SE: your deadline

[Duelle]

Let me preface this by saying I agree with you. Bards suck right now and you are completely right on that side of the problem. I don't think Wanderer's Minuet really should be fixed, it adds an interesting dimension to play and an interesting choice to each boss battle that I find refreshing.

Erm...no. This claim might have weight if the devs had made it part of BRD gameplay from MUCH earlier in the leveling process and adjusted everything that was BRD's DPS model to make it work (putzing around with potencies outside of WM, removing most of the oGCD attacks that they weave in or possibly have WM change how they work as a whole). WM was basically plopped on to BRD at lv52 with two of the new shots being gated behind it. Nevermind the overall lack of synergy between WM and the rest of BRD's arsenal (and by proxy, MCH has a similar issue).

Yes, sometimes you will be down on the charts and that really sucks but some day you will be back up. We Bards got 2 years on the top of the mountain, both being able to contribute insane DPS (seriously, I could solo bosses in Vanilla) and being a crowd favourite among healers. Admit it, we could afford to be taken down a peg.

Barring poor design decisions or not adjusting stuff until later (WAR at launch, DRGs with lower magic defense during Final Coil), this game has been pretty good when it comes to balancing jobs. What you're alluding to to never really happened. The worst I think was the anti-melee stance some FCs running content took around 2.2-ish. And even that I blamed on the fact that since raids don't have multiple bosses, it's more difficult to encourage balanced raid comps.

Alexander is an unacceptable wait?

It sort of is when these changes should have seen a lot more testing. A beta test like what we had for ARR would have been nice, if only because several of these issues we've seen could have been ironed out then. I'll add that SE wanting to keep everything about this expansion secret is partly to blame.

[Carson_The_Brown]

You make a number of valid points. I would like to just start with a small aside. You posting a link with an infographic describing a class you want to see implemented basically ensures it will never see the light of day. I wont go into detail here (this could be a book, and, sadly, probably is) but to summarize: US copyright law makes it a really fishy proposition to implement an idea unless you have a legally binding contract saying it is free to use, which, unfortunately, does not a forum sig make. I haven't looked at your link as I am a designer myself, not for this game in particular but for a number of other projects, and hope to work for SE some day. I am sure you are not the type of person to do this, but say they implement a class that functions very similarly to your Fencer and you decide that your idle musings constitute intellectual property. You could sue because you think you deserve a cut of the cake. If you did that, SE would have 2 options, either pull out of North America entirely (which means we miss out on the next FF and KH along with any hope of a Kingdom Hearts ride at DisneyWorld) or face your lawsuit and potentially lose all North American profits from the expansion your Fencer was featured in, which could easily snowball into all the money they had earmarked for other major projects like KH3 and FFXV.

Now, onto the meat of the issue.

Erm...no. This claim might have weight if the devs had made it part of BRD gameplay from MUCH earlier in the leveling process and adjusted everything that was BRD's DPS model to make it work (putzing around with potencies outside of WM, removing most of the oGCD attacks that they weave in or possibly have WM change how they work as a whole). WM was basically plopped on to BRD at lv52 with two of the new shots being gated behind it. Nevermind the overall lack of synergy between WM and the rest of BRD's arsenal (and by proxy, MCH has a similar issue).

In short, a perpetual model game with no mutability is a boring game. Market analysis indicates that even consumers of entertainment that like the original product eventually get bored. A useful analogy is as follows: say your favourite ice cream is Oreo chip. Every time you go out to eat you get Oreo chip, maybe even a second or third scoop. Now, imagine if you were somehow magically constrained in such a way that you could only gain sustenance from Oreo chip ice cream. I know my favourite food is lasagna with swiss, parmesan and sausage but by day 3 of lasagna I want a freaking cheeseburger. Same goes with entertainment. You would eventually get bored of the same version of Bard, just like everyone else. It really sucks when this change doesn't happen by your schedule (in this analogy, the parlor runs out of Oreo chip before you're finished), but that's okay, there's still lots of other flavors. Oreo chip will be back some day and it will be even better than you remember. but for now you should try something else.

I fell in love with Strawberry when my favourite ice cream shop stopped selling Oreo.

Barring poor design decisions or not adjusting stuff until later (WAR at launch, DRGs with lower magic defense during Final Coil), this game has been pretty good when it comes to balancing jobs. What you're alluding to to never really happened. The worst I think was the anti-melee stance some FCs running content took around 2.2-ish. And even that I blamed on the fact that since raids don't have multiple bosses, it's more difficult to encourage balanced raid comps.

This sounds like an argument borne of EA and Activision. Yes, a lot of companies release shoddy, unpolished games and expect players to provide free feedback. SE, however, has no history of this behavior. Many issues (such as exploitable loopholes in a class's spell list) will never come to light at an in house testing division without literally millions of testing personnel. In house testing is good for mechanical testing; "does this cause a fatal exception?" "Are all the walls solid?" "Does this boss reset every time the White Mage casts Cure?" etc. Outside of those issues, its really kind of impossible to see how everything works until its in the hands of the masses.

It sort of is when these changes should have seen a lot more testing. A beta test like what we had for ARR would have been nice, if only because several of these issues we've seen could have been ironed out then. I'll add that SE wanting to keep everything about this expansion secret is partly to blame.

I must remind you that SE is a firm couched deeply in the traditions of cinema and literature. Its a very real possibility that they believed this thing would never leave the ground if the players already knew what would happen. Yes, the belief that you can't even reveal the class list without ruining everything is a bit silly but we must all remember the pedigrees of the game designers whom are, ultimately, mistake prone humans. They could have done better in the lead up to this thing but all we can expect them to do is tweak their strategy from here on. The past (no matter how immediate) can't be changed and its useless to punish them so harshly for a small misstep.

[Duelle]

In short, a perpetual model game with no mutability is a boring game.

While this is true, there's something to be said of change for the sake of change, change that adds to current gameplay (SMN, DRG, BLM), and change that turns the design inside out with few positives (BRD).

This sounds like an argument borne of EA and Activision. Yes, a lot of companies release shoddy, unpolished games and expect players to provide free feedback. SE, however, has no history of this behavior. Many issues (such as exploitable loopholes in a class's spell list) will never come to light at an in house testing division without literally millions of testing personnel. In house testing is good for mechanical testing; "does this cause a fatal exception?" "Are all the walls solid?" "Does this boss reset every time the White Mage casts Cure?" etc. Outside of those issues, its really kind of impossible to see how everything works until its in the hands of the masses.

I should feel a little insulted to be compared for EA and Activision. My argument comes from having raided in other games and what raid design does to comps and group make ups. If you have a dungeon with one or two bosses that are designed to favor ranged over melee, raids are going to sit melee. If you have a dungeon with two bosses that are designed to punish ranged and favor melee, ranged are going to get sat and raids will stack melee.

Conversely, if you have a dungeon with 10 bosses, where 5 bosses favor melee and 5 bosses favor ranged, the raid is encouraged to bring a balanced comp in order to properly deal with all mechanics. It's the same mindset used to justify the presence of an offtank or two despite the fact they may not be "active" during certain parts of the raid (some encounters may need only one tank while others may call for 2 or 3).

I must remind you that SE is a firm couched deeply in the traditions of cinema and literature. Its a very real possibility that they believed this thing would never leave the ground if the players already knew what would happen. Yes, the belief that you can't even reveal the class list without ruining everything is a bit silly but we must all remember the pedigrees of the game designers whom are, ultimately, mistake prone humans. They could have done better in the lead up to this thing but all we can expect them to do is tweak their strategy from here on. The past (no matter how immediate) can't be changed and its useless to punish them so harshly for a small misstep.

Except they blocked key parts of the main storyline during the ARR beta to avoid spoilers, so at most people had an idea of how the story started but little else to go by. Most of the beta was restricted to Central and East Shroud.

I wouldn't expect them to have all 6 new zones accessible for a beta. I'd probably have it set in Sea of Clouds with NPCs that gave level bumps to allow the testing of characters in specific brackets (probably starting at lv50-52, then with a bump to 56 and a bump to 60).

[Carson_The_Brown]

While this is true, there's something to be said of change for the sake of change, change that adds to current gameplay (SMN, DRG, BLM), and change that turns the design inside out with few positives (BRD).

Market research indicates that most consumers have no idea what they want until it is literally shoved down their throats. In fact, a good number of consumers would rather take a notably flawed product over a potentially superior one if they are more accustomed to the flawed product. You are totally right, change shouldnt be made because 'YOLO', but every so often you need to take a shot in the dark.

That being said, your statement indicates a level of serendipity on behalf of SE of which, given their history, I seriously doubt they are capable.

I should feel a little insulted to be compared for EA and Activision. My argument comes from having raided in other games and what raid design does to comps and group make ups. If you have a dungeon with one or two bosses that are designed to favor ranged over melee, raids are going to sit melee. If you have a dungeon with two bosses that are designed to punish ranged and favor melee, ranged are going to get sat and raids will stack melee.

Oh, goodness, no. I would never compare a player with a request to EA or Activision. Wow, that would be harsh. I would just urge you to consider Hanlon's Razor. In short, this is the first expansion in their first successful MMORPG (we don't talk about XI). We can't assume all of their actions are intentional or even well thought out.

I wouldn't expect them to have all 6 new zones accessible for a beta. I'd probably have it set in Sea of Clouds with NPCs that gave level bumps to allow the testing of characters in specific brackets (probably starting at lv50-52, then with a bump to 56 and a bump to 60).

As I said before, SE is a firm with a history of highly conservative system and narrative design. Many of their tactics concerning story gating havent been acceptable since the 90s. We shouldn't assume, at least not this early in the history of the game, that any of their laughably poor choices are made out of anything but reflex.