"closing the DPS gap"

BRD and MCH don't cast anylonger.

Enocian got changed.

We get a new HUD element.

Maybe some other little changes.

But in overall, what they showed looked in parts more complex than what we have now.

Will these changes really be the solution to get players dealing acceptbale damage instead of very bad damage?

After watching the stream yesterday, I don't expect this to happen.

Ultimately if players want to deal bad damage, they will, and I don't expect anything to change. What the changes do help with though is accessibility, they are less punishing on mistakes, more visually intuitive, and reward you for perfecting your rotation.

The changes and HUD change etc, wont change a player, it's actually up to them if they willing to accept the new changes (which many already do) and then the actually thing to try play the class well. Hopefully it will change the huge gap currently on MCH and BRD's.

The classes that got the most changes were the ones that punished you the most for making a SINGLE mistake (Black Mage), or had conflicting class design built into many of their skills (Bard). Bard especially was pretty much the poster child for a class that had a super wide skill gap for all the wrong reasons, and we got completely overhauled as a result.

In those cases, closing the gap means more about getting rid of bad complexity for the sake of complexity, and replacing it with something more accessible and intuitive instead. It would still be complex enough for us veterans to take advantage of the system - there's already talk among Black Mages about pulling off Fouls back to back since casting it doesn't appear to reset the Polygot progress bar.

For the majority of classes i feel this update will do nothing to increase the dps. Lets keep in mind they repeatedly stated that rotations will not change much if at all. As a nin player i would give this example.
Before update you have to keep track of huton, dancing edge (variable), shadow fang, mutilate + all ogcds that you have to use on cd to max dps. So thats 4 timers.
After update all thats changed is you get yet another element you have to keep track off on top of all that which is the nin bar (huton is now a pinwheel thingy which i feel doesnt change much for visibility purposes). It is definately geting more "complex" for the regular bads unless they somehow took out the dots and didnt tell us lol.

It looks streamlined, but this will still not close the DPS gap, if the underpreformers do not care. I would not be suprised to see the 1 button combo being added soon aswell.

Nothing will ever permanently close the damage gap nor should the devs bother striving for such a utopia. What this does accomplish is easing the playing field for more people to improve. We'll always have lazy players who don't care no matter what you do. It's the rest you want to encourage.

The ability bars for all jobs still were around 3 bars. That isn't much ability pruning. I wish they ran around more and explained stuff as they were just playing, there is not much you can go by when the example is running around with GM tools active.

The ability gauges look like they will be harder to fit onto smaller resolutions. I don't think it'll be fun to fit everything in on my laptop(I imagine PS4 would be similar).

PS4's fine. I've got room to spare with the way I've customized my HUD. I already know where I'll put the UI elements.

i think it never was intended to close the gap between the bad and the good players, but the gap between good (or let's say better than average) and very good. you lost your buffs too easily while doing mechanics, making it impossible for many competent players to clear the dps checks in alex savage and only the best of the best were able to clear the content. the rotations are still too complex for bad players, yeah, but the better than average players will likely be able to deal enough damage to clear endgame content with these changes.

I took the new changes, in a couple of ways.

From what they have shown it does look easier to me atleast, I think rotatations, buffs etc will be easier to maintain for more players making endgame more accessible for them, however I'm hoping mechanically savage etc will be more complex that the last tier to accommodate these changes. Even with the changes I don't see clear rates for savage jumping through the roof, sure some people didn't do great dps but I think for the majority of players who attempted but didn't clear it, would have been down to group competency and mechanics that holding them back.

On the other hand I think the visual cues will help newer or "bad" players alot, I look at this way, each job had has one built effectively around thier core rotation or utility. If that nice fancy HUD element isn't lighting up for you then basically it's the game telling you that you suck and something needs to change for you to light it up or maintain it for some jobs.

My take from it boils down to this; They are rewarding good play now instead of punishing bad play.

The bard/machinist change actually may, as it gives them a higher chance of damaging while moving..which I'm sure most don't do (I'm sometimes even guity of this)

As someone who plays one class well (Scholar) and another terribly (Warrior), I expect these changes to significantly improve my relative performance on warrior (I don't have the pugilist cross-class skills, and have GLA up to provoke), and scholars I see afraid of cleric stance should also move up from terrible to okay. Ideally there would be more accessible fairy management and DoT monitoring, but even if that doesn't happen, overall we should expect the Gini coefficient of DPS output to decrease on each job, which is valuable and true to their stated intentions.

They seem to be on the warpath against internal synergy, because apparently CD sync was too complex a concept for the average player and rewarding those with some degree of internal mechanical acumen was discouraging less insightful or otherwise disengaged players...

Thus the ceiling may well be reduced. But, that doesn't say anything about the floor.
For all I can tell, even if SE created a zero-synergy arsenal of damage abilities that one could roll their face around on or just key-pace back and forth over for optimal damage, many players would still neglect to even use them.

while the changes are nice its just a half hearted way of trying to teach rotation without actually putting the rotations in the game. at the very least the job gauges get the idea across of how the class is supposed to flow.

The only way to close the skill gap is to teach people their rotations. Even then it'll still be huge. These changes will help though. VERY slick graphics to look at and easy to understand

I'll say this based on another thread I posted in to remind me of something. Don't you think the skill gap is too big when 2 brds in i270 (keep in mind these are aoe situations) where one does 4k-6k DPS, healer does 2-3K range and the unskilled i270 brd does 1200?!?!?!?!?! I really hope this helps close that gap, along with getting rid of punishing players that are good but can't pull high numbers because ping made them miss refreshing enochain. It may also help for the lower end get a better clue what to do to some degree since the visuals show it.

The skill gap with mch and brd is really insane though. (maybe we should leave out seeing a i230? maybe? brd in the great gubal library who manage 275 dps on bosses and 400 dps on aoing with thier level 52 weapon ilevel bypassing -.-)

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

I'll say this based on another thread I posted in to remind me of something. Don't you think the skill gap is too big when 2 brds in i270 (keep in mind these are aoe situations) where one does 4k-6k DPS, healer does 2-3K range and the unskilled i270 brd does 1200?!?!?!?!?!

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Hyperbole aside... By fault of the system, no. By fault of the player (the shit Bard), yes.

But the only remedy for that is training, and not ceding to the lowest denominator.

Admittedly, there are concerns that contribute to "skill" gap that have nothing to do with thought, nuance, decisiveness, calculation, etc., but rather just being better able to hit the keys one wants to hit better than the next guy, where the gap could be reduced by simply reducing the amount of false option keys. But the rest? Is there really an issue with a someone who actually understands the priority system of his skills, CD sync, and his possible interactions with the given fight doing better than someone who can't be bothered to think about it or practice his job? Everything that isn't part of "just hitting buttons more accurately" is part of that.

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Originally Posted by Rhaja

My take from it boils down to this; They are rewarding good play now instead of punishing bad play.

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While that would be appreciated, if the case, I don't see how these changes have largely pointed in that direction. Note also that the line between the two is incredibly thin.

To be clear though, let's go ahead and define the two.
How much "good" play is there available within a given job's gameplay in a give fight compared to "bad" play.
If you see the potential for good play as being the narrower portion, then know that by advantaging it, you are disadvantaging anything that is not it -- the majority of gameplay, and therefore narrowing acceptable play.
If you see the "bad" play as the narrower portion, then punishing bad play acts more as a trap that steers you away from very specific forms of play, likely found to be less interesting, intensive, engaging, or simply less productive than everything else that remains outside of "bad" play, leaving a much wider range of options open.

To me the two are indistinguishable, but I can see how it at least lends itself to a "glass half full / half empty" connotation game.

That said, I'm not sure anything has changed but for BLM. They now have one concern when under the effect of Enochian, down from two. That's it. That's your reduction to the potential for "bad play" in job-unique mechanics.

For the rest, I'm seeing either no change or an increase in punitive output-manipulation. Take Paladin's shiny new Lightning Sword move (Requiescat), for example: it acts as Fight or Flight over time atop its mana-dependent heavy hit if and only if the Paladin's mana is over 80%. And this is after having given Paladin a second, worthwhile spell. Effectively, it becomes: don't touch your mana-based utility as Requiescat's coming up, and you better pay back any time you spend mana asap, lest you lose your stacking Fight or Flight version 2 buff. Bad play becomes "anything that fails to achieve 80+% mana at 80 second intervals".

How does that differ from the narrow "good" play of CD stacking or effective CD holding (where any failure to do so maximally is "bad" or at least "worse" play), which is 90% of every DPS's gameplay decision-making, regardless of job? The only difference I'm seeing is that I can make an obvious rotational difference in the short window of a CD (RS, HE, WF, BFB, IR, all these hefty contributors to skill-gap) to try to draw a little bit more out of it depending on the order of my abilities cast, my reactions, and my awareness, whereas this addition seems far more vague—in short, less exciting insofar as I can picture it. It's like timing ones Berserk, except that success is rendered not by action (e.g. offensive CD-popping) but by inaction (not spending mana if too close to the CD).

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Originally Posted by Lambdafish

Ultimately if players want to deal bad damage, they will, and I don't expect anything to change. What the changes do help with though is accessibility, they are less punishing on mistakes, more visually intuitive, and reward you for perfecting your rotation.

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It feels to me that they have raised the floor, skillwise, meaning more players will achieve average or better performance. On the other end those who master their job will differentiate themselves by their performance, but the gap between average and excellence will likely be smaller than during HW.

part of closing the gap imo is the substat changes. many people who dont raid have shit gear full of accuracy or parry (just look at shire tank gear). Non BiS gear won't be near as bad in comparison to BiS gear.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

part of closing the gap imo is the substat changes. many people who dont raid have shit gear full of accuracy or parry (just look at shire tank gear). Non BiS gear won't be near as bad in comparison to BiS gear.

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Gearing should never be a significant factor in the performance gap between players of equal ilvl - unless for some reason one player is deliberately wearing gear with the wrong stats. The idea that gear for the same job at the same ilvl should contribute more than a couple of % difference in performance is crazy to me, and it masks the skill difference making those with the 'better' gear appear better than they really are.

My understanding wise they do want it so that the average player or not so great player are on equal grounds, those that excel at their roles will of course be better

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Originally Posted by razzgrizz3

For the majority of classes i feel this update will do nothing to increase the dps. Lets keep in mind they repeatedly stated that rotations will not change much if at all. As a nin player i would give this example.
Before update you have to keep track of huton, dancing edge (variable), shadow fang, mutilate + all ogcds that you have to use on cd to max dps. So thats 4 timers.
After update all thats changed is you get yet another element you have to keep track off on top of all that which is the nin bar (huton is now a pinwheel thingy which i feel doesnt change much for visibility purposes). It is definately geting more "complex" for the regular bads unless they somehow took out the dots and didnt tell us lol.

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I do wonder if they made changes to DoTs because watching counters too much has been broadly mentioned even without talking about all timers.

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Originally Posted by Maero

My understanding wise they do want it so that the average player or not so great player are on equal grounds, those that excel at their roles will of course be better

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I think this is the key here: it's not so the bad players are close to the best players, it's so that average players don't find themselves doing half the damage as the best players (with the same equipment.)

The fact that Warriors are getting a bar that allows them to "pile up" their fell cleaves seem to add a lot more room for error. Before, not consuming these resources fast enough, and in the exactly right times, could result in a huge dive. Allowing you to conserve multiple uses opens up room for more relaxed timing without a complete waste of performance.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Hyperbole aside... By fault of the system, no. By fault of the player (the shit Bard), yes.

But the only remedy for that is training, and not ceding to the lowestdenominator.

Admittedly, there are concerns that contribute to "skill" gap that have nothing to do with thought, nuance, decisiveness, calculation, etc., but rather just being better able to hit the keys one wants to hit better than the next guy, where the gap could be reduced by simply reducing the amount of false option keys. But the rest? Is there really an issue with a someone who actually understands the priority system of his skills, CD sync, and his possible interactions with the given fight doing better than someone who can't be bothered to think about it or practice his job? Everything that isn't part of "just hitting buttons more accurately" is part of that.

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exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

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So you are misusing the term or doubting it really happened and yes it is very literal and 1200 is a literal dps aoe number that this one i270 brd pulled off in an expert.

Anyways we can also take this closing the dps gap with not allowing people to wear the wrong right side. That is good and all but still what about ilevel dodging the left? People put underleveled left a lot only to be carried by high ilevel on the right since the right is easier to get. Having a brd (different story now and yes this is literal numbers) in a level 60 df, last patch expert, The Great Gubal Library hard, with a bard pulling 275 DPS on bosses and 400s for aoe because in large part having a level 52 weapon (and rotations since level 50 at 50 sync can do 400-700 dps)This happened yesterday, btw.

I'm a returning player so I am not up to date with the min/max "meta" of the game now. Before I left the game 1-2 years ago food and potions were relatively important factor in min/maxing. Food/potions often require a lot of grinding (usually the hardcore players with a lot of time obtain) which is something that results in dps gap between average and top players. Maybe this is something that is still is a big factor and needs to be looked into if the desire is to decrease the dps gap?

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Originally Posted by MomoOG

I'm a returning player so I am not up to date with the min/max "meta" of the game now. Before I left the game 1-2 years ago food and potions were relatively important factor in min/maxing. Food/potions often require a lot of grinding (usually the hardcore players with a lot of time obtain) which is something that results in dps gap between average and top players. Maybe this is something that is still is a big factor and needs to be looked into if the desire is to decrease the dps gap?

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People are not talking about consumables with this issue. It is strictly knowing rotations. i/e 4000-6900 dps aoe vs 1200, same gear on aoe as brd.

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Originally Posted by Hamada

So you are misusing the term or doubting it really happened and yes it is very literal and 1200 is a literal dps aoe number that this one i270 brd pulled off in an expert.

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I'm not contesting that such idiots exist. But, especially given that you never mentioned AoE in your original quote, unless we're talking a half-minute Faust Z clear with additional padding, no one's sustaining 6k, nor any healer 3k. And certainly not in the same group as a DPS who's doing 1200. So, yes, I assumed hyperbole.

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

the hell, i was just talking expert trash aoe pulls, (I SAID AOE???) why does everyone assume people are talking about salvage?
I seen good brd range 4-6k on the same pull this other brd did 1200 on.. volly spam ftw???
This is your post:

How in the hell do you say I never said AoE?

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Shit, I was looking at the wrong post when mentioning the original. My apologies.

That's still some pretty tremendous burst even for AoE, though...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'm not contesting that such idiots exist. But, especially given that you never mentioned AoE in your original quote, unless we're talking a half-minute Faust Z clear with additional padding, no one's sustaining 6k, nor any healer 3k. And certainly not in the same group as a DPS who's doing 1200. So, yes, I assumed hyperbole.

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the hell, i was just talking expert trash aoe pulls, (I SAID AOE???) why does everyone assume people are talking about salvage?
I seen good brd range 4-6k on the same pull this other brd did 1200 on.. volly spam ftw???
This is your post:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Originally Posted by Ama_Hamada

I'll say this based on another thread I posted in to remind me of something. Don't you think the skill gap is too big when 2 brds in i270 (keep in mind these are aoe situations) where one does 4k-6k DPS, healer does 2-3K range and the unskilled i270 brd does 1200?!?!?!?!?!

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Hyperbole aside... By fault of the system, no. By fault of the player (the shit Bard), yes.

But the only remedy for that is training, and not ceding to the lowest denominator.

Admittedly, there are concerns that contribute to "skill" gap that have nothing to do with thought, nuance, decisiveness, calculation, etc., but rather just being better able to hit the keys one wants to hit better than the next guy, where the gap could be reduced by simply reducing the amount of false option keys. But the rest? Is there really an issue with a someone who actually understands the priority system of his skills, CD sync, and his possible interactions with the given fight doing better than someone who can't be bothered to think about it or practice his job? Everything that isn't part of "just hitting buttons more accurately" is part of that.

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How in the hell do you say I never said AoE?

It may close the gap a little if it makes the gameplay mistakes less punishing (looking at you blm) and raise the bottom level higher. But the players that want to push themselves to the limit will always do better than the ones that aren't as good.