Making Jobs Rotationally Easier in 4.0

[Brian_]

If you have the opportunity to play a tank so well that you literally mitigate/avoid enough damage to the point where you don't need any healing, it would be a far better testimony of your tanking skill than any uber DPS number you could achieve.

Yesterday, I ended with a PLD main tank that only spammed RoH throughout all of A11...it was really sad. But, now, let's imagine something. His WS rotation was extremely bad, but we still won the fight. Do you think he learned anything from that ?
Now, if the WS rotation was part of your tanking capabilities (i.e, generating enough enmity and mitigating damage), he would have died...and we would probably have lost.

Yes, it's a pain to lose a fight, but when it comes to the playerbase, it's better to lose one fight because the MT tank can't be carried that letting bad tanks clear even that kind of content.

And healers can be carried through fights without casting a single heal. DPS can be carried through fights without dealing any damage. I'd say healing and DPS are pretty important to the roles of healer and DPS, respectively. What you're referencing isn't a problem with the jobs, it's a problem with the content. When you say "even that kind of content," that's the standard you're referring to. There is a good chance a good group could 4 man most of Alex NM if not for some of the body count checks. Using that as a bar to measure the design of a job is foolish.

There are only a couple fights every tier that actually test whether or not you play your job well and whether or not those jobs are balanced. Those fights were too hard for most people so that's why SE is considering changes to dumb-down jobs. Again, those changes are not being made because of the tanks that could perform their jobs well. They're being made because of all the tanks who couldn't. So, when you discuss changes, that's the perspective that must be taken.

As Brannigan pointed out, you and the people on your side of the argument are being dumb. You can't raise the skill floor on the job when the skill floor is already too high for the overwhelming majority of people.

[Shurrikhan]

As Brannigan pointed out, you and the people on your side of the argument are being dumb. You can't raise the skill floor on the job when the skill floor is already too high for the overwhelming majority of people.

You can if you include support that better bridges that gap, for instance tutorials that are actually worth a damn, built-in output parsers, and so forth.

As long as SE leaves any meaningful learning tools beyond one's tooltips purely in the hands of the community that gap is just going to get larger, until floor and ceiling are both inevitably cut and all but that "majority" are encouraged to leave.

[Reynhart]

And healers can be carried through fights without casting a single heal.

Yet it's not a problem for you that a WAR wouldn't need any healing against a dungeon boss...and the tank is not the only one to take damage during a fight.

DPS can be carried through fights without dealing any damage.

Of course, because we all know how mitigating damage is a great way to deal with DPS checks.

Using that as a bar to measure the design of a job is foolish.

No, it's not. Alex NM is the best time to force people to improve on their job. You can't make everything faceroll, then kick everyone's butt when they enter savage. It's called a learning curve.

Again, those changes are not being made because of the tanks that could perform their jobs well. They're being made because of all the tanks who couldn't. So, when you discuss changes, that's the perspective that must be taken.

Actually, this is just speculation. They mentioned a change in job rotation, but as far as we know, they mostly talk about DPS skills, like Enochian and Blood of the Dragon.

As Brannigan pointed out, you and the people on your side of the argument are being dumb. You can't raise the skill floor on the job when the skill floor is already too high for the overwhelming majority of people.

Yes, you can, you raise the skill floor on content that asks no skill at all...why is a tank supposed to learn anything when he can pass A11 with just spamming RoH ?

That's just not true. If every job could do 2000 DPS by pressing 1 button, then a lot more people would clear hard content. If every tank had on demand hallowed ground for every tank buster, then a lot more people would clear hard content. If healers had a surplus of infinite range instant AoE healing / shielding, then a lot more people would clear hard content.

Then it wouldn't be hard content now, would it ?

[Brian_]

Yet it's not a problem for you that a WAR wouldn't need any healing against a dungeon boss...and the tank is not the only one to take damage during a fight.

Of course, because we all know how mitigating damage is a great way to deal with DPS checks.

No, it's not. Alex NM is the best time to force people to improve on their job. You can't make everything faceroll, then kick everyone's butt when they enter savage. It's called a learning curve.

You have some serious issues with linking mental ideas together. You said it was a bad thing that tanks could get carried through Alex NM and used it as a reason for why tank design should change. Everyone can get carried through Alex NM. Alex NM is not content that you should use to judge job design or job balance. That was my point.

So some tank spamming only RoH got carried through A11N. That says nothing about tank design at all and everything about A11N not demanding proper play. Use a piece of content that actually tests what the job should be capable of when speaking about how it fails to be what it should be. You are suggesting we make fundamental changes to tanks because A11N failed to test if a tank knew how to play. I am at a loss for words to describe how stupid that is.

Alex NM is not content where 1 person's mistakes should stop 7 other people from clearing. You, in your increasingly trademarked hypocrisy, try to expound the idea of a learning curve only to simply move the wall from Savage to NM because casual players need that. A wall is not a curve nor is 1 fight reason to alter an entire role.

Actually, this is just speculation. They mentioned a change in job rotation, but as far as we know, they mostly talk about DPS skills, like Enochian and Blood of the Dragon.

No, it's not speculation. They said that they made the Creator easier because people were incapable of executing optimized rotations while handling mechanics and they viewed that as a reason for the low clear rates. They said that if the rotation difficulty remained at 2.X levels when they were brain dead easy, then more people would've cleared the content. But, seeing as it's too late to make sweeping changes in 3.4, they'd work on them for 4.0.

[Reynhart]

Alex NM is not content that you should use to judge job design or job balance. That was my point.

And my point is that, yes, it is content where you should judge job design.

So some tank spamming only RoH got carried through A11N.

They shouldn't.

Alex NM is not content where 1 person's mistakes should stop 7 other people from clearing.

On that, you're right, but it should at least kill you. And spamming RoH is a blatant mistake...but since it has nothing to do with actual tanking, it doesn't matter at all.

You, in your increasingly trademarked hypocrisy, try to expound the idea of a learning curve only to simply move the wall from Savage to NM because casual players need that. A wall is not a curve nor is 1 fight reason to alter an entire role.

Then maybe we might discuss what a "curve" is. Right now, Savage is a wall, a big mercyless wall...and everything is boringly easy (Except some EX primals). What we should have is easy dungeons, slighty harder expert dungeons, even harder raid and really challenging savage raid. That's a "curve".

No, it's not speculation. They said that they made the Creator easier because people were incapable of executing optimized rotations while handling mechanics and they viewed that as a reason for the low clear rates.

Yes, for DPS. I don't recall them saying anythig about "tank rotation". To be precise, at Fan Fest, they didn't even mention changing the rotations by themselves but just making maintaining buffs "easier".

[Brian_]

And my point is that, yes, it is content where you should judge job design.

Then we should clearly redesign every job in every role because they can all get carried through A11N. Great reasoning. Actually, we should just scrap Stormblood and instead redesign everything around A11N.

What a joke.

Then maybe we might discuss what a "curve" is. Right now, Savage is a wall, a big mercyless wall...and everything is boringly easy (Except some EX primals). What we should have is easy dungeons, slighty harder expert dungeons, even harder raid and really challenging savage raid. That's a "curve".

So the first time someone sees an 8 man raid will be at the "even harder" difficulty. That's not a curve.

What they have now is more of a curve than what you're proposing and what they have now is already terrible. Alex NM is their entry level raid, EX trials and early Savage floors are their MC raids, and the last few floors are supposed to be their HC raids which gradually become MC with over gearing. That's right. Alex NM is not supposed to be hard because it is your introductory raid.

Yes, for DPS. I don't recall them saying anythig about "tank rotation".

What they said was not limited to DPS.

We are considering going back to the basics. Jobs from FFXIV at the moment require you to look at all your buffs and manage them and i feel we went too far. As a hardcore gamer stand point, "It's definately more fun when there's more you can do" and the team in charge of the battle system all have this idea in common and we think we accomplished that. But we made the Ceiling high and overdid it, so 4.0 will have less factors to manage and we want to straightly push out the characteristics of each job. The top tier players may think "this has become to easy boss..." , but we would like to closen the gap between hardcore players and casual players a little more. This is just an image so please take this as "Hmm, so it's becoming easier?"

And before you point to his mention of buffs, 3.0 PLD, DRK, and WAR all gave the role buff / debuff / DoT management burdens that tanks did not have in 2.X. For example, in 3.X, when trying to maximize DPS, a WAR needs high stack efficiency. If you hold stacks too often for whatever reason, your DPS plummets. And, they need to achieve that while having efficient fracture usage and optimized Berserk windows for 3 FCs. In 2.X, WAR didn't do any of that because they didn't have Deliverance. They off-loaded what they could from Defiance and dropped stance to DPS. As a result, the gap between a mediocre WAR and a top WAR ballooned in 3.X.

[Reynhart]

Then we should clearly redesign every job in every role because they can all get carried through A11N. Great reasoning. Actually, we should just scrap Stormblood and instead redesign everything around A11N.

You're right, it's so much better to keep the actual dungeon & raid design. It didn't do any damage in the raiding community...But I guess that since you did okay, everybody else must be crybabies who complained for nothing.

So the first time someone sees an 8 man raid will be at the "even harder" difficulty. That's not a curve.

Yeah, and the first time someone climbs the eighth step in a stair, it's too difficult...unless one learned how to climb up to the seventh...

What they have now is more of a curve than what you're proposing and what they have now is already terrible. Alex NM is their entry level raid

So, you're perfectly fine describing a PLD spamming RoH as an acceptable "entry level tank" ? I thought you had far higher standards than that.

What they said was not limited to DPS.

What they said in your quote...is basically not saying much. They gave more info during the live letter at Fanfest, but, saddly we don't have a summary source for now.

[Brian_]

You're right, it's so much better to keep the actual dungeon & raid design. It didn't do any damage in the raiding community...But I guess that since you did okay, everybody else must be crybabies who complained for nothing.

What did damage to the raiding community is hardly related to your biased delusions about how tanks should be designed because one PLD got carried through A11N while only spamming RoH.

Yeah, and the first time someone climbs the eighth step in a stair, it's too difficult...unless one learned how to climb up to the seventh...

Except your seventh step is on a different stairway. Raid content is not the same as dungeon content -- even the hardest dungeon content. Dungeon content doesn't teach you how to tank swap. It doesn't teach you how to OT. It can't teach you some of the finer coordination needed to help your raid survive damage.

So, you're perfectly fine describing a PLD spamming RoH as an acceptable "entry level tank" ? I thought you had far higher standards than that.

I'm not fine with it. I've voiced my criticism of SE's PvE progression model in more relevant topics. However, I'm not like you and don't falsely correlate 1 person's poor performance in irrelevant content to my biased delusions about how a job should be changed to match my personal fantasy.

What they said in your quote...is basically not saying much. They gave more info during the live letter at Fanfest, but, saddly we don't have a summary source for now.

It's saying exactly what Yoshida said. They're scaling the jobs back to the basics and reducing the amount of things you need to micromanage. That's pretty definitive and clear. Their actions since have only proved such motivations. That idea is very relevant to tanks and the changes we might receive.