Does 14 Promote a Culture of Mediocrity?

[Jirah]

playing this game is also not a job it's supposed to be for fun. some people just take playing this game way too seriously.

My god I’m sick of this low hanging fruit of “people take this game too seriously” whenever someone discusses difficulty. It’s a multiplayer game and if your not even trying your holding everyone back, from the easiest dungeon to Ultimate. If your so lax I recommend only do trusts or go play a single player game where no one relies on you…..or play DPS

[Caurcas]

Hurt the "Game" is a bit of an exaggeration. Hurting optimized/strong players with injected boredom...sure, maybe. While I didn't go through all 12 pages, this has been explained in pretty great detail already. There are 2 key factors on why you feel like complexity in job rotation has been tuned out over time:

1) Developers have stated that they do not feel it is healthy for the game to continue to develop more difficult encounters mechanically while also continuing to make playing the class more difficult. This ends up raising two ceilings and is likely factored by percentages that clear difficult encounters. This has always been a thing in all well grounded, developed MMO's.

2) Class complexity has to be balanced around "adding more to the class" each expansion. If you have some highly tuned class with a large ceiling running 200 apm you don't leave a lot of room to "added more buttons". I'm not saying they're doing it right, wrong or the other, but it is easy to see how it can become a logistical nightmare, and one where there are 100,000 indians with their own idea of what's "good" -> Tanks are a prefect example.

I'm definitely not countering your point, but they are definitely things that need to be considered. Personally I'm neither here nor there. The reason my neutral thoughts is this complaint doesn't come from a spot of progression but instead from optimization and parsing.

The system where aggro management was split between the tanks amd the party was objectively an easy system, but an engaging one with how it interacted with encounters. Same as stance dance and having multiple combo paths. These were easy and approachable mechanics in SB that SE felt they had to remove for the lowest common denominator.

[Silver-Strider]

The system where aggro management was split between the tanks and the party was objectively an easy system, but an engaging one with how it interacted with encounters. Same as stance dance and having multiple combo paths. These were easy and approachable mechanics in SB that SE felt they had to remove for the lowest common denominator.

NGL, I miss playing chicken with aggro on my MNK.

[technole]

Hurt the "Game" is a bit of an exaggeration. Hurting optimized/strong players with injected boredom...sure, maybe. While I didn't go through all 12 pages, this has been explained in pretty great detail already. There are 2 key factors on why you feel like complexity in job rotation has been tuned out over time:

1) Developers have stated that they do not feel it is healthy for the game to continue to develop more difficult encounters mechanically while also continuing to make playing the class more difficult. This ends up raising two ceilings and is likely factored by percentages that clear difficult encounters. This has always been a thing in all well grounded, developed MMO's.

2) Class complexity has to be balanced around "adding more to the class" each expansion. If you have some highly tuned class with a large ceiling running 200 apm you don't leave a lot of room to "added more buttons". I'm not saying they're doing it right, wrong or the other, but it is easy to see how it can become a logistical nightmare, and one where there are 100,000 indians with their own idea of what's "good" -> Tanks are a prefect example.

I'm definitely not countering your point, but they are definitely things that need to be considered. Personally I'm neither here nor there. The reason my neutral thoughts is this complaint doesn't come from a spot of progression but instead from optimization and parsing.

Dev team found their footing with Alex Creator Savage, ever since YoshiP has been content with the bar being set at that level for savage difficulty, as the clear rates satisfied them. This was at the time when stance dancing was a thing on healers, tanks, and ranged. It's more of they have always followed how players played the game and adjusted to a play style.

Like they really started to pick up that good players realized tank stance was a crutch after getting aggro. Or that the really good groups with dark knights always had ninjas. Healing tanks was a non-issue because you were always tank swapping after busters to get the most mitigation possible between both tanks. This still applies today. First tank uses living dead, the next one will hallowed ground, etc.

As for jobs, when you have this many, you can't really redesign every job's buttons for the next expansion, so you just go with the addition. For rehauls, you have to pick and choose, and Summoner was a prime target. Then you have jobs like Black Mage that already were pretty fluid in SHb, and the new skill(s) you add give it a better of quality of life. They also found a footing on doing adjustments in SHb, just adjust potencies and numbers to get things right instead of making actual skills changes whenever possible.

[kaynide]

My god I’m sick of this low hanging fruit of “people take this game too seriously” whenever someone discusses difficulty. It’s a multiplayer game and if your not even trying your holding everyone back, from the easiest dungeon to Ultimate. If your so lax I recommend only do trusts or go play a single player game where no one relies on you…..or play DPS

If you as a group are clearing the content in a random PUG, regardless of how bad you're doing, you're playing the game "good enough" for the devs. They are well aware..extremely in tune with the idea that if they made it much harder, people would quit. Simple as that. I have no idea why people can't grasp this when there are obvious clear reasons the devs have stated for not wanting most of the game to be that hard to do.

This is a "Disneyland" MMO. Everyone gets to wait in line and do the 95% kiddy rides like the pirates or small world. There are even a few more intense rides that are not for everyone. You're welcome to do those, and even make your own group to get an optimal experience. Disneyland wouldn't succeed as a park if it was 95% extreme roller coasters. Same deal here.

[Pyro2hell3]

Honestly alot of the complexities people say they are dumbing down the game by removing are things resulting from bad design choices such as cleric stance. or something players came up with to get around bad design choice. only reason stance dancing even became a thing was to get around the fact that tank stances used to reduce your damage output

[Caurcas]

Honestly alot of the complexities people say they are dumbing down the game by removing are things resulting from bad design choices such as cleric stance. or something players came up with to get around bad design choice. only reason stance dancing even became a thing was to get around the fact that tank stances used to reduce your damage output

To remove systems to make a game easier is the definition of dumbing down.

[StriderShinryu]

If you as a group are clearing the content in a random PUG, regardless of how bad you're doing, you're playing the game "good enough" for the devs. They are well aware..extremely in tune with the idea that if they made it much harder, people would quit. Simple as that. I have no idea why people can't grasp this when there are obvious clear reasons the devs have stated for not wanting most of the game to be that hard to do.

This is a "Disneyland" MMO. Everyone gets to wait in line and do the 95% kiddy rides like the pirates or small world. There are even a few more intense rides that are not for everyone. You're welcome to do those, and even make your own group to get an optimal experience. Disneyland wouldn't succeed as a park if it was 95% extreme roller coasters. Same deal here.

Absolutely. Every single time the developers are asked questions about the game, there's always someone (or multiple someones) who asks for harder content or more hard content or more complex class designs. They answer this. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. In fact, in the pre-EW press they explicitly addressed class design not going back to it's HW state. They've heard the arguments, and it's something they've considered and addressed with plans for additional Ultimates, DR Savage, solo fights in Bozja, a new Deep Dungeon, etc. They know the game they are making, and the game they are making is seeing massively increasing numbers. You don't have to like the game they are making, of course, but it's the game they are choosing to make.

[Kolaina]

or play DPS

Or just stick with the Trusts thing. Had a RDM last night really wasn’t holding their own. I get the same expert dungeon every time I play. I as whm, and my spouse as RDM as always when we queue up. This run took us nearly 10 minutes longer than usual. No embolden. No acceleration. Just the basic 1,2,1,3 rotation all run from the PUG RDM.

When I get home from work at midnight, my spouse as well, 10 minutes can make a difference in doing 1 roulette or 2.

Respect peoples time.

[Rinhi]

Respect peoples time.

no because

It promotes the culture of have fun however you like in our game.