If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

[Imoye]

Yoshi P said in a video that FFXIV wouldn't exist were it not for WoW. The game was a major inspirational source for this game. My question really is: Is the dev team willing to learn from the mistakes Blizzard made?

Blizzard literally went on a raging simplification spree. Notably pruning and removing tons of abilities from each class and specializations in the name of "accessibility". Shortly after the game went downhill big time. Skill expression is today completely gone in WoW. Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

I truly do not understand why the developers want to do the same thing to FFXIV. Heck, Blizzard even recently stated that pruning was a mistake. They're now trying to "undo" the damage, but that's likely going to take multiple expansions of work. Why on earth would you want to repeat this same mistake in FFXIV?

Having easy jobs is perfectly fine, but there needs to be jobs that offer also medium difficulty and high difficulty. Pruning and dumbing down existing jobs is not in any way acceptable, and is an insult to players who main those jobs. If you want to make something simple, then you need to create new jobs that are simple from the beginning - period. People are invested in their jobs and you're actively disrespecting their affection by making changes none of them asked for.

By all means, continue to remove abilities and make the game play itself. You will not gain more subs; but you will lose half your player base from your arrogance.

[MellowMink]

Might be concerns about button bloat after an entire 90 levels, especially for controller players, but there are also ways to address that without stripping away abilities; for instance, Gunbreaker got a useful change that makes one of their three-part combos that connects with another action limited to a single button that now changes over time. Why not do something like that for more 1-2-3 combos instead of deleting stuff?

[ryouma17]

having to press 500 different buttons during combat does not make the game fun

[BEATORICEEEEEEEEEEEEE]

Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

wow's pruning and ffxiv's pruning are completely different in nature and even goal (and both with good and bad sides). if you aren't capable of seeing that, you either havent played one or the other or your opinion is not worth taking seriously.

[ForteNightshade]

having to press 500 different buttons during combat does not make the game fun

That's 498 more buttons than healers have. Jussayin'

[Imoye]

having to press 500 different buttons during combat does not make the game fun

Yes it does. Abilities create depth and foster interest as well as satisfaction and mastery.

wow's pruning and ffxiv's pruning are completely different in nature and even goal (and both with good and bad sides). if you aren't capable of seeing that, you either havent played one or the other or your opinion is not worth taking seriously.

This thread isn't about the philosophy behind the changes, it's about the inevitable effects.

If you aren't capable of seeing that, you either haven't played one or the other or your opinion is not worth taking seriously.

[Ransu]

WoW's problems were content and a myriad of other things, not "simplification." Ya'll also severely overestimate the outlook of the game based on the forums which is a minority of the minority of the playerbase.

[Theodric]

WoW's problems were content and a myriad of other things, not "simplification." Ya'll also severely overestimate the outlook of the game based on the forums which is a minority of the minority of the playerbase.

The lack of content is a common enough complaint for FFXIV as well. Many of us have played WoW and have seen its decline in real time over the years and are now identifying similar trends where this game is concerned. Much like FFXIV, even to this very day WoW has long had some very vocal players seeking to downplay concerns and try and dismiss concerns as the voices of a 'minority'. In actuality, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that many of those deliberately seeking the game's official forum to post on are doing so because of passion and investment.

[HyoMinPark]

WoW's problems were content and a myriad of other things, not "simplification." Ya'll also severely overestimate the outlook of the game based on the forums which is a minority of the minority of the playerbase.

The lack of content is a common enough complaint for FFXIV as well. Many of us have played WoW and have seen its decline in real time over the years and are now identifying similar trends where this game is concerned. Much like FFXIV, even to this very day WoW has long had some very vocal players seeking to downplay concerns and try and dismiss concerns as the voices of a 'minority'. In actuality, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that many of those deliberately seeking the game's official forum to post on are doing so because of passion and investment.

I also want to add to this that, just because someone doesn’t come here and post doesn’t mean that they are inherently satisfied. They could just be completely apathetic to the state of things at this point. Or maybe they couldn’t care less about what’s happening. Maybe they don’t have an opinion. Or maybe they truly are satisfied. All that said, you cannot take these silent bystanders and include them in this “majority versus minority” argument when you don’t even know their stance.

[KageTokage]

I honestly don't think the game's current direction is going to be sustainable in the long term either between the overly predictable and mostly short-lived content cycle and constant efforts to dumb down jobs for the sake of the bottom line who don't even need to be performing anywhere close to optimal for the content they choose to actually engage with.