Pre-4.0 Concern

This is the first expansion I've been on content for, in Heavensward I was still a ways away from being 50 or completing MSQ. I also wasn't on this board at the time.

I have to know - is the doom and gloom mentality always the thing to do in the weeks before an expansion? It's happening in the tank and DPS forums as well (though maybe not to the extent of us here) and I want to get an idea of how seriously to take it. There are thresds about unsubbing, even threads complaining about classes like AST that recieved pretty much exclusively buffs.

So are we always chicken little before an expansion or is Stormblood unique and I should actually be concerned? I swear I'm not trying to poke fun at anyone here, I'd just like to know the appropriate level of concern.

Honestly, you'd be better off not bothering with the forums at this point. Yes, there were things similar to this for HW (Not as bad, though, I'll admit)

Honestly its not the end of the world. Part of the issue is a lot of people haven't actually played the new classes in context so its hard to be sure plus the numbers aren't yet set in stone so alarming numbers make people worried.

I personally have been very off put by WHM but not because of its numbers. My issue is with the design of the skill which will factor in regardless of the numbers. WHM will be very much viable and you will be able to complete all the content with it. Its just that its design is flawed and seems to be counterintuitive to the healing design of the game that the other two healers seem to be built for. It is such that I wouldn't play WHM, not because its not viable but because its just not as well built, plus I find the removal of cleric stance and the lack of any real replacement mechanic leaves me rather uninterested in a Job which has very few mechanics built in and AST just offers a lot more.

Heavensward wasn't as bad, but tbh I feel like the community in general has become more... uhhh... bandwagon-y over the course of 3.x

People don't come to forums to say they had a great time, or they're excited. They come to tell everyone how unhappy they are. That's why video game forums are always so doom and gloom.

Having said that, the official FF14 forums here... we're pretty whiny. It's getting worse too. I'm very excited for the expansion if it means anything to you though!

By this point as well most people have done all that they feel they will accomplish in HW, or close to it. Looking forward to what awaits in SB is what keeps many coming to the forums, whether it be good or bad things, as well as whether its legit worrying or not.

Hell if I remember correctly weren't people worried WARs would be sidelined by DRKs for a bit before HW came out?

There will always be people worried about their character or job or class in games that feature big updates. Go to any forum for any game before a big update hits, like this, and I can guarantee you'll see people saying they may as well just delete XXXX. It's just especially bad here because WHMs had felt they were getting the short end of the stick for a while due to the constant (and justified, mostly) buffs AST had been getting for the last 2 years. We felt they overdid it a bit in 3.4 and so were looking to SB for Squenix to dial it down a notch, but instead it looks as though they doubled down.

Is it hyperbolic? Almost certainly. But in amongst the calls for pre-order cancellations and the like there are some valid points.

Well good to know, definitely sort of confirming my suspicions. Thanks guys!

I mained WHM for quite some time and one bit of input I have on the hate around lillies and confession - I am of the opinion that healer DPS is mandatory. Stance dancing meant relying on HoTs for my primary healing so that the majority of my healing could happen while I toss out damage. With stance dancing gone my initial WHM reaction was that you could weave healing into your DPS rotation which could make cure 1 and 2 much more viable options.

I'm by no means claiming that the changes to WHM are definitely going to be awesome but I really felt like people were overreacting and forgeting to overlay the lack of stance dancing and the effect that is going to have on your gameplay which could see WHM as more of a direct healer than a HoT one.

Just my 2 cents, thanks for the input guys!

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Originally Posted by GeekMatt

Heavensward wasn't as bad, but tbh I feel like the community in general has become more... uhhh... bandwagon-y over the course of 3.x

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It's easier for people to jump on the bandwagon if the dev makes more obvious mistakes & let people lose more trust in them.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

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WHM doesn't just rely on HoT, but their entire skillset, which has a lot of instant oGCD heal. There's really no reason for them to use Cure unless a massive amount of dmg is coming & they used up all the other CDs.

Btw, if a large portion of players are complaining, then maybe, just maybe, they have solid reasons instead of simply "forgetting" something.

double post wops

I wouldn't pay too much attention to it for a few reasons

1- Beside the WHM, most job won' receive any adjustement but numbers, and it is unrealistic to expect every job to be well balanced on release.

WHM is a bit special since a lot of people complained. However, as many other people pointed, we don't know how healing will be in 4.0.We don't know how much heal will be required in 4.0
One thing every expansion in WoW thought me, do not base too much assumption based on what you're currently playing.

For instance, in WoW 1.0, healers had huge mana issue and overhealing was a serious business, healers were suppose to use various rank of the same spells (different potency) to match what healing was needed in order to save mana, they were also stop casting in case someone else healed before them.
WoW 2.0 gave healer nearly unlimited mana, but damage were very unpredictable and quick, this made smart heal (your heal targets based on missing hp) extremely important. Some fight couldn't be cleared without enough smart heal as damage came too quick and too randmonly to be done manually, especially in the last raid, sunwell.
WoW 3.0 had their spells rank consolidated to a form you currently know in FF14, (fast heal, heal, big heal for instance), damage became less spiky and more in line with what you currently have in FF14 except that fight required healers to spam a lot, they had no time to dps, not that their dps mattered in any form or shape. Also, many situationnal heal were introduced, basically, "timed heal" you place it while no need is required and activate when needed. The goal was to make healing more interactive and everyone's business.
From this moment, the subsequent expansion only brought new or refined mechanics, but the core idea on "how you should heal" was fixed.

You can consider that FF14 is going through another maturing phase.
2.0 jobs were extremely basic from a gameplay perspective, if you take a look at what healers in WoW can do for example, you'll get to realise that FF healers had actually very little variety. How can I put it, they were very very main stream. (Like WoW in 1.0), basically they had safe design. WHM for instance: Fast heal, heal, Big heal, aoe heal, big aoeheal(HoT), Regen.... yeah... you covered it. These are pretty "basic skill, they have nothing unique"
3.0 properly started giving jobs more identity and more interesting and fun spells to use, Assize, Essential Dignity, Deployment tactic etc. However, if you take a good look, AST and WHM felt very similar in gameplay, but AST had the cards, and WHM had nothing special. SCH was in a good position with interesting mechanic and choice.

Now, in 4.0, they basically try to refine these things and clean a bit the mass that has accumulated over the 2.0 and 3.0 by removing useless spells, consolidating them etc.
For instance, when WHM screams that they're loosing what's making them unique, Divine Seal, you see how poorly developped the WHM job was.
What makes you a special snowflake is your ability to do30% more heal every 90sec? That's rather sad.
In WoW for instance, in 2.0 if you asked someone "What comes to your mind when I tell you Holy Priest", great spells like Prayer of Mending, Cirche of Healing, Binding Heal were all great tools totally unique to Holy Priest. They were great and fun to use.

This is why the WHM is the only healer receiving a proper new mechanic, from a mechanic persective, AST and SCH receive nothing new, AST will be played the same with 1-2 new tools so will SCH with a few adjustement regarding the fairy.
There's the lily but also that new shield mechanic.

Now, people are concerned that THIS won't be enough (and I agree with them, it feels very underwhelming for a job that should become "ZE HEAL" ).

But every game and every expansion people had this kind of fears, because they compared to what they know, but things can drastically change from one xpac to anotheri
f we just take a look at WoW (and don't believe WoW is very different from FF14... they're actually very similar game in many regards, Yoshida was an avid WoW player before stepping into this project, and he actually forced the dev team to play the game when tehy were developping 2.0, you don't recreat the wheel everytime) we can see how huge the change from 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0 were. And FF14 change are as deep in many regards.
Not only the jobs but the way raids are handled.

We don't know how raid will be and after a few tweaks, the situation might be very bright fr the WHM, we all know how astro were in 3.0

So,, I would say, dont pay too much attention to it and if you wanna play WHM, go for it. (unless you aim for top server first)

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

So,, I would say, dont pay too much attention to it and if you wanna play WHM, go for it. (unless you aim for top server first)

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I would actually suggest that people, including the OP, pay very close attention and offer (reasoned) feedback. Actual play experience is generally valued, yes, but I think the potential issues are glaring enough to warrant some early concern.

As for the rest of the message, I agree absolutely: if you want to play a Job, go for it. SE, despite some arguable (er...glaring) misses here and there, tends to take action to ensure that Jobs are not abandoned. The main reason the WHM furor is so intense is that expectations have been high for WHM to receive positive adjustments and additions to help it feel special and powerful in its own right when compared to the other two healers, particularly AST now. The preliminary information on 4.0 WHM is cause for concern for anyone who believed there was a disparity and expected an actual improvement, but anything can happen. Just ask AST between 3.0 and 3.4.

I mentioned it before in another thread, and I'll say it again now. The white mage fury is not something that's just happening. It's something that many WHM players have been bottling up and dev decisions and messages have triggered an explosion. Essentially, it's a time bomb and SE made it explode instead of diffusing it. So... why did it explode and not diffuse?

SE promised tanks and healers both that the reason we weren't getting any new jobs to play in Stormblood was because they were spending the time and focusing on balancing the jobs. WHMs have been kinda peeved since 3.0 that a lot of our utility has just been whored out to the other 2 healers and we really haven't had much in return. 3.0 also saw a second nerf to Holy something that the scholars are now feeling with the nerf of Bane. Granted, the nerf to Bane is a more severe since they're also losing the stacking Bio to it and damage from Miasma, IIRC.

Anyway, back on subject. Looking at the jobs it's pretty clear that WHM is not balanced with the other healers. And one of our main peeves-- giving abilities to other jobs, happened yet again. We have access to the fewest amount of skills/effects/etc, the buffs and abilities to AST have made it much stronger at healing, we got nothing of the utility we wanted and that both other healers have. Instead, SE is pushing this "vision" of a "pure healer" onto the job which is something the community not only doesn't want, but the game itself doesn't really support a demand for. Furthermore, we were given a new mechanic that rewards us for not using most of the spells that we generally use and even punishes us for using some of those skills as well. With the loss of Stoneskin, white mage no longer has an in-job form of mitigation or shielding until level 66. This will make young white mages leveling experience more difficult 1-60.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

SE is pushing this "vision" of a "pure healer" onto the job which is something the community... doesn't want

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Personally taking more of an optimistic "Wait and See" approach, and just trying to ignore the doom and gloom coming off the forums. There may be legitimate criticisms here and there, but a lot of it comes off as preemptive whining. But anyway, trying to ignore that aside, leaning more towards the pessimistic side, it seems to me as though SE is very much trying to push a particular meta with little to no care for what players in general may have established between themselves previously. Things like the severe gimping of AoE abilities across the board seem very indicative of their determination to push things in a certain direction. I recall reading an interview where Heavensward was described as an "Expansion" of what they began with A Realm Reborn, while Stormblood is a "Revolution". Taking this to refer primarily to the gameplay, and the sweeping changes to ability structure and use when compared to HW, it seems to me like SE is determined to take things in a certain direction with SB. Whether this turns out to be for better or for worse, I'll reiterate my intent to reserve judgement until after the expansion is actually out.

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Originally Posted by Reiryuu

SE promised tanks and healers both that the reason we weren't getting any new jobs to play in Stormblood was because they were spending the time and focusing on balancing the jobs. WHMs have been kinda peeved since 3.0 that a lot of our utility has just been whored out to the other 2 healers and we really haven't had much in return.

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When I see this sentiment I almost invariably disregard the rest of the post because it's kind of ridiculous, but I wanted to address it before getting to the rest. The design focus of HW was to normalize healer utility and WHM definitely benefited from that. SCH gained the ability to turn adlo and succor into cure II and medica respectively once every 30 seconds with Emergency Tactics as a method of shoring up their poor AoE utility, as well as an AoE variant of lustrate with the same 30 second cooldown to help fill in that issue, and gained a weird and costly spin on divine seal that actually required sacrificing the fairy. In return WHM gained a stronger version of Lustrate gated by a 60 second cooldown in Tetragrammaton, as well as their own spin on both Aetherize and Indomitability in Assize which returns half the mana of Aetherize but also deals damage and AoE heals like indom, albeit with with a 90 second cooldown rather than Aetherize's 60s. They also received their own bubble mechanic in Asylum which was both unique and different from sacred soil. In this way the two classes moved closer to each other in effectiveness, borrowing ideas from one another while still maintaining a healthy design focus that made the abilities unique and interesting to the class.

The problem is, and I think has always been, that AST is a WHM clone with cards. All of its base abilities are only slightly tweaked variants of the WHM class, with Benefic II being Cure II, Luminous Aether as Shroud, Gravity as Holy, Collective Unconsciousness is Asylum, Essential Diginity is Tetragrammaton, and so on. While some moves like Synastry (divine seal) and Lightspeed (presence of mind) manage to take WHM abilities in a unique direction, an AST still plays largely identical to a WHM, and this is rather hard to avoid. Even in Noct stance all you're doing is giving shields to a WHM as it doesn't have any analog to the SCH playstyle otherwise outside of Disable (which will no longer be a case come 4.0). And this I think is the issue, because AST doesn't have its own core identity. It very much plays like a WHM with card mechanics instead of Assize, and that's just lazy design.

And now in SB we see a heavier normalization, where much of what made the SCH playstyle unique is being reduced and the WHM class is being stripped to "homogenize" the classes further. Aetherize is being reduced to 10% mana regen and Assize's cooldown reduced to 60 seconds giving them identical mana return, and shroud is being given to SCHs as a mana regen even though no one ever asked for it, and certainly not at the expense of Aetherize's efficiency. This is horrendous from my perspective not only because it makes SCH and WHM mana regen identical outside of Energy Drain (which costs stacks), but because SCH abilities have had their mana costs increased across the board for little to no reason; just looking at a single example that all three classes have, Stone IV (260 pot) and Malefic II (210 pot) are both 720 MP, but Broil II (230 pot) is 960 MP . Why?! And this trend actually continues for most SCH abilities in comparison, especially compared to AST like Succor and Adlo against their aspected alternatives.

As far as role abilities go, every class lost something. All classes lost Esuna, which is just annoying. SCH and AST both lost Virus/Disable, though unique to this they lost it completely to DPS roles. WHM and AST both lost Shroud of Saints/Luminous Aether and Divine Seal/Synastry. SCH lost Eye for an Eye. WHM lost Protect and Cleric Stance. AST lost Stella (no one cares, though), though WHM and SCH lost their passive heavy effects on Cure I and Miasma. And all of this was taken without giving anything back. While most of these can be regained, it still leaves a bit of a hole in one's perceptions because of it.

And compounding on all of that, it looks like for some reason the Stormsblood design decision is that WHM needed their own unique spin on Aetherize stacks using RNG procs as a base, and this isn't what the players wanted. Because let's be clear, that's what the Lilies and confessions are. They're charges you get that can be used as a resource for powerful moves with gated cost and cooldown, the unique difference being rather than coming from a purposeful action like Aetherize they come from RNG procs, and no healer likes RNG. It honestly feels like they were wanting to inject a WHM variant of part of the SCH playstyle, but dropped the ball trying to keep it with a unique flavor, and the results are fairly unexciting. And to make matters worse, if it was the playstyle in general that attracted WHMs, this leaves AST as the class closest to HW WHM come Stormsblood since their core precepts were largely left alone, and this might be a large annoyance to those with a WHM who never leveled an AST.

It's ok to experiment, S-E, but what made WHM/SCH so much fun in ARR was their unique complimentary identities where playing each role felt like a separate class with the same goal. You did fine with the two in HW in compensating for both classes' weaknesses while still keeping the class design focus intact and I applaud that, but you're taking the homogenization too far; you've gutted SCH DPS and largely ignored the WHM playstyle of the past two years in order to introduce a new mechanic that is both unintuitive and lackluster, and you have still largely failed to give AST its own unique identity beyond "WHM clone with cards". Earthly Star is very neat and a step in the right direction, especially with its time-delay mechanic, so we know you can do it if you try.... Or rather, we hope you can. Our enjoyment with the classes depends on it.

Some people overreact by either threatening to unsub or say that they will refuse to take x class into a raid, dungeon, etc. For almost everyone else, life will go on, and most changes will go unrecognized by the majority of players.

Some people overreact by either threatening to unsub or say that they will refuse to take x class into a raid, dungeon, etc. For almost everyone else, life will go on, and most changes will go unrecognized by the majority of players.

Sorry for the double post. Site is odd at times.

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Originally Posted by Nikolas

Some people overreact by either threatening to unsub or say that they will refuse to take x class into a raid, dungeon, etc. For almost everyone else, life will go on, and most changes will go unrecognized by the majority of players.

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A 180 page consolidated thread in less than a week is not "some" people.

I'd wager many players who care enough about this game and WHM to post on the forums recognize the issues WHMs are facing. It's not an overreaction to say that the way SE wants me to play WHM in 4.0 (Cure spam) is completely different from how I've played WHM in PvE for years and I don't like the direction they're taking it. If something isn't changed, I'll not play WHM anymore because spamming cure is not what I consider an engaging experience.

That being said, refusing to take WHM into dungeons? Whoever said that is crazy, WHM is going to be the strongest dungeon healer with how much AOE they have.

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Originally Posted by LegoTechnic

explanation

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I have the feeling, it's gonna be painful for staff to re-design/adjust healers during this expansion.

SE need to think about this :
- SCH identity should be Shield and Fairy.
- WHM identity should be Raw Healing and ??? (should be Elements with unique effect, or a kind of transe).
- AST identity should be ??? (remove the two stances or suggest something unique, not a copy past) and Cards.

SCH is the healer with the identity the most established but partially overshadowed because of AST.


I repost here my suggestion for WHM :

Secret of Lily :
Not based anymore on % chance, but instead would grow the flower step by step (it's a gauge flower).
All your heals would increase the gauge (overheal don't work), DPS too but less.
When the gauge flower is at its maximum, you can release its power which would transform some of your spells during 15 sec.
When you use a spell transformed it can't be used again during the duration of the transe.
You can use a maximum of 3 spells transformed.

Fluid Aura become Cascade.
Cascade : Deal water damage with a potency of 200 to nearby enemies.
Additional Effect: Water damage over time with a potency of 60 for 12s.
MP Cost : 0
Cast Time : Instant
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 0y
Radius : 10y

Raise become Arise.
Arise : Resurrects target without weakened state and with full life.
MP Cost : 1,25x Raise
Cast Time : 5 sec
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 30y
Radius 0y

Holy become Ultima.
Ultima : Deal damage to target with a potency of 400 and 250 to all nearby enemies.
It's considered as 2 spells.
MP Cost : 3x Holy
Cast Time : 3 sec
Cooldown : 120 sec
Range : 25y
Radius : 15y

Benediction become Phoenix Benediction.
Phoenix Benediction : Restores all of a target's HP.
Additional Effect : The target is raised automatically with low HP and weakened state if he die.
MP Cost : 0
Cast Time : Instant
Cooldown : 180 sec
Range : 30y
Radius : 0y


Secret of Lily II : add additionnals transformations. You can use now a maximum of 5 spells transformed.

Stone IV become Quake.
Quake : Deal earth damage with a potency of 250 to target.
Additional Effect : Magic damage deal to target are increased by 10% for 12 sec.
MP Cost : 1,75x Stone IV
Cast Time : 2,5 sec
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 25y
Radius : 0y

Aero III become Tornado.
Tornado : Deals wind damage with a potency of 150 to target and all enemies nearby it.
Channeling Effect : Wind damage with a potency of 75 every 2 sec.
MP Cost : 1,5x Aero III
Cast Time : 2.5 sec (more if the player is channeling)
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 25y
Radius : 10y

Divine Bension become Stoneskin.
Stoneskin : Creates a barrier around self and all party members near you that absorbs damage totaling 15% of maximum HP.
MP Cost : 0
Cast Time : Instant
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 0y
Radius : 15y


PS : If the WHM plays very well, he can fill his gauge in 1 min.

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Originally Posted by CyrilLucifer

A 180 page consolidated thread in less than a week is not "some" people.

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He said some people overreact by doing x things. There's certainly legitimate concerns about WHM but there's also a ton of hyperbole. It's been difficult to sort out the two (especially in that thread).

Well this is the first time they've basically reworked the entire battle system, waited 3 weeks before launch to drop this delicious hot mess on us with very little time to correct any gear changes.
So yah
Theres a bit of extra rage this time round.

Myself personally dont mind ...because I'm a bard. And that's all i need to know.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

Fluid Aura become Cascade.
Cascade : Deal water damage with a potency of 200 to nearby enemies.
Additional Effect: Water damage over time with a potency of 60 for 12s.
MP Cost : 0
Cast Time : Instant
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 0y
Radius : 10y

Divine Bension become Stoneskin.
Stoneskin : Creates a barrier around self and all party members near you that absorbs damage totaling 15% of maximum HP.
MP Cost : 0
Cast Time : Instant
Cooldown : 2.5 sec
Range : 0y
Radius : 15y

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Two things I would change is Cascade having a large AoE ground target that sucks all enemies in like Whirlpool and binds, makes life easier for tanks. Potentially.

As for Benson, I would give it single target but adds 1:1 Reflect up to the max amount the shield HP is.

Another idea is you have two gauges on the UI. Lily is for healing skills and Confession is for damage skills.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

...There's certainly legitimate concerns about WHM but there's also a ton of hyperbole. It's been difficult to sort out the two (especially in that thread).

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That's the difficult part, is some of these threads out there are basically asking the same thing and people are giving some good suggestions but these people who create these threads wanting to start a discussion get tons of pages but no one updating the front page so it can be consolidated. Not just on WHM that someone has seem to of done, but every job. SMN's a mess to track down, and now MCH feel the same need to yell..

There are concerns that are completely valid, then there's people reacting to the most minor things and some don't even deal with those details in the first place. Someone analyzes changes (say whm or smn..mch..brd..drk..oh pick one someone feels it's gods wrath upon them) and someone who doesn't even parse goes "Oh wow..a 8.30238402% decrease in X DPS that was already increased in patch 3.23 is being nerfed again? This is bad..guys? guys?! this is bad. I mean I can feel it when I don't hit as hard. In my heart..my soul I know I'm doing 100 less damage a hit and it hurts. I..I'm depressed. I want to cry, I can't sleep at night." Then they go crazy and stand on the street corner yelling the end is near.

What's bothersome is that there's no constructive way these are being done. The dev's aren't going to respond to " X job sucks! " or "SE, just doesn't..care"

They respond to things that are stated in a more calm manner, and with something to back it up. We get it here at work too, but there's very little that we will do with a request that goes "This is trash, fix it." compared to " These are the issues I have when I log in..." The first difference is one requires guessing while the other narrows things down.

When you implement anything, something will probably go belly up. I've yet to see a corporate wide change that doesn't upset or break something. People fail to see that.

On top of that the theory-crafting needs to be stated that it's just a theory. These other players are taking it as serious signs of crap hitting the fan. You are letting a person who isn't able to tell the difference and they're running with it. "It's not my fault" ..yes..in part it is. A person who starts to fire doesn't get to walk away, they need to help contain it.

Plus these really good threads or posts are lost in translation. These thread starters are not updating their post. There's one now about talking about WHM changes, well half way down the page they say "I like those" ...yet nothing is updated on their first post. If you want to help and you make a thread, keep up with it and update it.

Then you have these "hard-core" / "I've played X MMO's over X years. I ran a forum!" who make 8 posts and don't know how to use the edit button or when they do they don't go back and consolidate their crap.

I come to these forums and reddit to find new information I miss and you get great topics. Macros, useful tid-bits. It's frustrating that these things are still out there but they're covered up from the..so far at this moment 5 SCH threads that all could talk about the same thing, or the white mage ones that all talk about the same thing. There is that mega thread but what's going to stop someone from making a new one each day and more things falling through the cracks.

What Reiryuu is doing, that's time & effort. That's something Devs will respond to and has the best chance at change they see are needed. Not "Why I'll be quitting WHM; the once simple healer" salt threads.

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Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki

This is the first expansion I've been on content for, in Heavensward I was still a ways away from being 50 or completing MSQ. I also wasn't on this board at the time.

I have to know - is the doom and gloom mentality always the thing to do in the weeks before an expansion? It's happening in the tank and DPS forums as well (though maybe not to the extent of us here) and I want to get an idea of how seriously to take it. There are thresds about unsubbing, even threads complaining about classes like AST that recieved pretty much exclusively buffs.

So are we always chicken little before an expansion or is Stormblood unique and I should actually be concerned? I swear I'm not trying to poke fun at anyone here, I'd just like to know the appropriate level of concern.

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This about normal these days for western players of any mmo these days. People say they want change but when they get it they freak out before trying it. Sometimes it's justified sometimes not. Also, all the game is dying or doomed people like to rear their heads around expansions or major patches. Nothing new lately in the mmo world.