From another site: `Endwalker is the last expansion where the FF14’s “Formula” works`

[Akonyl]

The only thing I'll say is WRT buttons/abilities in old expansions:

SE has a tendency to take old abilities, and remove them, to create space for a new max-level ability for a job or whatever. This makes sense, since you want your players to feel like they're getting something new as they level up in the new expansion. But I think they go about the pruning poorly, because it ends up with (for example) 1-80 content being pruned similarly, so while 80-90 gets the new stuff, 1-80 gets a uniform amount of abilities pruned. So, importantly, levels 1-50 suffer because now they have less abilities than they did when 50 was the actual level cap in ARR. It ends up with some jobs feeling incomplete at low levels. I would suggest that SE attempts to fill out 1-50 rotations more, to give newer players opportunities to see fuller/busier rotations, and then relegate the 50-80 leveling range more to just trait / supplemental ability additions. It would make the leveling process a bit more boring, but I think the largest issue XIV has atm is likely the retention of new players, which I would think is in part due to how the new player leveling experience goes.

[darkdyllon]

They should free Blue Mage from Prison.

Also I don't think they will change their formula at all. The game isn't going to change. Hasn't changed since Stormblood. The game hit it's peak in Heavensward and hasn't been better since. It just gets progressively dumbed down.

Not being critical it's just a fact.

you're not wrong, granted i never raided back in the HW days, got to endgame around a month before SB was released and the 1st tier of omega was my 1st savage raid experience (good experience though)
it's what i've been saying for a while and my static calls be a boomer for it, jobs are becoming easier and easier, look at how summoner used to be, it used to be an complicated puzzle, but once you got the pieces figured out it was an good and easy job, now it's just "dreadworm stance > any original primal you want (probably bahamut at some point, don't play this itteration of summoner) and then phoenix, repeat till victory or wipe"
granted i despise positionals (mostly because it's inconcistent with how the game work and lore wise, since i could get behind hitting harder from the back/side, but then wouldn't chakrams/arrows/bullets do the same? the same for magic, i get that it would ruin the ranged vibe, but i just hate that as an melee you have to dance around, while the ones with real range can stand still in the back of the arena)

just hope they finally stop thinking they need to make things easier for the casuals, most changes won't even affect them, removing some buttons won't change the fact that if an controller player isn't using the double tapping L2/R2 for an extra hotbar he/she will still run out of space instantly, unless they manage to dumb it down to 16 buttons in total, which would likely kill the game outright for most.
granted, some jobs like summoner are basically there already, i kept some buttons in the same area as i had them in SHB ... and damn i literally got entire sections just empty because of it.

[Amenara]

It'd definitely be interesting if jobs were more front loaded, but it would require a fine line. New SMN is basically already there because it's exactly the same from 50 to 90, though, so if that's the future they're going towards, I don't know if that's actually better.

Just keeping actions scaled down would be the easiest solution probably. They already have that working for role actions, so I don't see why that can't work for job actions.

I think if they front loaded most of the kits to 1-50 and then used traits to change the usage of abilities akin to what happens to 3 of the tanks short mitigation CDs that would be where to start. You can add more flavor to the rotations as you level up but you shouldn't have to wait until past level 60 to feel like a fully fleshed out job, especially since the 52-60 job skills are locked behind getting to HW and your level 70 skill still requires you to do a quest to get. I think if they had weaker versions of skills that got better as you leveled up it would feel a hell of a lot better than not getting anything until a higher level and then getting a new skill which completely changes the rotation you have been using for the last 50 levels. The main reason I advocate for this over just down syncing skills is the 1-50 experience is already pretty terrible job-wise and they need to do something to make it more interesting so new players get hooked and stay playing the game vs something like wanting to play rogue and hitting literally 2 buttons and a two minute ogcd for 26 levels... Kinda like dpsing as healer for about 86 levels...

[MagiusNecros]

you're not wrong, granted i never raided back in the HW days, got to endgame around a month before SB was released and the 1st tier of omega was my 1st savage raid experience (good experience though)
it's what i've been saying for a while and my static calls be a boomer for it, jobs are becoming easier and easier, look at how summoner used to be, it used to be an complicated puzzle, but once you got the pieces figured out it was an good and easy job, now it's just "dreadworm stance > any original primal you want (probably bahamut at some point, don't play this itteration of summoner) and then phoenix, repeat till victory or wipe"
granted i despise positionals (mostly because it's inconcistent with how the game work and lore wise, since i could get behind hitting harder from the back/side, but then wouldn't chakrams/arrows/bullets do the same? the same for magic, i get that it would ruin the ranged vibe, but i just hate that as an melee you have to dance around, while the ones with real range can stand still in the back of the arena)

just hope they finally stop thinking they need to make things easier for the casuals, most changes won't even affect them, removing some buttons won't change the fact that if an controller player isn't using the double tapping L2/R2 for an extra hotbar he/she will still run out of space instantly, unless they manage to dumb it down to 16 buttons in total, which would likely kill the game outright for most.
granted, some jobs like summoner are basically there already, i kept some buttons in the same area as i had them in SHB ... and damn i literally got entire sections just empty because of it.

Well yeah it gets easier and I still think the stat squish overall was a mistake. My mindset now is that since the grind formula isn't really rewarding or engaging enough I think it's far better to only come back and play the game for it's MSQ at the beginning of a expansion's launch and enjoy everything they had padded out across 2 years while at the same time instead of grinding months for tomestone gear and weapons you can get all that stuff for multiple jobs in a few days to a week with just Poetics.

The MSQ really just takes you through these artistic setpieces and after that that's about it. The game is very heavily instanced and is all about farming gear to do this 8 man content beyond that there isn't much to do other then level jobs and fight the market board as a crafter.

I can see the benefit of removing buttons but it could be done so much better if they just implemented their PvP combo system and it would be fine and without sacrificing a job's complexity or engaging playstyle. Or even if it's remove buttons to add more buttons.

And you know right now a lot of jobs are very easy to play and I see a lot of complaints that jobs are braindead which they are but I think YoshiP has dug himself this hole and this is the direction we are headed.

[Liam_Harper]

Yoshida stated that he plans to continue the game for at least another decade, but I really can't see myself sticking around for another 10 years doing the same old FATE's, roulettes, tomes, farming the same bland gear that isn't really needed for anything with the same old jobs with almost the same toolkit. Especially when they continue simplifying it and removing challenge or long term value.

It's a nice game, don't get me wrong. Story is decent, raids have been fun, aesthetically it looks good. But I'm just bored of the same safe formula. There's absolutely no chance I'm going to last 10 years. I'm basically just using ff14 as a waiting room for a decent new MMO right now.

[Neoyoshi]

This is the third time I've seen this topic brought up; and i still don't get this whole "Formula" discussion; as if there really is one to begin with, and the game couldn't possibly survive change or creative evolution.

[Kabooa]

This is the third time I've seen this topic brought up; and i still don't get this whole "Formula" discussion; as if there really is one to begin with, and the game couldn't possibly survive change or creative evolution.

You must be new here. Yes there's a formula. We know when all of our major combat content is coming, with the exception being Ultimates as we've not had any pattern to them other than it was intended to have two every expansion as of Stormblood, but that doesn't always work out.

We also know that very few combat overhauls happen during an expansion life, so what you end up with in the x.0 patch is likely what you're going to keep, with a few exceptions.

[TofuPenguin]

Job balance/enjoyment aside, I was speaking of this just today about the content release formula with someone else. It's pretty mundane as it is (as all things become with predictability.) I find I get more enjoyment out of the side content like eureka/bozja because it's different from the standard releases and the difficulty level isn't completely floor level. The problem with it currently is how relevant it remains when new xpacs release.
Would really like to see more random content that doesn't get thrown to the side as the game grows.

[ThorneDynasty]

This is the third time I've seen this topic brought up; and i still don't get this whole "Formula" discussion; as if there really is one to begin with, and the game couldn't possibly survive change or creative evolution.

Sorry but your pattern recognition ability leaves a lot to be desired if you can't see there's a very rigid formula.

[Dyvid]

Just thought this is a topic worth discussing here on the OF:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ast_expansion/



This is kind of something I've harped on for a bit - when the vast majority of the game's content puts you under level sync, it feels terrible. Of course, people here are typically very against this poster's suggestion of allowing players to retain their kit while level sync'd.

Depends on the content and why you are running it. Why are you doing Roulette? Most its for leveling so an entire tool kit doesn't matter because they don't have one to begin with. Deep Dungeon? You most likely have your whole tool kit after the 50th floor so it become a moot point since the goal it get past 200th floor. When you run level 90 content you have a level 90 tool kit. It's just the way the game is designed.