2-minute meta

[ForteNightshade]

I was under the impression they did it moreso because JP players of certain jobs complained that their buffs didn't align with 2-min bursts. (MNK etc.)

Though the end result is the same anyways. I wish they developed in a direction to make 90s cycles just as viable as 2-min.

It could be a bit of both. However, in one of the LLs leading up to Endwalker, I recall Yoshida directly saying they wanted to make buff alignment easier and that was the reason for shifting everything to two minutes.

I just dont get how this even happened. Did they all have some freak last minute change of mind or is there something we're all not being aware of with this system being somehow good because clearly the general public doesnt approve of it

If I were to hazard a guess, they only realized after how difficult it was to actually balance everything with so many abilities being forced into this two minute meta and/or there were concerns with players forgetting to align 90s abilities. So they gradually started shaving more of them down as it became far too late in development to scrap the whole system. This is why we saw a few hold overs like Bloodfest and Leylines. Both those abilities add credence to the theory as they simply didn't work anymore, making it much harder to properly optimize. It wouldn't be the first time they made changes without rhythm or reason. Case in point, Bard. After years of begging and pleading for Bloodletter charges, Bard mains finally got them... only to remove the entire reason they wanted them in the first place. This disconnect meant people complained and the dev team threw up their hands, wrongly assuming the players don't know what they want.

Considering the woefully poor balance we've seen throughout Endwalker, it really does make one wonder how much testing they did or how exactly they test jobs.

The 2 minute window on its own doesnt cause issues. It's other design choices that make it look bad.

Chief among them being Direct Hit and the now abundance of ridiculously high potency skills which lead to absurd swings in damage. Having two layers of RNG is, frankly, dumb. Nevertheless, it's the high potency skills that are the real issue. A Ninja shouldn't see Hyosho flux between 80k and 170k because they just happened to roll lucky that pull. While that could happen in Shadowbringers, most jobs lacked the big hits and it wasn't nearly as impactful because buffs were more spaced out. A weak Hyosho at the two minute window could level itself out if you crit during the one or three minutes as you were likely running into buffs such as Litany or Battle Voice. Now you're wholly dependent on two minutes exactly. I've seen myself dip upwards of nearly 1,000 rDPS on Paladin simply because my blade combo and/or Goring Blade just didn't not to crit at all. Same exact rotation. Game said go fly a kite.

So while the two minute meta remains awful, I'd also like to see them abandon Direct Hit and stop with the fat potency skills. Sadly, I suspect come 7.0 they're just going to make them all auto DHC, which I guess solves the problem but kind of defeats the point of even having modifiers.

[Mikey_R]

So while the two minute meta remains awful, I'd also like to see them abandon Direct Hit and stop with the fat potency skills. Sadly, I suspect come 7.0 they're just going to make them all auto DHC, which I guess solves the problem but kind of defeats the point of even having modifiers.

An alternative could be to reduce the impact of DH and crits by reducing the damage bonus they give, for example, making DH be a 5% increase and crit being a 10% increase as an example. Of course, if your normal 100K hit crits for 110K, it probably won't feel impactful.

The only other concern is, if you do remove DH, what could they do to replace it?

[Absurdity]

An alternative could be to reduce the impact of DH and crits by reducing the damage bonus they give, for example, making DH be a 5% increase and crit being a 10% increase as an example. Of course, if your normal 100K hit crits for 110K, it probably won't feel impactful.

The only other concern is, if you do remove DH, what could they do to replace it?

It will probably never happen, because the job team quite obviously doesn't have the manpower to balance it, but I'd like to see some sort of mastery stat that interacts with job specific mechanics.

[Deo14]

An alternative could be to reduce the impact of DH and crits by reducing the damage bonus they give, for example, making DH be a 5% increase and crit being a 10% increase as an example. Of course, if your normal 100K hit crits for 110K, it probably won't feel impactful.

The only other concern is, if you do remove DH, what could they do to replace it?

Just like any other game. Remove DH and split crit into critical damage and critical chance. Much easier to understand than crit hit which affects both it's multiplier and rate, and DH which affects only rate and then the CDH. Not like it matters what they do with stats anyways, you only need to know meld priority + desired GCD and that's as far as stats go in this game.

Now you're left with 2 random variables, and you can fine tune them to make anything balanced. If variance is too high, make critical damage lower and critical chance higher and so on. There is reason why so many games use this simple system, it just works.

[Mikey_R]

Just like any other game. Remove DH and split crit into critical damage and critical chance.

You know, I've had this thought in the past, surprised I didn't remember this when I made my previous post >_>

Something else that irks me is the fact tanks have their own stat, Tenacity, healers have Piety, however, DH is not a DPS exclusive stat. If it was changed where we split crit into the 2 stats, which one would be the better one to be exclusive for DPS? or if it is even a good idea to begin with. I think personally, crit damage should be on the DPS with the rate being the stat everyone can have. It just feels right that the DPS, the ones who are designed to do more damage, does more with each crit.

[ForteNightshade]

An alternative could be to reduce the impact of DH and crits by reducing the damage bonus they give, for example, making DH be a 5% increase and crit being a 10% increase as an example. Of course, if your normal 100K hit crits for 110K, it probably won't feel impactful.

The only other concern is, if you do remove DH, what could they do to replace it?

That could also work but as you noted, it would make both stats feel largely irrelevant. The whole idea behind Direct Hit being implemented is the dev team wants players to see "big numba!!!" They outright said it during Shadowbringers' media tour.

As for what to replace it with. Damage and Variance. Critical Hit does far too much, which is why it's been the runaway best substat from day one. Splitting it up would allow for easier balancing and maybe make Determination or god forbid Tenacity more relevant. The latter is pretty much a dead substat now that Warrior can meld Direct Hit. On the whole, I'd prefer something more interesting like what Absurdity suggested but the dev team seems determined to keep everything as basic as possible. So splitting up Crit works well enough.