What if Tanks were designed like Healers?

[Icecylee]

This is deeply off topic and also wound up fairly long so I'm going to put it behind a spoiler, but in answer to your question, Ren...

For what it's worth, Ren, I have noticed (and appreciated!) the effort you've put into changing how you've been formatting your text since that thread the other week. To me, at least, you *have* been coming across as a bit calmer, a bit less shouty.

Not everyone is out to get you. There have been, on occasion, people that have popped into threads and agreed with things you've said or spoken up in your defense when the dog piling was getting particularly bad from an outside perspective. It doesn't happen a ton, but it has happened. And not everyone that's arguing with you is then immediately going on to upvote the post dunking on you; I, at least, don't usually push 'like' when Semi's just swearing forex or when Roe's in a particularly snippy mood. That said I also don't think it's that strange that the opposition opinion is typically getting less likes, and it shouldn't really be that surprising to you either. I do on occasion like your post too, as there are some points we agree on, but often you wind up writing massive posts covering a fair number of different topics, some of which I don't agree with, so it's pretty infrequent in the grand scheme of things.

With regards to the frequency of calling other people out though, that's a fair question to ask. I think in part you tend to get a lot of noise about how you present yourself specifically because you sell yourself as a nice, friendly person who only wants to reach some kind of compromise or middle ground, but for whatever reason, are often perceived as arrogant, headstrong and aggressive by others which creates a layer of dissonance that's hard to ignore. Meanwhile Semi has always presented themself as a bit of an asshole, and crucially, tends to make short one off quips and then dip out of the conversation for a week or two at a time, with the odd longer, more thoughtful, less hateful post here and there divorced from the bile. So it doesn't seem as... how to word this... worth while to address as a "problem" vs someone like you who is very frequently posting several paragraph long responses to everything that most anyone says, multiple times a day. We see a lot of what you're thinking and saying! Roe can be kind of aggressive, but she talks the same way to everyone and no one else really seems to care, and usually when she crosses the line she'll come back a few hours later and apologize before moving the topic along. So, low priority in addressing for different reasons. Ty and Sezby, on the other hand, spend the better part of 6~8 months trying to be nice and cordial and find some kind of middle ground before deciding it simply wasn't there and losing patience. And it's kind of hard to blame them. Likewise I do not, generally, blame you for getting frustrated at others because there is pretty clearly a major disconnect in thought process between you and the regulars and it does suck not being able to get your point across clearly.

For my part, and I suspect several other infrequent-poster-but-always-lurking types, I know we've argued on occasion and a few of those times after a certain number of posts I'd wind up deciding that the conversation was not worth continuing because nothing productive was going to come from it, and I just didn't feel like wasting more of my time of emotional energy on it anymore. Particularly *because* of those long post you so often make, and more specifically, because of... Hm. You sort of remind me of some of the autistic kids my mom used to work with back when she was a teacher. You seem to have this incessant need to not only explain yourself, but over explain yourself, especially if you think you're right about something and someone else is wrong, or they just can't see why you're right. Even if it's not something than an objectionable fact, but mere opinion. Most of the stuff we wind up talking or arguing about here are, ultimately, just things we'd like to personally see. Sometimes things are presented more like facts, especially when people start going into Game Design concepts, but even then it's more of an art than a science so there's still a large degree of "this is what I think based on how I feel" going on there. And you don't always need to convince everyone your feelings on a matter are the best way. I don't think you usually mean anything bad by it usually, you're just trying to explain your thought process and make sure everyone is parsing what you're saying correctly, but man, it can be exhausting to deal with. I think, ultimately what it boils down to, is that arguing with most of the regulars here feels like talking with peers at best, or slinging shit at other kids at worse. Where as arguing with you tends to feel more like arguing with a teacher or other figures that's presenting itself as authorial. Maybe that's not the way you want to come across, and maybe that's not even the way you try and come across, but that's sort of how it *feels* from over here, at least.

Anyway I this got kind of long and rambling, but it was typed in goof faith and offered because you seemed to genuinely want an answer, and I wanted to make sure you got at least once.

[Renathras]

Personally, I'm fine with SGE remaining as it is, SGE has never known any other iteration, there's no nostalgia, there is only current SGE, so leaving it as is is fine.

Obviously, I do agree. Personally there are a few changes I'd make to it, but mostly more minor ones. Offhand, make Phlegma 25y range like everything else (there's literally no reason not to and the Job fights with lasers, even if I do like the look of beifly being Citan Uzuki), make Toxicon damage neutral or at least close to it (someone suggested combining Toxicon and Plegma into one button that does Plegma damage, since that would make Toxicon a slight DPS loss, but not a full Dosis' worth one), do...something else with Zoe, I don't know what (Pneuma should just have the boosted potency to begin with - it's a big 2 min CD already!), and I feel like Krasis needs...something - without a Deploy like SCH, SGE's version is quite a bit more niche. I'm sure there are some other things, but I think those are the big ones:

Toxicon damage neutral (or close to it), Plegma ranged (or combined with Toxicon), Zoe be removed or have some other effects, Pneuma just having the Zoe potency to begin with, and Krasis having...something or other to make it more useful in general content.

Not all those are necessary, though; the first two are really the big ones. The others are more nibbling around the edges. I think the idea I floated about just giving Toxicon Plegma damage, removing Plegma, and having Addersting generate (1) once per 40 seconds no matter what and (b) whenever shields break (same as now; single target EuDiagnsosis breaks or EuPrognosis breaking on you personally). Using no shields, this effectively becomes "Plegma has a 25y range and stacks to 3", but using the shields and them breaking has this double as a damage refund/neutral when you have to use your GCD shields.

I personally believe that SCH and AST suffer most from job design problems and WHM suffers most from fight design issues at the moment, but that's just what it looks like to me.

100% agreed.

WHM's design works fine, the fights just don't need it, making it kind of pointless (the healing kit and its DPS interactions), and that leaves it with little else. AST and SCH's issues are both in the Job design; SCH's is all the clunk and anti-synergies, for example.

This differentiation is not odd in the slightest. Buffing is (a major component) AST's job identity/aesthetic, whereas complex vs. simple gameplay flows from aesthetics and job identity.

I...respectfully, I disagree.

WHM's identity has, for a long time, been that its kit is straightforward - simple, even - but powerful. That's every bit as much its identity as AST. Besides which, that wasn't really the point I was making.

The point I was making is that both are of the form "We can't say X is only on one Healer Job, because that ignores people that like X who want to play the other Healer Jobs, and it ignores the people who don't like X but want to play that Job." They both are using the same form of logic, or the same principle. I feel like the distinction only exists if people are biased towards one or the other.

For example, were Semi here, she'd probably complain about WHM not getting to be the buffer one with Protect, Shell, Wall, Haste, Brave, Faith, and Float being FF series staples for the WHM Job. Why would it be acceptable for AST to get to be the buffer one and not WHM, one might ask?

I don't think they are distinct unless one has a preference for one over the other, and thus is more inclined to see one as acceptable and not the other.

I can appreciate that you've changed from the first time I spoke with you because you didn't immediately say I attacked you, thank you for that.

....
I do try...

This is deeply off topic and also wound up fairly long so I'm going to put it behind a spoiler, but in answer to your question, Ren...

There's a lot to respond to there. I'll have to think about it some...

At the risk of TMI, never been diagnosed with anything, but I probably am somewhere on the spectrum - though who isn't these days? - probably some "high functioning/adjusted" Asberger's or something. I don't have the inability to sense or detect emotion, I'm just generally hyper-logical and detached when talking about things, which some interpret as aloofness or arrogance when it's just "being dispassionately rational" or...something like that. It's also how I attempt to demonstrate through action that I'm not emotionally charged on something, by talking about it thoroughly and without heavy emotional overtones. It's because I've thought the things through and am speaking from a position of reasoned out thinking, not emotion, and with at least some effort to control for biases.

The extensive explanations is two parts. One is that I do try to make what I'm saying clear, another is that when I'm surrounded by people trying to parse my every word to find a mistake to pounce on, I'm forced to be even more long winded than normal to try and blunt such attacks. Like consider how people attack my tone. Could you imagine how much worse those attack would be if I made posts like Fulminating or Semiherage? So part of that might be spectrum coping mechanism, but part of it absolutely is being in a hostile environment.

People will naturally seek to achieve levels of skill that they are comfortable with. Just because someone isn't performing their job perfectly doesn't mean they aren't happy with their current skill level, and anyone who isn't happy with their current skill level will just practice and improve. If someone really tries to seek out the easiest job to play specifically for the purpose of making their parse look better for less effort, well, that's a way bigger "good enough /headpat" than trying their best and successfully defeating bosses even if their parse isn't inhumanely perfect. If someone can't handle that, then that's their problem, not the game developer's problem, and no game designer should cater to that mentality.

I...

I can't explain this to you, apparently.

Can anyone else give it a shot? I'm not sure how.

I should also note here - since we've all agreed insulting, caricatures, etc are bad...we do all agree those are bad, right? - that the idea of "If you don't want to spend ours and considerable time mastering extremely technical Jobs, you're just lazy" is kind of an insult, as would be "you just want an easy Job so you can be rewarded while being lazy". If I'm going to do my best to avoid insults and caricatures, that's a two way street...

I would if...

I mean, if you can explain it, please do. You don't have to agree with a thing to be able to help someone understand it.

Also, it probably is a fairly large group...but that's kind of beside the point.

Ty just seems completely resistant to the idea there are people that play FFXIV that don't inherently enjoy complex technical mastery, skill expression, and/or that aren't super competitive "by the bootstraps" types that will rise to any task with a drive that is kindled in them merely by catching a whiff of a challenge. That...or he thinks that such people are...beneath concern/contempt. I don't want to put words in his mouth nor interpret his position in a negative light, so I'm operating on "doesn't understand" instead of "does understand and is being intentionally demeaning and only feigning obtuse". But if that's the case, it means someone else has to explain it, since to me, Eorzian_username's post made it super clear, especially the specific points I drew attention to. I'm not sure how to more concisely and simply explain it than that.

It's kind of like a person in a wheelchair looking at some stairs and a person saying to them "If you want to get to the second floor bad enough, you'll force yourself to walk up the stairs". For some people it's not possible.

Likewise, maybe there's a second person looking at the nearby elevator and the same person in the first saying to them "You just want to be lazy and get something for no effort".

I just don't know any other way to say this since none of my attempts seem to get through. I'm not sure if it's that he doesn't want to understand, or if it's just the way I'm explaining isn't compatible with the way he processes information...

Hence, I'm asking the friendly community here that wants to act in the spirit of cordiality to help out. \o/ Don't let me down, folks.

[Shurrikhan]

I can't explain this to you, apparently.

Can anyone else give it a shot? I'm not sure how.

I would if I thought it was a sensible position / large enough group to risk the game's broader health over, but here I actually have to disagree with Eorzean for once.

I don't think giving players a job they can do everything correctly on despite far less effort that is required for other jobs is in any way a good thing for the game.

If they don't want to put in more than half the effort of a near-perfectly-optimizing person, then I feel they should be fine with whatever that produces, which is likely to be far better than proportionate anyways (some 80+% of that optimizer's results).

Ty just seems completely resistant to the idea there are people that play FFXIV that don't inherently enjoy complex technical mastery, skill expression, and/or that aren't super competitive "by the bootstraps" types that will rise to any task with a drive that is kindled in them merely by catching a whiff of a challenge.

Can't say I get that impression, no. At which point it's difficult to make sense of anything following that seemingly flawed premise.

It's kind of like a person in a wheelchair looking at some stairs and a person saying to them "If you want to get to the second floor bad enough, you'll force yourself to walk up the stairs". For some people it's not possible.

That's a hell of a stretched analogy for a position along the lines "Maybe we shouldn't utterly compromise balance in favor of those who want to do Week 1 Savage/Ultimates with none of the internal optimizations that'd require on any other job (which would then reduce the breadth of job choice available to both the player type in question AND all whom they'd have trickle-down effect upon in influencing community expectations)."

There's a difference between accessibility across the vast majority of content and degrading even the purposely hardest content in the game to satisfy a hypothetical group.

[ForsakenRoe]

do...something else with Zoe, I don't know what (Pneuma should just have the boosted potency to begin with - it's a big 2 min CD already!), and I feel like Krasis needs...something - without a Deploy like SCH, SGE's version is quite a bit more niche. I'm sure there are some other things

Shurrikan said stuff better than I could regarding the other stuff so I'll just stick to this bit: I can't be sure about Krasis, only mainly using it in concert with Soteria to doubledip juice Kardia, but my assumption re: 'where is deploy analogue' is that Zoe IS that analogue, potentially. Both skills are learned at the same level, have the same CD, have that CD reduced by a trait learned at the same level. Where a SCH would do Adlo, Deploy (GCD, then OGCD), the SGE does Zoe, E-Prog (OGCD, GCD). Now this has some caveats, mainly that A: Zoe E-Prog is not comparable in potency of shield to a Deploy Adlo. It's 320p + 50%, so 480p before external heal buffs? Whereas an Adlo is 300p base heal, and 180% of that as shield, so 540p base. This 540 though, can be modified way easier, both due to being single target (so ST heal buffs like Krasis would work here), and the fact that if it crits (which SCH can force with Recitation if needed), while the second shield Catalyze is not spread, the base potency of the spell (and therefore Galvanize's strength) is still increased by the crit.

TLDR change Krasis from 20% heal up to 10% heal up but party wide

[Aravell]

Ty just seems completely resistant to the idea there are people that play FFXIV that don't inherently enjoy complex technical mastery, skill expression, and/or that aren't super competitive "by the bootstraps" types that will rise to any task with a drive that is kindled in them merely by catching a whiff of a challenge. That...or he thinks that such people are...beneath concern/contempt. I don't want to put words in his mouth nor interpret his position in a negative light, so I'm operating on "doesn't understand" instead of "does understand and is being intentionally demeaning and only feigning obtuse". But if that's the case, it means someone else has to explain it, since to me, Eorzian_username's post made it super clear, especially the specific points I drew attention to. I'm not sure how to more concisely and simply explain it than that.

It's kind of like a person in a wheelchair looking at some stairs and a person saying to them "If you want to get to the second floor bad enough, you'll force yourself to walk up the stairs". For some people it's not possible.

Likewise, maybe there's a second person looking at the nearby elevator and the same person in the first saying to them "You just want to be lazy and get something for no effort".

I just don't know any other way to say this since none of my attempts seem to get through. I'm not sure if it's that he doesn't want to understand, or if it's just the way I'm explaining isn't compatible with the way he processes information...

Hence, I'm asking the friendly community here that wants to act in the spirit of cordiality to help out. \o/ Don't let me down, folks.

I don't think he's being completely resistant, it looks to me like the two of you have a fundamentally different view of the matter stemming from your personal views on job design. You seem to believe that people get frustrated when they people tell them that they're merely average because people want to be the best that they can be. Ty seems to believe that certain people are happy no matter how good they are, as long as they reach their goal, whether that be 30%, 47% or 73% efficiency, they set that goal and are happy if they reach it.

I think this stems from the difference between what you and Ty believe a well-designed job is supposed to be. You believe that a well-designed job is something that anyone can pick up and master by reading tooltips. Ty seems to believe that a well-designed job is something that gives someone room for improvement and cannot be immediately mastered. This fundamental disconnect is probably preventing you both from agreeing.

Of course, I could also be completely off-base in my observations.

EDIT: I don't claim to speak for either of you, these are just my observations, so please take them only as such.

[ForsakenRoe]

I don't think he's being completely resistant, it looks to me like the two of you have a fundamentally different view of the matter stemming from your personal views on job design. You seem to believe that people get frustrated when they people tell them that they're merely average because people want to be the best that they can be. Ty seems to believe that certain people are happy no matter how good they are, as long as they reach their goal, whether that be 30%, 47% or 73% efficiency, they set that goal and are happy if they reach it.

I might also be wrong, but I think the reason Ty holds that position (it seems similar to mine) is that we have very few benchmarks to decide what 'max efficiency' actually looks like. Of course we have the funny numbers website, but the 'number' can be subject to factors completely outside of the player's control like crit variance, kill time, or in the case of anyone with a raidbuff, 'how good is my team during 2min windows'. So instead, my personal metric I'd be using as 'the goal to reach' is 'can I clear Savage', for example. It's ingame, immediate feedback of 'did I do well enough at the class to meet a skill check, as set by the developers themselves?' Ren believes that if someone can clear Savage now, they should be able to clear Savage even if a hypothetical rework to the classes were to occur (which, adding more damage buttons to the healers would potentially threaten). My stance is that if someone can clear Savage now, they're of a skill level that means they can learn how to implement new buttons into their rotation, being as they have to learn things like High Concept, or more recently, Superchain, Classic Concepts, or my personal wall for far too many pulls (sorry to the gamers I was with), Caloric Theory. I cleared P12S week 2, having griefed my team by failing to understand Caloric for so long (it was explained to me in a way my brain didn't comprehend), and I got an 8 for it. I don't give a damn that it was an 8, I was glad to be out of that hell, glad to be free of 'I have to hyperfocus I dont want to be the reason we wiped again', and personally, that's gonna be my stance on that fight for every time I do it. I gave up caring about logs quite a long time ago, and the majority of the playerbase does care about logs whatsoever. So if they don't use the funny number site, or care about what it says, surely they're using an ingame benchmark like 'can I clear' or 'can I beat SSS', and if they can, they're happy regardless of what optimizations they may have missed.

If it helps, maybe we could look at the classes as being different martial arts styles. It should be possible to pick up the basics of them pretty quickly. Learning the knowledge that would get you to, say, orange or green belt in Karate is not going to take the average person an insane amount of time. Being a green belt is enough to have knowledge enough for self defense purposes. But there's plenty to learn beyond that, with all the belts going up to Black Belt, and then all the Dans or whatever they're called after that. It might be possible for someone to see a master show each technique exactly once, and somehow Sharingan copy them perfectly on the first try, there's a non-zero chance of someone being able to do that sure. But the road to mastery of a discipline is usually going to take some practice, and I don't personally see why it isn't the same here. I don't expect 'you have to practice WHM for 50 years to master it' kinda thing, but as a melee for example, I do at least have to go hit the dummy for a couple hours to drill the opener into my head. As healer, there's nothing to drill. I precast a Glare, Dia on pull, Glare again, press POM at the same time everyone else uses their raidbuffs, weave an Assize on the next available OGCD window, and then Glare away.

But comparing the classes to martial arts again, if we look at, for example complexity for casters. BLM goes from white belt to black belt, with Dans included for super optimization triangulation lines or whatever they're called now. RDM is like if karate only went up to brown belt, the one before black. SMN right now is like if karate was to start at green and end at blue. And the suggestion I saw in the thread Ren linked seemed to vary from 'can we at least add the possibility for someone to reach blackbelt SMN complexity', 'we should make it so SMN starts at orange belt' (not ideal, just makes casuals have lower performance for zero gain for optimizers), and in one case, 'well SMN can only reach blue belt difficulty, so the solution is to take away RDM's brown belt'

shit I just did a hot wings I've become that which I despise

[ty_taurus]

I should also note here - since we've all agreed insulting, caricatures, etc are bad...we do all agree those are bad, right? - that the idea of "If you don't want to spend ours and considerable time mastering extremely technical Jobs, you're just lazy" is kind of an insult, as would be "you just want an easy Job so you can be rewarded while being lazy". If I'm going to do my best to avoid insults and caricatures, that's a two way street...

Who said that?

It's kind of like a person in a wheelchair looking at some stairs and a person saying to them "If you want to get to the second floor bad enough, you'll force yourself to walk up the stairs". For some people it's not possible.

You seem to have this perspective that being able to be perfect is the entrance to the building, but that is completely off base. The entrance to the building is experiencing the MSQ as well as secondary storylines like alliance raid stories, the role quest stories, the normal raid stories, etc. And fortunately, FFXIV doesn't even have stairs. Every entryway is exclusively ramps because whether you have performed your job with the perfection of an angel or had to climb out of the trenches of a day 1 alliance raid massacre, you're still able to access the building. What you are describing is you see there's an obstacle course next door where some people are testing their athletic skills to complete the course, and some people are even pakouring around the obstacle course to reach the goal in an even flashier way. You feel that whether or not someone has the time or patience to learn parkour, there should be some magical device that allows you to parkour your way to the end of that obstacle course so that people who've never tried parkour can do it.

I think this stems from the difference between what you and Ty believe a well-designed job is supposed to be. You believe that a well-designed job is something that anyone can pick up and master by reading tooltips. Ty seems to believe that a well-designed job is something that gives someone room for improvement and cannot be immediately mastered. This fundamental disconnect is probably preventing you both from agreeing.

This is mostly a well-spoken explanation. But really, what makes a job well-designed in this particular game--a cooldown based MMORPG--is ensuring that the majority of actions available encourage the player to make active decisions with what to use and when. Most of your actions should have a similar amount of use in any given scenario, but you can still have room for a few more niche tools as well. But the problem is, White Mage or any other healer may have somewhere in the ballpark of 30 actions, sure, but of those actions, you largely just use around 5 with 1 in particular being used more than every other action on the hotbar combined. That is antithetical job design that goes against the entire basis of the combat system.

[Renathras]

I don't think he's being completely resistant, it looks to me like the two of you have a fundamentally different view of the matter stemming from your personal views on job design.

It's not that, though.

Okay, let me see...how to say it?

What I'm trying to do is explain to him that there are some types of people that think a certain way. And he seems to be adamant that there is no one who does think that way. Imagine talking to a theist and telling them that there are some people who do not believe there is a god. And the person insists to you that there are only people who believe in their god or in other gods, but no one can possibly NOT believe in a god. Anyone who says so is just trying to be polite and/or secretive and not admit which god they believe in. And you're trying several different ways to say "No no, they just don't believe there is one at all", and the person informs you that that just isn't possible. That they must and do believe in some god, you just haven't figured out which one yet, and suggest several different gods they might believe in - like the thief god of shadows that wants their followers to be secretive about their beliefs, or the monk god of enlightenment that wants their followers to mostly act in the physical realm and not worry about the spiritual. But no matter how many times you say that there are these people who don't believe in any god, the theist will refuse to admit that possibility, even going so far as to suggest that even heathens believe in their own devil god.

That's the problem I have with Ty.

He seems to be incapable of believing or understanding that there are people out there that are not competitive, that when they see a high skill Job, their loins don't burn with the desire to master it, to get better, to improve on it. And that if there are, those people are just wanting to be lazy and get by. There can't possibly be another class of people, who as Eorzian_username described, do try to get good at Jobs and do want to do well, but don't want to dedicate months or years on something and prefer something they can master easily and be competent with.

Almost every videogame has characters that are quick and easy to master and clear the game with. In FF1, Warrior/Knight is a really strong Job. It has good offense, the best defense, good magic defense, and learns decent amounts of magic, and people have done 4 WAR clears of FF1. On the other end of the spectrum is Monk(Black Belt)/Master, which has high HP but weak defense, abysmal magic defense, no magic at all, strong offense but at later levels, and wears little equipment so few ways to augment this. All MNK runs are considered the hardest possible challenge in FF1.

"But that game has a party of characters you can play!"

Yes, but it's not the only game this way. Kingdom Hearts 1's hardest challenge was to pick the Sword and throw away the Rod. Most fighting games have a character that's easy to pick up and master within their roster. Most party games have solo challenges were people decide which single character/class can do things well and rank them from hardest to easiest to accomplish the task; FFT was what started that trend, I think. PotD runs have tier rankings of which Jobs are easiest and which hardest to get Necromancer on. Solo games that allow for builds (or have characters) often have one whose route will be easiest with another hardest and some variations in between.

I'm not asking Ty, or anyone, to agree that these people should be catered to. Right now, I'm just trying to get him to understand that they exist.

His boxes seem to be "driven to master", "lazy", and "fine being subpar and not clearing content past MSQ". That covers the "monk god", "demon god", and "thief god", but he's still not even able to admit that there is another entire group of people he's overlooking.

And that's why we can't reach an agreement or solution. Because none of the proposals are compelling to this other group of people, since this other group of people aren't even being acknowledged to exist.

To go back to the theism example, it'd be like if there was a nation on earth and Christians, Jews, and Muslims were writing up its charter. And they wrote "freedom to worship a god of their choosing". Now, some atheists might ask it to be "Freedom of religion", but if the Christian/Jew/Muslims were insistent "but everyone believes in a god, so surely this law covers everyone's needs?", contesting the atheists' attempts to explain "But what about the people who don't believe in a god?" with "That's silly; no one doesn't believe in a god. Everyone believes in one, and our proposal is accommodating them all, so what's the problem?"

Can you see how they wouldn't be able to reach an agreement/compromise with the atheists, not because they're incapable, but because they refuse to acknowledge that the atheists even exist, and thus none of their proposals will actually meet the atheists' needs?

.

Again, I'm not even trying to get anyone to admit that these people need catering to.

I'm just trying to get people to admit they exist, since any compromise requires that you first realize who the people you're trying to compromise with are and that they actually exist and aren't imaginary fever dream phantoms or something.

.

Ty is a smart guy, so I'm not sure why this particular realization seems beyond him, but the way he keeps restating his position in different words, none of which add this fourth category of person, is why I say resistant to the idea. I don't mean an act of will, though; it may just be so different from his own view that he doesn't realize it could be one, like how a theist and atheist find each other unfathomable.

Hence why I'm asking someone else to step in and try it - you guys say I'm too haughty and stuff, so here I am asking for help, something that is anti-haughty. Appealing for assistance. So will someone step in and do it?

...because I think this may be the single reason he and I can't reach any agreement. He fundamentally doesn't acknowledge that I (or my actual viewpoint) exists. He thinks that it's something else. Hence his "Support Sylphie" proposal. It's a good faith proposal he's making, but he's making it to the wrong person and not making a proposal to people like me...because I don't think he understands that we exist. (I mean, I know he knows I exist, I mean the mindset). It's like...

...well, I won't do any more it's likes. I'm just asking for help. Can you guys help?

Because I think this is the stumbling block preventing any understanding/compromise/solution.

[ty_taurus]

He seems to be incapable of believing or understanding that there are people out there that are not competitive, that when they see a high skill Job, their loins don't burn with the desire to master it, to get better, to improve on it.

That's not true at all. I am completely aware that not all people are competitive, but if someone is not competitive, then they are not obsessed with trying to perfect their job. What matters to them is doing their best regardless of where that lands them, not reaching 99% or self-flagellating over their imperfect performance. It's not that they can't choose to optimize or improve, but they don't look at something like the mudra system and see that as an attack on their ability to play the game. Not all jobs need to be challenging, but what I am asking is not making all 4 healers challenging. I have said more times on this thread that there should be a more simple, more forgiving job for each major role, like Dancer or Reaper, or Warrior. My beef with the healers is that all of them are just terrible design. They are blatant insults to the combat system this game has established, something I stand by as someone who makes games and who went to school for games.

I appreciate and respect your attempts to communicate more calmly, but you are also regularly adding "quotes" around things I am not saying, which to me seems like you are completely misrepresenting what I am saying.

[Renathras]

Shurrikan said stuff better than I could...

Yeah, I have thought Zoe can work with E-Prog, though it's still...it works, but is kinda meh, and because Zoe itself has a moderate CD and you want to have it for Pneuma, it doesn't work as well. I'd rather Zoe JUST work for E-Prog/Diag and give Pneuma the boosted power to begin with.

And yeah, my issue with Krasis is that on paper, it seems like it could be a Protraction+Recitation+Adlo+Deply...

...except SGE doesnt' have Deploy. Sure, you can Krasis+Zoe+E-Prog, but then only one party member gets the boosted shield.

I agree that Krasis should be party wide. Half potency but for the whole party. That would make it usable with the whole kit. Even if it was just Magic, that would still make it useful for party super shields with Zoe and E-Prog.

You believe that a well-designed job is something that anyone can pick up and master by reading tooltips.

Oh, did want to nudge at this: Not quite.

I do believe that there are well designed Jobs that should work that way. But I also believe that well designed Jobs can be different. Note in that SMN thread, I praise both SMN's design and BLM's design.

My believe is that a well designed game will have both of those within it. See my post above where I talk about FF1 and stuff. I believe that a well designed game has both entry level and challenge level options available, so players can find the level they like best. What that is will depend on the game type. If I play something like Oblivion, I tend to go with stealth archer builds, with some healing and enchantment magic. Not the easiest thing but not the hardest thing. When it comes to something like Remnant: From the Ashes, I go with ranged and maneuverable (light armor) builds that deal damage from range and use dodging as the primary mode of defense. Something like Kingdom Hearts I tend to go for pretty simple, brute force power builds, with a hint of magic in my combat style. FPS games I'll either go with mid-ranged rifle configurations or close range either shotgun and heavy armor or light armor and sensor jamming with a silenced SMN "Sam Fisher" builds.

For MMOs, I often gravitate towards mid-complexity healing kit healer classes (like Holy Priest was for a long time in WoW), with minimal DPS interactions. When I play DPS or Tanks, I like rotations that have mostly rigid and the same all the time, but with a bit of flexibility. I like PLD now a bit more than GNB since it has the same "routine", but seems a smidge less rigid. DRK is just a crap ton of hyper burst then chill downtime (like NIN), and WAR is a lot like RDM without the procs the way you want to pool gauge and stuff. PLD hits the sweet spot between GNB's routine and WAR's flexibility where it's not too rigid while not being too not rigid, if that makes sense?

It's also why I can't get into DRG, because it's TOO rigid. I haven't actually found a single Melee I like yet (leveling each one to 80), though I haven't gotten to RPR yet. I also like SMN and RDM because both of them have patterns they follow, but there's room for flexing - but I DON'T like RDM because of the proc system; if every Thunder/Aero was guaranteed to proc Fire/Stone, or the proc system and Jolt were just removed entirely so you just always had Fire/Stone, I'd actually like the Job. And I don't like BLM because it's just too crazy. BUT, and this is the important but: I like that BLM is in the game so that people who do like that kind of thing have their avenue for it in BLM.

The point is, my view isn't as rigid as you suggest there.

While I think that there should be Jobs designed that people can pick up and master by reading tooltips - and it's a bit odd to me that anyone would thing this is a bad thing...like, I can't fathom why this would be bad, personally - I also believe that there should be Jobs designed where they have a lot of esoteria to them. Where you see a lot of people play it and just completely bomb out, but then you see that rare person who has mastered it and can get away with absolutely insane things.

Indeed, I think one of each of those should be in each of the roles the game has, and let players pick and play the ones they like best.

I'm not sure why this is such a Shibboleth with people, though.

My stance is that if someone can clear Savage now, they're of a skill level that means they can learn how to implement new buttons into their rotation,

I think the problem I have with this logic is that, from my experience, those aren't the same skills.

We've all known that one person that can go into a fight and within a few runs, has the entire thing memorized. These Savants can walk you through the entire fight in their head, typing it out in text before the fight or in Disc or whatever. They know the fight inside and out. They can execute it flawlessly from pull to Enrage...

...but they do sub-MSQ Jimmy levels of DPS and constantly whiff their rotation.

On the other hand, we also all know that person who has their rotation down to a T. A Master possessed of a combination of calculated science and powerful intuition, so well learned, the person can do it one handed while watching a YouTube video and not even having their screen up. They have absolute technical mastery of their Job, running 4 mans with them is a breeze, and they have a 99 in Agalia.

...but they can't execute Savage mechanics to save their lives.

Most people fall somewhere in between, but the point is that they are two different kinds of thinking. Two different skill sets. It's like comparing a mathematician and a physicist and an engineer. In theory, their knowledge bases overlap a lot, and in theory, each can do the other's tasks. But set a mathematician down and, with no instruction, ask him to do a structural analysis on a building made with building material A vs building material B, or sit the engineer down and ask her to derive a proof for Euler's Formula, and both are going to be stumped. Ask the physicist to do either task and they might have some idea where to get started, but are ultimately going to struggle.

While some skill sets may seem correlated, they aren't always. I feel that "fight execution" and "rotational mastery" are not the same skill. Moreover, I don't even think "rotational mastery" is one skill. There are three different types I can think of offhand - "metronome" or "how good can you do the same rigid thing over and over for minutes at a time without messing up" (DRG, GNB), "proc alert" or "how good are you at seeing and reacting to things conditionally activating in combat at random/not set in stone intervals" (RDM), and "upkeep plate spinner" or "how good are you at maintaining self-buffs and DoTs/debuff upttime on the enemy" (BLM between Enochian and Thunder, maybe NIN/WAR, since their upkeep buffs are not part of their rotation like SAM and DRG's are). Some are combinations (BRD is "proc" + "upkeep", for example), and some might SEEM to be one but aren't exactly, like SAM and DRG both having upkeep buffs, but they're naturally kept refreshed by their standard rotation, again, unlike NIN and WAR which have to go out of their way to refresh their buff.

In any case, I think that's part of my disagreement with you on that - I don't see them as the same skillset. So someone who is more towards the Savant and less the Master won't be able to make the change you want. Someone more towards the Master and less the Savant will be fine, but that person would be hard pressed by (and resistant to) changing encounter design (e.g. to require more healing) since that would call on skills outside of their preferred/stronger domain.

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Or, to use your martial arts analogy:

Some people are better at throwing punches, some people are better at grappling (grappling is exhausting and you have to be quick and precise, rewarding either speed or raw strength, and I personally hated it). The former might love boxing, find karate acceptable, be neutral on taekwando, dislike judo, and hate ju jutsu. On the other hand, some people prefer grappling and their list would be reversed. Still others have a mix of the two, and would like a style that mixes them, maybe preferring one in the middle over either of the ends. And still others might prefer a more defensive and less abrasive style, and naturally be pulled towards that while disliking all the others.

And further, some styles are easier to master than others. More direct, requiring far less conditioning, and with few techniques that the practitioner simply learns very very very well.

And I don't think your comparison between Jobs is correct. Firstly, because SMN, BLM, and RDM have very different play styles. They aren't the same "martial art". SMN is like boxing, RDM like taekwando, and BLM like ju jutsu. They aren't even the same realm of thing, and RDM definitely goes up into the black belt levels, as I've pointed out before.

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Also, I'm not sure you were reading that thread right:

I haven't seen anyone there argue to make RDM weaker. People have said if RDM needs buffs, just give RDM buffs, don't widen SMN's skill floor just because you want RDM to be better - simply make RDM's damage ceiling higher to compensate, like BLM's is.

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You are right about one thing, though: I don't care about parses.

Oh, I get annoyed with dicks (sorry for the language) like Gaius in General who constantly wants to point out anyone who has gray or green pareses as not being allowed to weigh in on conversations, and I don't mean me but other people who have made good points (and, amusingly, the guy won't post on his main so people can see his own record...), but that's pretty irrelevant to me overall other than how trolly some people are about it.

My concern is, though, with the people able to clear content now that won't be able to if some of the proposed changes were implemented. My personal view is an inclusive one, for better or for worse.

It's not. And that's my point.

But it is. That's my point...

So, your healer scenario? For me:

WHM - The Biggest of Big Bads has won. Fallen heroes are everywhere, some unconscious laying flat on their faces, some on a knee, gasping for breath and holding shut wounds across their abdomens or clutching broken arms. The heartiest of them is holding the line barely, both hands and all their strength on their sword as the Big Bad with one arm throws them back. The Big Bad says he's grown tired of this, and as he gathers energy in his sword to end it all, the Hero arrives. First few, but growing, light shafts pierce the overcast sky. The corrupted ground starts to brighten, green grasses straightening to life. The White Mage has arrived, holding his staff aloft with golden rays washing over his allies. The Big Bad, momentarily blinded by the light staggers back, reaching a hand to their eyes in momentary stunned silence as the very heavens erupt, pouring out healing light and like a torrent of rain. Everyone it touches is invigorated, bones straightening, wounds mending, consciousness returns. And one by one, the heroes stand, the most powerful warriors to the front, raising their shields with new energy, the archers and mages cracking necks, rolling freshly healed shoulders, and stretching arms, raise their weapons again. And the White Mage's staff glows once more, the battle rejoined.

SCH - Chaos has overtaken the battlefield. The Free Peoples retreat, reform ranks, hold the line, then are forced to retreat again. Foul magics streak across the battlefield, exploding on contact, sending men-at-arms back as they are peppered with the dark rays of magic. Vile warriors in armor inked with blackest knight slam into the lines, blackend greatswords smashing into tarnished shields. Onto the field steps the SCH. Straightening her glasses, she points, and her Faerie companion, with but a moment to nod, streaks to the battleline. She draws out her book and traces the sacred geometry inked across its voluminous pages, summoning the spells to turn the tide. As the black knights charge the newly pushed back and reformed line, a massive domed barrier forms over the defenders, blocking the dark warriors' path, slowing their footsteps, and sapping power from their swings. The tarnished shields radiate a bit more light, some of the tar fallen away, and the swords rebound. The glinting Faerie streaks from warrior to warrior, whispering mysterious words in the language of the Fey, restoring their vigor with a giggle before flitting onto the next. Their backs stand straighter, their shields held higher. The Scholar yells out an order, and the line advances, barriers of magicked light forming around the lead warrior, and immediately spreading out from that one, left and right, all the way down the line and across every soldier. The black magics come, but the barriers of light rise to meet them, clashing with them, and nullifying them. The Scholar shouts a command, and her Faerie closes her eyes, opening them with a giggle as magic feathers wash across her, then bursting out in radiating light as yet more barriers spread from her across the battleline. The Scholar shouts one more command, as green magicked winds pour from her book and wash out, pouring against the backs of her allies, quickening her steps: Advance!

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Those are the two I play, so that's how I see them both working in their "badass" heroic moments.

This is actually a good question, worthy of a thread itself...

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In any case, my vision of WHM really is "simple, straightforward, powerful". No frills, no nuance, it just does the job, directly and potently.

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The MSQ is not the game.

Apparently, we need to get over THAT conflict before we can move on...

Okay, so there's two things.

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Though I do agree a fundamental probably is that Healers have a lot of room for mastery...it's just in their healing kits, which aren't flexed nearly enough.

I know that Yoshi-P would probably sooner saw off his own legs and sell them on ebay before portraying the Warrior of Light as a healer in an expansion trailer, but given how we're concluding the 6.1-6.5 storyline, and also how this upcoming expansion will feature a fresh new arc after an apocalyptic one, White Mage does sound like it could feel appropriate thematically to be the featured job of 7.0--A new dawn on the horizon, or a new flower sprouts from the ashes of conflict from our last encounter.

Somewhat agreed. Though I think my description above would require a battlefield. That, or healing a cursed and blighted land itself - Asylum.

Golems I think.

With the whole Raid Series exploring the 12...

Correct me if I'm wrong but...I don't think this is quite right.

The Amdapori didn't have anything to do with the Elementals. If I remember correctly, Amdapor wasn't in the Black Shroud at the time. After the Fifth Calamity, the Elementals grew/marched the Shroud south, expanding it and enveloping Amdapor, placing both natural and magical barriers around it so no one would ever return. The only reason we do in the game is because the Sixth Calamity weakened the seals and unearthed parts of the city (and, separately, keep) that had been covered, and weakened the seals. The seals were then broken by the Lambs of Dalamud, who managed to get inside and ultimately break the seal on the powerful "nuke" Voidsent the Mhachi had sent there at the climax of the war. A Voidsent so powerful, the Amdapori couldn't banish it, instead sealing it - Diablos. One so powerful, even when we and 23 of our best friends fight him, he remarks how he's still weak from being sealed for so long (something like 1500 years) and is unable to overcome us, even when consuming the energies of the Queen.

In addition to White Magic (the art of healing and stasis), they practiced Golemancy (an art we haven't been introduced to in a playable form, obviously - though maybe it's akin to the arcane construct class they had planed in 1.X, I dunno). This is an art based on giving life to stone constructs in some way, though it's not at all clear HOW, and to date has never been explained. What we do know is that White Mages can, in theory, do it. Look up the Disembodied Head mount:

"E-Una-Kotor created this winged monstrosity using stone hewn from the very walls of the Palace of the Dead in an attempt to better understand the guardian golems which watch over the Lost City of Amdapor. That the face chosen for the design bears an uncanny likeness to a certain someone is one stone best left unturned."

E-Una-Kotor is the Padjal (presumably WHM) there in Quarrymill. But, to date, we haven't gained any such powers. Probably because they don't translate super well into the game's context since it would be more a familiar than a summon. Artifacer or something.

The Elementals are a different thing, and still pretty mysterious.

As far as we know, they're spirits of nature. Sometimes they've been seen (mostly in 1.X) as elemental colored little winged things, like the HW Anima weapon's spirit before it takes on the defined, Mamet-like appearance at the end. The kind of whispy thing. One of the fan theories is that they were wounded by the Cataclysm harming the land, and so have been in a more dormant state. The Tank Role Quests in EW also actually go into their lore a bit, mainly one that is and/or has possessed the old tree and about "The Hedge", which was a powerful protective barrier spell they all put up together around the whole of the Black Shroud.

The Elementals also seek balance, particularly after blaming the imbalance of the War of the Magi for the Fifth Cataclysm (though that was partly the Ascians' fault, and the Elementals seem not to be aware of the Ascians, though it's hard to be sure what exactly they do know, as they aren't forthcoming with their knowledge), and they regulate the use of elemental and white magic for fear of another Calamity, as well as regulate the balance of the Black Shroud itself, including the flora and fauna and hunting and gathering there. Quarrymill's lore is that it's the oldest town (on the surface - there was one underground, Gelmorra...) in the Shroud, and where newcomers present themselves for the Elementals to judge. Though "present" doesn't mean "see", and even only a few Conjurers are skilled at hearing the voices of the Elementals, much less seeing them in a manifested form.

Not sure they've said anything else about them since, though...

That's not true at all. I am completely aware that not all people are competitive, but if someone is not competitive, then they are not obsessed with trying to perfect their job.

This is what I don't think you're understanding, there is a class of people who do enjoy perfecting things, but only to a certain limit. It's why they'll work to perfect something like SMN or PLD or WAR, but if you expand the skill cap of those Jobs, they aren't interested and will grow upset. They absolutely want to master something, but they aren't competitive in that they aren't interested in being the best at the hardest things. They simply want to play something at capacity, and they choose something with a capacity they can manage. People who do get upset when on WAR they wiff their 1-2-3 or they hit -4 when they had 33 seconds left on the buff still and mentally facepalm over it. It's not that they suck or don't care or don't try, it's that they respect their limits and want a Job that matches their skill cap, which (since these are different people) run spreads from low to medium.

That was the point of the posts I linked from Eorzian, because she expressed that pretty well, I thought. Especially the part about Jobs A and B.

If there was a Job with say a damage cap of 5k, where the floor was 4.5k, and a different Job with a floor of 4k and a ceiling of 7k, many people would pick the 5k Job because it's at the level they feel like they can perform at its max, or close to, which is what they want.

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As for the quotes: It's not meant that way, note that I put quotes around "monk god" as well. It's more to specify specific terms. I guess I could just use underlines for that...? Might try that instead...