"I don't want to think while I play, so no one should be allowed to."

[Shougun]

Yeah it's been a lil rough trying to point out very obvious things that subtlety doesn't work anymore. Being very "in your face" does work though, and cuts straight to the point sooner. If that was a lot of negative vibes, I apologize.

Eh no worry

I just wanted to verify because I didn't address the points by point but I was like.. "I've seen the simplification of healers over time, and while I think it might be fine one healer is known as being simple.. I am not particularly on board with the entire movement.. and I feel like we can add things back that don't even mess with the whole image of 'healer'"... so why dont we.. like the support concepts I was trying to suggest.

I think you have this mindset that "multiplayer content = hardcore content" when it's definitely not. There are lot of people who use this game as a social game, and meeting up and doing stuff together is ultimately the main goal of an MMO, and more content that focuses on the single player experience ultimately sabotages that goal. Content that's designed for multiplayer, with the option (but not the main goal) of doing it solo, whether or not it gets powercrept over time or they add options (like extra echo) to it when there's few players in the instance is acceptable to preserve the skill floor, but making MOST of the relevant content in an MMO, SINGLE PLAYER, is not the way to go.

I would say anything savage + is on the hardcore border (with ultimate obviously definitely being within it). All MSQ related content being not hardcore, but obviously all MSQ is quite achieveable in DF . I've no problem with this in a general statement. We might be able to hash out ways to refine the experience but I think it's good that I can assume if I queue for a DF (non-savage.. lol) content that I will finish that content and if I have to I can carry the entire team to the end.

I think making most of the content single-player-able is good. Making it designed FOR singleplayer at the outset, particularly with the word "most".. maybe not so much... Here and there, sure, but not 'from the outset most'...

'Most' should be designed for multiplayer, and perhaps forethought in how the content will progress down the pipeline as it ages. Starting out with people at the top of the stack who are the most skilled / time eager. Like if I was making a primal fight I'd put in a function / spell that killed players if they failed, but in that function would have a variable to check if they had like epic echo on or something, if they did then I'd be like 'clearly this is now old content and I don't need to be excluding solo players' and that instant skill would be converted into very high damage (perhaps with a function of average party hp at the given level expected for content, which could be another function ).

Perhaps we continue to agree... lol.

One of my fun things to do in FF14 besides raiding is running BLU dungeons, and getting BLU spells. When I'm in the mood for it, I would jump into a PF with a BLU who needs a spell, and we would gather 6 more people and go in the instance and BLU farm and have a good time. If BLU spells are only "learnable" in Masked Carnivale (where you can ONLY go in single player), then that effectively makes that part of the game ONLY single player.

I would argue that BLU really messed up on release though because it wasn't very great for solo growth, which it desperately needed given there was an obvious flash in the pan relationship to it (you could easily miss out on the opportunity to gain a lot of cool spells and turn into begging for help), and at the addition of Basic Instinct it greatly improved itself (though I still feel there are things that need refined for the initial 50 levels, which could lead to more complicated and thoughtful builds for the job as a whole). It might not be as fast but I would appreciate if the growth of the job was more exciting solo, as that's how I did it (and until you get specific skills).. it's not really... that great.. Of course, you can help your friend with a few choice skills and it gains insane pace though (but I don't think that is how it should be considered 'good enough' -- "good if you friend helps you get an oGCD, Heal, and Mimicry- you become a god!!" Otherwise "you'll cast 1 or 2 spells ad nauseum until much later").

On another note - It was, not saying 'because of me' though, my suggestion that blue mage spells were 100% learned in groups to encourage that aspect... :P.

Maybe I'm not perfect at it but I think I am able to see from a perspective different from the one I 'prefer' (partially because I was that other person). I would not intentionally remove content from someone else, at least under a general understanding of it. "Don't take away my savage ramuh!!!" ... "uh you mean that content you did 4 years ago that you haven't touched since?...? That one..? yeah I'm going to take that and give it to other players now, and I really don't care what you have to say about it- I find your behavior selfish without good merit or cause, knock it off*". *Though I don't mind temporary rewards as we're all humans and there is something primal owning a thing others don't have, even if I find it socially embarrassing that is how we are...

It cannot work perfectly in an MMO for very obvious reasons but as a general philosophy I am in full support of addressing the spectrum of difficulty types players like within the same game. If you play Witcher on easy, cool cool- did you have fun? That's the important part. I'm not going to give you less, maybe sans some cute achievement, because you chose to do that. "I made the game for you to have fun, and I put effort into making sure that you could tune the experience to how you like to have fun."

Another example would be friends not being able to queue into PvP together. Why can't they queue together? Why do people need to do this janky way of queueing together by pressing the Queue together at the same time? What's wrong with going into a casual match with a bunch of friends in voice chat and just having a good time?

Because you'll absolutely murder the other team lol. Though losing in PvP isn't too terrible since you still get a decent reward.

Sure, I'll give you that an MMO shouldn't be exclusively single player, but it should be focused more in content you play with people, rather than turning an MMO into an RPG. Monster Hunter is not a good example of MMORPG, nor is Left 4 Dead a good example of an MMORPG. An MMORPG's content should be first and foremost, designed for the multiplayer experience, not get turned into a lobby based game where nobody does content together cause "why do this with another person that I don't like and talk to them when I can just go ahead and afk in Trusts instead).

FF14 should encourage multiplayer, not snuff it out completely. instead of "fixing" areas of the game by making it only singleplayer(which is the easy way out), they should just use it as a band-aid fix, and go ahead and research and develop design decisions that does encourage people coming in together for content in an MMO, just like Treasure Maps, and/or Hunt Trains, or even World Bosses.

One more thing though, I'm not advocating for removal of echo or anything like that, or a return to the old days of "deleveling". I'm not advocating for a higher skill floor and the game to be less acessible. What I'm advocating for is an expansion of the other side of the spectrum, a restoration of the skill ceiling. A restoration of that side of content that's been removed alongside the lowering of skill floor. I want more options to experience the content as it was before, pre-nerfed and everything. I want more content to challenge me. I want more the skill ceiling back. Not all people want handouts. If surmounting a difficult wall is not for you and you're burnt out, that's fine, but don't make the mistake of assuming that merits a removal of options for people who want that.

There's also a subset of the population who still play this game for the PvE content, just like there were people who engaged in PvP before the CC rework, just like people who craft, just like people who fish, just like people who do housing.

Some of the initial points I don't entirely agree on, like I think it's fine if someone wants to live the life of trusts.. I honestly don't care (unless it is going to cause massive issues for the DF, but squadrons didn't so I assume it will be fine so far lol). But I understand your ask, and I have taken part in it before- like I've written big chunky posts on world boss events, what you might be able to do with wards for events that drive people together, Hamlet (Dark Cloud / Island Sanctuary) content for FC that includes assaults and defenses (like FFXI's Aht Urhgan), etc.

I didn't think you were specifically asking for removing echo or deleveling, but just examples of where I wanted (in my first post) state that while I understand and want to be part of fleshing out and considering ideas that make the game fun for everyone.. I also would not be happy if there was a bunch of "remove echo" "never nerf this content" "ensure you can't solo learn the blue mage spells" type behaviors.

I wanted to be clear that "I like" many of the casual functions of FFXIV, but I also wanted to note that I can see where somethings feel like they go a bit too far. Or alternatively maybe it should have been done in a different space, but still exist. Like it's unfortunate to change a job famous for being hard to a job that's easy. It could still be fun in their own right for both examples... BUT.... people who flocked to that job for it's gameplay feel might feel like the carpet was ripped out from underneath them. That's a bit unfortunate. Like to me WHM is the healer for when you just want it to be straight forward. So if I was making changes to healers, I might make light changes to WHM but it wouldn't change far from that sphere. Meanwhile SCH was a bit more weird before.. so I might have tried to keep that (with offensive spells / and DoTs in particular).

Warrior's Fel Cleave was cool, but it wasn't something I felt every tank job needed lol. I think condensing skills down is very nice and I have a lot of experience playing MOBAs where 4 - 5 skills is all you need for very interesting gameplay, and I generally like FFXIV's new PVP kits, but I also understand when condensing down skills you want to bare in mind the patterns of keys pressed and if you're losing cool functionality. Less keys but similar functionality is nice, less keys but interesting patterns is even better. You could change some jobs to 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3. That's probably not great lol. Maybe one job is more closer to that because again I don't mind the idea that a job is more like "we made this with 'easy to play' in mind", but in general.. not great- I can see quite a few players would be like.. "I'm bored". Meanwhile if you had 16 abilities but used a lot of the keyboard because there was a lot of contextual, situational, and interactivity.. I think it would be fine- rather than needing 4 hotbars lol. In context of a change I think SMN at 90 is pretty fun, it could maybe have one or two more mechanics, but it's fun and I like not having insane number of skills for no good reason (I would condense a few more to be honest), but I would agree pre-86 particularly is a bit empty. To me condensing skills is an opportunity to gain more, rather than less. I'm used to like wc3 dota where reading the tooltip was like a short story... lol. So that doesn't bother me. When using a skill in HoTs did like 3 different things depending on where you were and what you were pointing at.

I might not consider condensing every job just because someone may like lots of options, though I'd try to ensure it was skills that 'felt' right to stay that way. Like I think I could think of clever rules for most of the jobs and compact them down a lot.. but some skills are screaming to be one button like leyline / return, others would require scripting if then type situation. And you'd have to ask if it damaged patterns or allowed opportunities for more or less interesting things.

In context of the recent Samurai issue, to be skills that allow fine tuning to be 'a bit' better are interesting, but I would investigate the differences and ensure that a weird case skill wasn't creating substantial differences. To the point you have stuff like bad x Job is always kicked because they're freaking awful, but a good X job is of course valuable but most don't play it right. "You didn't cast that after the 2nd, 9th, and 21st skill to line up to the 43rd window? That's like 25% damage lost!!!!" lol. I might change that. But if using it right gained you a few %.. then it's just an opportunity for skilled players to feel challenged, while ensuring the okay players are not producing garbage (beyond whatever they were going to produce anyways.. I know we've got ice mages sometimes.. and there isn't much you can do there XD....).

In summary though- I don't think we're entirely at odds at each other, in a general sense, but perhaps on certain points we'll have diverging interests (I mean obviously I'm happily self proclaimed casual lol).