Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[Connor]

I totally agree that variety and nuance have been thrown out the window for FFXIV because of the extreme rigidity of encounter design. I also feel like maybe the community is taking the ‘perfect balance’ thing a little too far without clearly understanding the pros and cons (and there are plenty of both). This extremely rigid style of battle content has severely limited the scope with which they can develop ‘unique’ classes.

To use the most extreme examples, a DPS with healing capabilities is functionally redundant from the get-go because of damage output predictability being extremely easy to plan around for healers without much effort. For this same reason, not DPS and Support oriented style healer would be functionally redundant if they ever tried to design one (why waste a spot on a healing/support focused job when you can just stack DPS oriented healers). Support jobs (e.g 2.0/3.0 Bard in concept) are, unsurprisingly, functionally redundant, because the absolute predictability of encounters means that any support that isn’t a direct damage increase is worthless, especially if it drops the users dps. If it does increase damage it’s overpowered and has to be removed. They can’t even have shared resources on this kind of thing for balance; players why would anyone ever use a support skill (e.g Minne / Paean) over any damage increasing skill because fights can be planned to the last detail to absolutely minimise all requirements that aren’t DPS, meaning that utility/ support is useless by definition (why would you ever want to use an ability like Minne when you know healers absolutely should not need the extra healing in if the first place)

That said, the community is extremely resistant to the idea of unpredictable fights or encounters that utilise more unique mechanics that aren’t the same couple of attack patterns with different animations that we’ve been seeing for around 6 years now. The developers have already tried making content that deviates from the standard, and it’s been consistently and universally despised. The most salient cases of this are the original Steps of Faith, the original Pharos Sirius and Eureka. They might have been awfully designed (that’s a different debate) but the fact is that they’ve tried making an effort quite a few times in the past to make ‘unique’ content, and it’s always met with extreme resistance. The sad thing is that the result is the developers either nerfing the content in Oblivion (Steps/Pharos), or they just flat out give up and pretend the content doesn’t exist anymore (Eureka)

If anything, I imagine any abilities that exist that aren’t a direct damage increase to the user will be removed more in future. We already have Red Mages and Summoners calling for Vercure/Verraise/Resurrection/Everlasting Flight to be removed (and subsequently replaced with direct damage abilities). Bards begged for Ballad / Paean / Minuet / Paean to be removed for the vast majority of 2.0/3.0 because of the damage loss associated with them. Ninjas seem to want the removal of Trick Attack so that they can have their personal DPS increased. Hell, people are now still asking for Scholar to become a DPS healer and have the utility side removed to compensate. I think a lot of Scholars would be extremely happy if Sacred Soil was deleted for Shadowflare and Adloquium/Succor were deleted to become DoTs

My tl;dr is: the community have been asking for non-damage abilities to be removed from the game basically since it came out. As a result the devs are like ‘let’s just make content never need anything like this ever again’. So encounter design naturally becomes heavily focused on damage output (because the only mechanic they have left to use). The community is exposed to encounters that are basically just four floors of DPS checks for like 6 years. Then the community naturally comes heavily preoccupied with DPS (because it’s the only mechanic that matters now)

[Acidblood]

That said, the community is extremely resistant to the idea of unpredictable fights or encounters that utilise more unique mechanics that aren’t the same couple of attack patterns with different animations that we’ve been seeing for around 6 years now. The developers have already tried making content that deviates from the standard, and it’s been consistently and universally despised. The most salient cases of this are the original Steps of Faith, the original Pharos Sirius and Eureka. They might have been awfully designed (that’s a different debate) but the fact is that they’ve tried making an effort quite a few times in the past to make ‘unique’ content, and it’s always met with extreme resistance. The sad thing is that the result is the developers either nerfing the content in Oblivion (Steps/Pharos), or they just flat out give up and pretend the content doesn’t exist anymore (Eureka)

I don't think this is entirely true…

Taking Eureka as an example, most players checked it out, some enjoyed it, some didn't, but the general feedback seemed to be that while it was OK it was basically just the same old FATE grind, only instanced! Many ideas where put forward to on how to make it more engaging and unique, unfortunately (whether due to stubbornness or simply being too far along to change anything) the developers seemed to ignore all of it and Pagos happened. They did then listen to feedback, and including some ideas of their own (logos actions) created Pyros, which by all reports was a significant improvement. Hydatos was much the same (it seemed a bit rushed) but the inclusion of Baldesion Arsenal proved to be a winner (at least for those that made it that far).

So the community is willing to accept new content, SE just need to get better at designing it (to be useful and engaging), presenting it, and aligning it more with player expectations, which for better or worse does include a certain level of accessibility and approachable difficulty; with the best example of this of course being PotD.

Sadly, I have to agree that the combat system has fallen too far at this point to create anything truly unique and the best we can hope for is perhaps some interesting duty actions or side content (like PotD, Eureka Pyros, or Baldesion Arsenal). I hope I am wrong though, and I hope Yoshida does want to create a path forward that will give FFXIV a bright future (and perhaps a life beyond its main storyline), and that 5.0 has been a wake-up call to the downsides of chasing the illusion that is 'balance'.

[Connor]

I don't think this is entirely true…

Taking Eureka as an example, most players checked it out, some enjoyed it, some didn't, but the general feedback seemed to be that while it was OK it was basically just the same old FATE grind, only instanced! Many ideas where put forward to on how to make it more engaging and unique, unfortunately (whether due to stubbornness or simply being too far along to change anything) the developers seemed to ignore all of it and Pagos happened. They did then listen to feedback, and including some ideas of their own (logos actions) created Pyros, which by all reports was a significant improvement. Hydatos was much the same (it seemed a bit rushed) but the inclusion of Baldesion Arsenal proved to be a winner (at least for those that made it that far).

So the community is willing to accept new content, SE just need to get better at designing it (to be useful and engaging), presenting it, and aligning it more with player expectations, which for better or worse does include a certain level of accessibility and approachable difficulty; with the best example of this of course being PotD.

Sadly, I have to agree that the combat system has fallen too far at this point to create anything truly unique and the best we can hope for is perhaps some interesting duty actions or side content (like PotD, Eureka Pyros, or Baldesion Arsenal). I hope I am wrong though, and I hope Yoshida does want to create a path forward that will give FFXIV a bright future (and perhaps a life beyond its main storyline), and that 5.0 has been a wake-up call to the downsides of chasing the illusion that is 'balance'.

Yeah, I don’t mean to suggest that it’s entirely a community thing for why people are rejecting this kind of content. A good concept is one thing, but if it’s poorly designed and not fun to play,, people are going to dislike it regardless of how good the concept is. Especially when said content is channeling aspects of gameplay that haven’t generally been received well (like the dependence on FATEs in Eureka, even though I don’t think anyone has really been asking for more FATE lol)