SAM is dead

[Deithwen]

I don't really play SAM myself. [...]
I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact.

What a way to give your opinion.

You compare two things that should not be compared, and would know that if you knew what you were talking about.
Kaiten was not just a button to increase damage like life surge is for DRG, it was a Kenki spender so the job gauge is not a mindless Shinten spender, but forces you to be mindful and don't screw up your next big hit.
Additionally, it's a 1s animation that was created to fill in the gap between the last GCD and the Iaijutsu cast. Just like when you use swiftcast for a skill, then cast the next one, you have a long time of inaction. Kaiten fell right in between to remove that weird timing.

[CelestiCer]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is.

Love these overused argument points...

I don't really play WoW myself, but I've always thought the value of a skill (Kaiten or no Kaiten) isn't based on it's animation alone. So if an animation is thrown back in our faces without it's actual values or purpose? it's meaningless.

As meaningless as what the most satisfying gauge of the game has become by a singular skill removal, the Kenki Guage devolved into a Shinten/Kyuten gauge where you spam Shinten/Kyuten thoughtlessly both with " Fk-all-intend ", very well said by Misshapenchair. No one, and I mean No one seems to proof nor can they that " THIS " is somehow better then how bad Kaiten supposedly was.

But if that wasn't enough? the good ole argument of

• Hey, I didn't ask this carpenter to punch a hole in my roof and wall
• Carpenter asked me to try it out and give feedback
• So we did, it sucked and we gave feedback
• We totally preferred our not broken wall and roof
• We wonder when they will fix it and replace it with something new?

And they didn't return the call...

Might be a weird metaphor, but this is exactly SE. They made changes on one asked for, they didn't explained for it in the patch-notes they said they would? and the future changes they were promising to us is met with silence. We can now wait for months a year or an new expansion since they will not acknowledge this fk up.

it's also ironic... for how badly designed Kaiten supposedly was? it seemed to have made a lot of players very satisfied and happy for how fun it was. But hey? " Fun Metric " was to high and Fun was detected, and that's real bad gameplay design - amirite? /s

[Thursdays]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is. Ultimately I don't play SAM enough to determine whether or not they increased potencies enough to offset Kaiten's removal, but I would wager that its removal is going to lead towards better game design in the future, regardless of what every other player personally believes.

You know, bar your phrasing I honestly think you might be right. The developers have also stated they are being held back by Kaiten in designing SAM further.

I'd say "never put a big booster in front of a burst" lacks nuance because burst enablers and resource management are interesting factors in game design. Pooling energy before Toxic Blade and going ham on Envenoms was a meaningful expression of player skill on Assassination Rogue and so is Kaiten to Samurai.

Regardless of that fact, if you take one of my most meaningful toys away because you need to make space for new and better toys, don't make me wait a year while you figure out what to replace it with. Just replace it when you have something that is indeed better.

Now we're left with a class that feels hollow - and after half a year we still don't clearly know why it has been gutted and when it will be made whole again.

[Ransu]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is. Ultimately I don't play SAM enough to determine whether or not they increased potencies enough to offset Kaiten's removal, but I would wager that its removal is going to lead towards better game design in the future, regardless of what every other player personally believes.

Its only bad game design for people who don't want to pay attention.

Also, we're not mad about just losing a cool animation. Yes, the animation was awesome and it was the perfect oGCD to flow into the casted iaujutsu's, but it also served a purpose for the kenki gauge. If you bothered to read other replies you would understand this. Kenki guage is now pointless and all we do is spam shinten now. Kaiten at least required you to pay attention to your kenki gauge to ensure you always had enough for your iaijutsu's otherwise you face the consequences of either wasting a GCD to get the kenki you need or casting without kaiten. It was a good system for those of us that want some semblance of thought put into our rotation instead of what we have now which is completely brain dead and boring.

Kenki serves no purpose now and the amount we generate with the loss of kaiten means we now use gyoten (gap closer skill) to burn excess kenki left over from shinten completely defeating the whole "reducing action bloat" crap and the auto crits still hit like wet noodles. The job isn't fun anymore.

Having gauge that you use only for one ability is much, much worse design (I don't count movement skills, since they're situational and cost just 10 kenki + you use Senei always after Ikishoten). Especially if said gauge was made with Kaiten with mind, but they didn't adjust kenki generation/or give another way to spend extra kenki after they removed it. Also, I've played a little bit of WoW long time ago, but doesn't it have GCDs only? I could see Kaiten-like abilities being bad there, but here it's oGCD, so it doesn't really interfere with anything.

And yes, they increased potencies to adjust its removal, obviously. Problem is, they put more potency in basic GCDs and nerfed all the big attacks. Which, you know, is straight up contradictory to the core SAM design. Having cast times for Iaijutus is unjustified now, since they deal maybe like 2-3 times more damage than regular GCDs. Considering the amount of negative feedback even after 4 months, both in JP and EN communities, it's really foolish to try to claim that changes were in any shape or form good.

Ya WoW has purged most of its oGCD stuff. Modern WoW is almost entirely GCD locked skills. To be fair though, their GCD is pretty short.

And yes, the cast times on iaijutsu's basically are dumb now. There's no reward for using a casted skill that barely hits harder than a crit/dh gekko.

[Xaphire]

Kaiten wasn't a good button, but it did have a cool animation and big number fun.

While I miss the animation, it wasn't great design and people losing their minds over it being gone are massively over-reacting and have been since it was removed.

[Kazamaiya]

it wasn't great design and people losing their minds over it being gone are massively over-reacting and have bene since it was removed.

While Kaiten might not have been the best designed thing out there, the point is that people like Kaiten because of how it feels. Kaiten didn't subtract anything from the casual experience and just added more to Samurai. so why did it have to be taken away? who were these changes for?
People already knew they didn't like the change from the announcement of it and were told to provide feedback

people have provided the feedback the devs requested, and we still don't know why it was removed. Button bloat wasn't true, and the other reason that it made planning for the future difficult also just brings up the question of 'why now?'

when the changes to a class are already disliked from the announcement, and then they go through with a purely subtractive change, especially to people that go out of their way to do high end content, learn the in's and out's of a job. people are going to react strongly. Even more so when their feedback gets ignored for almost half a year, how do you expect people to react?

[Saimeren]

Y'all are so dramatic on these forums. And I thought the WoW community was bad for the amount of doom saying and crying they would do.

Geez, get over it. Move on with your life. Either learn to live with change, or find a different job that you'll enjoy more.

You're adults; stop throwing hissy fits and temper tantrums because something didn't go your way.

Do you act like this in your real life too?

[Ransu]

Kaiten wasn't a good button, but it did have a cool animation and big number fun.

While I miss the animation, it wasn't great design and people losing their minds over it being gone are massively over-reacting and have been since it was removed.

You're right, it wasn't a good button, it was a great button and it was an extremely good design that paired well with a melee having casted skills that used to hit like a truck. The only people that think it wasn't a good button never played the job correctly to begin with.

Y'all are so dramatic on these forums. And I thought the WoW community was bad for the amount of doom saying and crying they would do.

Geez, get over it. Move on with your life. Either learn to live with change, or find a different job that you'll enjoy more.

You're adults; stop throwing hissy fits and temper tantrums because something didn't go your way.

Do you act like this in your real life too?

I have moved on to playing BLM this tier, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop showing my grievances about my favorite job being completely destroyed.

[Randommob]

I just wanna add something. I understand that you like how sam play right? Building up for big finisher. In term of number, the number is way lower compared to 6.08 sam. In term of style/feel, SE literally just fk with all Sam players' muscle memory as well as the flow of the job. Kaiten is meant to be pressed before every iai, boost dmg in term of number while showing off that you are about to do big dmg. It works so well and they decide to gut it. No Sam players asked for the change yet it still came. Yoshi demanded feedback, all Sam gave feedback. In the end, what do they get? not a thing, no confirmation of reverting or not, hell feel like all sam players are non existent. In patch note, under DRG, "due to player feedback" yet under Sam, "F u, we dont even care, here your aoe buff, take it and go; no one care"
Edit: Still new to forum, sorry about the way i posted

[Darkpaw]

The funny thing is hearing over and over “why isn’t SE listening to our feedback” like this is the first time in the game’s history the devs haven’t listened to westerner feedback about a job.

Mch’s have been screaming to end ping reliance on their job since heavensward. Drks screamed for scourge to return for years and years (seriously the amount of give back scourge threads were ludicrous), ast’s about their card systems..

Chances are Kaiten will never come back, which lets be honest. You don’t miss the skill you miss the big number the skill provided. I dont really care about Kaiten as a skill but there does need to be alternative uses for kenki other than shinten and kyuten.

There does need to be a better impact of the Iai skills to make them feel like the big number they should be.

Ultimately is samurai dead? No. It’s not. See several of them running around daily and am actually enjoying leveling it myself however i do notice the absence of kaiten and can see there are still flaws that need to be… tweaked. But screaming dead job is disingenuous . There are jobs in this game in far worse shape than samurai.