Question for those who didn't pick up AST til 5.0 or after.

[Tlamila]

I just frigging love how the POINT of this thread was to bring some positivity from people who only picked it up now and are enjoying, to make a difference from all the complainer veterans threads. And then complainer veterans come here and not only complain, they even tell people that they should find something else to play. For real? Can't you stick t your whine threads?

I mained WHM, they ruined it for me already in SB and even more in ShB, I first only found peace switching to dps jobs and abandoning healing and now I finally find enjoyment again in healing with ShB version of AST. So what, did I go tell people off who enjoyed the class? No, I just found other ones.
I liked BRD is ARR, hated it in SB so I had to drop it, I'm enjoying it again with the ShB version.
I really liked MNK in ARR, didn't like how it was changed, I still don't like it anymore even with the current changes, whatever.
On the other hand I disliked tanking pre-ShB and like the current one.

And so on. When you play through expansions, jobs change completely all the time, it's normal that you'll like a job some expansions and don't like it some others. Thanks Chthulu we can play all classes on one character and easily change main. If there's no class you like out of so many we have....maybe it's not the game for you? You can't expect everything to stay the same over the years, and there's nothing wrong in adapting and changing your main class.
I'm sure there are people who enjoy classes more after the changes that make me hate them and drop them, good for them! The fact that I played the class longer or earlier doesn't make me entitled to anything. I would just sound like one of those complaining about "people nowadays are not what they used to be, in my tiiiiimes..."

[Satarn]

When you play through expansions, jobs change completely all the time, it's normal that you'll like a job some expansions and don't like it some others. Thanks Chthulu we can play all classes on one character and easily change main. If there's no class you like out of so many we have....maybe it's not the game for you?

That's a really shitty way to design the game though. It's taking away things people like and "forcing" them to adapt another playstyle/job when the devs want it, rather than when the player themselves is tired of what they've been playing and not giving them an option to return. In many cases players who's preferred playstyle has been completely killed off don't have any job to go to and while yes, one can just quit the game, people quitting is beneficial to neither SE(less money) nor the remaining players(lower population, game eventually dying out). While the effects may not be largely apparent just yet, intentionally designing the job system so that some people will inevitably quit due to said design, is an insanely stupid business decision.

On the other hand, you can have a large set of jobs, all with very varied playstyles and strongly defined gameplay identity, each catering very well to its specific niche of players and make all changes and fixes with said niche in mind. This way people can main what they really like instead of constantly jumping from job to job and just sorta enjoying them.
When a player feels things are getting stale they can just switch and try something else on their own terms and come back to their fave once they feel like it again. It's also easier to switch to something when you know exactly what you're getting into because the job design is consistent, instead of trying everything out and hoping something sticks.

However it's not like all jobs are constantly changing like you say. BLM has been kept pretty much on the same track from the beginning, with very strong gameplay identity and any changes made to it were in the direction of strengthening and improving it's existing playstyle, rather than flipping it on its head every expansion.
Interestingly, BLM is also consistently a very niche job, with pretty low content participation, but also high level of player satisfaction among those who play it and is largely regarded as a very well-designed job. By SE's usual logic of changing anything that's "unpopular" to make it more widely-appealing, BLM should've been revamped already, but for some reason they treat it differently. Perhaps it may be because it is Yoshida's job of choice, so they definitely have somebody to give feedback on it "in the house", rather than just going off vague statistics like content participation.
In any case, BLM's consistent state is evidence that really catering to a niche rather than constantly trying to make all jobs "one-size-fits-all" works.

[Tlamila]

That's a really shitty way to design the game though.

That's pretty much how MMOs are, though. Overall this doesn't even change much, there are some which basically become completely different games through expansions.
Fact is, devs look at numbers and see what most people want in that moment, in theory (I say in theory because some decisions are just weird and seem to be dislike by almost everybody). Which will never be what everybody wants. With changes, there will always be something people like and people dislike. The same thing can be considered an improvement by someone and ruining the game by someone else.
Fact about veterans of a class I imagine is the same way as they regard veterans of the game, aka they have the same interest in retaining veterans as in attracting new people, both to the game and to the specific job. They can't just keep one of the two sides in mind, espcially from a business point of view.

As for BLM, I don't know, I feel instead that it changed a lot over the expansions. It went from a mindless turret to a very complex and more mobile class. Sure, the second part fits more with the current game design needing more mobility, but the first seems more a class design change to me. And I remember a thread here that asked people which class they like better at lower level, and most people answered BLM, and current low level BLM is more similar to the old one so it means a lot of people liked the class much better before.

[Seraphor]

Thing is, they have to change the jobs up with each expansion. Just as many would complain that they haven't added anything new to the jobs as those who complain that things were changed, you're essentially buying a new game, you want something new for your money. And they can't just add new abilities to the existing skill sets or we'd get an unmanageable number of skills to use. So some skills have to be cut to make way for new ones, which means reworking the job.

[Ceasaria]

so the playstyle is largely the same.

No, the changes made to cards and the removal of Time Abilities and other changes have deeply altered the playstyle.
It has been told many times by old AST (who played and cared a lot).

[Absurdity]

That's pretty much how MMOs are, though. Overall this doesn't even change much, there are some which basically become completely different games through expansions.
Fact is, devs look at numbers and see what most people want in that moment, in theory (I say in theory because some decisions are just weird and seem to be dislike by almost everybody). Which will never be what everybody wants. With changes, there will always be something people like and people dislike. The same thing can be considered an improvement by someone and ruining the game by someone else.
Fact about veterans of a class I imagine is the same way as they regard veterans of the game, aka they have the same interest in retaining veterans as in attracting new people, both to the game and to the specific job. They can't just keep one of the two sides in mind, espcially from a business point of view.

That's what you would assume. It often seems however like SE looks at what people don't like, or rather what jobs are least played, and without trying to look deeper as to why they're not played (arguably higher skill floor & ceiling or just not a job that many people want to play, like tanks) they decide that it needs to be changed. It is fact that most people just prefer to play DPS, no amount of "accessibility changes" to tanks or healers is going to change that.

It's that eternal mystical "wider audience", something all mmos are chasing but rarely ever catch.
"Not enough people are playing job X and a lot of people are playing job Y, so we just need to make it more like job Y and people are totally gonna love it."
Making sweeping changes to a playstyle might work, no doubt about that. But it might also get some people interested for a short time only and then they go back to their original job, because job Y already existed. Except now all the people who previously enjoyed job X have also left.

[Seraphor]

No, the changes made to cards and the removal of Time Abilities and other changes have deeply altered the playstyle.
It has been told many times by old AST (who played and cared a lot).

I played AST in SB.
I stand by what I said. Maybe read it again and try to understand it instead of having an emotional kneejerk reaction.

[HyoMinPark]

Thing is, they have to change the jobs up with each expansion. Just as many would complain that they haven't added anything new to the jobs as those who complain that things were changed, you're essentially buying a new game, you want something new for your money. And they can't just add new abilities to the existing skill sets or we'd get an unmanageable number of skills to use. So some skills have to be cut to make way for new ones, which means reworking the job.

You can add to a job without completely destroying its identity. That’s the complaint a lot of ASTs have: the developers removed the time aspects of the job (which was part of its identity in this game since its introduction in 3.0), and they neutered the card system to the point where they had to invent an entire mechanic to keep the six cards aspect relevant (seals—without seals, you could have just kept 2 cards: one for ranged, and one for melee). As with BRD: the developers removed all of the support aspects from the job due to the misconception that there couldn’t be two pseudo-support jobs in one game. Even with the drastic overhaul from HW BRD to SB BRD, the job never lost its core identity of being the closest thing to a support DPS this game could have. Now it’s a Ranger more than anything else, despite the level 80 quest continuing to emphasize how much BRDs sing to support their fellow people (lol).

They could have worked with the original card system without altering it so drastically; they could have also left in the time aspects. And they could have done both without making the job feel stale. It was basically the same from HW going into SB with a few new healy things (Star) and card mechanics (Sleeve Draw), but you didn’t really hear about ASTs complaining about how it was “the same ol’, same ol’ boring AST that we’ve been playing for 2 years already”.

[Rymi64]

You can add to a job without completely destroying its identity. That’s the complaint a lot of ASTs have: the developers removed the time aspects of the job (which was part of its identity in this game since its introduction in 3.0), and they neutered the card system to the point where they had to invent an entire mechanic to keep the six cards aspect relevant (seals—without seals, you could have just kept 2 cards: one for ranged, and one for melee). As with BRD: the developers removed all of the support aspects from the job due to the misconception that there couldn’t be two pseudo-support jobs in one game. Even with the drastic overhaul from HW BRD to SB BRD, the job never lost its core identity of being the closest thing to a support DPS this game could have. Now it’s a Ranger more than anything else, despite the level 80 quest continuing to emphasize how much BRDs sing to support their fellow people (lol).

They could have worked with the original card system without altering it so drastically; they could have also left in the time aspects. And they could have done both without making the job feel stale. It was basically the same from HW going into SB with a few new healy things (Star) and card mechanics (Sleeve Draw), but you didn’t really hear about ASTs complaining about how it was “the same ol’, same ol’ boring AST that we’ve been playing for 2 years already”.

Well as we all know when they take elements away from a job, in this case the time aspect, they usually add it back as a new skill or give it to another job (Or maybe they wanted to nerf ast idk, it feels pretty op to me currently compared to the other healers). And they noticed that people went for balance anyways since it was the one that boosted damage since "you cant take damage if you kill the thing faster ".

Playing old and new ast cards i prefer the new ones better since now i only have to contend with luck when it comes to seals and let me tell you my luck is still shit when it comes to seals . I believe personally they got rid of time dilation to nerf ast potential compared to the other healers. I don't understand why they got rid of the stun on opposition though, the extend effect i can understand but why the stun.

Off topic: I never understand why people keep saying bards lost all support aspects when they still have them for both their songs and their natural abilities. Yea it's to a lesser effect than SB but if they kept it the same as SB then people would just be like "Why bring dnc who can only buff the whole party for 20 seconds when we can have bard who buffs the party the entire fight."

[HyoMinPark]

@Rymi64 — Re: BRD

BRD does not have the support it had in SB. Passive song buffs aside (which they are really not that impressive), they lost an active buff that required management and timing (Foe’s); their mitigation buff has been shared with the other two physical ranged, thereby no longer unique to them (Troubadour—even if the reliance on song has been removed, it’s not a unique utility anymore); Minne working for oGCDs is nice, but Curing Waltz has a shorter CD and, when stacked, heals the entire party versus single target healing buff on one person; BV is not that impressive of a support tool when compared to others; and Refresh is no longer a thing (and with it, Foe’s management). Oh, and Paeon is useless in most content over level 50, but that was the case in SB, too. BRD absolutely does not have the support it used to have in SB.

DNC’s buffs crap all over BRD’s song buffs. You are severely underestimating Technical Finish, and even Devilment/Standard Finish, to say BRD’s buffing the entire party is better.