What are your thoughts on FFXIV's combat?

[Atelier-Bagur]

You realize this literally means nothing with a game that gets constantly updated with patches.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I say this because literally 6.1 and 6.2 has and or will be doing much more than the first 2 patches of Shb ever did.

[Imora]

I will still side eye scholars who don't have Selene out. They are cosmetic now, sure, but she is still the correct form of Lily.

She does not match my glam.

[Imora]

Healing issues aside, IMHO the biggest issue with FFXIV's combat in general is that SE are too cautious with it to the point where they've allowed things to get rather stale by keeping to the same formula that was laid 6 years ago with patch 3.4.

In terms of gameplay, Endwalker is barely worth being called an expansion. It's an extensive story DLC with a soft reset on raid progression.

Without more transparency from the developers, it's difficult nail down the exact reasoning behind the way things are heading, but IMO it boils down to SE being unwilling to invest back into the core design team which has been significantly outgrown by the game they relaunched some 8 years ago. I'm not under the illusion that hiring experienced game designers with the sort of experience that an established MMO will require. Rather it's going to take quite significant money to lure Japanese devs away from the lucrative mobile market and that doesn't appear to be money that SE is willing to spend.

To be fair, blizzard changing wows combat completely every expansion so I need to relearn my class from scratch and end up main switching because I don't like what they did pissed me off, too.

[Sebazy]

I say this because literally 6.1 and 6.2 has and or will be doing much more than the first 2 patches of Shb ever did.

Tell that to someone who mained SCH in 4.0

All 3 healers were a radical departure in how they played between 3.5 and 4.0 and played very differently with the expansions release. And it wasn't just the healers, many other jobs changed significantly with the new level cap. Pour one out for the bow and gunmages.

A lot of core gameplay stuff was changed across a large number of jobs.

Meanwhile with 6.0, we got 1.5 second healer nukes, 1 job got reworked and.....

To be fair, blizzard changing wows combat completely every expansion so I need to relearn my class from scratch and end up main switching because I don't like what they did pissed me off, too.

Yeah, Blizzard got a bit silly with that later on. SE have been just as guilty of that at times though, again, Bow and Gunmages are a prime example. Treading the line isn't easy.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Tell that to someone who mained SCH in 4.0

All 3 healers were a radical departure in how they played between 3.5 and 4.0 and played very differently with the expansions release. And it wasn't just the healers, many other jobs changed significantly with the new level cap. Pour one out for the bow and gunmages.

A lot of core gameplay stuff was changed across a large number of jobs.

Meanwhile with 6.0, we got 1.5 second healer nukes, 1 job got reworked and.....



Yeah, Blizzard got a bit silly with that later on. SE have been just as guilty of that at times though, again, Bow and Gunmages are a prime example. Treading the line isn't easy.

That still has nothing to do with what you're trying to argue. You're arguing about job balance adjustments but masking it under "content" that somehow EW lacks when that's not the case at all? At least be honest and get your topics straight if you're going to be saying such claims

[Striker44]

Endwalker has changed very little in this regard. I'm pointing out that in the context of combat, it's IMHO the least impactful expansion of them all. 1.0 to ARR was a complete reboot, ARR to HW drastically switched up both the content and gameplay, Stormblood finally got the side content ball running successfully and was another fairly significant shift in class design and philosophy, Shadowbringers was a solid refinement of side content concepts such as Bozja and for better or worse, brought with it an across the board pruning as well as making typical content easier and more accessible across the board.

Except this isn't a thread about "how is combat different from ShB to EW". It's a general thread (which I already posted my own general thoughts about early on). You're not talking about combat itself. You're talking specifically about comparing one expansion to another, and claiming there's no content in the expansion because combat is similar. This thread is about combat itself. What about the current combat system do you like? What do you wish would be different? Saying "well, it's so similar to the last expansion" - which says nothing about your general thoughts - and then bad-mouthing that expansion isn't what the thread is about, either...

[Sebazy]

That still has nothing to do with what you're trying to argue. You're arguing about job balance adjustments but masking it under "content" that somehow EW lacks when that's not the case at all? At least be honest and get your topics straight if you're going to be saying such claims

Stop for a second... I'm not talking about balance. I'm talking about classes playing fundamentally differently. Again since you keep missing it, let me make this clear for you:

This is a thread about **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]

Except this isn't a thread about "how is combat different from ShB to EW". It's a general thread (which I already posted my own general thoughts about early on). You're not talking about combat itself. You're talking specifically about comparing one expansion to another, and claiming there's no content in the expansion because combat is similar. This thread is about combat itself. What about the current combat system do you like? What do you wish would be different? Saying "well, it's so similar to the last expansion" - which says nothing about your general thoughts - and then bad-mouthing that expansion isn't what the thread is about, either...

Oic, so you think I bad mouthed Daddy Yoshi and now you desperately need to object to what I'm saying whilst not understanding/not reading what it is I'm actually saying.

Let me emphasis the important point for you as well:

In terms of gameplay, Endwalker is barely worth being called an expansion.

Tell me, what new combat content have we seen with these expansion that we hadn't already seen in Shadowbringers?

Spoiler, the answer is a pair of unique MSQ quests. Outside of that? Nothing at least so far. Dungeons feel the same, leveling feels the same, raids feel the same, the 24 man feels the same.