FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[Semirhage]

I never realized how accurate that is until I read it just now, we asked 'can we have class design with skill ceilings like 3.0' and got told 'you think you want it but you don't'. I want to know, who is this SHB/EW choice FOR? It's not the hardcore players, because they're the ones complaining about how stale it is. It's not the casuals, because they wouldn't even notice a higher skill ceiling, being as they don't do the content that asks them to strive for that ceiling. I can only assume the design is being done for the devs, to make balancing easier. But the balance is still a mess, as ever, because some jobs are better than others. So what, we remove even more gameplay differences, to make it easier to balance stuff again? And we end up in the same place again next time, stuff still can't be balanced even with a lobotomized class design? Healers are already bordering on having one button to press for damage, and they're still not balanced because Yoshi and co seem to have completely missed the memo, that you cannot attain perfect blaance when you compare 'class with raidbuffs' vs 'class without raidbuffs'.

Blizzard said 'you think you want it, but you don't', because people kept asking them for Vanilla WOW servers. Turns out, they did indeed want it, and the Classic servers were a massive financial success. So, when's Yoshi going to realize that actually, yes, we do want design to lean more towards previous expansions? Personally I don't necessarily even want 3.0, HW had some jank that I'd rather not have back, like INT Down, the Storms Path 10% damage reduction debuff, the Slash/Piercing/Blunt resistances. If anything, I'd argue that 'yes, you ruled out 3.0, fine whatever, but you (Yoshi and SE) didn't rule out 4.0, so lets do that'. A lot of the classes would say SB was the best time for the class designs, so going back to something like that would be the compromise with the devs. If they screw up the balance as bad as Abyssos, with this 'much easier to balance' class design, why should we go along with their plans when they say 'trust us we'll keep doing it this way and it'll work out'? It HASN'T worked out and we have the evidence to prove it. Stop doubling down on mistakes, and change course before the damage becomes too much to salvage

Please no. WHM was the worst it's ever been in 4.0.

[ty_taurus]

Please no. WHM was the worst it's ever been in 4.0.

I think Roe, as well as many of us who frequent healer discussions, mutually understand that when discussing the high points of SB design in regards to healers, that we're referring to the overall feeling of Scholar and Astrologian while White Mage is more of a black sheep in this regard. Not every job was holistically superior in SB, but on a grand scale, more jobs had a much greater sense of identity and gameplay feel than those that didn't, and it's a quiet acknowledgement that we wouldn't want to return to White Mage, or perhaps a few other examples like Ninja. Rather, White Mage should take what it's gained from EW and expand on it moving toward the general feel of SB as a whole.

I understand that this may not be clear to the casual lurker, however, so it's worth clarifying.

I think the reason why SB is brought up is because, while it wasn't perfect, it seems like a good bargaining point--a midpoint between the more punishing elements of HW and the sterilization of ShB. "If you aren't willing to look at HW as a guide-point for the general feel of job design moving forward, than how about the less extreme SB that was more user-friendly without being completely railroaded?" And I think that talking about past expansions as a point of reference doesn't necessarily mean anyone is advocating to quite literally return to how those systems function or what tools the jobs had at that time, but rather, using that as a reference for where to gauge future changes on how much job complexity, flavor actions, and decision-making aspects to shoot for. And if that choice were to come out and be praised by the general player base, that could in turn lead the game down a much healthier design path.