Square Enix slowing killing the fun.

[Caurcas]

Caster Bard was interesting, same as Gun Mage. Both far more so than what they are now. You can play the job wrong, but why force a dumbing down for the players that enjoy it?

[UkcsAlias]

Caster Bard was interesting, same as Gun Mage. Both far more so than what they are now. You can play the job wrong, but why force a dumbing down for the players that enjoy it?

People want to optimize the fun out of a game, and they dont even know it. If a player does something unconventional, they are often instantly called a troll or noob. Every game suffers from this part, unless the playerbase can be reliably split between the groups (for FPS games this is usualy pub vs ranked). And thats also why games like call of duty are for most dedicated players usualy not that good (because they focus on the simple player that just wants to enjoy whatever he does). Team fortress 2 also used to be very oriented around teamwork, but over time each class became more self oriented (where especialy the sniper noticed this by getting anti spy counters - one of the most horrible ideas ever).

The problem is mainly when a game starts to become mainstream. FFXIV used to be niche, now its competing agianst WoW. Where WoW already was dumbed down to the extreme on that, because it had to remain mainstream. If ffxiv remained niche, then those players would very likely quickly leave again, because they cant bother adjusting.

The main issue is that people want expected behaviour from a certain class to be that behaviour. And devs know the importance of this. Every time the behaviour doesnt match the expectation, players complain about the class, and in extreme cases will start to protest and make the infestation worse. You realy dont want to know how mixed up the tf2 player base is/was. It was absolutely horrible as some want the spycrab behaviour (essentialy being a useless afker), some want actual competition (very strict weapon and class restrictions), some want normal pub competition (no strict rules), and some want to troll (disrupting the team). This is what you can get when not adjusting to the playerbase. A lot of servers at some point simply applied AFK detection based on point scoring etc, just to get rid of certain problem groups. Votekicking was already essential to get rid of trolls, and in some cases they actualy use this to get normal players out of a game (especialy competetively skilled players can dominate pub servers).

Its sad that this often dumbs down games. But at the same time, its innevitable to happen.

The only real difficulty they can add is making the challenges themselve harder, instead of the class. And in a proper balance, this is fine. You will sometimes be surprised if they have an event where you can go back to the old system, on how much QoL does towards your fun. What you consider fun in complexity might actualy just have been an anoyance you have trained yourself to be used to. The only reason you dont notice it, is because in the earlier days everyone struggled the same way.