Is anyone surprised at this point?

[Lyth]

...

Perhaps we should re-examine which game we're playing, then. Any game that is skill driven is going to have an element of competition. There's always going to be an element of failure or loss. It takes a certain amount of maturity to shrug that off and use that frustration to try and get better. I would feel genuinely mortified to be handed an easy win, and I'm surprised that you aren't. I actually find it quite odd that you were gloating about your job's supposed superiority earlier in the thread. That's nothing to do with your skill level. And if anything, it'll just make it more embarrassing to lose out to someone playing a less 'superiorly-designed' job. It's to your disadvantage.

Everyone wants more stuff. More damage, more loot, more rewards. But it's their scarcity that drives their value. If everyone has the same weapon as you, that weapon isn't all that special. If everyone does the same damage regardless of skill, effort, or performance, then the damage you do isn't meaningful. If everyone clears the same content, then being able to clear isn't that special. But that's what we're moving towards. We're afraid of letting tanks and healers fail, which is why you don't have impact any more. I wonder if we'll ever get to the point where 'raid content' becomes swarmable raid bosses that get cleared whether you live or die in the encounter. You participated? You win. Buy more glamours. All the Bravest, now for PC.

And again, unless you're willing to let your players become frustrated, unless your rewards have scarcity to them, unless you have a skill differential, and unless you have winners and losers, the rewards in the game lose value and people lose interest. A short term gain becomes a long term loss. The devs are cashing out while they can.

I think that it's reasonable to look for damage buffs, but it's to your own interest to seek it out in a way that adds depth to your job. Freebies devalue what you do, and devalue what all tanks do. If everyone can do it, there's no reason to improve.

[whiskeybravo]

It's just an incredibly idealistic perspective. Remember what happened the last time players became too frustrated with the game. Most people want to have fun while playing, only a small niche enjoy beating their heads against a wall for 100s of hours. Small niches ain't gonna pay SE's bills.

IMO there's just not that much difference. Getting a 100 on WAR isn't really any easier than getting a 100 on GNB or DRK or PLD or any other job. And like, after I got GNB to 80 I went to try it out and did pretty much the same damage I did on WAR without very much practice on it. 90% correct play on WAR vs 50% correct play on GNB with basically the same result. Such skillz. Much free wins. The added complexity you speak of is more than meaningless in this regard.

[Lyth]

So yes, there's only going to be a relatively small subset of players at the top. But that's actually what drives games like this. It has to be accessible, such that anyone can understand and enjoy it, but there also has to be that unattainable peak that everyone else looks up to. That's also the sort of thing that keeps content providers going. If you're not doing something extraordinary, why should I watch you? The reason why those 8 WAR runs back in ARR were fun to watch was because we didn't expect people to pull them off. I want to see someone push the envelope in a job I play.

Those 'small niches' are what keep people going. If I've done everything that's there to do, and seen everything that's there to see, there's no reason to stick around. Unsub until the next tier (unless you have a house to maintain). This is why you have content pitched at different difficulty levels. But players shouldn't get every reward automatically handed out to them because they demand it. It devalues effort, and I have no time for such people.

[Hierro]

Perhaps we should re-examine which game we're playing, then. Any game that is skill driven is going to have an element of competition. There's always going to be an element of failure or loss.

At the end of the day, you need to realize this is not a competitive game. There's no winning or losing when the objective is for your party to beat the content. Either you all win, and get the clear, or you don't. Your co-tank is your partner, not your adversary. You just can't win or lose against someone who's not even competing against you.

I enjoy partaking in healthy "othering", much in the same way people will show pride in being from Los Angeles and gloat about how The Lakers beat The Celtics to someone from Boston. I love WAR, and WAR loves me. I love seeing my home team win, of course I'm going to gloat about it. But at no one point am I actually belittling or berating others for not having done as well as I, nor am I going to beat myself up because I die and end up with a terrible parse compared to my co-tank, and I'm sure as hell not going to think my value as a player with the level of experience I have has been lessened. I'll play the game I love and improve for the fun of it, and that's it!

Let's be realistic here for a moment, saying the devs are cashing out for handing out potency buffs to WAR is silly. Fact of the matter is it's just not as popular as it used to be, especially when DRK copied it's playstyle for accessibility's sake, GNB's the shiny new toy, and PLD's the known posterboy for next expac. Listen, the point is that no one ever said this game was competitive, and no one ever said you'd be "rewarded" justly for playing a "harder" class. As cheesy as it sounds, the real success is in the friends you make along the way. It'd do you some good to realize that.

[RinaB]

I dont think people have realized that when they break apart into the "pro DA spam" group, the "HW DRK" group, the "BW drama" group, and the "DRK is always gonna be broken because its not designed how i think it should be" the devs will literally sit there and go "F you". Tanks are fine right now, the issue is burnout and boredom people have with the game in general.

[ForteNightshade]

I dont think people have realized that when they break apart into the "pro DA spam" group, the "HW DRK" group, the "BW drama" group, and the "DRK is always gonna be broken because its not designed how i think it should be" the devs will literally sit there and go "F you". Tanks are fine right now, the issue is burnout and boredom people have with the game in general.

Then they need new devs. Their job is to sort through the feedback and determine a course of action. If they've simply ran out of creativity in where to take the job, or result to heavily copying the design of another for simplicity sake, then fresh eyes are clearly needed because the burnout comes internally. Tanks aren't "fine" right now. At least not in the eyes of many. And it's more than a little presumptuous to claim people's dislike for certain design choices are due to burn out.

Speaking only for myself, I've tried DRK throughout this whole expansion and never once enjoyed it all too much. There are some decent ideas but otherwise it feels far too similar to WAR except with more effort required for no real reason or reward. I'm neither burnt out nor bored. I just think they missed the mark completely on DRK this expansion.

[RinaB]

Then they need new devs. Their job is to sort through the feedback and determine a course of action. If they've simply ran out of creativity in where to take the job, or result to heavily copying the design of another for simplicity sake, then fresh eyes are clearly needed because the burnout comes internally. Tanks aren't "fine" right now. At least not in the eyes of many. And it's more than a little presumptuous to claim people's dislike for certain design choices are due to burn out.

Speaking only for myself, I've tried DRK throughout this whole expansion and never once enjoyed it all too much. There are some decent ideas but otherwise it feels far too similar to WAR except with more effort required for no real reason or reward. I'm neither burnt out nor bored. I just think they missed the mark completely on DRK this expansion.

Yeah, and? I hate paladin so does that mean the the class is broken, unplayable and needs to be reworked? I dont think its too much to demand job reworks or changes, I think the issue is with so many varying opinions on said job, what kind of position would that leave you in as a developer? And people are burned out because content has rolled out slow this past year and I've already noticed longer queue times since 5.5 launch meaning people came for story 1 run of new content and bounced.

[ForteNightshade]

Yeah, and? I hate paladin so does that mean the the class is broken, unplayable and needs to be reworked? I dont think its too much to demand job reworks or changes, I think the issue is with so many varying opinions on said job, what kind of position would that leave you in as a developer? And people are burned out because content has rolled out slow this past year and I've already noticed longer queue times since 5.5 launch meaning people came for story 1 run of new content and bounced.

Except Paladin hasn't undergone any substantial redesign whereas Dark Knight has. It's similar to the complaints of numerous Bard mains who feel the jobs whole identity was ripped out in favor of giving said identity to Dancer, leaving them an Archer with songs. There's a reason after four years, HW Dark Knight remains the most praised iteration of the job. And that should stand out to the dev team on where to build their foundation from. They likely aren't going to nail every complaint but it's a far better starting point returning to what worked than continuing their attempt to force a new design every expansion.

General burnout from the game isn't relevant in this argument, and ignores these complaints started within the first month of Shadowbringers. People didn't wake up come 5.5 and suddenly decide Dark Knight needs a second overhaul. The lack of new content doesn't change people's opinion on job design. Hence why I cited myself as someone who is still actively playing, isn't burnt out and has never enjoyed Dark Knight at any point this expansion. I'm far from the only one evident by the sheer number of complaints we've seen.

[RinaB]

Except Paladin hasn't undergone any substantial redesign whereas Dark Knight has. It's similar to the complaints of numerous Bard mains who feel the jobs whole identity was ripped out in favor of giving said identity to Dancer, leaving them an Archer with sings. There's a reason after four years, HW Dark Knight remains the most praised iteration of the job. And that should stand out to the dev team on where to build their foundation from. They likely aren't going to nail every complaint but it's a far better starting point returning to what worked than continuing their attempt to force a new design every expansion.

General burnout from the game isn't relevant in this argument, and ignores these complaints started within the first month of Shadowbringers. People didn't wake up come 5.5 and suddenly decide Dark Knight needs a second overhaul. The lack of new content doesn't change people's opinion on job design. Hence why I cited myself as someone who is still actively playing, isn't burnt out and has never enjoyed Dark Knight at any point this expansion. I'm far from the only one evident by the sheer number of complaints we've seen.

Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

[shao32]

Current 5.0 DRK have recive heavy complains since the day the kit has been revealed back when SE lifted the info restriction to the youtubers that get invited for the especial event to try the new jobs skills, have been so heavy that several threats has been insta deleted without warning bcs some unfortunate manners about how SE totally miss interpreted the feedback. Since then DRK has been a non-stop of complains about his gameplay not only here but in the JP forum too and HW has been praised as the best version of the job in a way or another.

Is not a question of burnout basically bcs the job many use to love, me included, doesn't exist anymore. I consider create a mordernized version of HW DRK is basically what the job needs the most since is the comon point betwen most of the DRK feedback.

Thats fine but despite forum opinion there are a lot of people out there who like the current iteration of DRK, so screw them because HW DRK is best? This is my point, the reason why they keep reworking the class is because they can't find a happy medium and each rework has created its fan base. I think the issue started with the decision to rework the job each xpac instead of tweaking it for 1, for 2, I like current DRK and hope they build on to it because now I'm worried about 6.0 when I should be excited for it. Burnout is relevant because like real life, when you spend too much time at work or too much time with anything you start becoming annoyed by even the smallest of issues.

That rise another question, is fair snatch DRK from all the ppl who use to love it before 5.0 and leave it without nothing is fair? the answer is no, mostly bcs WAR is current DRK and current DRK is WAR so if DRK is reworked to recover the job we use to love the ppl who are playing right now still have WAR wich is basically the same gameplay with to little diferences.