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

[Roflcopter]

This, this, a thousand times this. If you want to play a game that is super-duper-complex, play FFXI.

The same guys think WoW is hardcore when it was designed to be extremely casual in the age of insane grindy hellish mmos. Before that we had 10-12 hour raids where you competed with other guilds along with a boss that required 70 players to kill.

[MagicalChase]

The same guys think WoW is hardcore when it was designed to be extremely casual in the age of insane grindy hellish mmos. Before that we had 10-12 hour raids where you competed with other guilds along with a boss that required 70 players to kill.

You see tons of FFXIV players literally have only played FFXIV as their only MMO. They think people who don't want the main game to be a pointless game with no obstacles want the game to be fucking Dark Ultimate Souls DX: Prepare to be killed edition when in reality most people are just asking for the midcore crowd to not get the shaft and for normal content to be engaging.

[Felis-Silvertis]

The same guys think WoW is hardcore when it was designed to be extremely casual in the age of insane grindy hellish mmos. Before that we had 10-12 hour raids where you competed with other guilds along with a boss that required 70 players to kill.

It was casual in its time, sure. But times change. Today you have many more things vying for your attention than in 2004 and your time is more valuable than it was in 2004. So by today's standard vanilla WOW is hardcore and grindy.

[Lauront]

This, this, a thousand times this. If you want to play a game that is super-duper-complex, play FFXI.

Is this another variation of the same braindead "if you want Dark Souls" strawman?

[Kyrj]

Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

If every person who cried "shame on X company" stuck to their guns and boycotted their products, they'd probably starve to death or live in a house with absolutely nothing in it. The business world is a shitty fucked up place and no amount of crying will ever fix it. Best to learn to live with it.

[s1mulacrum]

Its video games. I typically dont really care what the company themselves do, i detach them from the game itself. I can still find a game to be made well and have fun, just because the people behind it may be bad doesnt really change that for me.I could hardly care what you think of me though, this playerbase has shown one too many times its....lackluster taste.Either way i play games to retreat from real life. I dont need people bringing up that a company did xyz and that i shouldnt play their game because of it. Its childish.

Couldn't care less*

It's not that you continue to play the game; no one should tell you you have to stop playing. I don't judge people negatively who didn't stop playing Blizzard games when they heard the news. It's that you trivialize the real suffering of other people by dismissing the situation as "politics".

[s1mulacrum]

If every person who cried "shame on X company" stuck to their guns and boycotted their products, they'd probably starve to death or live in a house with absolutely nothing in it. The business world is a shitty fucked up place and no amount of crying will ever fix it. Best to learn to live with it.

Or maybe the world would be a better place and the market would be forced to adapt. When people left WoW en masse, all of a sudden Blizzard was willing to allow cross-faction: a thing they said they would never do. How do you think labor laws happened?

[Hurlstone]

There really seems to be a sense of almost… exaggerated dread around this patch. Not thats anything new. I feel like every MMO I have ever played gets such discussions when class changes are implemented. I just feel that we are a long way from jobs that can play themselves or totally loose their uniqueness. Not to say we should not question the choices made, but I feel the reasons the devs are making such changes are more complex then just ‘They want to make it easier for casuals.’

I cannot comment on say, the SAM changes, as I have not played it much and even then I would like to wait and actually play the class after the changes to see. That said I feel ‘button bloat’ is a real thing that needs to be carefully controlled as we raise in levels. Having a rotation that takes up several rows is not going to be everyones cup of tea. Is removing skills the answer? I do not know. I was not much of a fan of how they cut down Summoners core set, but then others love the changes. I am personally a fan of making more skills transform during combos, a bit like Gunbreaker and Red Mage do. Its a good way to keep the bars neat but not sacrificing skills, and I wish they would add it to more Jobs.

[Kyrj]

Or maybe the world would be a better place and the market would be forced to adapt.

Pfffhahahahahahahaha

Yeah, no. You clearly have no idea how shitty the business world really is. They will say whatever and do whatever to stay in business and earn a buck.

[aveyond-dreams]

FFXI isn't complex. There are a lot of abilities yes, most if not all on 1-5 minute cooldowns making for a completely different combat experience. The game was *difficult* in the past if you lacked access to gear, spells, or groups but that has largely been done away with now that they have trusts and easier ways of gearing up as you level. The difficulty there is whatever you make it.

This game has gone through various eras of job design. Some were better than others. Streamlining for the sake of convenience and removing clunkiness like stance dancing or downright bizarre abilities like Flash and Tri-Bind is a good thing. Taking away the Samurai fun power up button was an enormous miscalculation, with whatever they meant to eventually replace it with being too far in the future of 7.0 to warrant its removal now.

In terms of my preferred difficulty level to base "normal" around I'd be happy with Titania/Hydaelyn and less annoying mechanics like the one boss from Vanaspati that causes "misdirection" - easily the worst status effect in the game. The game does a bad job of preparing some players for these fights though, partly due to the fact that higher level players are the ones who carry them through the bulk of story content up until Shadowbringers.

I do believe that more solo-oriented players will benefit more from future Trust additions simply because they do not, in fact, coddle lower skilled players. If you mess up more than 3 times in Trust, that's it. It forces somewhat of a learning curve onto them that isn't present in Duty Finder. Sadly, a lot of high level players do not realize this and continue to rally against the system despite it ultimately being more beneficial than harmful.