Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[CelestiCer]

They're homogenizing the wrong things:
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- Skill floors and accessibility (which is good) but at the expense of skill ceilings.
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I agree with this. Jobs can be complex without increasing the skill floor with an avenue to express mastery over your favorite Job(s) with an increased skill ceiling that is entirely " Optional to master ".

Often the notion that gets brought up is " difficulty is limited to certain jobs you choose ". Example? Love SMN, the fantasy the aesthetics? want complexity? give up SMN that you love? and pick up BLM for complexity. And I don't think its unreasonable nor impossible to give every job that complexity or some as optional regarding improvement of Job gameplay.

Another POV sometimes from the Balance Discord is that " Stream-lining is necessary for harder Fights ". I just disagree. The view that Fight design restrictions are based on Job complexity forcing homogenization... I could say the same for players demand to be able to execute their rotation perfectly at all times on all jobs 24/7 is equally restrictive. Granted, I understand that if you have x job being easier vs x difficult job to perform better forcing a meta in x fights? But, I believe this is due to the 2 min buff direction more then anything else.

More buttons for the sake of more? is as meaningless as less buttons for the sake of less. I prefer less buttons then what we have now? as long as it has more depth. Square also needs to cater to console/controller players, less Button Bloat with Skill-Depth is better.

Being pessimistic, has my expectations at Square Simplifying everything and at best not simplifying BLM for obvious love-child reasons. If I were to be optimistic? Square will give some nuances/complexity/gauge-interactions anywhere from 7.0 to 10 years into FFXIV's future. Can't blame me for having my expectations be this low... mhm

[Valence]

I also do wish for more interesting mechanical rotations to play with, especially on rphys if only to give them a bone to gnaw at and make people cease defending job rdps segregation into two groups (dps jobs and 1% party bonus jobs). If anything, ironically enough, what they've managed to do in pvp and albeit it probably could gain from some polish, and also granted, benefits from a lot of variables that are present in pvp compared to pve, is actually pretty flavorful at least to me. I feel that the kits are coherent and all offer very unique mechanics no matter the job. Maybe they should take some inspiration from there, because it feels to me like they've kinda reached a terminus with the current pve system.

After removing more and more core gameplay facet from the game notably in shb (enmity management, party support and resource management, oversimplification of the general battle system) in order to focus on the only thing that they've painted themselves into a corner with (damage, damage, damage and more damage), because that's the only thing that truly matters now... Well it feels like they're just struggling to find new mechanics, too scared to butcher some jobs while butchering others instead of making them funnier, or just outright removing identities in favor of blandness (hello MCH). On top of this they keep following that slippery slope leading to potency creep with the new capstone ability that constantly has to be shinier and bigger and more nukey than the one from the last expansion, and we end up with silly stuff of 1200+ potency and then they complain that the crit variance over those is too damn high and harmful to the game (hello kaiten removal)...

[Valence]

And now that I mentioned MCH, then I'm gonna ramble because I want to... It seems that they never listen to the actual feedback people give. I know it's been since ShB release for that one, but who even asked for ammo and procs to be removed on that job? And reload? Why is it on RDM now? We loved this no? Why did the job depart from this to a bland 3 steps melee combo? Why did it take them 6 years to actually start doing something about the latency feedback and give us stacks? Who asked them to remove all the rest of the job identity that was party support (dps and mitigation)? Because BRD and DNC were already supportey? And what about the class identity being the biggest burst job in the game within a 10s window every minute? Why was that removed? And past ShB, why does queen still not have any AoE falloff on some of her moves? It's not like literally everybody was waiting for that to happen for EW...

This is just an example, but I do feel like it illustrates perfectly the disconnect between feedback and whatever... SE feels like doing. I'm definitely not saying to listen to every stupid thing that comes out of player's feedback, but so many choices are so incomprehensible at times that it just causes concern for me.

[Alice9]

I very much do not like the current state and degree of homogenization that is occurring. I understand that this will always happen to some degree for balancing reasons, ease of future changes, etc., but I believe it is starting to mess with the identity of jobs and the unique aspects that make them (or made them) fun to play- and has gotten to the point in which whenever they announce job changes, my first reaction is concern as to whether or not I will continue to find the job fun to play in the future. Kaiten's removal gutted the feel of samurai for me, Monk's Riddle of Earth changes turned what was originally a unique and interesting ability into a vapid mitigation, Summoner doesn't feel complete, and Paladin's recent changes feel like a glove that doesn't fit the hand. These aspects are just simply my opinion, and perhaps it is too negative- but there is definitely a theme between them all that causes me to feel that way.

Personally, I always prefer more complex jobs and rotations to jobs that are simpler. I understand wanting either however, and I think the best possible direction that Square could go to please both audiences would be to introduce jobs and job changes that create high skill ceilings- while also having a general rotation or flow that people can pick up on intuitively. Those who enjoy optimizing their job and rotation can really push the job to its limits and be rewarded for it- and those who would just like to pick up and play a job can do so with little issue. This is obviously easier said than done, but I believe that would be a good general direction to aim for if they desired to simultaneously cater to both sides of the player base.

[ataren3]

I'm not a fan of the homogenization that's been happening and the reworked classes having their identity altered or removed entirely. I see their want/need to remove DoTs from a design perspective: too many buffs/debuffs and you cause issues with trying to clear content, like what happened in TOP as well as several other encounters earlier. Why they haven't raised or removed this limit is anyone's guess (mine is that it's still 1.0 code and nobody knows how to rework it without breaking everything).

What I'd like to see is sort of the introduction of the "master-style" classes that people have been discussing recently. Since Square Enix wants to make every class easy enough to play, why not provide an "advanced" version of each class that provides high-risk high-reward?

As an example take the current Summoner. Nearly everyone agrees that while the change is nice it's just far, far too simple. It's rotation really doesn't change in any meaningful way from X -> Y level. You basically have your rotation set in stone from level 50(?) onwards. Now imagine there's an option to master class Summoner. This changes or enhances its rotation between low & high levels and provides more things to do (or manage) which in turn ups the damage it spits out. The caveat is that these things you can do are inherently more complex, maybe more nuanced (like BLM "when can I move and when can I accept a hit?"), and comes with penalties for messing up. I think it'd be really neat to see the "simple" class that can go through all normal content (MSQ, dungeons, trials, maybe raids) and the advanced class that can go through all that content but also participate in current endgame stuff like Savage, EX, and Ultimates.

People who don't care don't have to worry about their class getting too complex because most people don't bother with endgame stuff anyway. Those that want that challenge and feel accomplished for mastering the class have something to work towards.

[Vinal211]

i will say, i personally do not mind the changes made to summoner. i think new summoner is nice and inviting for people picking up the game. it can be that magic dps of a low skill floor, and it still fits both xiv lore and FF lore as a whole. but i don't mind it with the idea that new summoner can be expanded upon and that hopefully, later on, it will have a pretty good skill ceiling to keep you coming back to it. keep adding more to the rotation, more summons or not and all that. what i would hate to see happen is that for new summoner to come in, stay as it is for the rest of the games life with only like...2-3 extra buttons of DoT's not even connected to the carbuncle or any summons period, and then old summoner kit is tossed aside and forgotten. like not even giving SCH back its DoT management with Tri-Disaster and Bane included for more fun, just Bio, Miasma, all that stuff that you could do with summoner between pet commands and bahamut/phoenix? "nah, we don't need that anymore because 'it was too complicated'".

i said it in another thread, but both kits can work, and both kits can exist at the same time. maybe it could be a whole separate class of its own, maybe they'll have some kind of odd specialization thing later on where you can choose between current and old summoner. i wouldn't mind either way. but i would mind it if i was given current SMN, not given anything to add on to/fix it, and then everyone else who doesn't like current SMN doesn't have something to play that reminds them of old SMN.

[addz3]

Homogenization is such a bad idea, what's the point in having 20+ jobs when the do the same thing as 5. Personally I'd like them to take the FFXI route a bit more, there's a reason why that game is still going strong. The reason behind making everything the same is so that nobody feels left out? Left out of what, high tier raiding groups? No disrespect but aren't they like 5% of the player base? Don't they play for the challenge rather than what job? Maybe just me but I don't care that my PLD may do 8% less damage as long as its true to an identity and becomes a brick wall. Warrior - go for it do you 10% extra damage than the other tanks but be a squashy piece of meat. That's my balancing. If some jobs fall off certain content, that's fine. Players can then just swap job to have a new experience. I feel they are really screwing this game by making it damage damage damage. Going back to FFXI that was a true role experience, they need to do that. I'd argue the majority of people play XIV for story and lore which includes role-playing not the weird stuff but getting in to character. Sword shield defender or an axe wielding maniac. It's all good.

[Valence]

I'm not a fan of the homogenization that's been happening and the reworked classes having their identity altered or removed entirely. I see their want/need to remove DoTs from a design perspective: too many buffs/debuffs and you cause issues with trying to clear content, like what happened in TOP as well as several other encounters earlier. Why they haven't raised or removed this limit is anyone's guess (mine is that it's still 1.0 code and nobody knows how to rework it without breaking everything).

What I'd like to see is sort of the introduction of the "master-style" classes that people have been discussing recently. Since Square Enix wants to make every class easy enough to play, why not provide an "advanced" version of each class that provides high-risk high-reward?

As an example take the current Summoner. Nearly everyone agrees that while the change is nice it's just far, far too simple. It's rotation really doesn't change in any meaningful way from X -> Y level. You basically have your rotation set in stone from level 50(?) onwards. Now imagine there's an option to master class Summoner. This changes or enhances its rotation between low & high levels and provides more things to do (or manage) which in turn ups the damage it spits out. The caveat is that these things you can do are inherently more complex, maybe more nuanced (like BLM "when can I move and when can I accept a hit?"), and comes with penalties for messing up. I think it'd be really neat to see the "simple" class that can go through all normal content (MSQ, dungeons, trials, maybe raids) and the advanced class that can go through all that content but also participate in current endgame stuff like Savage, EX, and Ultimates.

People who don't care don't have to worry about their class getting too complex because most people don't bother with endgame stuff anyway. Those that want that challenge and feel accomplished for mastering the class have something to work towards.

Knowing the community already I'll play devil's advocate: I can already feel that even in casual content you'd see a lot of scorn and elitism suddenly dropping down on everybody daring to use the simple versions, because "tHeY aRe wAsTiNg mY pReCiOuS gAmEr tImE aNd tHeY nEeD tO gIt gUd".

But it definitely ties to skill floor (accessibility) and ceiling (skill expression), so yes, I find it interesting.

[Valence]

i will say, i personally do not mind the changes made to summoner. i think new summoner is nice and inviting for people picking up the game. it can be that magic dps of a low skill floor, and it still fits both xiv lore and FF lore as a whole. but i don't mind it with the idea that new summoner can be expanded upon and that hopefully, later on, it will have a pretty good skill ceiling to keep you coming back to it. keep adding more to the rotation, more summons or not and all that. what i would hate to see happen is that for new summoner to come in, stay as it is for the rest of the games life with only like...2-3 extra buttons of DoT's not even connected to the carbuncle or any summons period, and then old summoner kit is tossed aside and forgotten. like not even giving SCH back its DoT management with Tri-Disaster and Bane included for more fun, just Bio, Miasma, all that stuff that you could do with summoner between pet commands and bahamut/phoenix? "nah, we don't need that anymore because 'it was too complicated'".

That's literally what happened to MCH, and nothing has been done for EW to make it more engaging. We all thought they were trying to get a basic core rotation right and improve upon it, but they haven't, it's still the same brainless carpal tunnel sludge.

This alone doesn't make me hopeful for 7.0 SMN at all because it's been following the exact same pattern.

[Zarkovitch]

When someone wants pets command back. Please reconsider the clunkiness of this game.There a reason why pet have bare minimum of enteraction on this game.Ghosting and delay input. Casual player thinks might be cool, but on the high end game raiding you are griefing if this happens on you. Simplifcation can be good if you know the game well enough, however it SE. So you got a 50% chance it be a good quality life change.