What are your thoughts on FFXIV's combat?

[AmiableApkallu]

Meanwhile Endwalker added a few impactful new keystone abilities, gave healers a 1.5 nuke across the board and has called it a day so far. Put the MSQ to the side for a moment and there's really very little else to differentiate the gameplay loop from what we had in Shadowbringers. It's the same recipe in a different coloured box.

Why does each expansion need to radically change the gameplay loop in some way? If the recipe is good, stick to minor tweaks, if any. If the recipe is bad, then fix it.

If it were up to me, each job's kit would be more or less there at Lv.70. You get the standard boilerplate core for the role and job in the Lv.1-50 range. Then Lv.51-60 and Lv.61-70 each add a coherent chunk of flavor -- PLD's magic rotation should come within the space of one expac, WHM's lilies should come within the space of one expac, and so on. Maybe this can continue for yet another expansion, but I'd start to worry about space on hotbars.

So, from Lv.71 onward, the focus shifts to dungeons and trials, adding more varied mechanics (more memorable instances such as the original Copperbell slime mold, for example), and removing reliance on telegraphed AoEs and fixed battle scripts.

[Sebazy]

Why does each expansion need to radically change the gameplay loop in some way? If the recipe is good, stick to minor tweaks, if any. If the recipe is bad, then fix it.

This is a 9 year old MMO soon. The game needs to evolve and keep things fresh to maintain momentum and growth. ARR through to Shadowbringers all felt unique in their own way.

ARR was a rebirth as it's name suggests
Heavenward was almost as thorough a rework as ARR in terms of gameplay.
Stormblood was a comparatively weak expansion in some regards but even so it still ushered in many significant rethinks not only of classes but also the importance of side content such as Eureka.
Shadowbringers brought with it a new found focus on accessibility and narrative.

Endwalker is pretty clearly aimed at riding the coattails of Shadowbringers huge success but as a result, it lacks it's own identity as an expansion. It's just doubling down on the same highlights as Shadowbringers (And IMO falls short at doing so).

To give an example of what I mean, look at how a typical raider will tackle each new Expansion release.

Level a job through the MSQ > Spam Dungeons to get basic tome gear > Spam primals to get Primal Gear > Wait 2 weeks for Normal Mode Raids > Farm 2 weeks of tokens for Normal Gear > Buy/craft Crafted and Penta Meld it > Wait 2 weeks for Savage > etc

This routine has remained strangely intact from Heavensward through to Endwalker with the only change being the relative ease of materia now vs back then. I'm really not sure why.

There are plenty of other areas SE could throw curveballs at us again. Bozja's raids were a decent curveball, lets see more of that elsewhere to break how formulaic and by the numbers the core gameplay loop is in places.

[Atelier-Bagur]

This is a 9 year old MMO soon. The game needs to evolve and keep things fresh to maintain momentum and growth. ARR through to Shadowbringers all felt unique in their own way.

ARR was a rebirth as it's name suggests
Heavenward was almost as thorough a rework as ARR in terms of gameplay.
Stormblood was a comparatively weak expansion in some regards but even so it still ushered in many significant rethinks not only of classes but also the importance of side content such as Eureka.
Shadowbringers brought with it a new found focus on accessibility and narrative.

Endwalker is pretty clearly aimed at riding the coattails of Shadowbringers huge success but as a result, it lacks it's own identity as an expansion. It's just doubling down on the same highlights as Shadowbringers (And IMO falls short at doing so).

To give an example of what I mean, look at how a typical raider will tackle each new Expansion release.

Level a job through the MSQ > Spam Dungeons to get basic tome gear > Spam primals to get Primal Gear > Wait 2 weeks for Normal Mode Raids > Farm 2 weeks of tokens for Normal Gear > Buy/craft Crafted and Penta Meld it > Wait 2 weeks for Savage > etc

This routine has remained strangely intact from Heavensward through to Endwalker with the only change being the relative ease of materia now vs back then. I'm really not sure why.

There are plenty of other areas SE could throw curveballs at us again. Bozja's raids were a decent curveball, lets see more of that elsewhere to break how formulaic and by the numbers the core gameplay loop is in places.

Kinda hard to already judge EW when you're going with the perspective of a completed expansion timeline with Shb if you're bringing up stuff like Bozja and all of its raids which were things that were added in post-Shb patches. To me, I already feel like EW is giving way more bang for its buck with not only concluding the 10 year story, but also all the new forms of content we're getting such updating the old ARR duties in the msq, adding in duty support for those old dungeons, pvp rework, new quality of life features and now with 6.2 we'll be getting 2 new forms of mid-core content with variable and criterion dungeons and island sanctuary along with additional duty support for HW and lets not forget they're finally going to do the initial graphical updates transition within post-EW up to 7.0

Bozja was literally a slimmed down version of Eureka (a piece of content from SB) that while I absolutely enjoyed it; lets not kid ourselves with how much of a mess and unfinished the overall content was. They were being ambitious and we did get some additional fun raids, but the werent able to fulfill a lot of the ideas that were planned for it, relegating to rushing the whole experience. Its a shame but oh well.

[Sebazy]

Kinda hard to already judge EW when you're going with the perspective of a completed expansion timeline with Shb if you're bringing up stuff like Bozja and all of its raids which were things that were added in post-Shb patches. To me, I already feel like EW is giving way more bang for its buck with not only concluding the 10 year story, but also all the new forms of content we're getting such updating the old ARR duties in the msq, adding in duty support for those old dungeons, pvp rework, new quality of life features and now with 6.2 we'll be getting 2 new forms of mid-core content with variable and criterion dungeons and island sanctuary along with additional duty support for HW and lets not forget they're finally going to do the initial graphical updates transition within post-EW up to 7.0

Bozja was literally a slimmed down version of Eureka (a piece of content from SB) that while I absolutely enjoyed it; lets not kid ourselves with how much of a mess and unfinished the overall content was. They were being ambitious and we did get some additional fun raids, but the werent able to fulfill a lot of the ideas that were planned for it, relegating to rushing the whole experience. Its a shame but oh well.

Why not though? We know what we are getting for most of EW especially with the team bailing on the additional planned job revamps until 7.0. Island sanctuary is really the only big unknown here, is it going to have an impact on the rest of the game? Who knows, Yoshida has repeatedly told people to manage their expectations for it but I'm honestly more concerned for Criterion, Dungeons have been extremely formulaic for the longest time. Will the team manage to dig themselves out of the trench and come up with something fresh, challenging and engaging? It's nice to dream but the track record isn't inspiring me with confidence here.

The PvP rework is a fair point and is something I'm inevitably going to overlook. The duty support stuff? Eh it's not exactly new nor does it really change much of anything.

Bojza is an interesting case, what it lacked in polish it made up for in accessibility and player retention by the bucketload, especially compared to Eureka and Diadem before it. I'm pretty confident that the next Eureka will continue Bozja's formula rather than try to reinvent the idea yet again. Given that they won't be hamstrung by a pandemic, it should allow them to properly finish the thing this time too, so that's no bad thing.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Why not though? We know what we are getting for most of EW especially with the team bailing on the additional planned job revamps until 7.0. Island sanctuary is really the only big unknown here, is it going to have an impact on the rest of the game? Who knows, Yoshida has repeatedly told people to manage their expectations for it but I'm honestly more concerned for Criterion, Dungeons have been extremely formulaic for the longest time. Will the team manage to dig themselves out of the trench and come up with something fresh, challenging and engaging? It's nice to dream but the track record isn't inspiring me with confidence here.

The PvP rework is a fair point and is something I'm inevitably going to overlook. The duty support stuff? Eh it's not exactly new nor does it really change much of anything.

Bojza is an interesting case, what it lacked in polish it made up for in accessibility and player retention by the bucketload, especially compared to Eureka and Diadem before it. I'm pretty confident that the next Eureka will continue Bozja's formula rather than try to reinvent the idea yet again. Given that they won't be hamstrung by a pandemic, it should allow them to properly finish the thing this time too, so that's no bad thing.

Mostly I say this due to how trends work where general reception changes after the initial release; like how ShB was when it was released and it was going through its patches, people didnt receive it all that well (besides its story) but now everyone seems to think that ShB was this amazing expansion when really it was just par for the course. The game slowly keeps getting better.

And I wouldnt say that duty support and the reworks to old ARR, HW and eventually SB content arent a big change when that literally will affect how new players will experience certain parts of the game. That goes a looong way with presentation. They already addressed the annoyances and lackluster of some of the now super old content such as Cape Westwind, Castrum, Prae and now we'll be getting a whole rework with adding in key npcs to HW msq dungeons and already people are blowing their load off with having a certain Elezen Knight join the party at a crucial moment in that story.


But yeah I still stand by my case, its still too early to tell how overall EW will be; but at least I can already tell there's a lot more new stuff coming in that what I experienced in the previous expansion.

[SargeTheSeagull]

Why does each expansion need to radically change the gameplay loop in some way? If the recipe is good, stick to minor tweaks, if any. If the recipe is bad, then fix it.

If it were up to me, each job's kit would be more or less there at Lv.70. You get the standard boilerplate core for the role and job in the Lv.1-50 range. Then Lv.51-60 and Lv.61-70 each add a coherent chunk of flavor -- PLD's magic rotation should come within the space of one expac, WHM's lilies should come within the space of one expac, and so on. Maybe this can continue for yet another expansion, but I'd start to worry about space on hotbars.

So, from Lv.71 onward, the focus shifts to dungeons and trials, adding more varied mechanics (more memorable instances such as the original Copperbell slime mold, for example), and removing reliance on telegraphed AoEs and fixed battle scripts.

Yeah. Their point is that the recipe wasn't very good in ShB and instead of refining it in EW, they just added more of each ingredient. It isn't awful by any means, but it's definitely not as good as its past incarnations nor did it change combat substantially enough to be called an expansion. They didn't meaningfully expand on anything introduced in ShB. They added two jobs (one of which is a shameless copypaste of scholar) and gave most other jobs another finisher they hit once per minute. Tanks each got a stronger cooldown and a finisher. Healers got another strong heal they didn't need (or want), melees got more finishers, ranged got nothing, casters got a crappy summoner rework that did nothing but obliterate an entire playstyle, ANOTHER red mage finisher and black mage got a fancy fire upgrade. None of these meaningfully changed combat. Especially when compared to what every job got in previous expacs.