What I think could help Make Gameplay More enjoyable.

I will be using paladin for this example because its the class I play most at top end and Even though I really like the changes they have made I do not like the 2 minute burst style of combat. Even if Paladin is a 1 minute still it doesnt feel as enjoyable to me at least to unlock your burst through pressing a button.

I feel a interesting thing to do would be to remove burst buttons like say req and fof and turn the fof into a trait that increases every 15 levels as you move towards endgame.
Like for example at lvl 15 you do 5% more dmg lvl 30 10% going up in 5% increases untill 30% at lvl 90. This would be for all classes/jobs that do dmg but with dps having a higher base start say at 10% base going to 15% at lvl 15 so they always do more dmg etc.

Now I would remove the req button that unlocks Confiteor and instead have it be built into. Like say how SAM builds to use shoha have PLD after using a divine might stack would build a holy guage like SAM or GNB That when you hit three stacks you can use confiteor which would be around 30s now of course blades and Confiteor would have to have lower potency but would happen more often. I would also like if our 1 2 3 unless get upgrade in 7.0 become the blades combo instead of it all being on confiteors button.

I also think would be a nice addition to their utility side of things is if when you hit that divine might you also got a holy defense stack like how SAGE has two stacks for their guage so one for offence one for utility and have it were Holy Sheltron uses one stack, Intervention uses one stack, and Have clemency move to ogcd but uses one stack as well. This i think would still allow you to help more often say the healers or party if its just healing or more defense needed and make the guage cap at 3 total you can save.

I believe this would make the classes feel more engaging to play and build towards bigger hits then just hitting a button and it unlocks. This would be a huge shift away from burst windows in a sense but make it be more engaging naturally they would have to change alot of jobs around. Like say Bard songs instead of increasing dmg they do other things like say increase healing while song is playing or increase move speed or gcd speed etc.

What do you all think about this type of change were instead of just pressing a button to do more dmg or unlock your burst, jobs would build towards it instead overall and have the more dmg button become a trait that increases over level range instead?

I've always wondered, what percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta in any real sense?

I mean you can look up my ff logs if you want but I deal with it all the time since endwalker started XD, I just feel that instead of hit button I do burst now building up to it naturally through doing the rotation correctly feels more interesting and less braindead so to speak without it becoming to much more complicated. I know the normal players will probably barely care or deal with it, but some if they hit shiny button eventually unlock bigger shinny button feels more natural than ahh I need to remeber to hit this button of cooldown every minute/2 minutes to unlock bigger buttons or do more dmg etc.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I've always wondered, what percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta in any real sense?

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Even though I don't play savage, I learned my rotation just because I like being good at my jobs. That said, I drift more than would be acceptable in a savage raid. So I guess in some capacity, but not really.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I've always wondered, what percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta in any real sense?

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Pretty much everyone considering 2 minute meta is a more bigger issue then it seems on paper.
It Limits Job design to be fully around burst, Paladin? is a great example of a job that was perfectly fine on paper but because 2 minute existed it had to be changed for every type of content

While I dislike 2 minute meta as a concept and gameplay design, it does far more damage by limiting all job design, to be "burst only" Theirs literally never going to be room for a sustained job or a job with a powerful/meaningful offensive cooldown on a 90 second CD.

Job design should be balanced around high end duties (and does get balanced around them), so getting rid of it would benefit high end players but also have positive effects of allowing more designs for even casual players, who may want a job that feels strong throughout a encounter not only super strong in short bursts

My feeling is that they tried to break down the gameplay and stick it in different areas. What they need to do is make all the things they do a part of the main experience. Take Bazja for example and the flexibility and craziness they had with the additional skills and world encounters: The mechanics that were found there would have made the overworld a ton more interesting than just a thing to traverse, which is all that it has become most of the time, now. They've kept map runs, fates, and hunts in, but they got too big into balancing things perfectly for some reason with overworld content that people currently rapidly out gear.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Pretty much everyone considering 2 minute meta is a more bigger issue then it seems on paper.
It Limits Job design to be fully around burst, Paladin? is a great example of a job that was perfectly fine on paper but because 2 minute existed it had to be changed for every type of content

While I dislike 2 minute meta as a concept and gameplay design, it does far more damage by limiting all job design, to be "burst only" Theirs literally never going to be room for a sustained job or a job with a powerful/meaningful offensive cooldown on a 90 second CD.

Job design should be balanced around high end duties (and does get balanced around them), so getting rid of it would benefit high end players but also have positive effects of allowing more designs for even casual players, who may want a job that feels strong throughout a encounter not only super strong in short bursts

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So basically, due to high end balancing, we're sort of forced into more bland job design? That seems..sucky. But if they got rid of it completely, I assume some jobs would become more important than others for high end content and those that were a bit too far out of the meta would get ignored. Makes me wonder if that sort of thing is happening already for the elite players.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Pretty much everyone considering 2 minute meta is a more bigger issue then it seems on paper.
It Limits Job design to be fully around burst, Paladin? is a great example of a job that was perfectly fine on paper but because 2 minute existed it had to be changed for every type of content

While I dislike 2 minute meta as a concept and gameplay design, it does far more damage by limiting all job design, to be "burst only" Theirs literally never going to be room for a sustained job or a job with a powerful/meaningful offensive cooldown on a 90 second CD.

Job design should be balanced around high end duties (and does get balanced around them), so getting rid of it would benefit high end players but also have positive effects of allowing more designs for even casual players, who may want a job that feels strong throughout a encounter not only super strong in short bursts

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Thing is the 2 minute meta is just the latest in design choices SE has done to cater to "raiders" that have resulted in an overall negative impact on the bulk of the player base. A mistake other MMO's have made which resulted in most dying out completely. It's not even the entire raid oriented part of the player base these changes are catering to, it's the elitist part of that group and the sheep people that just blindly follow them thinking those elitists make the laws of raiding. And the whole "players weren't using X job as much as Y job" argument is moot because it's always going to happen regardless of what the devs do because someone is going to plant the thought in other people's heads that because X job does 0.0000001 DPS more than the rest during the entire battle, it makes all the other jobs unviable in endgame content.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

So basically, due to high end balancing, we're sort of forced into more bland job design? That seems..sucky. But if they got rid of it completely, I assume some jobs would become more important than others for high end content and those that were a bit too far out of the meta would get ignored. Makes me wonder if that sort of thing is happening already for the elite players.

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Pretty much. It's actually a universal disease in multiplayer gaming these days so you can't even really get away from it anymore aside from retreating completely into the loneliness of single player games.

Used to be that games were built and balanced around the bulk of the playerbase, and top players were simply exceptional heroes to be looked up to.

Nowadays, you're expected to be exceptional as a baseline, culture lambasts you for being average or even above-average (a stark example: if you ever look at That Site We Don't Name, and check rankings on casual content vs. Savage, many players that routinely get roasted in Discord for being "bads" when they go in for tougher challenges are actually VERY above average when compared to the max level playerbase at large!). Basically everything is to be built and balanced around the needs of the elite and their content slice, and if you have any kind of a problem with how the gameplay runs for anything and you aren't one of their crowd, you don't have a right to express it. "You're just complaining because you're not good enough is all. If you were better, you wouldn't have that problem."

I think I've played one MP game in recent times where that noticeably wasn't the case. It was a mobile game that was very chill, very accessible even to a decent-but-not-like-it's-your-job player, didn't even cost that much (I think I spent about the price of a regular AAA game all told on it). OF COURSE it shut down after I'd been playing for a few months, because why wouldn't it? LOL

I'm also at a loss as to how to "repair" the culture at scale because it seems to be a pervasive thing about mainstream humanity as a whole lately. IE. Everything must be a go big or go home hustle. It might help if we had more communities that focused around the average working adult gamer, perhaps? But even that is a big ask because the requirements that modern social media puts on running a community on their platform heavily select for nearly everything public to ultimately be run by the hyper-hardcore crowd, and for more laid-back communities to be private invite-only affairs (which in turn become impossible-to-find - which I expect is part of also why MP games give off the vibe they do, as in most of the people you actually want to play with no longer come to the visible watering holes).

And yes, elite players are already starting to be more heavily impacted by the meta. Not sure how well 6.4 handled it but apparently 6.2 was a nightmare ...

It's true that a 'very open' job design could lead to inevitable exclusion of some jobs in favor of others. This is one extreme... The '2min meta' currently stays in the polar opposite of that.

Couldn't be somewhere not in either end? Even back in Stormblood the game still favored burst windows, but there we had a more diverse array that made jobs feel more unique while groups requiring the awareness of the party composition to properly seize different moments (eg Trick Attack 1min windows).

Remove crit :p

I mean not really but I do feel like there's too much focus on this random dmg potential that makes people very hostile if things do not 100% of the time provide them with the best possible outcome.

I do like the idea that Paladin can cast a heal at will on the GCD like a healer. It's one of the few unique things on a tank today. They solved the healing issue already with Holy Sheltron's regen and the heals on its magic attacks, so they don't need to mess with Clemency, although they could add the attack heals at earlier levels.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I've always wondered, what percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta in any real sense?

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Well since it has affected the design of the rotations, the answer is almost everyone.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I've always wondered, what percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta in any real sense?

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Should be limited to those doing EX/Savage/Criterion/Ultimate plus the occasional outlier like BA.

Dungeon bosses don't last that long. Open world combat either doesn't last that long or players join random parties without any attempt to coordinate cooldowns (the latter goes for Normal trials and raids as well).

But even if it's not affecting everyone, it does affect part of the player base the frequently engages in the longer boss fights. If it's not making combat more enjoyable for them, it needs to be reviewed.

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Originally Posted by Jeeqbit

Well since it has affected the design of the rotations, the answer is almost everyone.

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You're assuming that everyone looks up the recommended rotations and strictly adheres to them. I doubt the percentage of players doing that is so high. No point in looking up a rotation if everything dies in 10 seconds in the content you regularly do.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

What percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta?

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100%. Every single job in the game is impacted by it and so is every player, whether or not they realize it. Before the 2 minute meta (let's say back in stormblood before the gutting of tanks and healers) each job felt COMPLETELY different from every other job. You had jobs that focused on burst damage like SAM, RDM, and WAR. You had jobs that were about sustaining DoTs like BRD, SMN, and SCH. You had jobs that focused entirely on resource management like WHM, DRK and BLM. You had jobs that were about keeping up an in-depth strict rotation like PLD and DRG. Every job, despite what issues they had which to be fair were numerous, felt absolutely nothing like any other. Bard's only raid buff, battle voice, was a 3 minute cooldown. DRG's battle litany was 3 minutes and DRG's dragonsight was 2 minutes. SCH's chain stratagem was 90 seconds. And so on. Note, back then bosses' hitboxes were small, tanks had to position the bosses (they almost never went to center on their own), and very often bosses did things that made melees and tanks lose uptime.

Every job's buffs were on 30, 60, 90, 120 or 180 second cooldowns. This meant that damage was more or less evenly spread out over the course of a dungeon or raid and that the devs could allow jobs to have totally different playstyles. This also meant that if you died when you were supposed to use a party buff, you had to hold it for at most 30 seconds before someone else in your party had a buff of theirs up that you could sync with. "Oh but Rad that only impacts hardcores." Directly, yes. But it also impacts casuals. Back in Stormblood I was a casual. I'd cleared MAYBE three extremes and even then they took me weeks to prog. I played WAR, SCH, RDM and BRD. All of which played totally differently than each other in every way. A burst focused tank, a DoT focused healer, a party supporting caster with melee attacks (meaning RDM had to really think about when to use their melee combo) and a DoT management/sustained damage/party buffing ranged. All of which had vastly different things to think about during normal gameplay. Compare how these jobs are now: WAR is a bursty tank. SCH is a bursty healer (if you call holding AF stacks for energy drain burst but that's another discussion), RDM is a bursty caster that doesn't have to worry about when to melee bc boss hitboxes are the size of the arena, and BRD is a bursty ranged phys.

The 2 minute meta (among other design decision made by the dev team) have made these 4 jobs which were utterly unique 5 years ago feel very similar. Casual players, the majority of the playerbase, don't notice things like buff alignment (which is part of the reason so many of us were befuddled by the dev team's decision to implement the 2 min meta in the first place) but casuals do have to deal with the fact that if you ignore animations, almost every job feels damn near identical.

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Originally Posted by Jojoya

You're assuming that everyone looks up the recommended rotations and strictly adheres to them. I doubt the percentage of players doing that is so high. No point in looking up a rotation if everything dies in 10 seconds in the content you regularly do.

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In the modern game, what you press next tends to highlight or it becomes clear that there isn't really another way to do it (such as with BLM). Depends on the job though. It doesn't really affect Red Mage what the meta is for example because it's mostly just jolt and swapping between black and white magic.

But you can notice the difference a lot on a Dark Knight where their previously varied ability cooldowns now all come off cooldown at 60s.

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Originally Posted by OgruMogru

Remove crit :p

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They could almost just get rid of stats altogether and just tell us our ilvl at this point. There are no subclasses, specializations, or talent trees in this game. Whenever I want to know what materia to slot on my gear I can look up the preferred stat priority for my job, but 95% of the time all the jobs use the same stats anyway.

I wanted to rebel a little, so I slotted Spell Speed on my White Mage staff just so I could prove I was in charge of my own destiny!

https://i.imgur.com/UuNgA6P.gif

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

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I feel like this slightly... conflates issues.


The 2-minute meta's optimizations are nothing new, fundamentally. It's just a lower floor and ceiling to understanding (i.e., you don't need as much knowledge of the other jobs in your party) but with higher punishment for failing its basics (use your CDs on CD after the opener) and having fewer available instances of optimized timing than before (no per 60s, per 90s, etc., sync-ups).

That is to say, they tried to simplify things, making it easier to optimize but more punishing not to. Since not all failings there are going to be from lack of understanding, the latter can feel a bit worse than they likely imagined in that exchange of 'ceiling' and 'lenience' for more broadly accessible/felt 'engagement'.

If not for the only times the difference really matters also being the times where the community was that much more likely to push set compositions (to the point where, optimally, you play a comp through a particular vantage point, not [just consistently playing] a job), I'd say our current state of 120s-buffs-only is a clear downgrade over what we had before, but... it's not a huge one.


Similarly, front-loaded (CDs and spenders from gauges that start full) vs. back-loaded (spenders, when gauge starts empty) aren't really that big a deal; they vary the opener, and that's it, while making it that much harder to balance short-but-difficult encounters (not that we have any at the moment, outside of maybe Criterion Savage) if any job swings too far one way or the other.

Yes, having CDs that you only pop during other CDs, and do not even alternate in their contexts are going to feel worse than those that see more varied contexts and therefore seem less... 'bundled' or 'bloated', but that's not wholly a matter of things being useful to the 2-minute meta (or burst windows in general) or not. It's more to do with simple button-efficiency, rhythmic variation, and the like.


In the end, the far bigger things are (A) just the available depth and the sort of "effort-to-output" curves of the given job's kits and (B) the designs of the fights themselves. Whether we start with full gauge to immediately blow our big damage, or unlock it with a CD, or the CDs themselves are our big damage... isn't super relevant/impactful overall, nor is what portion of abilities will naturally sync up to within 15s per 120s (so long as there's still variation in contexts between those raid burst uses).

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

I've always wondered, what percentage of players actually deal with the 2 minute meta in any real sense?

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I know for one never dabbled on it. I quit EW Savages during its early days after realizing how stupid the loot system was.

Doesnt mean I dont perform well in fights. I just make sure I know how to play the job, but I just flat out ignore having to do optimal dps and align buff windows since nobody cares about it outside of EXs (some)/Savage/Ultimates.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

-snip-

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I will respond even though at this point people just highjack threads to talk about stuff that has threads for it already. I disagree with you saying that this is not important at all. The community has such a hard-on hatred for 2 minute meta and yet we havent really changed all that much? I play the shit out of paladin and guess what accepted by the community and the balance the changes were really good and make it more fun to play what a shocker. Do you know what changed on pld we went from a rotating small burst to a big burst every minute.
Paladins has no 2 minute buttons at all in the entire job not a single one that deals with dmg. So tell me how were they made it so pld can now flex and isnt a 2 minute job so bad and so horrible it isnt.

The thing I am suggesting and what I think the community doesnt understand is that we are so fixated on the 2 minute and how its so horrible, I mean am I the only one who realises its barely changed?? Before you had 60 90 120 180 buff buttons or rotations so to speak do you know what that made a change to all it did was change from having 4 party burst windows to the 2 minute meta of 5/6 if the fight is 10 minutes long or shorter. Now Yes you had more smaller partner bursts which could be interesting like 60 with 120s 90s with 180s but when the entire team could burst most party buffs were at the opener around the 3 minute 6 minute and 9 minutes now depending on the jobs you took it could slightly change, I will give it that but it was barely any optimiziation like some like to act it was.

The jobs in stormblood and shadowbringers were still all burst jobs they were never over time dmg jobs even PLD. Paladin just bursted ever minute but rotated causing it to be weaker when the change moved over to 2 minutes because one of the bursts wouldn't get buffed it was still a burst job and nouthing else. As long as we stick to having buttons that force us to get an many skills under a buff window our jobs will always be burst jobs no matter what timers you put onto them.

This is what I am suggesting to remove all buff buttons and unlock buttons that lock away the most dmg a job can do and lock dmging rotation buttons away from being used. As long as their are buff buttons jobs will burst under them. You know back under the not 2 minute buff meta guess what you would line up to burst under the most highest party buff when possible but you just hit shit on cooldown their was nothing fancy to optimise that was any different back then. If you have to hold burst guess what you still had to hold burst just like before.

Now some people will say but we could recover better no you could not in any way if you missed the 3 minute 6 minute or 9 minute party buffs on the old meta you still got fucked on your dmg since those were the team burst windows. So the buff buttons and unlock buttons are why we are hear not because they changed to 2 minutes. Hell technically because there are more party buffs in a 10 minute fight than on the old meta you actually have a better chance to recover dmg than before. Now was it as punishing to miss the window that depends on the job but I would say if you missed a 3 minute or 6 minute window it for sure would be just as punishing as now.

I don’t think it’s the fact the 2-min meta exists that people have problems with. It’s that they’ve adjusted the entirety of gameplay to revolve around it, to the point that they even make mitigation abilities adhere to the 120s cool-down rule. Which ultimately just results in jobs feels more ‘homogenised’. They can still have the majority of buffs adhere to the 2-min burst system without having to make everything fit that mold.

Plus there’s how much it limits game design, because as you say they can’t make jobs go for a ‘build-up burst’ approach to change things up from others, because all jobs must have access to their burst immediately to fit into it.

Basically the 2-min meta thing is not bad by itself, but the way it restricts jobs and player decision making can be.

Outside of changing 2 minute meta I think a lot still needs to be done anyway.

1. Give healers more to heal, take away some healing OGCD's, Reduce some healing potency honestly, maybe some extra DMG buttons also but I first rather they fix healing, more outgoing damage on fights would also be kinda neat, just a hard thing to balance.
2. Give Tanks less sustain in proportion to healing nerfs, but in general buff their party utility abilities, give them more to do, give them more uses for their target protections! Such as a Buster on a non tank job that tanks have to look out for
3. DPS, more Varity in the melee category I hope for the next melee to be Proc based, New caster should feel like a caster not phys ranged, Phys ranged should get another extra utility each.
4. Custom role actions, do a "select one of 3 role actions" that do similar things but some will be weaker with a shorter CD some will be stronger with a longer CD (EG a defensive like rampart where you can choose from a 10% mit, 20% mit or 40% mit, but the stronger mit have larger CD and likely a lesser duration), Just as a example.
5. make sub stats more interesting, Skill/spell speed are kinda the only stats that change up your job.


Some other things outside job design such as
1. Actual "Midcore" content to serve as a gap between Normal content to EXT, as theirs a natural progression to EXT > SAV > ULT, the gap between normal and EXT is too wide.
2. Making the tick rate of the server more clean and snappy.
3. Fixing level synching to be less annoying where each job is missing like half their core abilities.
4. Better item level synching, duties are too easy when gear is so high.
5. More battle content in general like bozja (even though im not the biggest fan of it)

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

Outside of changing 2 minute meta I think a lot still needs to be done anyway.

1. Give healers more to heal, take away some healing OGCD's, Reduce some healing potency honestly, maybe some extra DMG buttons also but I first rather they fix healing, more outgoing damage on fights would also be kinda neat, just a hard thing to balance.
2. Give Tanks less sustain in proportion to healing nerfs, but in general buff their party utility abilities, give them more to do, give them more uses for their target protections! Such as a Buster on a non tank job that tanks have to look out for
3. DPS, more Varity in the melee category I hope for the next melee to be Proc based, New caster should feel like a caster not phys ranged, Phys ranged should get another extra utility each.
4. Custom role actions, do a "select one of 3 role actions" that do similar things but some will be weaker with a shorter CD some will be stronger with a longer CD (EG a defensive like rampart where you can choose from a 10% mit, 20% mit or 40% mit, but the stronger mit have larger CD and likely a lesser duration), Just as a example.
5. make sub stats more interesting, Skill/spell speed are kinda the only stats that change up your job.


Some other things outside job design such as
1. Actual "Midcore" content to serve as a gap between Normal content to EXT, as theirs a natural progression to EXT > SAV > ULT, the gap between normal and EXT is too wide.
2. Making the tick rate of the server more clean and snappy.
3. Fixing level synching to be less annoying where each job is missing like half their core abilities.
4. Better item level synching, duties are too easy when gear is so high.
5. More battle content in general like bozja (even though im not the biggest fan of it)

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I agree with some things for the most part the utility side of things. I do believe they have forgotten that utility does not mean dmg buff. Like monk can increase healing for the whole party to help out healers where is more stuff like that. Instead its increase dmg increase dmg..... I just don't understand how they have examples of good utility like what monks have or how scholars can increase move speed but gotta add a dmg resistance into it or it be shit ideas. Like why are bard songs all about dmg. The thing is to me they cant have better utility because like say bard gives haste so you can build guage faster etc well now that fucked my burst rotation as a paladin because of that buff button I have to hit it every 60 seconds not more not less to keep aligned. This is why I think we need to remove those buttons otherwise We can never have interesting utility interactions with the party unless its dmg because those burst buff buttons exist.

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

I agree with some things for the most part the utility side of things. I do believe they have forgotten that utility does not mean dmg buff. Like monk can increase healing for the whole party to help out healers where is more stuff like that. Instead its increase dmg increase dmg..... I just don't understand how they have examples of good utility like what monks have or how scholars can increase move speed but gotta add a dmg resistance into it or it be shit ideas. Like why are bard songs all about dmg. The thing is to me they cant have better utility because like say bard gives haste so you can build guage faster etc well now that fucked my burst rotation as a paladin because of that buff button I have to hit it every 60 seconds not more not less to keep aligned. This is why I think we need to remove those buttons otherwise We can never have interesting utility interactions with the party unless its dmg because those burst buff buttons exist.

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I'd actually be interested in seeing unique utilities like scholars speed boost, I guess we couldn't use that too often if at all as scholars might feel annoyed that their unique utility is took away.

But in general I think the only major issue with having too many defensive/support utilities is that healer already doesn't need to do a lot with the tank changes, but at the same time I Really hope more jobs especially Tanks/phys ranged can gain some more utility in the future, while also making sure that healer is still a needed role type. I'm not pretending I know the full solution here but I can hope that SE doesn't see the Tank feedback from healers and see it as "make tanks big hp dps" Because i really enjoy how impactful tanks actually feel at times and i want more of that without taking from healer players.

DMG buffs i don't see as utility at all :/ I never got the idea of "selfish DPS" because sharing a damage buff isn't really utility its just another form of a damage button.

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Originally Posted by Rithy255

I'd actually be interested in seeing unique utilities like scholars speed boost, I guess we couldn't use that too often if at all as scholars might feel annoyed that their unique utility is took away.

But in general I think the only major issue with having too many defensive/support utilities is that healer has already doesn't need to do a lot with the tank changes, but at the same time I Really hope more jobs especially Tanks/phys ranged can gain some more utility in the future, while also making sure that healer is still a needed role type. I'm not pretending I know the full solution here but I can hope that SE doesn't see the Tank feedback from healers and see it as "make tanks big hp dps" Because i really enjoy how impactful tanks actually feel at times and i want more of that without taking from healer players.

DMG buffs i don't see as utility at all :/ I never got the idea of "selfish DPS" because sharing a damage buff isn't really utility its just another form of a damage button.

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I agree that we shoudn't take away the healers usefulness, I think if we want more interesting things for jobs square needs to stop being terrified of bad healers. Because that is kinda whats holding healers back they have gotten so much healing/recover utility that is 70% of the time useless because square is to afraid to increase dmg against the normal player base because if their are bad healers that cant heal then either A) they think people will abandon the healer role and stop playing it. or B) that people will start becoming extremely toxic against bad healers in game. When I first unlocked bard long time ago and played it I really expected their to be alot more utility from it. Instead they kind of went the way of increase dmg only like I dont think bard has anything that actually is unique for utility other than increase dmg. (kinda going of the top of my head since I don't have all bard skills memorized.)

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

I will respond even though at this point people just highjack threads to talk about stuff that has threads for it already. I disagree with you saying that this is not important at all.

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I haven't said that. My point is literally right there, in the very first line of the post you quoted: The discourse conflates separate issues as if they were all somehow caused just by raid buffs naturally syncing up now. We always functioned around burst and always tended towards automatic sync; the difference is only in what few additional things between major bursts have optimizable timings based on minor raid buffs and the relative punishment for missing the major window. I didn't say that difference was without any importance at all, only that it's often confused and/or accidentally exaggerated.

Maybe it's just the odd phrasing of your response, but... how is it that you simultaneously think the changes are important and yet insist that...

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The thing I am suggesting and what I think the community doesnt understand is that we are so fixated on the 2 minute and how its so horrible, I mean am I the only one who realises its barely changed??

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??? You seem to be in agreement, outside of that single strawman/exaggeration of my post (that the impact isn't important "at all", rather than merely that its impact is often confused/exaggerated).

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This is what I am suggesting to remove all buff buttons and unlock buttons that lock away the most dmg a job can do and lock dmging rotation buttons away from being used.

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To what end? In what way?

Why would it necessarily be better to use Perfect Balance and Blitz at any time than to have a particular window of commitment into which they fit?

Why would SAM be more interesting with Namikiri available from the start and separately from Ikishoten? (We always use our resource generators asap anyways, so the order of those skills would be unchanged; we'd just no longer be able to logically consolidate them into a single key, if we so desired.)

In some cases, I'd agree that the job would be more interesting without the "unlock" skill, but that's only when the unlock skill itself is bloat that doesn't alter the use, order, or pace of the unlocked action anyways, and its removal would actually increase the number and/or depth of optimizations available. But for all else?

Take even past iterations of our jobs: Why would Stormblood SAM be more interesting without Hagakure "unlocking" yet more burst, or Shadowbringers SAM be more interesting without Ikishoten and/or Iaijutsu "unlocking" Tsubame-Gaeshi?

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

I agree that we shoudn't take away the healers usefulness, I think if we want more interesting things for jobs square needs to stop being terrified of bad healers. Because that is kinda whats holding healers back they have gotten so much healing/recover utility that is 70% of the time useless because square is to afraid to increase dmg against the normal player base because if their are bad healers that cant heal then either A) they think people will abandon the healer role and stop playing it. or B) that people will start becoming extremely toxic against bad healers in game. When I first unlocked bard long time ago and played it I really expected their to be alot more utility from it. Instead they kind of went the way of increase dmg only like I dont think bard has anything that actually is unique for utility other than increase dmg. (kinda going of the top of my head since I don't have all bard skills memorized.)

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Bard has Increase healing (like monk, it was made AOE mid EW), has single target esuna and obviously the standard phys ranged 10% mit.

SE was right, on making baseline healer more approachable at the lower levels, but the issue isn't that it's approachable it's more healer just has such a bloated and over tuned kit for the actual healing you will be doing, Good healer gameplay should be trying to maximise damage while also healing effectively, so newer healers could just get away with spamming heals... while the great healers can do a mix of both DMG/Heals.

I think to help with "bad healers" I unironically think we could actually give other jobs a "cure 1" equivalent as a role action (Most likely to all jobs), make the cast time 3 Seconds or something so that it's very suboptimal compared to just having a healer, but may help with some stress where a healer gets KO'd. (Side note: this could even help with some open world mobs or solo content hitting more harder and stuff). I don't really want to give more jobs rez at least :/

Obviously theirs no one "fix" to healer design that will make everyone happy, but I know current healers are very frustrated with how their role plays now, some healers want more DPS some want to heal more, I'm sort of in the middle on that one.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

-snipe-

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For the first part I wasn't directing that at you sorry if you thought that. Also if you read my first post that answers the question. But I will go over it again. The reason you use your abilties in a certain way is because they must line up under those buff windows end of story. Also If you read the entirty of my post you would see that my suggestion was that it would have to be changed to were you build up to use said thing. Like the example I gave for Paladin. Lets use sam for an example since you brought it up it has good things going for it you build naturally towards shoha by doing your rotation correctly to collect stickers use them in whichever way you want which after 3 uses empowers you to be able to use shoha. Now Lets look at the 2 minute that unlocks omni I do believe you could have the job build up to it naturaly over the course of time instead of hit button it autounlocks. Now how that would look is impossible for me to write down because It would be a massive shift away from the normal way of gameplay. Also Hagakure converts stickers into kenki don't understand how it unlocks burst per say. Also a dmging ability being used that lets another ability being used is not what I am talking about what I am talking about it abilites like Req Fof or on sam Ikishoten is one that became a bad one. Before it didnt unlock more dmg buttons it gave guage allowing you to start fights or during fights to recover or have kenki out the gate. It at 90 granting you the ability to use your hardest hitting attack should not be how it is used. Their is no way to reach namikiri other than through hitting a unlock button. Everything else you talked about is naturaly progression if you play correctly on sam, collect stickers hit button you get to hit twice a reward for doing it correctly doing it 3 times in a row gives you shoha naturally through doing the rotation correctly,

Is it not obvious how different that is to namkiri being locked behind the guage increase button that is a 2 minute timer without a natural way of getting their, Your not playing the job to unlock that big hit button you can hit it whenever and instantly use your biggest hit. unlike shoha and the sticker system which is completely different.

Also in passage I qouted you on you said talking about the cds wither they do big dmg or unlock them isnt super relevant or impactful to me means not important for the discussion.

Now for on monk yeah it would have to be changed I am talking about how it would be better to build up towards our biggest hits and not have everything behind either A buff button like Req/fof or B an unlock button. Having a buff button incentivises that you must get these hardest hitting abilities under these windows, Without a buff button then yes unlocks woudn't be as bad but their still boring. Like paladins change were you before only used hs with range or under req now doing 1 2 3 gives me DM. so I feel like I am empowering my magic through my rotation if that makes sense.

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

For the first part I wasn't directing that at you sorry if you thought that.

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I thought as much because you said it... immediately after quoting me and specifically said "I disagree with your idea", just before... effectively listing out agreement. Why quote or specifically address a poster who is not related to the content of your post??

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

Also If you read the entirty of my post you would see that my suggestion was that it would have to be changed to were you build up to use said thing.

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I did read the entirety of your post. Again, though:

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Similarly, front-loaded (CDs and spenders from gauges that start full) vs. back-loaded (spenders, when gauge starts empty) aren't really that big a deal; they vary the opener, and that's it, while making it that much harder to balance short-but-difficult encounters (not that we have any at the moment, outside of maybe Criterion Savage) if any job swings too far one way or the other.

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Unless given specific interactions (which CDs can likewise imitate through CDR and the like), any skill you "build up to" gets built up to at a particular interval of frequency, the same as a cooldown.

So instead of it being used at 0, 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 seconds, etc., it just gets used at 60, 120, 180, 240, and 300 seconds, etc. Your opener is that bit less filled-out, you get less value from pots (unless you hold for 120s in and can nonetheless get the same total amount of tinctures in), and you perform a little worse the shorter the fight lasts. But that's it. That's the sum-total of change.

Now, if everyone does that, it doesn't really affect job balance, but it will still affect the relationships between roles in content that has significant downtime... unless you also do this even for, say, tank and healer CDs. And if you do that, in turn, you simply change the way we do dungeon pulls at relatively low item level (not even stopping full-pulls, but simply giving a soft-pull for resources first on the very first one and punishing parties for not saving enough gauge, especially at the end of each boss fight, for each full pull).

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

Also in passage I qouted you on you said talking about the cds wither they do big dmg or unlock them isnt super relevant or impactful to me means not important for the discussion.

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I never said anything about the strength of CDs being unimportant; I said whether the frequency given is supplied by a CD or "built up over time" (such by gauge generated over that same period of time -- which is essentially just a CD that starts combat on cooldown) isn't going to be nearly so important to their appeal as you seem to think it will be. Because, in themselves, they are identical after the opener. You are focusing on the wrong aspect of their difference.

No part of that calls the "2-minute meta not important at all", as you since re-framed it.

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Originally Posted by Avrintera

Is it not obvious how different that is to namkiri being locked behind the guage increase button that is a 2 minute timer without a natural way of getting their, Your not playing the job to unlock that big hit button you can hit it whenever and instantly use your biggest hit. unlike shoha and the sticker system which is completely different.

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What makes the "sticker system" different is that it's manipulable. If your only option were Midare, it'd be a 9-GCD CD (19.6s CD before Skill Speed) that starts combat on cooldown, and that's it.

It starting on cooldown isn't what makes it interesting; what it makes it interesting is Meikyo and the ability to overclock or underclock its alignment with Tsubame-Gaeshi and Higanbana because Setsu can be generated in one GCD fewer than the others and you can insert a Yaten-Enpi filler at low potency cost.

Shoha, meanwhile, is only interesting due to Namikiri, Tsubame-Gaeshi, and indirectly Meikyo and (occasionally making worse decisions in the moment in order to draw a net gain out of reducing conflict with) Meditate, without which it would just have a flat rate of use per minute, making it a simple CD in any combat without downtime.

It's the interaction that matters, not that you build up to them. You could start combat with 3 Sen and 50 Kenki and those systems would still be just as interesting. That the output's loop starts full, empty, or somewhere between is not particularly important.

Easiest way to more freedom in design is gutting almost all the party buffs. If everyone falls under the "greedy" definition, they can purely balance the classes around the total damage because utility no longer exists nor taxes them.

Surely this will make some Jobs more or less meta for each fight if their kits go wild with variety of personal cooldowns, but is it a bad thing? If everyone puts out enough damage and has their own niche it will allow people to play whatever they want or swap Jobs should they feel like it.

This would also open up more party compositions, you could attempt all melee or all ranged or any kind of mashup. With the current design of huge boss hitbox and auto repositioning the melee disadvantage is smaller than ever and the increased mobility of casters make them less prone suffering from higher movement fights.

Not to mention that it would also benefit Jobs that are more reliant on higher player count, so those that are bit lackluster in 4-man stuff would be more in line with the rest.

o/ not gonna lie I'm the type who just waits for better gear to come out to breeze savage XD cause I don't like the drama the players there bring. I'm here to have fun not to deal with your irl drama that u bring in game for these fights. I'll stick to ex for a bit longer while I wait to Unsyc savage. I feels no shame in that.

It was a huge mistake to make jobs more "accessible" and rely on the content to bring the fun when most of the content is absolutely boring thanks to ilvl cheese. Jobs have to be fun in their own right first. It's that simple.

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Originally Posted by Payadopa

It was a huge mistake to make jobs more "accessible" and rely on the content to bring the fun when most of the content is absolutely boring thanks to ilvl cheese. Jobs have to be fun in their own right first. It's that simple.

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The real question is who is this even for? lol.

It barely appeals to the casual crowd because content at lower levels as you say is quickly invalidated by Ilvl.

It doesn’t appeal to the raiding crowd because there’s little to no means of skill expression, content generally reuses mechanics, everything they can do is limited to 120s cycles.

Like yeah they made the game more ‘accessible’, but they also made it appeal to literally nobody lol. Casual players just do MSQ then peace out, raiders do weekly stuff once a week then peace out. It’s like the devs don’t want anyone to be happy

a skinning class profession, so i don't have to burn the down everything in site, because they didn't drop anything. giving me a new profession to level and play with .
a way to search items that drop from creatures and the creatures location, instead of google searching everything
crafting item that come from duty tell me want duty to do. instead of google searching everything
a menu option that show me what seed are needed to grow different seeds for your house garden, instead of google searching everything

if you need to web search it. they need to fix it

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

So basically, due to high end balancing, we're sort of forced into more bland job design? That seems..sucky. But if they got rid of it completely, I assume some jobs would become more important than others for high end content and those that were a bit too far out of the meta would get ignored. Makes me wonder if that sort of thing is happening already for the elite players.

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Unfortunately Rithy is almost exactly right. the 2 minute meta was originally pitched so that "casual" players had an easier time getting into how to play their jobs optimally. The fallacy in this proposition is that casual players do not give a shit about pressing things on cooldown. They play how they want and will press their 2 minute burst skills when they feel like it.

This creates a huge disconnect between developers and players because the devs thinks that this is helping the community, but really it just made everything worse. Hardcore players are mad because their jobs who were good at damage output different than the 2 minute meta (paladin, ninja, dragoon) are either gutted to fit into the meta or will be changing to fit the meta. Casual players are upset because they don't care to do a 2 minute burst on cooldown, so all they see is that the jobs they play are getting more restrictive and have less variety because every job is fitting into this same mold.

The average amount of time in a burst window is roughly 15-20 seconds. We are eventually going to hit an expansion where the amount of skills added will have burst windows longer than that, gunbreaker is already there and we just got this meta.

I hope the developers see this problem sooner rather than later because I want cool skills and I don't want everyone else to have to fit into my mold just for them to have cool stuff too

I guess my main issue with this proposal is people are already saying PLD was homogenized to basically play like GNB, and it seems like this would make that worse, wouldn't it?

Besides which, even GNB has the burst window with No Mercy every min and Bloodfest every 2 mins.