Unhappy with 6.1 Samurai Adjustments

The Samurai changes in 6.1 have made me not want to play the job.

I don't think I've ever posted in the official forums before, but the devs asked for feedback and I'd like to add my voice to the cacophony. In short, I am very unhappy with the removal of Hissatsu: Kaiten and some of the other changes in 6.1. So, point by point:

Hissatsu: Kaiten and the Kenki Gauge
The main sticking point for me is Kaiten, and I have two problems with its removal. The first is that it simply felt good to use; winding up for a big strike fulfilled the job fantasy of samurai for me. The second is that I now dislike the kenki gauge in its entirety; Shinten is the most boring ability samurai has, and the other kenki spenders' cooldowns line up perfectly with Ikishoten, negating any sort of gauge mangement requirements.

If Kaiten remains gone, I would rather see the complete removal of the kenki gauge. If a kenki spender must be removed, I would prefer to keep Kaiten and remove Shinten. It would be neat to play around using Kaiten on some combo finishers rather than just Iaijutsu.

Tenka Goken
The second problem I have is the circle aoe on Tenka Goken. Because the animation wasn't designed with a circle in mind, it loses the visual impact and satisfaction. I don't like that samurai now has to manage a cast time in the middle of a dungeon pack, and I don't like that in dungeons a samurai is best off just standing directly on top of the tank. Personally, I'd prefer if all of samurai's aoe were cones, but I understand that I may be in the minority with that.

I'm also unhappy with the way the potency numbers behave, which is related to the removal of Kaiten. Spending the sen gained from samurai's aoe combo on Hagakure instead of Tenka Goken, unless Tsubame Gaeshi is available, is only slightly less damaging. That difference is made up for the moment a samurai has to move and cancel a Tenka Goken cast.

Potency Changes
This is a minor issue for me, but the current potencies leave Midare Setsugekka at barely more damage than a direct crit from a combo finisher. Don't like that.

Auto-Crits
I understand this one and don't mind always getting the big hits on Iaijutsu, I enjoy warrior as much as ever, but it's important that they actually feel like crits.

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Hopefully that's useful feedback. I'm a relatively casual player who's been with the game since about 2.2ish, I don't step much further than Extremes due to not having the groups to play with. I like to have one job from each role to main, and samurai was my main melee dps. As it is now, I don't think I have a main melee dps any more.

I have added your voice to the " Compiled SAM threads against 6.1 " thread. Many are unhappy with the changes. And like you and I, many weren't compelled to post anything until the 6.1 SAM changes. Quite literally robbed the enjoyment of playing the job.

I agree with your points. Kaiten removal is a big kick in the " Chocobo ". I also prefer Tenka Goken as a Cone AoE, I do not like casting it forcefully in harms way in hte middle of the pack, nor standing near a tank to cast it and the animation not making sense either now. It's like a Fart the slashes out of my back when I clearly slash forward. Potency changes with Auto-Crits removed the " Oomph " feeling from charging Kaiten... It's just not satisfying to play anymore.

Hopefully our feedback will be heard and taken seriously.

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Originally Posted by RadiantSun

Auto-Crits
I understand this one and don't mind always getting the big hits on Iaijutsu, I enjoy warrior as much as ever, but it's important that they actually feel like crits.

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The problem is we aren't "always getting the big hits" - between the removal of Kaiten and the potency redistribution, our current Midare crits hit for less than our non-crits did before - they might as well have just made it so Midare couldn't crit and we'd be seeing the same numbers.

My samurai isn't BiS by any means, but my warrior has even worse gear and gets bigger crits with Fell Cleave than my samurai does with Midare.

The other problem is that a big part of what makes warrior auto-direct-crits feel good is that they're only auto-direct-crits if you prep them with Berserk or Infuriate - having a wind-up skill (like Kaiten) makes a huge difference - if truly automatic, the impact is greatly diminished (like we're seeing now with Midare).

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my warrior has even worse gear and gets bigger crits with Fell Cleave than my samurai does with Midare

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I just realized how absurd this is. The lowest-dps tank does more per hit with their main big hitter than the greedy dps does with theirs despite Fel Cleave also being more spammable than Midare.

EDIT: Correction: Inner Chaos is what does as much as Midare, not Fell Cleave - this is much more understandable given the 1m cooldown.

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Originally Posted by cjbeagle

The problem is we aren't "always getting the big hits" - between the removal of Kaiten and the potency redistribution, our current Midare crits hit for less than our non-crits did before - they might as well have just made it so Midare couldn't crit and we'd be seeing the same numbers.

My samurai isn't BiS by any means, but my warrior has even worse gear and gets bigger crits with Fel Cleave than my samurai does with Midare.

The other problem is that a big part of what makes warrior auto-direct-crits feel good is that they're only auto-direct-crits if you prep them with Berserk or Infuriate - having a wind-up skill (like Kaiten) makes a huge difference - if truly automatic, the impact is greatly diminished (like we're seeing now with Midare).

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I just realized how absurd this is. The lowest-dps tank does more per hit with their main big hitter than the greedy dps does with theirs despite Fel Cleave also being more spammable than Midare.

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Damn... I mean, wow, that is beyond absurd. Not only does that suck, but I think something like that would probably be a better change to Kaiten than outright removing it. If it being a 50% increase is such a problem with the crit variance, they could just ""slightly"" lower the potencies we had on Midare, Tenka, Ogi, and Higanbana, and make Kaiten grant crit (maybe direct, too?) And from there, SAM might have more of a decision between kaiten or shinten during the Sen building combos.

For me, it'd be kaiten majority of the time as that's how I'd been playing since the change in SB, but I do think altering Kaiten mightve been the best compromise they could make regarding all the issues they've stated.

I still want them to consolidate some buttons and make Shinten/Kyuten transform, but that's just because I want all the previous samurai skills back, too.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

If it being a 50% increase is such a problem with the crit variance, they could just ""slightly"" lower the potencies we had on Midare, Tenka, Ogi, and Higanbana, and make Kaiten grant crit (maybe direct, too?) And from there, SAM might have more of a decision between kaiten or shinten during the Sen building combos.

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I would love this - using Kaiten for more than just Iaijutsu would be so much more satisfying than Shinten spam.

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Originally Posted by xAFROx

I want all the previous samurai skills back, too.

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I've only been around since last summer, but I miss Seigan - that button alone made the job feel much faster-paced.

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Originally Posted by cjbeagle

I would love this - using Kaiten for more than just Iaijutsu would be so much more satisfying than Shinten spam.
I've only been around since last summer, but I miss Seigan - that button alone made the job feel much faster-paced.

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I had such a weird daydream of FFXIV having Skill tree's or Skill options for PVE, allowing us to make skills go one path or the other in our Action&Traits window for a small gil fee.

- Tenka Goken Cone or Circular?
- Shoha a Cone or Single Target?
- Shoha II a Cone or Circular?
- Meditate Refreshing Fugetsu & Fuka? or more faster Kenki
- Gyoten kept the same? or costing 0 Kenki to use but has near no potency?
- Fuga Cone with updated potency and Kenki or Fuko Circular?
- Kyoten Cone or Circular?
- Kaeshi: Higanbana being a 20 yalm radius dot.... err I mean... I guess?
- Yaten to grant Enhanced Enpi or Enhanced Gyoten?
- Third Eye activating Seigan or granting Kenki?

Just the sense of options. We somehow can pick whichever job we wish almost whenever we want? yet we cannot pick the skills the way we want them only 1 type? It makes for easier balancing, players also will probably find BiS Skilltree's for x y z as well... but this sense of " something tailored to my personal preference " is not present.

You either play with the singular Path Square gives you that's it. 1 rotation path that's it. Which is fine btw it works, it's just once this 1 Path rotation execution gets changed there's no fall back to something else within that Job, right? Kaiten removal yeah you're stuck with Kaiten removal. Tenka Goken now Circular yeah you're stuck with that.

This is probably not even OP thread related honestly... I am sharing a daydream... I am daydreaming of Samurai... I need a break where's my house =__=;; ( tries to cope by staring at the placard with the Nr0 with me as the only participant )

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

I had such a weird daydream of FFXIV having Skill tree's or Skill options for PVE, allowing us to make skills go one path or the other in our Action&Traits window for a small gil fee.

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I'm glad I'm not the only one pondering stuff like this. When I first started playing FFXIV I didn't miss talent trees at all because the jobs felt so well-designed that they didn't seem to want for variables, but that's changed over time, starting with the removal of Seigan, and exploding in 6.1.

I wish SE would consider using talent trees as a way to cater to multiple player profiles within a single job.

Third Eye + Seigan requires more of the player than simply gaining kenki and spamming Shinten, so it caters to players who enjoy having more buttons to press.

Could even make the harder choices be a little more rewarding in terms of potency/effect.

For example, the recent change to Third Eye as a talent choice: want a Third Eye that lasts 3 seconds and gives 10 kenki if consumed, or one that lasts 6 seconds but only gives 5 kenki if successful?

There's an abundance of ways they could use talent choices to allow players to tailor gameplay to their liking without affecting balance at all,
but I think it's just as important, maybe more-so, to note that they could also use such choices as a way to simplify jobs (at some cost to performance) for players who want that simplicity instead of dumbing down the jobs for everyone.

Talent trees would be interesting. In the way you guys are suggesting, I think that would be doable.

Me personally, I always wondered what xiv would be like if it had the sub-job thing from xi and how that might work, but I assume something in that light already existed and was removed back in arr and hw with the cross class skills.

It'll likely never happen, but the ability to pick and choose certain effects that aren't all that different from one another in terms of overall performance would probably be nice to have if that was ever possible

I think talent trees if done right would be a great boon to resolving a lot of these issues with people saying aspects of a job are too complex or not rewarding enough, because a player might be able to drop an ability they don't like or enhance one that they do like. However I think it would create a slippery slope that would risk starting to dilute the identity of jobs. I might be really annoyed with the direction that SE has taken its job design lately, but I think one of FFXIV's strengths is that each job has only one role. There are no specs, no talent points, no trinkets, no enchantments, no armor set bonuses, no legendary items. Maybe we shouldn't mess with that formula.

WoW was built for talent trees, FFXIV was not. WoW has greatly altered its talent system throughout the history of the game, but for the most part the system has always had the same function and purpose. I don't know if such a system would be as good in practice as we'd all love it to be in theory.

Another important thing to note is that most of WoW's classes have at least two group roles covered. There are a few "pure DPS" classes like the mage, rogue, and warlock. But no "pure healer" or "pure tank" classes. Whereas every job in FFXIV is purely devoted to one group role. If we start letting jobs branch out into multiple group roles, that will effectively create more jobs for SE to balance. Each spec in WoW is almost a class unto itself, which is frankly why I'm shocked that Blizzard is adding Evokers. I'm looking forward to trying one, but I don't envy their balance team having to juggle roughly 40 different specs at this point.

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Originally Posted by Theodric_Thorne

I think talent trees if done right would be a great boon to resolving a lot of these issues with people saying aspects of a job are too complex or not rewarding enough, because a player might be able to drop an ability they don't like or enhance one that they do like. However I think it would create a slippery slope that would risk starting to dilute the identity of jobs. I might be really annoyed with the direction that SE has taken its job design lately, but I think one of FFXIV's strengths is that each job has only one role. There are no specs, no talent points, no trinkets, no enchantments, no armor set bonuses, no legendary items. Maybe we shouldn't mess with that formula.

WoW was built for talent trees, FFXIV was not. WoW has greatly altered its talent system throughout the history of the game, but for the most part the system has always had the same function and purpose. I don't know if such a system would be as good in practice as we'd all love it to be in theory.

Another important thing to note is that most of WoW's classes have at least two group roles covered. There are a few "pure DPS" classes like the mage, rogue, and warlock. But no "pure healer" or "pure tank" classes. Whereas every job in FFXIV is purely devoted to one group role. If we start letting jobs branch out into multiple group roles, that will effectively create more jobs for SE to balance. Each spec in WoW is almost a class unto itself, which is frankly why I'm shocked that Blizzard is adding Evokers. I'm looking forward to trying one, but I don't envy their balance team having to juggle roughly 40 different specs at this point.

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I don't have much experience in WoW so I can't comment on that part, but I want to bring up Lost Ark and it's tripod system (talents). The talents don't drastically change the core of the class, they only alter the gameplay around the same identity. I think it's the perfect solution if they want to have an easy tree and a hard tree. It's a Risk vs Reward, where both talent choices are within a few % of each other. There are also minor deviations you can do that are purely preferential, and most do not care what you bring so long as you don't straight up troll (IE Take two talents that cancel each other out).

The formula as it is has been hacked away at so much that hacking any further will leave us with nothing. Something needs to be built on this, starting now. That's how I feel on the matter.

FFXIV originally had a joke of a talent system before, they just removed it because the direction they were going made everything rigid. Everything that was problematic was simply removed.

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Originally Posted by Theodric_Thorne

I think talent trees if done right would be a great boon to resolving a lot of these issues with people saying aspects of a job are too complex or not rewarding enough, because a player might be able to drop an ability they don't like or enhance one that they do like. However I think it would create a slippery slope that would risk starting to dilute the identity of jobs. I might be really annoyed with the direction that SE has taken its job design lately, but I think one of FFXIV's strengths is that each job has only one role. There are no specs, no talent points, no trinkets, no enchantments, no armor set bonuses, no legendary items. Maybe we shouldn't mess with that formula.

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You're not wrong, but to be clear, when I say talents I don't mean anything like WoW's systems. WoW's talents were completely game-changing and had massive impacts on balance - what I'm contemplating is more along the lines of "Do you want X AOE to be circle or cone?" - same damage, same kenki generation - just pick the AOE type you like. Or, even for the ones that do alter gameplay, like the example with Seigan, it's still based on successfully mitigating damage with Third Eye and gaining a damage output by doing so, the question is if you want that damage to ultimately come passively from Shinten spam, or from Seigan, Seigan requiring an additional button to press.

If not careful, it could absolutely disrupt balance, but at this point it seems worth consideration considering how often and thoroughly they've been undermining job design that people enjoy(ed). I'm generally very tentative when it comes to messing with a formula that is known to work well, but the changes they've been making don't work well - virtually every job if not literally every job is unhappy with various changes they've received, and usually because the changes move ever toward job homogenization. I agree that every job should have a unique identity, but that's what we've been losing. With talents perhaps we could keep job identity for the more complex choices and leave the homogenization as a matter of choice that newbies can opt into to make things easier while veterans who want the full experience of the job can keep it.

I'm not advocating, or even entertaining the idea of letting tanks be dps or dps be tanks or healers to be dps or whatnot, just some minor tweaks that could either make jobs more enjoyable based on player preference without affecting balance, or make the jobs a little easier at the cost of a little performance.

The three main goals would be entwined: 1) let players tailor their kits to their liking while also 2) introducing ways to simplify kits for those who want simpler kits, albeit at a cost to performance, which 3) prevents the need for SE to simplify kits across the board like they've been doing, sparing those of us who don't want simplification.

The cone hate in 6.1 frustrates me in every single dungeon. I can't think of a single time I went "thank god Tenka Goken is now a circle," but almost every dungeon contains "cool the tank decided to move as soon as I needed to do my cast bar PBAoE," and/or "there's too many AoEs during my cast bar PBAoE so I can't attack." I wish they would please revert this solution in need of a problem.

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Originally Posted by angelar_

The cone hate in 6.1 frustrates me in every single dungeon. I can't think of a single time I went "thank god Tenka Goken is now a circle," but almost every dungeon contains "cool the tank decided to move as soon as I needed to do my cast bar PBAoE," and/or "there's too many AoEs during my cast bar PBAoE so I can't attack." I wish they would please revert this solution in need of a problem.

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Would be nice if they also gave some power back to Tenka Goken as well. Even if the cone was brought back, the potency needs to be there too. Right now, I find better use for my 2 Sen tokens spamming Hagakure and Kyuten instead of building to use shoha 2. Not sure if that's actually better, but it feels more satisfying to go ham with those between every gcd roll

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Originally Posted by angelar_

The cone hate in 6.1 frustrates me in every single dungeon. I can't think of a single time I went "thank god Tenka Goken is now a circle," but almost every dungeon contains "cool the tank decided to move as soon as I needed to do my cast bar PBAoE," and/or "there's too many AoEs during my cast bar PBAoE so I can't attack." I wish they would please revert this solution in need of a problem.

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THANK YOU!!

Like I am not the only one. This change frustrates me to no end. I hate the Circle. I genuinely hate the circle. There's no reason for me to spam Dungeon and Fates like I used to. Cause it's not fun anymore. It's made braindead, stupid, and going from a Shinten Gauge to a Kyuten Gauge doesn't do anything for it either.

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Originally Posted by RadiantSun

[B]Auto-Crits
I understand this one and don't mind always getting the big hits on Iaijutsu, I enjoy warrior as much as ever, but it's important that they actually feel like crits.

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The Funny Thing about the Auto-Crits are that they STILL fluctuate.. I did a Sephirot Ex Unsynced run for Khloe and there,
I did a Ogi: 100k Crit Kaeshi: 80k Crit .. okay so far
Next Ogi: 80k Crit Kaeshi: 80k Crit :/
just wtf...

Bump got kaiten

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Originally Posted by RyuuZero

The Funny Thing about the Auto-Crits are that they STILL fluctuate.. I did a Sephirot Ex Unsynced run for Khloe and there,
I did a Ogi: 100k Crit Kaeshi: 80k Crit .. okay so far
Next Ogi: 80k Crit Kaeshi: 80k Crit :/
just wtf...

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Aren't you just talking about direct hit crits?
But yes numbers will vary a bit still.