What's the general vibe of the current gap between skill floor and ceiling?

Shadowbringers brought us an extensive tightening of the skill floor/ceiling. And so far, it seems like Endwalker has brought the skill ceiling down even further. How close do these thresholds have to be before trying to actually master your job becomes so inconsequential to render the effort pointless? If the guy who is pressing just a couple buttons and watching netflix is only underperforming 1 or 2 percent compared to the guy playing near optimal, is that good design? Feel free to discuss. I am still kind of just on the fence. I am enjoying the xpac so far though.

I forget who mentioned it in an earlier thread, but it would appear the focus is more on encounter design than it is on class skills. Yes, there are few buttons to push but people who don't get out of the AoE's now will continue not to and optimization will occur on a fight by fight basis. Whether that actually ends up being the case is up for debate, but it does make a certain amount of sense.

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Originally Posted by BigHoffie

I forget who mentioned it in an earlier thread, but it would appear the focus is more on encounter design than it is on class skills. Yes, there are few buttons to push but people who don't get out of the AoE's now will continue not to and optimization will occur on a fight by fight basis. Whether that actually ends up being the case is up for debate, but it does make a certain amount of sense.

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That makes hardly any sense because they have not increased encounter difficulty in Shadowbringers. If anything they have largely decreased it, outside of E8S and TEA (which were cleared faster compared to encounters that IMO had easier mechanics, partially because of the lower job complexity).

It's the typical copium from people thinking that easier jobs means harder encounters. They have shown that to not be the case.

Furthermore, encounter difficulty does not make up for the lack of job complexity because a huge part of early week 1 progression is to learn how to optimize your job well enough to get an early clear. The easier the jobs, the faster you can optimize your job in the encounter, and therefore the easier the encounter as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

That makes hardly any sense because they have not increased encounter difficulty in Shadowbringers. If anything they have largely decreased it, outside of E8S and TEA (which were cleared faster compared to encounters that IMO had easier mechanics, partially because of the lower job complexity).

It's the typical copium from people thinking that easier jobs means harder encounters. They have shown that to not be the case.

Furthermore, encounter difficulty does not make up for the lack of job complexity because a huge part of early week 1 progression is to learn how to optimize your job well enough to get an early clear. The easier the jobs, the faster you can optimize your job in the encounter, and therefore the easier the encounter as a whole.

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Whatever man, I'm not going to pretend to have the vast stores of knowledge of encounter design that you so obviously do. Not sure if that's what the kids are calling "copium" or not, but I just said that if it ends up being the case it would make sense.

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Originally Posted by DinahDemiurge

Shadowbringers brought us an extensive tightening of the skill floor/ceiling. And so far, it seems like Endwalker has brought the skill ceiling down even further. How close do these thresholds have to be before trying to actually master your job becomes so inconsequential to render the effort pointless? If the guy who is pressing just a couple buttons and watching netflix is only underperforming 1 or 2 percent compared to the guy playing near optimal, is that good design? Feel free to discuss. I am still kind of just on the fence. I am enjoying the xpac so far though.

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I think you need to explain this better. I have seen plenty of people not play there class well and underperforming over 1 - 2%. Where are these numbers coming from and please provide examples of this tightening.

I felt like the removal of seals to cast divination on AST lowered the ceiling for sure. Yeah it sucks to die and start a fight with zero seals but sleeve draw(now removed) usually solved that. I like being able to fail and the simplification of jobs to remove failure conditions lowers enjoyment from overcoming those difficulties. I am sure a lot of monks disliked how some boss mechanics made it difficult to land positionals but it probably felt great for many others when they succeeded.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

I think you need to explain this better. I have seen plenty of people not play there class well and underperforming over 1 - 2%. Where are these numbers coming from and please provide examples of this tightening.

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I am talking about the trend, not the current state of the game. The trend is to a narrower gap between floor and ceiling.

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Originally Posted by Skiros

That makes hardly any sense because they have not increased encounter difficulty in Shadowbringers. If anything they have largely decreased it, outside of E8S and TEA (which were cleared faster compared to encounters that IMO had easier mechanics, partially because of the lower job complexity).

It's the typical copium from people thinking that easier jobs means harder encounters. They have shown that to not be the case.

Furthermore, encounter difficulty does not make up for the lack of job complexity because a huge part of early week 1 progression is to learn how to optimize your job well enough to get an early clear. The easier the jobs, the faster you can optimize your job in the encounter, and therefore the easier the encounter as a whole.

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Pardon me for asking, but what character do you have this experience on? Since it's not the one in your profile to be making such claims.

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Originally Posted by DinahDemiurge

I am talking about the trend, not the current state of the game. The trend is to a narrower gap between floor and ceiling.

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There is content for everyone typically. Narrowing a gap doesn't bring more players into content they did not do before.

"They're making the encounters more complex to account for the lack of job complexity!!" - Raids easier than they're ever been.
"They're removing cleric stance / healer damage abilities because the next raids are gonna require insane amount of healing!" - You can heal every savage fight with OGCDs. Hope you like having 1 dot and spamming malefic while having nothing to heal if your group is even remotely competent.
Classics.