SAM players are quitting

[cjbeagle]

snip

Thanks for humoring me on kit preference - it's good to hear that it varies, but it's also interesting to hear that bard is among your selection - it's one of the jobs I haven't maxed out yet, so that piques my interest.

As for kenki and how you're taught to use it, its priority hierarchy, etc., I have nothing to argue against in how you portrayed the onboarding as a samurai levels, and I think your depiction is a credit to the devs.

I think it'd actually be quite difficult to bottom out on Kenki that you can't use Kaiten and thus create meaningful management. It's a scenario that would take some active effort to do so, but I'll also admit that perhaps I think too highly of players in the game.

I don't mean to disparage players, but I think you might indeed be giving too much credit - there are plenty of people who will smash Shinten the moment they see it light up literally because it lit up. A dps OCGD is available? Using it. We've covered the idea that Kaiten is a non-choice, as is when to use it, but it's worth noting that there's another non-choice that players need to pass before Kaiten's is even presented, which is the non-choice to NOT use Shinten when you're about to reach your desired sen status. Players who are used to pooling resources will have no problem with this, but for those who aren't, this is a new point of mastery akin to checking your shots in an FPS that has killable friendly units. A lot of players already have experience with that and it won't slow them down for a moment, but for some players, it'll be something they haven't dealt with before. Just because it's trivial to most of us doesn't mean it can be ignored - it just means it's a point of mastery that we've already conquered. That said, even for players who this comes naturally to, kenki "management", while trivial, still required you to pay attention to the relationship between your sen and your kenki - without Kaiten there's no reason to - you can literally ignore your kenki and just hit Shinten whenever you fancy, the only exception being to pool in preparation for a burst window, and even that basically doesn't matter - an extra Shinten or two benefiting from burst window buffs is hardly noteworthy, and since Ikishoten and Senei have the same cooldown, an extra Shinten or two benefiting from buffs is all the pooling does amount to.

As for the priority hierarchy - it was simple, but it existed, and now it doesn't. It provided a non-choice on a regular basis throughout the samurai's rotation - with Kaiten removed, the non-choices are removed as well. We agree that these were non-choices, but I think it's important to acknowledge that non-choice is still better than literally no choice. Picking between A and B constantly when you know the right answer is still much more engaging than just mashing A because it's the only button you have. Also, I would argue that it's also only a non-choice once the right and wrong picks are known - until then it's a meaningful choice that serves as a point of mastery. Sure, there's still a right and wrong answer, but if you don't know which is which, it puts the onus on the player to figure that out. Some players will just read the toolips and solve it that way - others seem completely unwilling to read tooltips and will figure it out through experimentation - others...won't figure it out...ever, or if they do, actively ignore what they know. Regardless, point being that options are better than no options even if there isn't a meaningful choice involved.

I like the all-"C" analogy, but you still reference it in terms of the priority hierarchy, but that hierarchy no longer exists - C is the only option - it isn't the right answer, it's the only answer, and there's no longer a question being asked of you. The test is blank and you're just selecting C all the way down because A, B and D aren't even there. Again, non-choices are still much better than literally no choices, not only for engagement, but for variety sake as well.

Since you're keen to chat nuance, I'd like to bring up cadence. One of the "feel" points that Kaiten provided was a guaranteed non-damaging OGCD prior to a hardcast. I imagine this active downbeat was an intentional part of the original design and I'd argue that Iaijutsu is diminished without it. Samurai's tempo is one of the things that made it unique - tons of kits have tons of OGCDs, but most of them aren't actually part of the rotation - they're just extra things to do while also doing your rotation, but with samurai, Kaiten was actually part of the rotation, and without it, it's just like the other jobs in that regard.

If working on a 10 scale, I'd put Kaiten at something like a 3. I find it interesting that we have such drastically different evaluations of its importance despite the fact that we seem to agree on all the fundamentals. I suspect that the reason is that you're extremely adept at the game and are presumably playing with others who are as well. I, on the other hand, am relatively new to the game, and primarily play with people who are even newer than I am, and who aren't exactly adept. Some of the things that you see as trivial and complete non-issues are the same things I'm having to actively coach people on.

Agreements and disagreements aside, thank you for your response - it's nice to see someone engage in good-faith debate.