FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[ty_taurus]

So I just discovered the ability to enable result viewing on each survey. If you return to the survey link, it will allow you to view the results in more detailed graphs. I added a note about this on the initial post as well, but if you want to see what percentage of people are choosing which checkboxes for what they want to see or what they want to see less of, you can do that more accurate that way.

[fulminating]

I'd say there's a bit of a selection bias problem that's two parts here:

1) People aren't answering for all the Jobs - that is, looking at the respondent numbers, we know that it's not 100% of the people going through and responding to all of them. People are picking and choosing which to respond to, meaning people are probably mostly responding to the ones they either like or hate, not ones they're neutral towards or don't play much. [EDIT: A way to have fixed this would have been to have a single survey for all Jobs where people could rate them all overall, as at least then we'd have a lot more 4-6 ratings where people are "neutral" on Jobs they don't like/play, leading to the numbers being far more normalized than they are. This would have reduced the election bias of people mainly sticking to Jobs they either love or hate.]

2) This has been posted here, in FFXIV and FFXIVDiscussion on Reddit - so the sample is already going to be leaning a bit because of those communities not QUITE representing the whole playerbase. The general playerbase doesn't frequent these discussion boards, so the field is a bit based. Still a useful proxy to try and see what the playerbase thinks, but with the caveat it will typically have a leaning that isn't necessarily as representative as the whole as it should be.

So those are just good things to keep in mind while looking through the data.

I think it's better that people aren't forced to answer for jobs they don't play nor care about - I haven't touched the machinist quiz for example because I hardly touch it and thus cannot give any sensible data. This is naturally going to lead to people invested (ie those who play said job) answering the relevant questionnaire. Whether or not this kind of selection is good is debatable, but I reckon it boils down to whether or not you believe every job has to be for everyone.

[ty_taurus]

In most polls and data, BLM is one of the least played, least enjoyed Jobs in the game. It doesn't flow nice, it has a high skill ceiling (which a lot of players dislike), it has a high skill floor (which a lot of players dislike), and it isn't fun for a lot of people.

I think the thing with BLM is that it is extremely apparent to most people whether the job is or isn't for you at a glance. We know it's a low-mobility, slow APM nuke style job either because we're told so by other players, we read that in FFXIV guides, or we gauge that from its aesthetic which is consistent with many other wizard/sorcerer archetypes. People know if that is or isn't for them, so anyone who's not interest in that playstyle is just not going to play BLM and probably isn't going to submit their opinions on it because, why would they? They aren't the market for the job, but the audience that is gets exactly what they're expecting, and while it's challenging to play correctly, it's also extremely rewarding to do so. BLM players take a lot of pride in playing hard fights very well.

Meanwhile, SMN has a couple issues. SMN's gameplay is almost nothing like how it played before, so the audience that was once familiar with and adhered to its playstyle lost that playstyle. The rework was not designed to cater to them. Its trailer was also very bombastic and eye-catching... the longest of all the EW job trailers, and it looked amazing. So it drew in a lot of people who wanted to try it, and likely pulled some amount of people who weren't a fan because the job didn't meet their expectations in practice. Then there's also the argument of convenience. SMN is a 2-for-1 job, making it the prefect job to pick up for melee, tank, and ranged players who want to complete all the role quests. So it makes sense that SMN's playerbase is so much larger, but it also makes sense why not all of that playerbase actually likes or even actively plays SMN. The Census data is quite limited as well in what it will tell you. I count for every job technically on the census, but I really only play a few. That may not be the majority of players, but it goes to show that it doesn't paint the whole picture.

[Rilifane]

Adding to what ty said, being among the least played jobs does not equal "least enjoyed" and let alone "isn't fun/ doesn't flow nice" - that is only your opinion of the job. Not every job has to be for you but that doesn't mean it automatically lacks "flow" or isn't fun.
I played GNB at max level and even in some Ex trials and savage raids. So technically, I'm part of the crowd that plays it - so since I play it, I probably enjoy it, right?
No, not really. It's alright. It's the tank that suits me most but can't say I enjoy it to the point I'd play it more than once in a blue moon. Nonetheless, the data counts me as a +1 for "people who play and probably enjoy GNB". It's important to learn the difference between x amount of players playing a class and x amount of players enjoying a class.

BLM isn't the kind of class that someone who doesn't want to play BLM might still play it.
Healers and tanks have the bonus of having shorter queue times so there's an additional incentive to play them at least occasionally even if you don't enjoy it and I can guarantee you that a non-significant amount of people does exactly that. DNC is another good example of a class people are most likely to play even if they don't really enjoy it in the sense of playing it more than once in a blue moon. It's great if you want full mobility, fairly easy gameplay or just turn your brain off for a bit, push glowing buttons and still perform decently well. It's easy to play even if it's not for you. It certainly isn't for me on a regular basis but alright every once in a while. So I'm another +1 there even though I don't really play it.

So that means unlike many other classes, BLM player count isn't skewed by a certain amount of "I don't really like it but play it anyway" players; people enjoy it and play it or don't and not play it. So it's safe to say that the vast majority counting towards BLM players are people who genuinely enjoy it. Not every class has to be popular.
We really need to get rid of the notion that a class design is bad or unfun just because the class isn't topping the charts of people playing it. The fact that BLM has historically been the most consistently well-received class speaks for itself.
BLM simply isn't the type of "I don't really like it but play it anyway" class. And that is fine.

[Rolder50]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't like new summoner.

[NullPointerException]

What a legend for doing this.

1&2- Only played EW and ShB. ShB is much better with buffs on multiples of 60s rather than flat 120s. Currently there are so many 120s buffs that they circle-jerk into some nearly 50% damage gain in that brief 20s window where all your damage go out, which also makes crit RNG so awful in tight DPS fights like TOP, and amplifies the balance issues classes with weak burst windows face. As a red mage player, I would love to at least see the return of 60, 90, 180s buffs so I can use the extra melee combos between 120s on some buff. In the long term, it's not good. I'm most likely going to quit the game after clearing TOP then see how 7.0 changes all this.

3- WOW has the public test realm. I think ff14 NEEDS a public test environment, doesn't need to be fancy. Maybe just some simple fight instances with different downtime plans. Pick some gear and hop in to test. Just monitor how the classes perform by themselves and with each other. Anonymous surveys that pop up when a player logs in and reward them some in-game currency like gil or casino chips would be sufficient incentive.

[NullPointerException]

I'm surprised RDM scored so high and SMN scored so low. I feel like RDM still needs a buff. As a RDM main, I can't ever join a static without being asked "Can you flex SMN?"

The issue with red mage can be fixed with number tweaks or even mini-reworks that don't change its game-play loop, which is very enjoyable. The issue with SMN is the class design itself and no matter how good it is, it's fundamentally not fun.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

Genuinely curious what you think SE could do to its framework other than adding some ogcds to it and falling into the same pit that they did with drg. The summon phases take up almost the entire rotation and with everything built as it is it feels like there is no room to do anything to summoner beyond visual changes.

There's plenty to work within the current framework if Square decided to be creative. One of the biggest things that can be done is intermingling of the various egi abilities. Just to shoot off some random examples that came off my head:

Crimson Strike: Applies a DoT: 'burning wounds'.
Slipstream: If the target is suffering from 'burning wounds', the duration will be frozen for as long as the target is within slipstream's effect.

Emerald Rite: Now applies 'hastening winds' to the user.
Hastening winds: Reduces the cast time of 'Ruby Rite' to 1.5s.

To create decision making between which Egis you want to use next that isn't just 'I have to move soon = no ifrit'. Or make side routes for the Egis:

-Summon bahamut/Phoenix: Grants the effect of 'Summon Ramuh ready'.
-Summon Ramuh: Can only be activated right after using a summon II action while under the status effect of 'Summon Ramuh ready', effect consumed upon activation. Dispels all charges of the current active Arcanum to summon Ramuh, temporarily locking your arcanum and granting you 4 charges of Shockstrike. Shockstrike: cast: 2.5s potency 750

Giving some decision making to the rotation that's malleable for fight design. Do you sacrifice Ifrit in order to keep your casting phase time in the same spot of your rotation for less potency gain, or do you slow and hinder your free movement down by sacrificing Titan &/or Garuda for bigger potency gains? (Also having to note of any sacrifices from certain skills lost from the egi and their interactions with other egi skills)

Either way, current SMN might be rigid, but there's plenty of avenues for expansion within its actual framework that aren't just basic recolors of their legos. Now would they get that creative is the $$$ question.

[Renathras]

I think it's better that people aren't forced to answer for jobs they don't play nor care about

I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying it's creating somewhat less useful results since it's going to create abnormalities in Jobs that are less played or have a niche audience. Niche audience Jobs will score very high because they appeal to a narrow band of people, and those people (to whom the appeal) being the only ones answering them are going to give them high scores. On the other hand, more "mainstream" Jobs will have a lot more variance since they are played at least semi-frequently by players of all stripes, leading to some people loving, hating, and being neutral on them, as we can see, for example, with the Healers.

I think the thing with BLM is that it is extremely apparent to most people whether the job is or isn't for you at a glance. We know it's a low-mobility, slow APM nuke style job either because we're told so by other players, we read that in FFXIV guides, or we gauge that from its aesthetic which is consistent with many other wizard/sorcerer archetypes. People know if that is or isn't for them, so anyone who's not interest in that playstyle is just not going to play BLM and probably isn't going to submit their opinions on it because, why would they?

Exactly my point and completely agreed.

The people that answer the survey for BLM are largely the people that love BLM, which you can see in its bar graph. Is there even a single other Job with that curve?

BLM

Conversely, SMN's...

SMN

...has a lot of people that dislike it (the 1s and 3s), but also has 10s at both 5 and 8, and 9 responses of 9 (again, looking at overall enjoyment). This implies a cadre of people that REALLY hate it, but then a good deal of people that are neutral towards it and that like it. And notice SMN has 133 responses (as of right now) vs 86 for BLM, which is 50% more than BLM (or BLM having about 1/3rd less than SMN, if you want to look at it from that side of the coin).

I think the way to see this is what you say in your first paragraph - that people who love what BLM offers play BLM and love BLM, and people who do not, do not play it. For most other Jobs, it's not quite as clear, so you have a lot of people pick them up and then get disappointed in the results later. For example, some people pick up CNJ and enjoy the nature themed elemental spells, then become disappointed when they get to ShB/EW WHM and no longer have those.

The single worst case of this, though, is SMN, since you have the people who HAD a Job they liked lose it, and who are very vocal with their disdain. It would be interesting if the SMN page had a question for people who loved old SMN vs those who did not and see if there's a difference in how the two groups view new SMN. What is telling to me is that only 12% say they picked up SMN in EW, but 22% say they like the EW iteration the best. Meaning there were some people who played old SMN who enjoy new SMN better. Further, a bit over 20% recommend no change at all to the Job with a further 23% wanting only a minor rework. That doesn't exactly speak to high levels of dissatisfaction on par with the number of people who say the Job is unfun to them. The implication being that around 45% either like the Job or are fine/okay/neutral with it. It's just the ones who hate it REALLY hate it.

The question to me is, all the people who know BLM isn't for them, how would they rate BLM? Probably not the resounding 10s we see.

Adding to what ty said, being among the least played jobs does not equal "least enjoyed"

That...is...kinda what it means.

What it means is it is the least enjoyed/least enjoyable playstyle. This doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable to people who love that playstyle. A lot of people didn't like old SMN being a DoT mage, which makes no sense with Summoner lore or what a Summoner is, but some people enjoyed it immensely. That's what things that appeal to niche audiences are. They're things that the majority of people don't like, thus they are the least enjoyed. But they are highly appealing to their niche audience, which is why they're able to be successful.

BLM is peculiar specifically BECAUSE people who don't enjoy it don't play it.

In all other Job and role cases, this isn't true. Many people play at least one Tank Job and at least one Healer Job (often WHM), not because they enjoy it, but because their party needs them to play it - as you say as well in your post. They find these Jobs unappealing because they'd rather be playing something else. It's one reason GNB was made more like a Melee DPS; specifically to appeal to such players who were "forced" to play a Tank so they'd actually enjoy it. And it's somewhat telling that GNB has the highest rate of approval, meaning the effort was at least somewhat a success. 7.58 out of 10 is a pretty solid rating no matter how you look at it.

But when it comes to DPS in general, this is less true (with the exception of some RDM players "asked" by their parties to play SMN instead). Generally speaking, people playing BLM are choosing to, they don't feel pressure or force to do so. So you don't have any really disgruntled BLMs. The people who WOULD be disgruntled BLMs aren't playing BLMs. This gives BLM an unusual skew in the data, which was kind of my point. It's unique in that MOST people playing it WANT to play it, and thus are going to be people more likely to enjoy it. Hence why I was saying if people had to answer all the Jobs at once (instead of separate sheets), BLM would probably have much lower marks since a lot of people would be rating it 3s or 5s.

DNC is a particularly odd case since a lot of Ranged have been "encouraged" to play it, but it seems to be genuinely enjoyable enough that they don't feel TOO angry/put out for having to do so. 7.43 out of 10, the most approved of Ranged. The only Jobs more approved of are GNB (7.58), DRG (7.92) RPR (7.57), RDM (7.81), and BLM (8.57).

DRG LIKELY has a similar situation going for it to BLM, honestly...so it kinda sucks they're looking at it for a rework since it seems to be generally well liked and has (like BLM) had a lot of consistency over the years. Honestly, it seems their focus should be elsewhere than on DRG, which likely just needs some minor work instead of a total redesign. SCH and AST (AST they've confirmed I suppose, but not SCH) need one much more (probably the entire Healing role in some way or another), and probably DRK and BRD. I'm not sure why they want to touch DRG so badly in the first place. They can always just add upgrades to existing abilities instead of needing to outright change it.

I do agree: Not every class has to be popular. This is one of the things I most support in terms of Job design - that not every Job NEEDS to be for everyone (in fact, none do), and that having different kinds of Jobs for different player tastes is good for the game. It's why I am so big on the "4 Healers" idea, because I think that addresses the needs of the disparate players and reduces people having to play something they don't enjoy.

I don't think BLM is well received overall. It's well received specifically by the kinds of players that like BLM and actually play it. I agree that IS, indeed, fine.

.

Another weird one to me is Healers, but specifically the sub-breakdowns.

WHM has a lower approval than SCH (5.03 vs 5.24), but is more (as I said before) even across the board. That is, people feel less strongly about it in general in that it has no really lopsided "super high" and "super low" response values. It's kind of the "vanilla" of Healer Jobs; few people hate it, few people love it, most people find it acceptably un-obnoxious. Everything is in a pretty narrow band. But what really gets to me is the preferred version. 41.2% think Endwalker is the best iteration with 15.3% preferring ShB. The two were more or less identical, with the only significant changes being (a) Thin Air is now a 2 charge ability rather than a 15 sec duration CD, (b) Misery is now damage neutral instead of a minor DPS loss, (c) Assize has a slightly shorter CD of 40 sec instead of 45, (d) WHM now has Aquaveil as a targeted Rampart and Lilybell as a strong oGCD tool that is MOST useful (though not ONLY useful) for mulit-hit attacks that don't happen often. Overall, it was one of the least changed Jobs from ShB to EW, with most of the changes being well received.

Regardless, taken together, the post-SB/5.0 and on paradigm version of WHM (also perhaps known as the "post Aero 3 removal" versions) have a combined 56.5% approval. Further, "No Rework" (20%) + "Minor Rework" (37%) has a total of 57%, so on par with that.

But then look at SCH and AST.

SCH, in stark contrast to WHM, has 41.4% preferring SB (vs 15.3% for WHM) and a further 29.9% preferring HW. Taken together, that's a resounding 71.3% that prefer the HW/SB era. Only 2.3% preferred ShB, on par with the amount that preferred ARR. 46.8% want a "Major Rework", and when "Total Overhaul" (14.7%) is added in, that's 61.5% that want large changes to the Job, and clearly the SB iteration is VASTLY preferred. Only 9.2% want no rework and only 24.1%, a respectable minority but still a minority, prefer EW's incarnation of the Job the best. And unlike WHM, it can't lean on ShB's numbers to shore that up into a majority that like the post-SB paradigm.

AST is even more stark, and has the lowest approval (4.74). The prefer-SB version is ALREADY an outright majority of 55.6%. Adding in HW's 12.3% brings this up to 67.9%. Not quite SCH's 71.3%, but pretty high. Tellingly, there's not even a SINGLE vote for "No Rework" at this time, with "Major Rework" (45.0%) + "Total Overhaul" (29.0%) being a whopping 74% together.

It's pretty clear, despite SCH having a slightly higher approval rating than the "vanilla flavor" WHM that there's a strong desire for it to receive a significant rework back to something resembling the SB era, and AST's are desperate for a major shakeup as well.

WHMs, by contrast, seem to be relatively content, with a majority preferring the post-SB world (granted, SB WHM and the initial iteration of the "Lily" system...was pretty bad (the only era WHMs absolutely preferred less than SB was ARR; SB and ShB being tied at the moment) and wanting to see only minor changes to the Job (a lot of people seem to want Aero 3 and some mention more mitigation/party utility, but much beyond that is kind of vague).

And SGE, as a kind of "control group"(?), is oddly also the most popular (5.47), with 29.3% wanting "No Rework", 32.0% wanting a "Mini Rework" (together, these sum to 61.3%, a clear majority), vs 30.7% wanting a "Major Rework" and 8.0% wanting a "Total Overhaul" (taken together, 38.7%)

Which also kind of agrees with a lot of responses from those long-form question survey responses, which often said WHM and SGE people enjoyed as-is and only wanted no or minor changes vs SCH and AST, where people seem to be pretty consistent on wanting reworks. AST seems to be the Job most in need/desired of a rework in the game right now.

[Aravell]

The results so far look interesting. I'm wondering if the high scores on MCH is because of the positive changes they got recently, would the scores be much lower back in 6.2, I wonder?