Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Reynhart]

Correct, this game was built for the literal lowest common denominator and since that's been the case since 2.0

I understand that, because some people probably start playing MMO with 2.0 so you had to give them time to learn. Three years later, I feel that they didn't really make them learn much and still only give pretty shallow tanking situations (Unless in Savage, I guess)

So in your vision of XIV, healers are still DPSing, but tanks aren't.

No. In my vision, there is room for a viable turtle approach alongside a more aggressive tanking. Since we have three tanks, it wouldn't be that difficult to target a mixed tank playerbase.

Unless you mean an SE developer from some point along the way in getting to this particular tank/healer/dps balance, it's no lunacy.

Yes, I mean that.

That depends on what you call "just enough to not die". From the tankbuster? Or from the AA that follows within a second of it?

To survive just enough time for the healer to bring you up. Which is fairly quick...

The part the bugs me is how quickly the eclipse occurs.

In another thread, I said maybe the problem what with the healer's power. Even with the tank with the lowest mitigation (Whatever that is), they have far too much time to be in Cleric Stance, so that additionnal mitigation would not be very significant.

[DaulBan]

And lo, another thread is taken over by the debate over tanks as DPS.

[Sarcatica]

And lo, another thread is taken over by the debate over tanks as DPS.

Don't you know tanks are just DPS that can take hits better? :^)

[SpookyGhost]

In Midas, there was actually a lot of variance and RNG which forced reactionary adjustments and changed the dance for each individual randomly. Some prime examples -- A6S Blaster pre-nerf, Brawler attachments, Swindler heights and enumerations, A7S ball phases, A8S balls, A8S gavel, etc.

These are all reactionary (even if insanely binary), however every example you mentioned comes at an exact point in the fight's linear rotation. Every mechanic you mentioned happens at a very specific point in the fight - this means that, as an example, you know when Swindler will use High/Low and this means you can prematurely look at your debuff/buff bar and react near instantly. It's not the same as true reactionary gameplay, where you see the boss is using X and you react to that - usually for bosses in JRPGs they will gain new abilities depending on HP%, however they pull from a pool of abilities and don't just do them all in a specific rotation. Even in turn based games that aren't ATB based, this encourages non-linear thinking which is still far more advanced than any encounter in XIV.

However I will say that SCoB Savage did a great job at working with the system by making the mechanics predictable but requiring some interesting execution - especially T7S and T8S. I'm not necessarily saying it's a huge flaw to follow this design philosophy, I just don't really see the point of raiding existing in this game. The only merit, and this is probably going to sound harsh, is that people who can't raid in other games will have a significantly easier time in this game and therefore get an experience they want but don't have the time/dedication/reflexes/etc to achieve. But if Savage isn't whats making casual content less fun and more a chore, then I've no idea what the dev team are doing or thinking for end game to have ended up how it is.

Anyway, 4.0 could feasibly fix a lot of issues but I got my hopes up for 3.0 and just ended up playing 2.0 but this time with dragons. I'm personally perfectly fine with dumbing down everything to make the game as easy as possible for everyone (no sarcasm), but I think that with that they need to flood us with fun content to do. If it's just 2.0 but this time in a mountain and with even less to do during a fight then I'm probably just going to finally quit the game for good.

Also sorry for getting us so off topic, felt like things were getting kinda dry so I thought it'd be an interesting divergent to have this discussion. :P

[Jpec07]

I'm not convinced they'll make things a whole lot easier in terms of encounter design (or a whole lot harder). Yoshida seems to have a pretty level head about understanding that the people who complain about content being too hard are not the same as the people who complain about content being too easy, and how you need to build a system that can accommodate both of those without breaking anything.

My impression from the discussion about making things rotationally simpler is for things like Enochian, Blood of the Dragon, or the MCH opener (which is responsible for their entire damage output, and where a single mistake makes them unviable). Many of these buffs and rotational items seem to be built with a Patchwerk-style boss in mind, and tend to be crippling in situations where players need to move around a lot (I know BLM really suffers for any kind of movement). When struggling to maintain these in the face of most encounters these days, it makes sense to revisit them, to make them work better with mechanics that take you away from the boss or that require you to move.

As this applies to tanks, the only thing I can think it would apply to would be DRK, where some of the cooldowns literally work against each other (increasing evasion when you need to take damage to regain MP is not a good thing). If not for Infuriate, I'd say WAR could use it, but Infuriate works very well to make WAR rotationally fun. For the most part, PLD seems okay (outside of Tempered Will); they're a little dull, but they make sense rotationally.

[Brannigan]

And lo, another thread is taken over by the debate over tanks as DPS.

That happened like 13 pages ago. It's always the same three or four guys quoting responses line-by-line and arguing for something that would require a complete redesign of tank ability sets, boss and trash encounters, and tank equipment. Then you get the dude who longs for the days of 2.0 paladin because three fewer WSes made it easier to call out attacks in voice chat. Of course none of them really engage with any of the challenging content the game has to offer, so even if survival was a struggle in every encounter they wouldn't notice it.

[Falar]

why not play a DD then? i wish FXIV would focus more on tanks being actual tanks in raid content and less on being additional DDs that can take hits better.

I do have a DPS at L60 and soon to be a 2nd.

However, Fallen Wings already said it best. A tank that just sits there doing nothing but taking damage and swinging a pool noodle is boring. I like doing 75% of the damage of a DPS while still positioning the boss and holding aggro. Anything less would be too easy and too boring.

[Brian_]

That happened like 13 pages ago. It's always the same three or four guys quoting responses line-by-line and arguing for something that would require a complete redesign of tank ability sets, boss and trash encounters, and tank equipment. Then you get the dude who longs for the days of 2.0 paladin because three fewer WSes made it easier to call out attacks in voice chat. Of course none of them really engage with any of the challenging content the game has to offer, so even if survival was a struggle in every encounter they wouldn't notice it.

Like I mentioned when I tried to actually pull this conversation back towards the root of SE's concerns, when SE says that they're looking into changing the combat system and rotations, it's because they're concerned about the growing gap between top tier players and everyone else and the stress that puts on 1, 2 or 3 tiered content design. The reason for why this is a discussion of DPS is because that's primarily where the gap in player skill is manifested in tanks. This is due to deliberate design decisions that have resulted in the fundamental role of the tank being their skill floor and the DPS they push their skill ceiling. The gap between your top-tier raider and even a mid-tier raider is already large. The gap between some of the A12S clearing tanks with decent parses in this topic and the people who I suppose you are referring to is even larger.

My impression from the discussion about making things rotationally simpler is for things like Enochian, Blood of the Dragon, or the MCH opener (which is responsible for their entire damage output, and where a single mistake makes them unviable).

None of that is relevant to their main point. The main point they've been wrestling with is accessibility. They're looking into closing the gap between players like you and players at the top because the gap is so large it's hurting the game. Whether that be through changing AAs so that less skilled and efficient players lose less of them while handling mechanics, dumbing down tank itemization, or all the QoL changes like grit / oaths no longer breaking combos, the point is the same and it has nothing to do with DPS. It's an issue where some players can take whatever they're given and get the most out of it and others cannot.

That doesn't change if you redesign tanking so that rather that push DPS, tanks push survivability. That just means that the top tanks now will go from dealing absurd damage to being absurdly hard to kill and the casual tanks will go from hitting like a wet noodle to being as squishy as a wet noodle.

[Frowny]

Don't you know tanks are just DPS that can take hits better? :^)

Way I see it now, if a tank still can't out-DPS a proper DPS class... works for me.

[Sarcatica]

Way I see it now, if a tank still can't out-DPS a proper DPS class... works for me.

The VIT change was fundamentally key to have tanks return to their roots. STR meta was so efficient that with a NIN, I didn't even need to be in ShO for any boss pulls back in Gordias, those were the time where ShO completely reset combo btw. Overall tanks do less damage than any capable DPS while having tanks to establish aggro better and top up whenever necessary now. Obviously good tanks can still outdps the baddies but VIT change is for the better, imo moving into the way of how tanks should play.