Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

[Melichoir]

I am just thinking back to 2.x and 3.x (and to an extent 4.x) content and I am worried about this trend...not only about the design of the extreme/savage encounters but more-so the job player skill ceilings. It seems to me that the difference between a poor to average skilled player compared to a skilled player is minuscule performance wise. There is no real incentive to actually master your job, since you can be really bad and still do 99% of content. Is this the design style going forward? If so, is anyone else concerned? Higher end content should require near-mastery of your job, shouldn't it? Or am I crazy?

I always find this kinda strange to be a point. This never made sense because it assumes if youve been playing the game for a while that youll not increase in skill in any capacity, even if youve been trying out more challenging content.

You know, the plain and simple answer could easily be the player base has averagely gotten better over time while the skill ceiling hasnt been increasing as fast, and thus more people are able to get into more extreme content. Pair this with the fact that balance might not have been as good in previous xpacs as it is now. Alexander might be harder buck for buck, but it could be harder for all the wrong reasons. As a point, A3S became notorious for the dps checks. So much so it was almost required that tanks essentially strip off any stat that didtn contribute to DPS and socket for that. It ended up with tanks being slightly tankier DPS who unless they were very good with everyone else, would get killed by busters. It was a static breaker by how difficult those checks were, and it's not something fondly remembered or widely enjoyed at the time. It was plainly bad design.

DPS checks arent as bad now as then (short of enrage), but I think fights have gotten more mechanically intensive as the offset. So its a new management of doing a complex mechanic on top of keeping a decent uptime/dps, compared to earlier versions where the focus what seemed more DPS check orientated.

TLDR - Skill ceiling has gone up, but probably not at the same rate as the average player skill has increased. It makes it seem like things have gotten 'easier' when theyve actually gotten harder, but we've gotten better faster averagely.

[Samsta]

There are more jobs than just BRD that were simplified to the point of being braindead. DRK and WAR also come to mind here. Upkeep of GL on MNK is a joke now. Positionals on the job are a joke now. ShB made just about every job overly simplistic, and we have people making threads still to advocate for making things even MORE simple (see the recent thread about how DNC’s Flourish is apparently difficult to use).

Ehh, I can agree with you on WAR and DRK, I haven't really played monk myself, but the upkeep GL was never something you really could affect, most of the time it would either fall off because of too long transition or not, having it not fall off is more of a QoL change than anything. Saying that "every job" is overly simplistic is a huge stretch. Compare heavensward ninja, dragoon, black mage and summoner to their current versions, are they really simpler in any significant way? They have received as much new stuff as they have lost, if not more. And that is the heavensward version, the 2.x version of every job was the most simple version of that job hands down, it was a heavensward version minus 5 abilities. EDIT: Oh and paladin has only gotten more busy with the expansions, 3.x paladin was still pretty much 123 job with 1 dot, now it has a magic phase in it's rotation.

[QooEr]

TLDR - Skill ceiling has gone up, but probably not at the same rate as the average player skill has increased. It makes it seem like things have gotten 'easier' when theyve actually gotten harder, but we've gotten better faster averagely.

i want to agree but its really not the case. Midas did the whole "harder mechanic dance with easier dps check" and yet the fights were still harder and more punishing than creator-onwards. even ex primals have gotten easier ever since sophia. thordan extreme on release was pretty challenging, sephirot and nidhogg were punishing even if the mechanics werent too hard (remember fang & claw?). fast forward to stormblood and lakshmi was absolutely brainless, byakko ex could be cleared blind on the first run, etc. over the years, mechanics HAVE been getting easier and less punishing, and dps checks more lenient.

[HyoMinPark]

Ehh, I can agree with you on WAR and DRK, I haven't really played monk myself, but the upkeep GL was never something you really could affect, most of the time it would either fall off because of too long transition or not, having it not fall off is more of a QoL change than anything. Saying that "every job" is overly simplistic is a huge stretch. Compare heavensward ninja, dragoon, black mage and summoner to their current versions, are they really simpler in any significant way? They have received as much new stuff as they have lost, if not more. And that is the heavensward version, the 2.x version of every job was the most simple version of that job hands down, it was a heavensward version minus 5 abilities. EDIT: Oh and paladin has only gotten more busy with the expansions, 3.x paladin was still pretty much 123 job with 1 dot, now it has a magic phase in it's rotation.

DRG lost Heavy Thrust management going from SB into ShB, so they lost something to upkeep. BotD is a joke to upkeep compared to HW, where it was easier to drop it. SB simplified that and reduced punishment if one were to let it drop, since BotD’s cooldown is 30s now compared to 60s, I believe, in HW.

BLM got easier after HW—they made it easier to upkeep Enochian because people complained about how easy it was to drop it. Rotationally, it’s always been easy; but they took the “difficult” part of its HW rotation and made it less punishing.

NIN is a bit unfair since they’re getting a rework to fix gameplay issues. We’ll see how it is then. Same with SMN and it’s new Egi-Assaults, which I don’t think added any real rotational complexity, just annoyance with execution.

MNK’s GL upkeep on Form Shift can be seen as a QoL—but they also don’t have to worry about positionals virtually ever anymore, removing that aspect of complexity from the job.

PLD may have gotten busier with the introduction of Requiescat windows and such, but, as you retorted to me: that’s one job.


I disagree that a significant number of jobs retained complexity since HW. The jobs that were added post-HW were seemingly designed with low rotational complexity in mind (RDM, SAM, DNC)—the only one that seems to be the exception to this is GNB, which is more active (like PLD) compared to DRK and WAR, which are fairly boring in terms of rotation. SB BRD gained complexity in Repertoire management, DoT management, and Foe’s management...but ShB took all of that away to “close the gap between low-tier players and high-tier players”. It received nothing in return for what it lost. I wouldn’t say that MCH is overly complex now either—I never played it much in HW or SB, but things like Ammunition management added something to the job that you had to manage, I felt. I don’t think there’s much to Overheating anymore: it’s basically use Hypercharge at 50 gauge; make sure you have enough for Wildfire every 120s; and press everything else on CD as it comes up.

Saying that “DPS jobs have retained their complexity for the most part” when a significant number have not is a stretch, in my opinion.

[Krojack]

Most people just want to play a game and have fun. Not everyone has the time to read pages and pages of manuals on how to play a class.

[TaleraRistain]

Shrinking the skill gap is exactly what they said they were going to do. They don't want the huge gap between the more casual and the more hardcore. And if EX and Savage are easier, that's entirely in SE"s lap. They looked at the numbers of people doing Savage, didn't think they were high enough, and made it more attractive to a wider audience. This made people who had just written it off as something they wouldn't mess with before willing to dip their toes into it.

[Samsta]

I disagree that a significant number of jobs retained complexity since HW. The jobs that were added post-HW were seemingly designed with low rotational complexity in mind (RDM, SAM, DNC)—the only one that seems to be the exception to this is GNB, which is more active (like PLD) compared to DRK and WAR, which are fairly boring in terms of rotation. SB BRD gained complexity in Repertoire management, DoT management, and Foe’s management...but ShB took all of that away to “close the gap between low-tier players and high-tier players”. It received nothing in return for what it lost. I wouldn’t say that MCH is overly complex now either—I never played it much in HW or SB, but things like Ammunition management added something to the job that you had to manage, I felt. I don’t think there’s much to Overheating anymore: it’s basically use Hypercharge at 50 gauge; make sure you have enough for Wildfire every 120s; and press everything else on CD as it comes up.

Saying that “DPS jobs have retained their complexity for the most part” when a significant number have not is a stretch, in my opinion.

I don't get why you only list things that they lost, when the fact is they actually also gained things. Take blm for example, yeah the Blizzard IV refreshed enochian back then, but as you said that wasn't hard to keep up, and your overall rotation was actually simpler back then, they gained polyglots to use and despair, both which actually make you press more buttons now on your rotation. The only thing I can say is that they raised the skill floor by making it so when you mess up you aren't punished as heavily as before, but that is raising the skill floor, playing the job as it's meant to be played involves more abilities now and the gameplay feels pretty much the same, thus the ceiling hasn't been lowered. Same with many other jobs, dragoon gained life of the dragon etc. I fail to see how losing something but getting something else in it's stead isn't retaining complexity for the most part, only thing they did was they brought the floor up so when you fail you aren't punished that much, but honestly that is irrelevant, you still have to play the job near it's potential to clear harder content, the ceiling of jobs is pretty much the same.

[Nestama]

Most people just want to play a game and have fun. Not everyone has the time to read pages and pages of manuals on how to play a class.

It's not really that hard to read the tool tips and then figure things out from there, though. That's the bear minimum most expect out of people in dungeons (since at the very least they're carrying their weight). In Extreme Trials, or Savage, then it becomes a requirement to know more about the Job you're playing (the fight itself depending on the kind of group you're joining. If practice, then watching a video might be optional. If clear party, then watching a video and having experience is required. Farm parties require you to know the ins and outs of the fight, as well as the Job you're playing), since you are playing with other people, after all.

[Thoosa]

It’s my understanding that the first tiers of savage, the fights are relatively easy compared to the final fights and it seems to be the case this time around.

Difficulty is reduced even further if you’re in a static group with similarly skilled players, at the end of the day it’s just a dance you have to learn and after that it’s auto pilot easy.

IMO people who cleared the whole savage tier in the first day or two in a static are pretty talented but again they are helped massively due to experience and same levels of skill in the group, but first clears are still impressive.

Try doing this in pf.

Not everyone plays savage and it doesn’t matter. If they did just cater for savage, they’d have significantly less subscribers.

I guess if you want genuinely hard gameplay throughout, play the souls games. And there’s always ultimates.

[Mansion]

Most people just want to play a game and have fun. Not everyone has the time to read pages and pages of manuals on how to play a class.

But that's the point of Skill Ceiling.

Take a look at Bard in 4.X.
It was one of the (if not THE) best designed job. It had a really nice flow in all content, and pretty much everyone could grasp the song and proc system.
But a VERY GOOD bard had quite a lot more to do than keeping songs up and DoTs, HyoMin's first post in the topic covers it perfectly.

Skill Ceiling is the difference in the range of players playing a same job with different results. That's quite interesting, it gives you motivation to do better if you want to, while it allows casual gameplay for those not into that type of playstyle.

I haven't maxed out all jobs in ShB (only Ranged, Casters and Healers), and I've only raided a bit of Savage with RDM and SMN, but I can confirm that I feel healers, BRD, RDM (and BLM to some extent) have been simplified.
SMN has been turned into a buggy busy class, and MCH went from buggy to a different playstyle so it's difficult to judge.
DNC is a new job, but it feels quite straightforward in its gameplay.