Why is square enix so keen on cutting debuffs abilities?

In Shadowbringers we will no longer have an ability that can blind enemies. While this is a minor thing, I feel pretty sad since it actually had uses during big pulls for example and it could have been utilised as an unique effect for one of the tanks. We also will lose our only pacification skill and most bind/heavy effects are gone.

Why is this? I remember when ruin 2 had blind on it and stone 1 had heavy. I understand those changes but I see no reason deleting something like flash. It was pretty unique and added variety to the skills. Now that paladin has a "proper" aoe rotation they could have easily made it non-GC ability and added some damage to it, but no, they just had to cut it along with shield swipe.

There is no downside to adding debuffs to some skills, it has literally 0 negative effects and only adds to the flavour/uniqueness of the ability. Especially dark knight is a missed opportunity on this, I feel they could have given him a blind.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

Especially dark knight is a missed opportunity on this, I feel they could have given him a blind.

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They are actually removing DRKs AoE blind in ShB, he had it since the job was released in HW.

So no chance of getting a Saboteur?

And what use does Bad Breath have now if debuffs are being removed?

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Originally Posted by Kaiten_kenbu

So no chance of getting a Saboteur?

And what use does Bad Breath have now if debuffs are being removed?

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only certain player debuffs are being removed, AFAIK monster debuffs are still in the game, thankfully.

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Originally Posted by Samsta

In Shadowbringers we will no longer have an ability that can blind enemies. While this is a minor thing, I feel pretty sad since it actually had uses during big pulls for example and it could have been utilised as an unique effect for one of the tanks. We also will lose our only pacification skill and most bind/heavy effects are gone.

Why is this? I remember when ruin 2 had blind on it and stone 1 had heavy. I understand those changes but I see no reason deleting something like flash. It was pretty unique and added variety to the skills. Now that paladin has a "proper" aoe rotation they could have easily made it non-GC ability and added some damage to it, but no, they just had to cut it along with shield swipe.

There is no downside to adding debuffs to some skills, it has literally 0 negative effects and only adds to the flavour/uniqueness of the ability. Especially dark knight is a missed opportunity on this, I feel they could have given him a blind.

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Don't forget when Rage of Halone had a Strength Debuff on it. Disembowel also use to have a piercing debuff I believe. Rage of Halone is obviously totally gone now but I believe disembowel is still there.

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Originally Posted by Lavitias

Don't forget when Rage of Halone had a Strength Debuff on it. Disembowel also use to have a piercing debuff I believe. Rage of Halone is obviously totally gone now but I believe disembowel is still there.

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These debuffs were removed because they caused balancing issues. DRGs piercing debuff made him a mandatory party member when you used BRD and / or MCH and PLDs strenght debuff was just outright worse than DRKs int debuff and WARs debuff wich reduced all damage by 10%, because these debuffs reduced incoming AoE damage for the party, while PLDs debuff did not (incoming AoE damage is nearly all the time magic based and never physical).

I know why they were removed was just adding on to the list of debuffs that were removed.

Well, I recall that a lot of those debuff skills had their effects moved to Role Actions in Stormblood, so that's part of where they all went.

All the tank Debuff combos had their effects removed, and instead they got an "all-around" debuff in Reprisal.

I think they keep removing CC effects simply because they hate having to take those into account for dungeons. Binds I recall were really not liked, because you could tie down an enemy outside a boss room, and wait for the room to lock them out. Even though by this point, all boss rooms are locked until trash is KO'd anyway.

Crowd Control, when you boil it down, is a devastating debuff that prevents a target from using some or all of it's abilities, and so it's quite hard to balance.

Most devs just go with keeping it working on anything important. Which is lazy, but ... I can't really blame them for it.

They dumbed down the game simply more.. the only debuff that this game knows now are just degenerations over degenerations.. really shallow game design if you ask me... oh and useless crap like slow and binds against which most enemies are immune, unless we speak of trash mobs naturally...

They also removed all kinds of weapon type related buffs/debuffs, to further dumb down and simplify the game..now thats naturally somethign you can say is for one kind of player a blessing for others a curse. For me, I say its simply dumbing down the game and removing aspects ,that could make the combats in FF14 more interesting, aspects, that required the player to know their class and for what exactly your skills are good and useful - all not required now anymore, the game becomes more of a button masher, where it becomes irrelevant what the skills do, because alot of interestign side effects simply got removed that play now absolute no role anymore in this game, and at the same time the classes feel due to this being nerfed - ALOT - especially for my taste the Astrologist feels massively nerfed due to the garbage SE did to this class's card system.

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

They dumbed down the game simply more.. the only debuff that this game knows now are just degenerations over degenerations.. really shallow game design if you ask me... oh and useless crap like slow and binds against which most enemies are immune, unless we speak of trash mobs naturally...

They also removed all kinds of weapon type related buffs/debuffs, to further dumb down and simplify the game..now thats naturally somethign you can say is for one kind of player a blessing for others a curse. For me, I say its simply dumbing down the game and removing aspects ,that could make the combats in FF14 more interesting, aspects, that required the player to know their class and for what exactly your skills are good and useful - all not required now anymore, the game becomes more of a button masher, where it becomes irrelevant what the skills do, because alot of interestign side effects simply got removed that play now absolute no role anymore in this game, and at the same time the classes feel due to this being nerfed - ALOT - especially for my taste the Astrologist feels massively nerfed due to the garbage SE did to this class's card system.

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Having the weapon type buff/debuffs didn't make the gameplay more interesting. It was bad game design to begin with, bad job synergy. You didn't see Caster classes having any of that did you? Plus, not very many of this games debuffs were good to begin with. So its a lot of good riddance. And oh no, can't have that meta group set up anymore, so its clearly a dumbed down nerf.

Instead of calling it downed down, call it for what it is. SE lack of communication that leads to weird and odd changes.

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Originally Posted by battleshadow66

SE lack of communication that leads to weird and odd changes.

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Don't pin it all on SE, players are at fault as well. See the 100 "X sucks because of Y" threads and post after post about minute instances of being kicked or shunned because their job isn't optimal. Some from players who haven't even cleared Savage or Ultimate.

I would say Baldesion Arsenal is the best show of communication from players to devs alike because the designers wanted to try something outside of feedback, and world wide everyone spoke up at once. And there was an earnest response from Yoshi and others who I am ashamed for not remembering as well. Translated to boot.

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Originally Posted by Kaiserdrache

They dumbed down the game simply more.. the only debuff that this game knows now are just degenerations over degenerations.. really shallow game design if you ask me... oh and useless crap like slow and binds against which most enemies are immune, unless we speak of trash mobs naturally...

They also removed all kinds of weapon type related buffs/debuffs, to further dumb down and simplify the game..now thats naturally somethign you can say is for one kind of player a blessing for others a curse. For me, I say its simply dumbing down the game and removing aspects ,that could make the combats in FF14 more interesting, aspects, that required the player to know their class and for what exactly your skills are good and useful - all not required now anymore, the game becomes more of a button masher, where it becomes irrelevant what the skills do, because alot of interestign side effects simply got removed that play now absolute no role anymore in this game, and at the same time the classes feel due to this being nerfed - ALOT - especially for my taste the Astrologist feels massively nerfed due to the garbage SE did to this class's card system.

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How did Piercing or Slashing made anything more interesting? The former made Dragoon all but mandatory while the latter was ubiquitous enough to be a non-issue. While I do agree they went a bit overboard with things like Astro's cards. The weapon debuffs aren't missed by any stretch. Even as a Dragoon main myself, it's nice knowing I can swap jobs and not screw over my Bard for the week.

Completely removing those kinds of debuffs because of balance issues is the easy/cheap way out. I know the dev team isn't huge but there are a lot of other options they could have taken without taxing their development resources: dragoon's piercing debuff maybe could have been altered so only the dragoon benefitted from the effect.

Maybe I'm in the minority but I enjoy having to manage minor things like debuffs and am a little disapointed to see these changes.