Dark Knight Megathread

[Archwizard]

The devs truly want Dark Knight to be fun and balanced.

Exactly this!

No dev wastes time, money and resources making a job they hate and just want to demolish, much less make it a posterboy for an expansion and add a new job to the same role in that time.

At worst, they think their experiments with the job have been successful; feel free to dispel those notions as they come with actionable feedback. Even if they wouldn't revert an expansion's worth of changes, you can still offer suggestions on how to build on or adjust what they have.

But they wouldn't try to make it worse. That would actually be a waste of their time.

[Malthir]

Exactly this!

No dev wastes time, money and resources making a job they hate and just want to demolish, much less make it a posterboy for an expansion and add a new job to the same role in that time.

At worst, they think their experiments with the job have been successful; feel free to dispel those notions as they come with actionable feedback. Even if they wouldn't revert an expansion's worth of changes, you can still offer suggestions on how to build on or adjust what they have.

But they wouldn't try to make it worse. That would actually be a waste of their time.

I'm learning towards they are helping the Drk Roleplay community, by making existence pain. Now you can truly feel like a Dark Knight

[shao32]

Exactly this!

No dev wastes time, money and resources making a job they hate and just want to demolish, much less make it a posterboy for an expansion and add a new job to the same role in that time.

At worst, they think their experiments with the job have been successful; feel free to dispel those notions as they come with actionable feedback. Even if they wouldn't revert an expansion's worth of changes, you can still offer suggestions on how to build on or adjust what they have.

But they wouldn't try to make it worse. That would actually be a waste of their time.

From my point of view the Devs actually don't try to make DRK fun at all just balanced, they mess up so bad with it by strip him from his gameplay and his unique mechanics and skills that reverting and fixing all that mess would take aproximately the resources and the time of develop a new job from almost the scratch.

So what we have now? the worst designed job where no skill make sense and it's full of useless mechanics and heavely situational skills that are just a wasting of code space buuuut is balanced number wise, is very easy to see they don't actually wanna make DRK fun and cohesive job to play anymore, is just a job they just slap whatever thing on it and keep it as a balanced low manteinance trash design and don't care if that rise more complains, it's working right? we don't care about your feeling about the older versions.

[MagiusNecros]

From my point of view the Devs actually don't try to make DRK fun at all just balanced, they mess up so bad with it by strip him from his gameplay and his unique mechanics and skills that reverting and fixing all that mess would take aproximately the resources and the time of develop a new job from almost the scratch.

So what we have now? the worst designed job where no skill make sense and it's full of useless mechanics and heavely situational skills that are just a wasting of code space buuuut is balanced number wise, is very easy to see they don't actually wanna make DRK fun and cohesive job to play anymore, is just a job they just slap whatever thing on it and keep it as a balanced low manteinance trash design and don't care if that rise more complains, it's working right? we don't care about your feeling about the older versions.

I believe this is correct. It's so focused on homogenization and balance DRK cannot have it's own identity. All tanks for example if 100k DPS(bloated number) was the average they all must be doing around 100k. We will say that PLD/WAR do 100k, GNB 101k and DRK 102k but on average all Tanks are balanced across the board to do 100k DPS. So on average for the hardest content you'll have DRK maybe clearing 10 to 20 seconds faster?

I get the game is about damage but Tanks should be about defensives, mitigation and sustain and it's very clear that DRK is underwhelming on that front.

I mean if the other 3 Tanks only did about 100k average DPS and DRK was pumping out 120k DPS I could say yeah you know what DRK is weak defensively because it puts out uunga buunga damage like a BLM or SAM. And it would be much more forgivable.

But that's not the case. I just miss the high risk high reward style that came with Heavensward. Right now it's high risk low reward.

And you can argue that back in 3.0 after you built a enmity lead you could drop stance and have 20% boosted damage and end your typical 8 minute boss fight in 4 minutes instead. Very rewarding for high play.

And I think Reaper still has higher overall sustain with Bloodbath? Like the Arcane Crest nerf didn't even mean a thing. 50 potency less big whoop. 250 less potency over 5 ticks won't be missed. 20 seconds of Bloodbath is a lot of burst heals given most attacks Reaper has is physical damage including Avatar oGCDs with the exception of Gluttony and spells.

[Archwizard]

It is funny that you mention this, because in ShB, DRK got, despite being the Posterboy, completely outshined by GNB which was not only a new Tank to the Rooster, but also advertised in a very flashy way by Tankred in the Trailer.

Sure, the point I was just trying to make is that the twin notions that the devs:

1. Wanted DRK, specifically, to fail, but then made it a posterboy for an expansion and cast all player focus and scrutiny onto it
2. Wanted to dunk on a tank job, or ran out of ideas to balance more than just PLD and WAR, but then introduced another tank that "outshined" it in that period

... are utterly ridiculous.

From my point of view the Devs actually don't try to make DRK fun at all just balanced,

And that's a valid concern to have. However, I remind you that fun is subjective, and devs (as creators) innately have a biased understanding of what others find enjoyable to play in their game.

And even when they agree that gameplay X is fun, they may not believe that it is a healthy position for the job or a direction they want to undertake for the future. For instance, they will probably get around to nerfing WAR because by the same merits, being OP is "fun" but unsustainable.

Yes, they removed several actions from DRK, but A) they wanted to take the job into a new direction with the introduction of/focus on TBN and B) given the sheer number of actions they removed according to the compilation video, clearly they realized they had bloated it with way too many buttons and sought both to streamline and future-proof it. I will grant that it's plausible they trimmed too much off in favor of TBN, but at this point several of the actions removed are incompatible with the current system anyway.

And frankly, as a Stormblood-baby, I cannot tell you if there were flaws of the HW DRK that might have pressed such decisions, or whether its praise is tinted in shades of rose. All I can say is I've heard mixed reviews about the old Dark Arts system, despite how often people seem to beg for its return when talking about what the job "lost".

[shao32]

And that's a valid concern to have. However, I remind you that fun is subjective, and devs (as creators) innately have a biased understanding of what others find enjoyable to play in their game.

And even when they agree that gameplay X is fun, they may not believe that it is a healthy position for the job or a direction they want to undertake for the future. For instance, they will probably get around to nerfing WAR because by the same merits, being OP is "fun" but unsustainable.

Yes, they removed several actions from DRK, but A) they wanted to take the job into a new direction with the introduction of/focus on TBN and B) given the sheer number of actions they removed according to the compilation video, clearly they realized they had bloated it with way too many buttons and sought both to streamline and future-proof it. I will grant that it's plausible they trimmed too much off in favor of TBN, but at this point several of the actions removed are incompatible with the current system anyway.

And frankly, as a Stormblood-baby, I cannot tell you if there were flaws of the HW DRK that might have pressed such decisions, or whether its praise is tinted in shades of rose. All I can say is I've heard mixed reviews about the old Dark Arts system, despite how often people seem to beg for its return when talking about what the job "lost".

From my experience with this game and the dev team i have to arge about the "direction" of the job. For example, there was a time the dev team consider that Bard and the new ranged job Machinist should become casters, Bard was one of the most "popular" jobs of the expansion in HW if we judge his usage across the game but that didn't stop getting a wave after wave of complains about his gameplay and they change they mind and make the Ranged role the one we know today based on that, even Bard get changed when they lose they party support gameplay from SB and they finally bring it back as players request, something that doesn't seems to work for DRK and his mechanics for some reason despite of all this years complaining about it.
They has made several reworks/simplifications of mechanics and several adjustments on many skills across the years on many many jobs, but DRK seems to be a special case, why? bcs at contrary that jobs like DRG who get his blood of dragon mechanic simplified and adapted better so the player could manage better the new skills and mechanics on top of it or just have less annoyances like when wheeling thrust and fang and claw proc use to be totally rng when you get one DRK just only saw his mechanics complety removed or destroyed to have "mechanics" that have zero playability like current Darkside or living shadow.

From the original DRK back on HW only the parry mechanics aka the procs of low blow and reprisal and the tank stance was an inconvenient to the current direction of the game, things like Scourge, combo finisher Delirium, Dark arts, SB Delirium, original Abyssal drain, Reprisal and a large ect never has represented a problem for the current state of the game but we still see them removed or painfully degraded to an almost useless state for no reason.

There is no direction of the job, i can't say what cross they minds but i can judge they work and DRK screams no only a total lack of direction but total negligence and care from them, compared to other jobs DRK is totally forgothen for them and considering the huge amount of time the job has only seen degradation of his mechanics and his very esence without nothing to replace it to justify such actions just easily make any person belive that they don't have any real consideration for the job and the players who play it.
I will point i won't say such a thing so lightly in normal circustances but DRK has seen years and years of Devs behavior against the job.

So with all respect of course i will disagree on any statement to point that the Devs care about the job, i leveled many jobs and i follow they evolution across the expansions and at contrary that jobs that have been changed in a way on an other with a direction on mind DRK changes it's really clear that hasn't been made bcs they have a purpose on them more than "they complain about it? remove it then and don't bother to add anything interesting either to replace it, in fact just copy paste inner release", there is nothing that justified living dead stay what it is, neither Abyssal drain, the copy paste of Inner release or the 2 lazy traits of living shadow and unmend trait too.
In a game where every job get traits the same way i would accept it partially and call it a day but in a game where only DRK suffer such things and how they keep ignoring our request and do nothing about it just feed my opinion about they don't care at all about the job nor even work for make us happy with it, just dealt with it and keep working on the jobs they like it more, it's clear they have devotion for the game and want they customers enjoy it as much as we want but that devotion cleary doesn't apply on DRK at all and im still waiting for them to prove me wrong.

sorry for the biblic post ^^