Controversioal Changes to Monk

[IruruCece]

It's sorta inarguable that GL was a punishment mechanic

Hard disagree, again. GL wasn't a punishment mechanic in the least. It was incredibly easy to maintain even under duress, to the point where even some loser like me could do it more often than not, and by my own standards that means it's accessible as heck. Honestly, cutscenes that robbed control from the players were more of a punishment mechanic than GL ever was, and ever those don't count as punishment. They're flaws in a game filled with flaws. Just like how SE's insistence that dropping GL at all, for any reason, whether it was your fault or the fault of being forced to watch an underaged naked girl get cuddly with a dragon for the umpteenth time while trying to prog a hard fight, meant that you had to start from scratch EVERY TIME. The "punishment" side of things has nothing to do with the idea of GL, if you want to insist it was a punishment of some sort, and more to do with the fact that SE doubled down on bad design decisions at every possible crossroad they could have zagged instead of constantly zigging.

Realistically, even taking new player difficulties into account with new content doesn't make GL a punishment mechanic either. Everyone dies on hard stuff the first (few dozen) times they run it. That would be like me, a TERRIBLE black mage, claiming that cast times are a punishment mechanic, or that dropping Enochian before I can maintain it long enough for my big special button is a punishment mechanic. That would be like me, a TERRIBLE and VERY INEXPERIENCED summoner, claiming that losing my trance before I could get off my big attacks is a punishment mechanic.

I disagree with calling the result of failing to accomplish something a "punishment mechanic", especially in the case of GL, and especially for new players, because everyone is new at some point. You have to practice to get better at something. Dropping GL isn't because the devs were necessarily being mean to the player, you either died or failed to maintain your combos. Both of those are on YOU the individual, and with practice you learn to get around those things.

What IS punishment, if you can call it that, is losing the self-buff because of things that are 100 percent outside of your control, or having to start over from scratch every time... and even then I'd still not call it punishment.

The solutions to GL loss, to Tornado Kick being worthless, to our Chakra generation, have literally been proposed for years by players who are FAR more experienced and hardcore than I ever was, am, or will be, and SE actively refused to take any feedback about the job seriously until player numbers for it dropped off the cliff. I'm not even the first person to say "make GL like Enochian is now", I stole that from someone better at the game and if I remembered who said it first I'd absolutely credit them. That players can sit down for maybe five minutes and think about the very game they are playing and come up with something more engaging than turning GL into a TRAIT really shows how little care has gone into the job at this point. I think some cynicism about things at this point is warranted, lol.