Bring back Aggro, resource management, bring back consequences!

[Alzinor]

I wasn't trying to say they've designed them to be easy. I'm saying they've designed them that way, because we literally wall to wall pull. There's no point in doing any major dungeon mechs, we wall to wall cause we can wall to wall, so dungeon design reflects play. Why can we wall to wall so easy (by easy I mean as an on gear level character not maxed out) because we have infinite resource, because aggro is never an issue, because there is next to no penalty when you mess up. By in large most classes have no resource management anymore, all classes are becoming a meter build and spend class.

It's a bad idea to focus on the savage and extremes for balance for the same reason I've mainly been referring to dungeons. Dungeons are the majority of what is ran by the player base, it is the content that is most seen and it is functionally the same experience as the levelling experience in the game. Players will spend more time in dungeons collectively throughout the life of the game than they will in savages and extremes. Balancing your game for the lets say 10% of the content and leaving the rest bare, you will end up alienating your player base, most of their time is spent in tedious activities and I would not be surprised if you find close to 80% of the player base never step foot in savage or extremes.

Outside of the savage and extremes there's not a single bit of content that you can't run while only paying a tiny fraction of attention to it, even brand new content dungeons are auto pilot runnable. The game is no longer engaging, bar the MSQ

I think you forgot something : despite the fact it's a mmo, FFXIV is a RPG and even more, a final fantasy games.

it have to keep easy content for story, that's why ultimate and savage are a thing, for player in seek of challenge outside the STORY content.

there is no need to make dungeons harder, you say it yourself : dungeons are ran by a majority of player and the majority in FF is casual and is not looking for any challenge + dungeons are part of MSQ or a side quest one but still, for story.

It is not a bad idea to focus the balance change and job adjust on the most difficult content, if you use NM or dungeons as standard for balance, you'll end up with unecessary nerf. That's why savage like any mmo with heroic, mythic etc is the standard used to apply change and balance jobs

[Tyjacon]

Aggro management was terrible. Awful. No good. I could write an entire thesis on why it's an awful idea.

I don't really care about the rest, but fuck aggro management.

I, for one, would be interested on knowing your reasoning for this. (Not an entire thesis, but a summary would be nice.)

I may be in the minority but I actually agree with the op.
Push one button and never lose aggro is boring, hence the reason I haven't picked up a tank class since 2.0.
Having to manage aggro on a mob by the entire party and not just going ham on it was to me more exciting.
Having to plan your burst damage around the tanks abilities to generate emnity, having to manage your TP during a fight so not to run out was more exciting to me than just spamming your skills until the mobs die.

But then again I came from XI, a game where you had to actually participate with your party, not in spite of.

[aveyond-dreams]

I, for one, would be interested on knowing your reasoning for this. (Not an entire thesis, but a summary would be nice.)

I may be in the minority but I actually agree with the op.
Push one button and never lose aggro is boring, hence the reason I haven't picked up a tank class since 2.0.
Having to manage aggro on a mob by the entire party and not just going ham on it was to me more exciting.
Having to plan your burst damage around the tanks abilities to generate emnity, having to manage your TP during a fight so not to run out was more exciting to me than just spamming your skills until the mobs die.

But then again I came from XI, a game where you had to actually participate with your party, not in spite of.

Having tanks scream at me for not pressing what otherwise appeared to be a useless button got really boring after a while. They are the tank, keeping enemies focused on them is not my job if I am playing Red Mage or Black Mage (at the time). I can only imagine the kinds of problems that tanks would be experiencing if this was still the case with new SMN out, which already has enough firepower to disrupt aggro early on in dungeon pulls.

Additionally, when I'm playing a tank I do not like to have to work extra to keep things focused on me. I want a decent rotation as a tank that builds enough aggro to keep things on me, which is the case for my current favorite tank, Paladin. The aggro juggling as old Dark Knight was a terrible experience and the fact that the spell Flash was even in game at one point seems so bewildering looking back. That ability should have never left FFXI. They were all needless complications to what should have been a fun experience, not the headache inducing runs from back in the olden days.

[Mikey_R]

I, for one, would be interested on knowing your reasoning for this. (Not an entire thesis, but a summary would be nice.)

I suspect a few of their ideas would mimic my own thoughts I outlined in post #16 and as I said in that post, that is just scratching the surface, though, in bullet points:

-Redundant combos
-Annoyance of Lucid/Diversion/Quelling
-Gear/skill levels of everyone

These points mainly come from the flaws in the system that was in place up until Stormblood.

Also, managing TP was not fun. Before Holy Spirit/Equilibrium TP restore, tanks had no way to restore TP/not use TP. Even playing perfectly, you will run out and then what? You are being punished for...playing too well? How about AoE? They cost alot of TP, ~120 per GCD IIRC, you ran out quickly. Paladin's alternative? Flash, you get punished by doing no damage. Warrior? Equilibrium only restored TP in Deliverance, the DPS stance. DRK was the only one who really didn't have to much of a hard time just because of the MP restoration power it had. TP was just a punishing mechanic and was not interesting.

[Undeadfire]

Fun fact in 2.0, certain races gained more enmity than others.

Seriously though, aggro mechanics were more annoying than being useful, it's system relied on your team mates using their own minus enmity abilities than having to spam more enmity+ because team mates are too lazy to push a free button. Nin in HW fixed enmity issues and allowed tanks more DPS value than more enmity abilities because of the sheer aggro Blm/Melee/Whm pulled. DPS focused combos had more potency than enmity abilities.

[Tlamila]

No thanks, I always hated having to manage aggro, in this game and in others. dpses having to hold their dps, healers having to hold their heals, lucid dreaming on cd, and stuff like that added nothing fun to the game, just a clunky outdated mechanic I was very happy to see gone.
Fighting with the rest of the group for aggro doesn't make a tank imho; positioning enemies correctly, mitigating properly for both yourself and the group, being slapped in the face so that your party doesn't have to, that's what makes a tank for me. Someone who protects the party, not someone who tries to win at aggro ping pong against them.

[Canadane]

Tanking peaked in Stormblood.
I would love to go back to that enmity management any day.

[Alzinor]

But then again I came from XI, a game where you had to actually participate with your party, not in spite of.

y mate but this is not XI, it's XIV, two different battle systems, it is like comparing a RTS and a shoot em up.
XI is not as active in battle as XIV is.

[AziraSyuren]

I suspect a few of their ideas would mimic my own thoughts I outlined in post #16 and as I said in that post, that is just scratching the surface, though, in bullet points:

-Redundant combos
-Annoyance of Lucid/Diversion/Quelling
-Gear/skill levels of everyone

These points mainly come from the flaws in the system that was in place up until Stormblood.

Also, managing TP was not fun. Before Holy Spirit/Equilibrium TP restore, tanks had no way to restore TP/not use TP. Even playing perfectly, you will run out and then what? You are being punished for...playing too well? How about AoE? They cost alot of TP, ~120 per GCD IIRC, you ran out quickly. Paladin's alternative? Flash, you get punished by doing no damage. Warrior? Equilibrium only restored TP in Deliverance, the DPS stance. DRK was the only one who really didn't have to much of a hard time just because of the MP restoration power it had. TP was just a punishing mechanic and was not interesting.

Yeah, it's mostly just this.

Aggro management was only a mechanic if you were either bad or had a party that didn't play nice. Otherwise, it was just a nuisance.

That's not a skill worth testing. That's just luck masquerading as talent.

It's also ridiculously overpowered to be able to press one button and have 20% more DPS over someone who doesn't.

[Malthir]

I suspect a few of their ideas would mimic my own thoughts I outlined in post #16 and as I said in that post, that is just scratching the surface, though, in bullet points:

-Redundant combos
-Annoyance of Lucid/Diversion/Quelling
-Gear/skill levels of everyone

These points mainly come from the flaws in the system that was in place up until Stormblood.

Also, managing TP was not fun. Before Holy Spirit/Equilibrium TP restore, tanks had no way to restore TP/not use TP. Even playing perfectly, you will run out and then what? You are being punished for...playing too well? How about AoE? They cost alot of TP, ~120 per GCD IIRC, you ran out quickly. Paladin's alternative? Flash, you get punished by doing no damage. Warrior? Equilibrium only restored TP in Deliverance, the DPS stance. DRK was the only one who really didn't have to much of a hard time just because of the MP restoration power it had. TP was just a punishing mechanic and was not interesting.

That's not an argument against TP or aggro, that's an argument that they implemented it poorly.

The difference being, the concept of resource management is good, they added TP restorers because it was implemented badly that you had no way of returning TP, that was a smart move.
However SE took the approach of just rip the whole system out instead of fixing it.

To give an analogy, imagine your houses heating system allowed you to control temperature but it wasn't working right in one room of your house. Instead of checking what needed fixing and replacing certain parts the plumbers removed the entire heating system and it was replaced with a static heating system that gives you no control and your house is stuck on 22°C permanently.

I don't think anyone here is advocating for the exact old aggro system to be brought back, or TP management system. What is being said is that the game is becoming less fun because it is becoming shallow, mechanics and gameplay feel empty especially for tanks. For those who are saying tankings is already too busy, what is it you're busy with, not trolling, genuinely I want to know? Certainly not tanking! If by busy you mean the rotations, then you're complaining about being DPS as that is the exact same thing they are doing, you are currently functionally no different from a DPS class, and I would like to point out that Tanks have the simplest DPS rotations in the game.