Yet another SMN thread: SMN is the only job that doesn't have a gauge/proc management

[Ivtrix]

personally i think SMN has a strong identity and a fun rotation and that is all i need from it, i dont need a needlessly complicated rotation, there are other jobs for that, SMN is intuitive to the point where i dont have to learn a clunky rotation off the balance, i dont have to have it simed every patch to redefine my opener, its simple yes, but fun, and accessible to everyone.

i play this game to relax, and sometimes i want a class that allows that, this is not a job, stop trying to make me jump threw so many hoops to just enjoy content.

I swear its just willful ignorance at this point. Thats literally the whole point of low skill floor. The jobs should be fundamentally easy to pick up and play at a basic level. Is it really that hard to understand that SMN.... doesnt really advance past that at all?

Most classes fall into a general rotation without much thinking of "expression". Many of my DPs classes I have set up where I can mostly just cast my spells in the order I have them on my bar and then repeat, maybe having a proc on some classes here and there.

If thats how you perceive every job than youre kind of on the level Europe was before they realized the Americas were a thing. There is literally a whole world of optimization beyond playing the fundamental classes beyond 123 and push buff every 2 minute.

[Boblawblah]

I swear its just willful ignorance at this point. Thats literally the whole point of low skill floor. The jobs should be fundamentally easy to pick up and play at a basic level. Is it really that hard to understand that SMN.... doesnt really advance past that at all?



If thats how you perceive every job than youre kind of on the level Europe was before they realized the Americas were a thing. There is literally a whole world of optimization beyond playing the fundamental classes beyond 123 and push buff every 2 minute.

If the job is extremely popular as it is, why exactly does it need to have a skill ceiling much higher than it's skill floor? Who exactly are we making these changes for?

[Ivtrix]

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6274229

It’s almost like you just don’t read the response I gave to you 6 pages ago.

[Boblawblah]

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6274229

It’s almost like you just don’t read the response I gave to you 6 pages ago.

The only thing I could get from that quote as to WHY there must be a skill gap between floor and ceiling is that summoner is TOO easy? Meaning you want it nerfed then? I don't want to assume though, is that what you're saying?

EDIT from next page (apologies, post limit):

Essentially, yes. Damage of bad player should be significantly nerfed, while good player should deal similar numbers as now.

Let's simplify things a lot and ignore all the ress taxes, rDPS vs aDPS and so on. We have Bob which is bad player but not that bad, then we have Greg which is good player but not that good. Bob plays SMN and deals 9K damage, Greg plays SMN and deals 10K damage. Better player should deal more damage, so everything is fine so far, right? What if they switched to RDM? It's more complex, so Bob is struggling and deals only 6K damage, while Greg learned to play RDM and can still get 10K damage.

So now tell me, why should Bob ever play as RDM? He would need to put nearly as much effort as Greg, just to deal same damage as he did when he played SMN. And this is exactly what is happening. FFLogs show 18K parses for RDM, but nearly 30K for SMN (and 13K for BLM as a side note). Obviously you also need to take into account that devs once again forgot that RDM exists and somehow deals less damage than SMN, while being objectively harder. But even then, current philosophy says that you should be able to clear with any job, so if SMN doesn't change, he will always have advantage.

Best part about this? Bob can still have fun while playing RDM and/or SMN. Greg just does normal content, so he can mash his buttons however he wants, it doesn't matter that he deals half the damage as Greg when there are no DPS checks.

Okay, I can appreciate what you're saying. I think I was confused because the OP was originally acting as if the class was boring and needed some extra complexity to make it more satisfying. What you're saying is that it's simply too simple that high end players are using it because it's so simple to the detriment of other jobs. I can appreciate your point of view from that aspect of it.

I honestly love the simplicity of the summoner, and I would very much not want it to have increased difficulty for the sake of the higher end players. I'm not sure how you could change it though. Nerfing the damage straight across the board seems like a rough way of doing it though because then dps checks simply wouldn't be met.

I have to wonder though, with that logic, why would anyone ever play the most complex class? Unless every class is exactly the same complexity, people will always gravitate to the easier ones, aside from people that simply love the job for the design/playstyle.

[WaxSw]

The only thing I could get from that quote as to WHY there must be a skill gap between floor and ceiling is that summoner is TOO easy? Meaning you want it nerfed then? I don't want to assume though, is that what you're saying?

Let me ask you the same thing, why SMN woudn't benefit from having a skill ceiling? It doesn't affect the skill floor and allows for a better designed job overall.

As to why SMN needs some form of ceiling, outside how a job that has no ceiling is badly designed one, its also because its current design is a problematic one for the caster role as a whole because its damage has to be comparable with the other 2 but also breaks the role rules since it doesn't really have anything to manage, not even casts. This job canibalizes the role because its skill floor performance is so close to the ceiling of the other 2 that it becomes the best solution for prog but also, since it doesn't interact with the fight in the way a caster would its experience doesn't translate well to the other 2, we no longer have the "RDM for prog and BLM/SMN for opti", we only have "SMN for prog and reclears".

The job also makes the role a nightmare to balance because by design it avoids the usual problem casters have of having to mantain cast uptime or manage the resources to allow it, which gives it an unfair advantage over the other 2 that is extremely hard to balance because the skill floor and ceiling are so close that any change to almost any skill would affect both equally.

[Deo14]

The only thing I could get from that quote as to WHY there must be a skill gap between floor and ceiling is that summoner is TOO easy? Meaning you want it nerfed then? I don't want to assume though, is that what you're saying?

Essentially, yes. Damage of bad player should be significantly nerfed, while good player should deal similar numbers as now.

Let's simplify things a lot and ignore all the ress taxes, rDPS vs aDPS and so on. We have Bob which is bad player but not that bad, then we have Greg which is good player but not that good. Bob plays SMN and deals 9K damage, Greg plays SMN and deals 10K damage. Better player should deal more damage, so everything is fine so far, right? What if they switched to RDM? It's more complex, so Bob is struggling and deals only 6K damage, while Greg learned to play RDM and can still get 10K damage.

So now tell me, why should Bob ever play as RDM? He would need to put nearly as much effort as Greg, just to deal same damage as he did when he played SMN. And this is exactly what is happening. FFLogs show 18K parses for RDM, but nearly 30K for SMN (and 13K for BLM as a side note). Obviously you also need to take into account that devs once again forgot that RDM exists and somehow deals less damage than SMN, while being objectively harder. But even then, current philosophy says that you should be able to clear with any job, so if SMN doesn't change, he will always have advantage.

Best part about this? Bob can still have fun while playing RDM and/or SMN. Bob just does normal content, so he can mash his buttons however he wants, it doesn't matter that he deals half the damage as Greg when there are no DPS checks.

[Deo14]

If the job is extremely popular as it is, why exactly does it need to have a skill ceiling much higher than it's skill floor? Who exactly are we making these changes for?

Easy to learn, hard to master. It's popular game design quote, which describes healthy skill curve. Yes, skill curve, it should be a curve, not a flat line. That's the problem with SMN, difference between someone who started hour or year ago is minimal, that is just bad design, veteran player should know all the nuances and optimization, but SMN just doesn't have any of that, which is why it's badly designed. Popularity is irrelevant, these players don't care about job, they don't care about job fantasy, they just play it for it's simplicity. If you made even easier job, those people will flock to that job instead.

[kaynide]

I swear its just willful ignorance at this point. Thats literally the whole point of low skill floor. The jobs should be fundamentally easy to pick up and play at a basic level. Is it really that hard to understand that SMN.... doesnt really advance past that at all?



If thats how you perceive every job than youre kind of on the level Europe was before they realized the Americas were a thing. There is literally a whole world of optimization beyond playing the fundamental classes beyond 123 and push buff every 2 minute.

The thing is, in game there really isn’t any reason to play optimally outside of very specific content. If the player is able to do their basic rotation on any job they will likely be able to clear 90% of the game’s content, likely with NPC characters. This just isn’t a game that demands high skill or out-of-the-box thinking for most of the game. The fact that devs regularly nerf core game content should make this clear.

For me, if I want to play a game that rewards creativity or the ability to play skillfully, I will play that game instead. In FFXIV, I’m just here to watch the main story and derp around with friends. There is literally nothing in this game that I find motivating enough for me to invest time/effort to give more than a very solid C+/B- performance. Nothing to brag about, but I’m gonna pass “the class”.

[ZephyrMenodora]

I swear its just willful ignorance at this point. Thats literally the whole point of low skill floor. The jobs should be fundamentally easy to pick up and play at a basic level. Is it really that hard to understand that SMN.... doesnt really advance past that at all?



If thats how you perceive every job than youre kind of on the level Europe was before they realized the Americas were a thing. There is literally a whole world of optimization beyond playing the fundamental classes beyond 123 and push buff every 2 minute.

Care to give me some examples of skill expression in this game? Examples where you really wowed everyone and aren’t just playing the general flow of your jobs rotation?

[Silver-Strider]

Care to give me some examples of skill expression in this game? Examples where you really wowed everyone and aren’t just playing the general flow of your jobs rotation?

All forms of skill expression have been removed for the most part at this point but the one that sticks out to me was probably the Tornado Kick rotation in SB.