, it was a similar boat. Only in that case it was even WORSE since the answers were totally free-form, so I was trying to think of categories that seemed to be what people were saying, but then someone would give an answer straddling categories or something new, and by the time I was done, I had roughly a third of the answers worth of separate categories, which makes it nearly impossible to make much sense of other than the very general (granted, part of the point, but still) "love, like, neutral, dislike, hate" sentiment, as most people were...generally pretty clear on that part.

Doing mine and seeing yours definitely has given me more to stew on in terms of considering how pollsters do their jobs and how tricky it can be to get something actionable (or even parsable) out of it...

I'm thinking of rewording those questions to something along the lines of...

"What do you think [job name] needs to expand on?"
"Is there anything you think [job name] has too much of or doesn't need?"

Here are the options I'm thinking I'd give for each role. Note that some of the options might change for specific jobs based on what they do or don't have.

Tanks

• Basic Combo
• Other DPS Actions
• Gauge Actions
• Personal Mitigation
• Team Mitigation
• Personal Healing/Barriers
• Team Healing/Barriers
• Aggro Management
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Melee DPS

• Basic Combo
• Other DPS Actions
• Gauge Actions
• Positionals
• Damage Buffs
• Mitigation
• Healing/Barriers
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Physical Ranged DPS

• Basic Combo
• Other DPS Actions
• Gauge Actions
• Damage Buffs
• Mitigation
• Healing/Barriers
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Caster DPS

• Cast Time DPS Actions
• Instant Cast DPS Actions
• DPS Cooldowns (oGCD)
• Gauge Actions
• Damage Buffs
• Mitigation
• Healing/Barriers
• MP Management
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Healers

• Cast Time DPS Actions
• Instant Cast DPS Actions
• DPS Cooldowns (oGCD)
• Healing Spells (GCD)
• Healing Abilities (oGCD)
• Barrier Spells (GCD)
• Barrier Abilities (oGCD)
• Gauge Actions
• Damage Buffs
• Single Target Mitigation
• Party Mitigation
• MP Management
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Is there anything I'm missing in any of those? Or anything I could be more specific about that would be worth expanding on? Or anything I'm being too specific with?

^^

I concur with most of your list. However, other than boss positioning, gap closers, and the usual long-ranged pull options, would mobility be a concern for tanks compared to melee dps?

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Originally Posted by RokkuEkkusu

^^

I concur with most of your list. However, other than boss positioning, gap closers, and the usual long-ranged pull options, would mobility be a concern for tanks compared to melee dps?

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I believe mobility was a concern for GNB when they're repositioning bosses a while back because Continuation was too short and they couldn't weave and pull the boss easily for people? I think that was the only case where tank mobility was an issue.

Tanks play in melee range, so mobility will always be of concern to them. They could probably stand to have their movement tools be renovated, though. ARR-era Shoulder Tackle design on tank gap closers no longer makes sense when we have the likes of Thunderclap and Ingress/Egress on melee jobs. If more versatile movement tools become the norm across all jobs, then there's the potential for much more dynamic fight designs with lots of movement. I'd suggest draw-in effects as another design possibility, but the last time we had those they broke mechanics by letting you interrupt mob actions that you shouldn't be able to.

The other thing that should be brought back to the role is proc-based counter attacks, like Shield Swipe and the original Reprisal action. They don't always have to be available, but it would be nice if you could land a big counter off of a scripted fight event, like on tankbusters or specific raidwides. Perhaps even tie in a 'stagger' effect to them. Outside of that they really just need to balance the tank role internally, especially when it comes to defensives and self-sustain.

The Continuation issue on GNB has to do with movement jank on mobs that's been present since ARR. Mobs stop moving to perform autos or use actions, so you have to anticipate this while repositioning or lose uptime. The requirements just become more precise when you're in a higher APM portion of your rotation.

I get the game is moving in a direction that is counter to this..but here goes:

Similar to ARR/HW, I wish tanks had a higher damage rotation that generated zero enmity, and a low damage but high enmity rotation.

The point being you only need to hold enough enmity to keep the mobs on you. So, grab and lock down em it’s, then damage it up.

We already have colored enmity icons to gauge when other party members are getting close to pulling hate. All you had to do was throw a few enmity rotas ‘til they’re back in yellow/green.

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Similar to ARR/HW, I wish tanks had a higher damage rotation that generated zero enmity, and a low damage but high enmity rotation.

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Start fight, enmity combo, swap for rest of fight. That is, in a very simple nutshell, how it worked in SB. It wasn't some intricate dance you done, it wasn't rewarding and I, infact, would describe it more as a punishment rather than a reward. You aren't rewarded with more damage, you are punished with less. The following topic is the most recent one that has happened on the tank forums and goes into way more detail about the issues with the design:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-want-it-back

Suffice it to say, as it was, it was not a good design.

Two biggest issues plaguing job design currently. Two-minute meta and only 4 people in the job design team. Fix both and a lot of issues players have with the current game will improve.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Raikai: Well, DNC is, of the Ranged, the one right now least in need of any aid. I do agree it would be an interesting bit of flavor utility. But then, Monk in FFTactics had a (somewhat hit or miss) raise, the Revive ability. But despite it being thematic, it isn't in FFXIV. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, it just seems that DNC is the Ranged least in need of it. (BEFORE they (re)added MCH's Disassemble, I would have thought it getting a AED/Defibrilate or something would have made sense, but it seems to be doing a lot better now.)

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The idea of a dance partner rez that also comes with no rez sickness seems interesting to me actually because of the selfish aspect of it rather than "Oh look how I'm helping the raises". Usually when your dance partner dies, it can be optimal to find someone else to CP until that person fully recovers from the sickness, however with this, there's once in a fight (due to the cooldown) 'chance' to overlap it, which seems to be quite a specific situation when it comes to DNCs.

EW Monks is accidentally a really well designed job imo with it's engaging burst windows. I hope it maintains this W into DT

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Originally Posted by Amh_Wilzuun

EW Monks is accidentally a really well designed job imo with it's engaging burst windows. I hope it maintains this W into DT

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I wouldn't get my hopes up, TK MNK in 4.3 was 'accidentally a really well designed rotation with engaging burst windows' and it got nuked

Happy to have added to the “ew SMN is a dumpster fire” in the results

I know they wont do this, but would be nice for them to change DRK's fighting stance.