Dark Knight Megathread

[Lyth]

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Not really. There are quite a few people besides myself who have already pointed out the risks of a rework, earlier in this thread.

As I said earlier, the reason why there was support for BW and LD was because there were actual gameplay problems there that made the job less fun to play. The reason why there isn't the same support for DM or TBN being buffed is because most people can see significant upsides to having those abilities the way they are, and they're more likely to be nerfed in the process of reworking them rather than buffed, as you can see in the thread that I linked. I especially dislike the suggestion that TBN have its MP cost and the Dark Arts mechanic removed and be moved to 25s, as that's a major nerf if you know how to use the ability properly. The discussion around sustain has more to do with role philosophy than job design. I don't see 'self-sustain' as mandatory on tanks because content is designed around having 1-2 healers present. If they decide to move towards an ARPG design, get rid of healers, and give everyone a stack of healing pots and raises then that's a different story.

I can tell that you don't have a point to make whenever you fall back into excessive verbiage, as is your old habit. That second last paragraph would put Urianger to shame. Let me simplify it for you. If you have a problem with DRK's core gameplay loop, by all means, discuss it. There are some things that are common to every iteration of DRK that we've seen so far, though, like a relatively higher oGCD count and layered resource management system currently on the job. So there are some things about the job that you can't change, because they're been a part of the job's identity across several reworks.

If you can suggest a maintenance combo setup that's more interesting than Eye/Goring and their many variants, then by all means. Alternatively, if you come up with a second combo that isn't resource-gated, then I'm all ears.

[Archwizard]

I can tell that you don't have a point to make whenever you fall back into excessive verbiage, as is your old habit.

Funny, I was going to say the same thing about ad hominem.

[Shurrikhan]

If you can suggest a maintenance combo setup that's more interesting than Eye/Goring and their many variants, then by all means. Alternatively, if you come up with a second combo that isn't resource-gated, then I'm all ears.

I agree with you that we should aim for unique means of providing a given mechanic, so long as that actually produces a unique feel to gameplay. (Granted, not all technically unique mechanics do ultimately provide gameplay loops that feel unique, and some shared mechanics can nonetheless create different gameplay loops just due to their distinct contexts.)

But how tightly should we read this? If we're including even theoretical variants, then you've precluded any means of pacing a combo based on durations or resources. That may literally include every possibility.

Now if you simply want to avoid anything like our existing examples, I still have to ask... why preclude them so preemptively? We tried some other ideas. Some of them were probably bad, but that's something we can check after contextualizing them. We still learn from what we saw needed improvement and in what likely ways. The discussion rarely settles so quickly on a "good enough" long-term (i.e., save as a tentative step or context). I'm still ultimately gonna be anal about anything that smells of homogeneity, and I doubt I'm alone in that. But when we're discussing a particular prospect, we can at least lay those possible implementations out and imagine them through so we have steppingstones for our continued discussion... instead of just insisting someone leap the poorly-defined gap singlehandedly.

Not really. There are quite a few people besides myself who have already pointed out the risks of a rework, earlier in this thread.

I know. I myself have warned about the risks of reworks. Many, many times.

But there's a difference between shutting down all attempts to progressively hammer out our preferences --precluding that discussion alternatively through, "your ideas are meritless and dangerous without a completed alternative" and "concretely exemplified ideas are intrusive plugs"-- and simply noting the implications of such and such a change or attempting to tie the smaller ideas back to the consensus of larger goals if/when those examples overly fixate discussion. There's a difference between asking, "Okay, but what gameplay loop do you want to result from that?" and requiring the strictest of conditions (such as precluding every existing mechanical means of softly pacing a combo's usage) for an idea to even be thought through collectively.

The reason why there isn't the same support for DM or TBN being buffed is because most people can see significant upsides to having those abilities the way they are, and they're more likely to be nerfed in the process of reworking them rather than buffed, as you can see in the thread that I linked.

And I point out those upsides whenever anyone brings up their potential adjustments. They have certain affordances I want to keep. In my case, that's a bit more to do with gameplay that capacity, but still.

As you've said, most people see those upsides already. And if the thread loses sight of those upsides, we can keep reminding people of them. We can even do all that... without calling out others for even just collectively/publicly thinking through whatever X change might produce.

I especially dislike the suggestion that TBN have its MP cost and the Dark Arts mechanic removed and be moved to 25s, as that's a major nerf if you know how to use the ability properly.

Same. I've already been accused of "dying on that hill," and will continue to do so. While I could see Dark Mind potentially taking on a new, more synergetic function, I think TBN is easily the most interesting mitigation ability XIV has, and am not willing to lose its affordances.

By synergetic, I here refer to, say, turning incoming damage instead into a damage over time effect in a context where Edge is augmented by... a Sineater trait to be able to reduce the remaining DoT to be taken by some portion of its damage dealt. Yes, that's spitball, but the idea is that you'd have something that provides more, at-least-somewhat freely placeable windows by which to get further, interesting value out of flexible oGCD attacks. Naturally, I would then wish to link in Living Dead similarly.

The discussion around sustain has more to do with role philosophy than job design.

Yes, but that doesn't exclude it from being a vector of available job identity. Nor does "healers exist" mean that we should ignore parity in healing+mitigation. That's especially the case if a job has no compensatory strength to, say, make up for the lost healer rDPS. Note that at present, GNB can outdamage, outmitigate, and outheal DRK.

I don't see 'self-sustain' as mandatory on tanks because content is designed around having 1-2 healers present. If they decide to move towards an ARPG design, get rid of healers, and give everyone a stack of healing pots and raises then that's a different story.

This seems a reduction to the absurd.

And who has outright claimed that self-healing, specifically, is "mandatory"?

Now, sustain is a factor in tank balance, and self-healing --alongside mitigation, be that based on incoming damage or only on the tank's own stats-- is a factor in sustain. And since mitigation is the form that has greater and more unique affordances, it's generally easier to fix an imbalance in primarily just in self-healing through... self-healing. We can trade some of that sustain between mitigation and healing, or eventually trade some of that sustain towards damage if later contexts allowed for that, but right now DRK has neither a compensatory lead in mitigation nor damage.

Granted, if you've got warning bells ringing on the basis that jobs don't need to perform similarly in each category, only on the whole, I understand; I'm right there with you. But asking for rough parity is not asking for homogeneity. And suggesting that DRK get a bit more self-healing is just being pragmatic. It's not even of the sort of pragmatism that might sacrifice identity (unless you outright count being slightly underpowered as... an identity). By all means, keep an eye on it lest it suddenly, somehow mutate and come out swinging an axe, but DRK can have some self-sustain without being excessive or homogeneous.

That self-sustain is not a huge deal, but there's no risk here of DRK becoming more homogeneous just from pulling a thousand or so extra cure potency per minute. It could even be leveraged rather uniquely.

There are some things that are common to every iteration of DRK that we've seen so far, though, like a relatively higher oGCD count and layered resource management system currently on the job. So there are some things about the job that you can't change, because they're been a part of the job's identity across several reworks.

Well, yeah. That's not been contested...

Did I just miss someone trying to get rid of either of those aspects? Are... are we talking about Shadowbringers/Endwalker Darkside here? Darkside being considered a wasted gauge aside, I've mostly been seeing people advocating for more of that, not less... I get that some people could probably make clearer in a given isolated post that what they find insufficient (a la Darkside) ought to be replaced, not merely removed, but this seems to be in agreement with everyone else anyways?

If you have a problem with DRK's core gameplay loop, by all means, discuss it.

My problem with the core gameplay loop, whether it fits your constraints or not, is that I want more -- more to do, and to watch out for, over which I would have actual control (rather than it being set by timers or equivalents that are inflexible in practice) and some means of paying off gambles and/or capitalizing on events.

That probably, but not necessarily, means flexible mini-burst windows, some of them reactive (be that to offensive procs, defensive events, or ideally both), and maybe some means of controlling pacing. That may mean having some damn good reasons to want to hit a particular combo step at a precise time, complete with the flexibility to let me make that happen.

When I have that hammered out enough for what it's my head to make sense to others, I will post it. It will take some time though, because my core problem with the kit is how little agency, TBN aside, it offers me between bursts; that requires addition, not just critique.

I can tell that you don't have a point to make whenever you fall back into excessive verbiage, as is your old habit. That second last paragraph would put Urianger to shame.

This is like the third time you've used that "burn". I don't know why you've been so fixated the past five years over how I type, but the last time you went full ad hominin at people across a DRK thread, it got shut down, so please don't do that again.

[Dracosavarian]

This is like the third time you've used that "burn". I don't know why you've been so fixated the past five years over how I type, but the last time you went full ad hominin at people across a DRK thread, it got shut down, so please don't do that again.

I don’t think they are intentionally trying to “ Burn “ you Shurrikhan. Rather, the phrase comes to mind “ Less is MORE. “

I am far more verbose than you are, but one thing I have learned in life, working in both Healthcare and IT and supporting both, is the core of what that phrase means. When on meetings for IT issues, I would at times have people telling me, in the midst of a long and technical explanation as to why a program or critical server failed that lead to a sev, tell me “ Get to the point. “

What others are trying to say is what I have spoken of earlier in some discussions with you. Your counter arguments go on for so long, point by point, that they in turn end up muddying your argument. And for a lot of people, they lose focus on what the point you are making is, due to this.

It’s one of the reasons why I make a concerted effort on my own end to truncate my phrasing to get my point across as concisely as possible. Because I myself all too often had this issue far earlier in my own life.