This whole Meta Party thing is hurting me. x_x

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You're missing my point. Is the average player going to sync up their raid buffs in coordination with another player's buffs so that they stack consistently in a pug group? Probably not.

They don't have to be. A Dragoon can pop Battle Litany willy-nilly and it will still have a significant impact on Bard's overall damage, albeit less of one than if paired with a competent Dragoon. Regardless, it's unfair to compare unskilled meta job players with skilled non-meta ones. All things need to be relatively equal to calculate any worthwhile data. A bad Dragoon will still provide more to the raid than a bad Samurai unless the former is flat out not pushing buttons. Statics that want meta jobs aren't going to settle for a forty percentile Dragoon over a eighty percentile Samurai. They'll hold out for a better Dragoon.

Of course I am aware that ACT calculates from the battle log. Yet that is still not a complete picture of the numbers. Internal testing, raw mathematics (formulas, interactions) on the coding level, those are all things that we do not have. And I'm sorry, but I will believe the creators of the game far more easily than any player. It's nothing personal, but no player knows the game nearly as well as the developers do.

As for the others who quoted me: if you truly, truly believe that the developers are wrong with an objective analysis of data subsets, there is no convincing you. But the meta is a fiction. The sooner we let go of it, the better.

You're essentially claiming the battle log lies to us. Assuming all players are of equal skill, a composition of PLD/WAR/AST/SCH/DRG/NIN/BRD/MCH will outperform one consisting of PLD/DRK/AST/WHM/SAM/NIN/BRD/RDM

There is no internal formula that abruptly balances out the latter group. The Bard alone will suffer a significant damage loss due to how much of its DPS revolves around Crit (Battle Litany; Chain Strategem) and Disembowel. DRK lags behind WAR in overall damage output and has nowhere near the utility.

Yoshida isn't even denying the meta exists. He's merely insisting all jobs are viable, which they are. That does not mean they are all equal. In an interview with MrHappy last year, he outright asked Happy to tell his audience healer DPS doesn't matter and they don't expect it when calculating enrage timers unless people are undergeared. By your logic, people should accept non-DPS healers since Yoshida defended them. You'll be hard pressed to find any worthwhile static allowing their healers to literally do nothing in between healing.

[Eli85]

You're essentially claiming the battle log lies to us.

This is a really bad case of putting words in my mouth. My claim (which really isn't a claim, as it is a fact): the developers have a higher quality of data than the players do. Ergo, when objective data analysis is done, I (and everyone else, quite frankly) should put far, far more weight into the developers claims (since) they are working from a higher quality of data.

Development metrics, internal numbers, more thorough understanding of how skills and abilities interact with each other, better testing environments—all this, combined with far more logs than any player has seen, gives the developers a much higher quality of data.

Yoshida isn't even denying the meta exists. He's merely insisting all jobs are viable, which they are. That does not mean they are all equal.

I fear you are misreading Yoshida. When he says that 'there are no major advantages or disadvantages to any setup,' the suggestion is very clear: the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the "meta" are not as profound as players make them out to be. So why? The higher quality of data the developers are privy to suggest this, which is why he said what he said.

[Neela]

Development metrics, internal numbers, more thorough understanding of how skills and abilities interact with each other, better testing environments—all this, combined with far more logs than any player has seen, gives the developers a much higher quality of data.

I fear you are misreading Yoshida. When he says that 'there are no major advantages or disadvantages to any setup,' the suggestion is very clear: the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the "meta" are not as profound as players make them out to be. So why? The higher quality of data the developers are privy to suggest this, which is why he said what he said.

So why does it need the playerbase to find all those opportunities like the 100% egi/fairy buff uptime thing in HW, the one hit TA back at the primal or the latest Ninja rotation which „wasn’t intended to be like this“ (and many more examples) if devs knowledge and testing is beyond all doubts? Everytime a skill is changed in its mechanic its just another proof that the player base found a usage of that skill the devs haven't even thought about... how does this fact fit your opinion?

[Eli85]

So why does it need the playerbase to find all those opportunities like the 100% egi/fairy buff uptime thing in HW, the one hit TA back at the primal or the latest Ninja rotation which „wasn’t intended to be like this“ (and many more examples) if devs knowledge and testing is beyond all doubts? Everytime a skill is changed in its mechanic its just another proof that the player base found a usage of that skill the devs haven't even thought about... how does this fact fit your opinion?

This is a misread of my posts. I have never said that the devs knowledge and testing is beyond all doubts. I have simply said that they have far more data (in volume) and far more complete data than players have. Further, when both sides do objective data analysis, we should put more weight into the opinions of the party who has more data and more complete data.

I have done no such thing. If the developers have data we aren't privy that demonstrably disapproves the meta, in-game battle logs are relaying inaccurate information. Regardless, we know your statement false because the developers have on, numerous occasions, been outsmarted by the playerbase. They never anticipated players who precast Huton or blow Infuriate/Raw Intuition and delay pulling. For an entire expansion they insisted Paladin were fine yet caved come Stormblood.

The developers having more complete information does not make player battle logs false. You are free to draw your own conclusions about what the battle log is telling you, but objectively speaking, whoever has the more fuller, complete information when performing objective data analysis should be weighted far more.

They don't actually have a better understanding. None of the dev team players at even a remotely comparable level to World First raiders. This is true of virtually every game due to time constraints. A primary reason many games employ test servers is for this very reason.

They do, actually. When you create something—anything, it doesn't matter what—you have a far greater understanding of it than anyone else, because you understand how it is constructed to the most minute details. Also, in the case of game development, metrics, internal testing, simulations and what not gives them enough data to make up for them not being "world first raiders." Note: I am not agreeing that they aren't comparable to world first raiders, but I'm giving you that for the sake of argument.

Operative word being "major." Perception is key here. The devs do not necessarily see Bard missing out of Battle Litany on Disembowel as a "major disadvantage" because their only concern is can every job clear the content. Yoshida's statement is both casual minded and intended to stop being locking out certain jobs. It's a PR response and little else. It has absolutely nothing to do with "higher quality data" or whatever other nebulous term. I mean, consider the alternative. Paying customers wouldn't exactly be pleased to hear the Producer say, "Yeah, no. Samurai is useless. Play Dragoon/Ninja," if they enjoyed the former.

Yes, perception is key, but not in the way that you are using it. When he says there is no major advantage, he is acknowledging there may be some slight edge or what not do this mythical meta concept, but not to the point where it makes any real difference.

What you (and others) need to understand is that developers (the producer, in particular) does not offer opinions on the game because he fancies them. He offers an opinion based on game metrics. Every development studio does this, and S-E is no different. The opinions are based entirely in objective data.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

The developers having more complete information does not make player battle logs false. You are free to draw your own conclusions about what the battle log is telling you, but objectively speaking, whoever has the more fuller, complete information when performing objective data analysis should be weighted far more.

This is a simple dichotomy. Either the battle logs are accurate or inaccurate. If the developers have information that isn't being relayed to the players, then the current logs lie. You cannot get around that.

They do, actually. When you create something—anything, it doesn't matter what—you have a far greater understanding of it than anyone else, because you understand how it is constructed to the most minute details. Also, in the case of game development, metrics, internal testing, simulations and what not gives them enough data to make up for them not being "world first raiders." Note: I am not agreeing that they aren't comparable to world first raiders, but I'm giving you that for the sake of argument.

Really? Why have developers outright acknowledged high level players are better than they are. Having a vague idea and being capable of executing do not necessarily correlate. In the case of FFXIV, all their testing is done with God Mode on. It was among the primary reason Gordias failed so spectacularly. They balanced individual mechanics with invisibility on but never tested how putting everything together in a normal environment would work.

If they aren't better than World First or even good raiders. They won't know the same intricacies we do. I reiterate, the devs never anticipated people would do prepull shenanigan with Ninja and Warrior hence why Infuriate is now locked behind active combat and Hide refreshes your Mudras. Those changes were in direct response to players figuring out better alternatives. Going further back, Yoshida even admitted he thought tanks tanking outside Defiance/Shield were insane. Yes, the Producer, couldn't fathom why people did that.

Yes, perception is key, but not in the way that you are using it. When he says there is no major advantage, he is acknowledging there may be some slight edge or what not do this mythical meta concept, but not to the point where it makes any real difference.

What you (and others) need to understand is that developers (the producer, in particular) does not offer opinions on the game because he fancies them. He offers an opinion based on game metrics. Every development studio does this, and S-E is no different. The opinions are based entirely in objective data.

No, you need to understand how PR operates. Developers lies, or stretch the truth if we're being generous. You needs look no further than Destiny 2 and some of its insidious tactics of late. In fact, Bungie advertised experience gains that players eventually discovered were being throttled, i.e. intentionally lowered to prevent skilled players from advancing too quickly. When caught, they claimed a bug... then doubled the necessary experience. And we haven't even covered the nonsense EA tries to get away with.

Anywho.

Your entire argument hinges on a simple philosophy: Jobs are all secretly balanced due to "higher quality data" that we are not privy to. If this were true, the developers are idiots for not releasing this information. Why? It destroys the meta. Because until the playerbase has objective, written, proof, they will always fall back on FFLogs and ACT. No one cares what Yoshida claims. They want numbers that can be cross referenced and properly scrutinized. By your insistence, the developers have this information, but won't release it because... reasons? Furthermore, this inherently makes job changes pointless. Why did Black Mage get a fairly high buff? Why is Samurai slated for one? According to you, there is no meta, thus neither job has any reason to see changes. At least to their damage.

Basically, your stance makes the dev team appear as utter fools who possess the tools to destroy a culture they openly dislike ((FFlogs) yet won't, and make job changes to already balanced jobs because... boredom, I guess?

[Eli85]

This is a simple dichotomy. Either the battle logs are accurate or inaccurate. If the developers have information that isn't being relayed to the players, then the current logs lie. You cannot get around that.

Battle logs, from the player perspective are accurate; however the developers have all of the battle logs and can see how combat plays out from a coding level, and, therefore, have a more complete picture of the data.

It's quite easy to get around that.

Really? Why have developers outright acknowledged high level players are better than they are. Having a vague idea and being capable of executing do not necessarily correlate. In the case of FFXIV, all their testing is done with God Mode on. It was among the primary reason Gordias failed so spectacularly. They balanced individual mechanics with invisibility on but never tested how putting everything together in a normal environment would work.

If they aren't better than World First or even good raiders. They won't know the same intricacies we do. I reiterate, the devs never anticipated people would do prepull shenanigan with Ninja and Warrior hence why Infuriate is now locked behind active combat and Hide refreshes your Mudras. Those changes were in direct response to players figuring out better alternatives. Going further back, Yoshida even admitted he thought tanks tanking outside Defiance/Shield were insane. Yes, the Producer, couldn't fathom why people did that.

None of this disproves the notion that the developers (who created the game) have a greater understanding of the game than players do. Players come up with a different tactic than they anticipated in one raid tier; it does not mean that the players now have a greater collective understanding of how the game works.

No, you need to understand how PR operates. Developers lies, or stretch the truth if we're being generous. You needs look no further than Destiny 2 and some of its insidious tactics of late. In fact, Bungie advertised experience gains that players eventually discovered were being throttled, i.e. intentionally lowered to prevent skilled players from advancing too quickly. When caught, they claimed a bug... then doubled the necessary experience. And we haven't even covered the nonsense EA tries to get away with.

We're not talking about Bungie or EA. We're talking about S-E. Yet even still, there are two different kinds of statements: selling the game (this is where lying or stretching the truth) and explaining how an aspect of the game works (this is where Yoshida's comments fall). The developers answered the meta by looking into game data (objective dataset) and gave an opinion based on what they found. This is not a lie or PR. It's forwarding an objective conclusion based on objective datasets.

Your entire argument hinges on a simple philosophy: Jobs are all secretly balanced due to "higher quality data" that we are not privy to. If this were true, the developers are idiots for not releasing this information. Why? It destroys the meta. Because until the playerbase has objective, written, proof, they will always fall back on FFLogs and ACT. No one cares what Yoshida claims. They want numbers that can be cross referenced and properly scrutinized. By your insistence, the developers have this information, but won't release it because... reasons? Furthermore, this inherently makes job changes pointless. Why did Black Mage get a fairly high buff? Why is Samurai slated for one? According to you, there is no meta, thus neither job has any reason to see changes. At least to their damage.

Basically, your stance makes the dev team appear as utter fools who possess the tools to destroy a culture they openly dislike ((FFlogs) yet won't, and make job changes to already balanced jobs because... boredom, I guess?

Why do you think Yoshida said what he said? He wants to make it clear the meta is a fiction. Their data and data analysis supports this. Not sure why the message is so hard to understand.

That is simply not true, except for a moment just after the creating.
There have been many, many cases throughout history of people making things behave in ways thought impossible by the original creator. This is because they had spent enough time using and analyzing the item in question that they had obtained a far better understanding of its behaviour than the creator ever did.

This is factually incorrect. When you create something, you know how the minutiae fit together, how the different element interacts together, you know it better than any fan could ever do. Sure, I'll give you that fans can come up with solid understandings, present something new, but that never, ever replicates a creator's understanding.

Unfortunately, OP of your quoted post has never seen speedruns or anything. A lot of game developers are so surprised and excited/a little embarrassed to find out how much better the players know their game than they do.

I have seen speed runs, the silly and irrelevant concept that it is. But I have seen it. Would you like to tell me what other things you know for a certainty that I haven't seen?

[whiskeybravo]

He wants to make it clear the meta is a fiction.

You lost me here. They also thought all tanks were going to start stacking tenacity because it was such a "powerful" stat. They also thought Dark Knight and Samurai were fine (at least until recently).

You're argument actually reminds me a lot of pollsters. You know, when they claim things like "Americans believe in _____", but they actually only surveyed like a 1000 people.

So we base our info off only a fraction of data made available by players volunteering it, while SE has access to everyone's data (we suppose).

None of this disproves the notion that the developers (who created the game) have a greater understanding of the game than players do.

This statement is vague af. I don't think anyone would deny they have a great understanding of the coding, networking, technical capabilities/limitations, etc. of their game. That doesn't mean they're all capable of competing with a world first group. So you're actually talking about 2 different things: Dev's knowledge of how the game operates and player's knowledge of how to get the most out of it. One is not required for the other.

This is factually incorrect. When you create something, you know how the minutiae fit together, how the different element interacts together, you know it better than any fan could ever do.

Really? So, guys like Nikola Tesla never existed? Interesting..

[zuzu-bq]

Why do you think Yoshida said what he said? He wants to make it clear the meta is a fiction. Their data and data analysis supports this. Not sure why the message is so hard to understand.

He admittedly said that there are discrepancies between jobs but they're doing their best to make them small (and doing a good job on it since SB's launch). Though the community won't percieve them as small because of how they compare eachother on fflogs and how percentiles and shoving seconds off a kill work and most importantly, how good it feels to recieve other job's buffs during a run.

[Tizzy_Tormentor]

I have seen speed runs, the silly and irrelevant concept that it is.

I seriously hope you are just trying to put down players who enjoy the excitement of beating their old times or trying to do better in fights (as sad as that already is) because calling speedrunning a "silly and irrelevant concept" is pretty insulting.

You know there are entire charities and events based around speedrunning? You know that events like these have gone on to make money that will save peoples lives? You know that are many people who derive enjoyment from watching people speedrun?

I really hope you aren't calling that irrelevant.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

There's too much wrong here to go bit by bit, but let's just start with this one.

It should be obvious that player understanding would quickly overwhelm developer understanding the very moment developers chose to play-test it themselves to determine likely results, rather than appropriately tuning for potentially endless simulations. That varying gear, compositions, openers, strategies, and syncs were all compressed merely into multiple samples of one setup per fight should be a brightly flashing alarm.

As for any understanding of the basics of their system -- one need look no further than Ninja and the original Dragoon and Monk builds. Hopefully they've learned a lot since then. But those each required catching up to the players' deeper understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of each toolkit, noted in detail within a week of the game and later the job's release.