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

[Shurrikhan]

Your perception of what "the playerbase as a whole" even "is" seems heavily biased/skewed towards what you personally prefer, but that perception is not realistic based on way too many years of evidence.

That's not even a comment on player preference. I'm talking about simple sense of obligation that comes with playing a multiplayer game. If one job has the same damage at far greater ease and reliability, allowing people to do just as well without party adjustment and with quicker learning of mechanics, many or even most players will feel some obligation to take that over the thanklessly riskier option.

Imbalances, including in reward-per-effort in the contexts where tight parity would matter (e.g., Ultimate and Savage before overgearing), are bad for breath of choice.

What you derisively label "pandering" is very much "in the eye of the beholder"

I call it pandering because it disrupts larger balances and thereby reduces breadth of choice. Unless that group is so large and brittle that appeasing them is worth more than the game's balance, yeah, that's pandering. You're hurting the whole for the part.

— for example, if you were to flip the mirror, then continuing to create excessively-convoluted Jobs just to please a tiny sliver of the community would be "pandering" to players who "take the game way too seriously".

First... what excessively convoluted jobs? Stormblood MCH? Even Shadowbringers Summoner doesn't fit that descriptor.

Secondly, though, never have I ever pushed for jobs to be unintuitive or otherwise have a high knowledge requirement just to feel like they're being utilized roughly correctly. I'm pretty sure you know full well that I advocate for low floors and high ceilings.

:: Hell, I'd reduce the floor on a few existing ones, if only by way of polish/QoL (auto-Meditation over downtime, bonus Leaden Fist UI component or Bootshine upgrading to Leaden Fist [new icon] under Dragon Kick, removing the need for a Formless Fist button; leaving LotD after the 3rd Nostrand and Stardiver so that Gierskogul can be properly queued and doesn't desync; etc.).

But there's a difference between having satisfying gameplay that still leaves about 50% of the total amount of optimizations* / cognitive load, each optimization giving increasingly less value per effort put in if taken up, so that a job has a lot to offer... and purposely truncating them. One still has gameplay enjoyable by those who like EW SMN as is but also supports more. The other is just EW SMN.

*Almost all of the points on your list above are general skills, with optimization habits likely already picked up from other jobs. Even without that, they're very quickly learned and capped out. Which is fine to have, obviously... but it shouldn't be where job mastery ends.

if I was a developer trying to produce a marketed product, I'd be hard-pressed about what decisions to make when the majority of the population clearly seems to favor designs like EW SMN

But do we even really have evidence of that people favor designs like EW SMN, as compared to simply playing whatever is overpowered if that imbalance is left there to be exploited.

I have trouble thinking of anyone who enjoys doing 4+ Expert Roulettes per week for that content itself, yet it's apparently the most played roulette. The 90 weekly tomes for just 12-15 minutes of Netflix and basic performance might have something to do with that.

We have no way outside of haphazardly via polls here and elsewhere of determining how many people play EW SMN because they actually like it. There's a vital divisor that stands missing between that data (how many SMN parses, or worse, how many lvl 90 SMNs) and actionable information.

[Deo14]

For a lot of players, especially when playing content that's already complex and punishing like Savage and Extreme (again, try to temper your own biases when considering how this content "feels" to the broader, average player), details as simple as:

• Adjust whether or not to precast Ruin 3, Searing Light, etc, based on later mechanic alignment
• Adjust your opener based on the Jobs in your party
• Make sure to get 6 GCDs out of every Bahoenix
• Don't spend Festers inside Phoenix if you can bring them into the next Searing Light
• Don't forget to Akh Morn / Revelation inside Bahoenix
• Don't forget to Deathflare during Bahamut
• Don't waste your Ruin IV, but also feel free to put it where it fits best
• Remember to insert 1-2 Ruin 3 hardcasts between "loops", or more if your party is intentionally drifting CDs and it's deemed productive for you to do so as well, rather than intentionally-desyncing; or if you're progging and trying to hold either damage or Phoenix for a specific segment; or if things are just buns-up and you'd rather hold burst until recovering; or etc.
• Make sure to choose your Gem order so that problematic casts (Ruby Rite, Slipstream) don't collide with movement pressure; Ifrit doesn't collide with bad times to pollute the melee zone; the boss doesn't move out of Slipstream; etc.
• Exploit the ability to move Ruins around to help manage problematic Gem phases
• Balance trying to keep Titan's high potency inside raid buffs vs. using its high mobility to manage encounter phases
• Use Radiant Aegis to help your healers / help survive mechanics, and don't get locked out of it at a bad time
• Try not to waste your Rekindle during Phoenix, if it can help your healers
• Weigh the trade-offs carefully if downtime forces you to choose between finishing Gems or leaving Bahoenix sitting off-cooldown
• Consider the possibility of truncating Gems without finishing them
• (etc.)

...are already plenty enough "meat" and "details" to track and adjust around, and feel like they have a "ceiling" to work towards "mastering" on any particular encounter.

It may not be enough for you, but you need to realize that what's "enough" for you may be uncomfortably over-the-head of the wider population.

For a lot of Plants Vs Zombies players, especially when playing content that's already complex and punishing like "Adventure mode, mission 5-9" and puzzle "All your brainz r belong to us" (again, try to temper your own biases when considering how this content "feels" to the broader, average player), details as simple as:

• Adjust whether or not to pick Hypno Shroom to counter super tough zombies, like football zombie
• Adjust your plants depending on map
• Make sure you plant Sunflower immediately at the start
• Don't use Garlic if you don't use plants with good AoE
• Don't forget to pick up generated sunlight from Sunflower/Sunshroom
• Don't forget to use one time use plants at final phase
• Don't waste your Squash plant, but also feel free to put it where it fits best
• Remember to insert Spikeweed infront of Wall-Nuts or Tall-Nuts, depending on your garden's composition
• Make sure to choose your plants order so that problematic plants (Snow Pea) don't shoot through torchwood; Regular non-ice peas will get enhanced, but Torchwood will negate ice peas; Cabbage-pult will shoot over it; etc.
• Exploit the ability to plant Puff-shrooms for free to help manage problematic early phase
• Balance trying to put up as much Sunflowers/Sunshrooms, without losing/wasting your lawnmovers in early game
• Use Cherry Bomb to help your plants survive tough zombies, and don't get locked out of CD at bad time
• Try not to waste your sunlight on Grave Buster, graves which are on very right side of the map don't limit you that much
• Weigh the trade-offs carefully if downtime forces you to choose between planting your plant now, without knowing which lane will have more zombie, or waiting until zombies arrive, so you can plant it at that lane
• Consider the possibility of using Doom Shroom
• (etc.)

...are already plenty enough "meat" and "details" to track and adjust around, and feel like they have a "ceiling" to work towards "mastering" on any particular encounter.

It may not be enough for you, but you need to realize that what's "enough" for you may be uncomfortably over-the-head of the wider population.
——————————————————————————

This is not supposed to be mockery, just to show that you can make anything seem complex. Just as Ivtrix already pointed out, most, if not all core functions can be learned in first hour. Considering that leveling takes quite while, everyone is given enough time to gradually learn the job. Even though SMN and SCH are anomaly in this regard, since you don't even need to play one of the jobs to level it all the way to 90. But even then, you still spend few hours catching up to job quests to unlock everything.

[Renathras]

I can see your point, but the other side also has a point. Skill expression should have a gap, perhaps not a huge one, but it should at least be there.

And it does; there are Jobs with wide skill gaps and those with narrow.

Moreover, damage isn't the only way to reward people for mastering more difficult Jobs - and in a game like FFXIV, it can't be used, since that's the only "must have" metric. There are other "nice to have" but not "must haves" that can be used instead. You can't have a Healer without a Raise - that's a "must have" - but you can have a more difficult Healer give a movement speed buff - that's a "nice to have".

I also take issue with people demanding/deciding themselves they want to play a "harder" Job that requires "more work" and then demanding to be rewarded. It'd be like if one person digs a trench with a backhoe and another was offered the backhoe, refused and insisted on using a shovel instead, and then demanded to be paid overtime since it took them "more work" to dig the same thing. When you literally ask for more work, there's something wrong with you then demanding a leg up over other people for you doing the thing you literally asked for, and even insisted you'd be bored without.

I think there can be complex jobs, for players who like that this is important, but I don't think those jobs should get inflated damage by default.

Exactly. There are other forms of expression besides "more damage".

snip

You're going to have to tell me what "snip" means.

As for casuals - depends on the type. But generally speaking, if people are min/maxing, they aren't casuals. That's kind of the only true dividing line between "casuals" and "hardcores" (most of the rest are subjective).

Where did I say RDM should be made easier? I said that's what your argument supports.

No, they're asking to change the job to give it more pointless busy work and making it more complicated for no good reason. Summoner is being played more than ever because it has less busy work and is less complicated than other Jobs. Why should Summoners, the majority enjoying it as is, be told that the Job they like is "wrong" and should be made just as complicated and full of busy work as other Jobs? It isn't fair to them at all. If players want more busy work or more complicated jobs then they have options. Don't take this away from those that enjoy Summoner just because the more complicated/busy work jobs have issues that the Summoner doesn't have.

This.

It'd be one thing if there were many other simple and many complex Jobs. But there aren't. There are mostly very complex Jobs, moderate complexity Jobs, and then a handful of low complexity ones. SMN is one of the few, not one of the many.

you know whats also unfair? players that enjoyed pre-EW SMN being alienated by the rework and having no near-equivalent job to turn to. lmao

That's fine and dandy if you were asking for a Job to be added that has old SMN's gameplay. That's a different ask than "make SMN harder". Moreover, even if you wanted old SMN back, that's unlikely to happen (the Devs seem to hate DoTs for some reason), but even so, it doesn't require the removal of the current SMN.

You seem to be taking issue since you so strongly cling to the current summoner that you’re taking this as a personal attack. Chill out. The job is going to be changing in less than a year anyways with the coming of 7.0

To be fair, many people in this thread have said anyone who likes current SMN are lazy, babies, cockroaches, etc. Pretty sure taking those as personal attacks is the correct way to take them. And yeah, the Job will change with 7.0, but there's a difference between "Your second set of SMNs are now Ramuh, Leviathan, and Shiva but are just a different set of VFX but play the same as Garuda, Titan, and Ifrit" vs "You now have to play like BLM". There's a wide gulf between those two things.

As far as I can tell, this seems to be a pretty bluntly-true observation... albeit with a couple caveats that definitely need to be appended.

Fair points.

But note that if a person meets the metrics of that list - can't play a Caster, dislikes DPS, dislikes "wizards", etc - then why would they be asking for SMN to be the Job given the high skill ceiling, when they won't be playing it anyway?

Therefore, if a more efficient solution is made available, that has no real downsides, these players will feel pressured — either internally, externally, or both — to switch to that simpler and more efficient solution.

...which is fine, but we have a similar situation: Why argue for removing the thing, since removing it means they'd be just as prone to being a failure to their team and etc. I get that part of it is "force us to not do this", but they'd just pick the next easiest thing and then the next and so on until they got everything removed from the game but the single hardest one. Then many of them would just use cheating add-ons, defeating the whole point again.

And yes, if that's the case, it's fair to ask what they truly want and why, since if it truly was just a high skill option, then we'd, again, be drowning in BLMs. That we aren't indicates that isn't what people are really wanting. Sometimes, people say they want something they don't when they are unsure themselves, but sometimes they do it because they think they really want (e.g. suppose for the sake of argument it was to "lord over other players") would not be a popular or sympathetic position, and they recognize that and so don't want to expose their true motives.

.

I think the issue is that there aren't a ton of players that choose the more difficult option when given the choice. And so SE removes or simplifies the Jobs over time. That, and people actively asking for homogenization (always insisting they are not) by asking why their Job doesn't have a certain thing or has to work harder at a thing than another Job. The end result is SE looking at the Jobs, seeing the ones least played, and attempting to make them more appealing to the masses.

Me personally, I have three general rules with game design stuff.

1) Don't take things away from people in general. If you absolutely MUST, explain why clearly, and try to give them something to compensate. Nothing makes people more upset than losing a thing they had, even if it makes no sense or doesn't fit in the game.

2) Have something for everyone as much as possible. This includes having different levels of difficult, complexity, etc. One of the most common questions asked of any given game, and definitely of MMOs, is "What is the easiest class/Job?" People ask that because there's a general desire by people to start with what's easy. Some people work up to whatever difficulty suits them personally, some never move passed that first step. But an accessible and inclusive game allows for this without issue. To me personally, this also means each Role should also be divided that way, as well.

3) When making new things, look at what's working/what people like, and try to do more of that. If people aren't jumping on complex Jobs, then the obvious conclusion is that it isn't what "the people", so to speak, want. In line with (2), you still want to have some complex Jobs, but that shouldn't be what you make every Job if people are largely actively avoiding them. I think we can all agree that if the bulk of players were rushing for the complex Jobs, SE should make more of them, but clearly that isn't what's happening, and even so, subject to (1), it would be while leaving the complexity level low for Jobs that were low complexity to begin with. A lot of people have moved to SMN because RDM has become more technical and difficult. If RDM had remained at its SB/ShB level of difficulty, more people might be playing it now instead of SMN. RDM got harder, SMN got easier, and we see more people have chosen SMN. But it's not just hardcore raider/skill focused players seeking to make runs easier for their party, but seems to be large portions of the general playerbase as well.

And it's important to keep in mind that such players really do exist, and not to dismiss them — they're "high-functioning" within the context of FFXIV, and they feel like they're being "punished" just for being more skilled and capable, by having their fun toys (challenging and depthy Jobs, with a lot of space for both failure, and optimized success) constantly taken away from them in order to appease the broader majority.

Hence my above position.

I wouldn't even mind the people asking for old SMN to come back if they were also asking for old (easier) RDM to come back as well as old (easier) versions of other Jobs like NIN or BRD...but they aren't. The arrow of "sacred" only seems to run one way, always towards more complex, with such people, since that meets their self-interest of having more Jobs available for them, but not caring about other people or actually caring about "how things used to be" as more than a convenient excuse.

However, in other cases I honestly wonder if EW SMN might secretly be taking a lot of stress and pressure off of even many "dedicated" players... but it's just "taboo" for them to publicly-admit so in the sorts of "pride in the game" circles and communities that end up becoming their social networks.

This may be true as well. It wouldn't be the first time people badmouthed something in public but it was their "secret indulgence" when behind closed doors. That's happened through Human history, and for far less benign things, to be sure.

...To be very clear: I'm not trying to suggest that current SMN isn't severely-lacking "meat on its bones" compared to most other Jobs, both current and historical.

I think one problem is people forget just how slimmed down Jobs were in ARR. Some were more complex, true, but...a lot really weren't. BLM was FAR easier in ARR, partly because it didn't have all the add-ons that have been tacked onto the Job over the years, and partly because fights weren't nearly so movement heavy in most cases, meaning BLM didn't have to have the thorough fight knowledge that is the basis of its now-famous difficulty. SMN had several DoTs and oGCDs to juggle, but a number of these were merely "use on CD/refresh on duration", which isn't terribly complicated compared to the current iteration. ARR SMN was very definitely not ShB SMN or SB SMN or even HW SMN. It didn't have the two minute cycle, the 3 Tri-Disaster DoT refreshes, the cramming 8+ GCDs into Bahamut/Phoenix windows, or managing Further Ruin stacks with Egi Assaults. Literally none of those mechanics existed in ARR SMN, which instead had 3-4 (5 only in patch 2.0-2.1, which was the only period Thunder was Cross-Class, no matter how people try to pretend it was the whole time) DoTs to manage, Shadow Flare to throw down, and AF was used on Fester (just like now, only it had a 5 sec CD, I think, so you had to alternate it), and in between, you spammed Ruin 1 and weaved oGCDs as they came off CD...just like now. There were a few things you could try to do, but many of the advancements came with HW and SB.

Many Jobs back then consisted of a relatively simple combo system, a handful of situational utility buttons, and that was mostly it. PLD had a 1-2-3 combo and spammed Flash for AOE. It had a reactive button if it blocked with the shield and it had Shield Bash and the same tow oGCDs it has to this day. The alternating Royal/Atonement/Goring combo thing was from ShB, the upkeeping Goring was from either HW or SB, during both of which Halone was used for agro (or avoided when you didn't need agro). Its AOE "rotation" in ARR was literally spamming a non-damage AOE spell until you ran out of MP, then using 1-2 Riot over and over to get more MP so you could spam more Flash, because it didn't get its agro stance until level 35 or 40, so spamming Flash was actually necessary. Sure, 6.3 PLD is simpler than 6.2 PLD, but so was 2.0 PLD.

In a way, the game started off with most Jobs being simple, and they had complexity tacked on over time, robbing the people who liked the simple of their toys. "The chicken or the egg?", which came first. The people who want complex Jobs aren't the only ones who can complain that they had something taken from them...

Rather, I'm saying that SMN's radical simplicity may be allowing a lot of players to realize that they maaaaaaybe... honestly... don't reeeeeally mind having other priorities in life than "mastering" an FFXIV rotation...

Perhaps.

So you think it's that cognitive dissonance that makes them...upset and insulting to those who openly express like towards things like SMN?

Perhaps the timer juggling sort of skill expression isn't that individual's cup of tea either?

But it's regardless fascinating to me that the people absolutely certain that skill expression is a Very Bad Thing are always, without fail, the people who never interact with it.

And this is everything wrong with these conversations:

VERY FEW people say "skill expression is a Very Bad Thing". Look at most of the people here praising SMN. Look at few of them are saying "skill expression is a Very Bad Thing"? Most of them are saying "You have your high skill expression Jobs and we have our one low skill ceiling Job". They aren't saying "skill expression is a Very Bad Thing" at all. They're saying it's fine, as long as not everything is forced into that mold. Literally nobody is "demanding" that "nobody be allowed to get better than you"; if they were, they'd be demanding the REMOVAL of complex Jobs, not COEXISTENCE with them. The only people demanding removal rather than coexistence are the people who want all Jobs to be only the complex kinds and none favoring people who prefer straightforward designs.

This caricature is the biggest problem with these conversations.

The second worst is insisting people aren't allowed to have an opinion unless they're clearing Ultimates/Savage tiers - turns out, these SAME Jobs exist in all content, casual to hardcore; they aren't separate Jobs in hardcore content with separate kits.

And the third:

It's actually mindboggling. I don't understand how this even remotely hurts anyone, and besides, every other job is plenty populated by people who don't want to do high end content, you don't see them complaining about this.

When other people quote and support the caricature, attempting to lend it legitimacy it doesn't hold, and insisting "no one is hurt" when people are clearly hurt by their proposed changes.

"Neither we who run this factory nor those we sell to are harmed by us polluting this river."
"But what about the families that live downstream and drink it?"
"I don't understand how this even remotely hurts anyone, besides, lots of people don't even drink water, so what does it matter?"

Fair enough, but in that case SMN should only be putting out roughly what that level of effort would equate to on another job,

Again: No.

If you're choosing to play a Job that requires more work because you find more work fun, then your reward is that you have fun. In some possible scenario, the reward can be providing more utility.

Moreover, the entire point of a "low skill floor, high skill ceiling" Job is that when it's played at a low level, it underperforms more moderate skill Jobs when they are played at a low level. A badly played BLM should absolutely do less damage than a badly played RDM or SMN, since the point of the wide skill spread is to be able to excel but also to fail; high risk high reward, but high cost of failure.

The game is not a job. The realization you need to make is to stop treating it like one.

No one's asking for a 20 SMN player to do more damage than a 90 BLM player. That would be silly. But as I've said many times and you've refused to accept or summon a counterargument to - encounters would have to be designed for that lower damage. If SMN did 1/3rd the damage of BLM, all Enrages would have to be made super lenient so that SMN could still clear the content, and at that point, any part with a BLM would find Enrages trivial. The game can't work that way and we all know it, which is why no one ever tries to offer a counter-argument when I point that out.

No one is "obliged" to switch to SMN. That's the point. At the end of the day, people doing it are choosing to do it, they aren't being forced to, as RDM (as you said yourself) still can outdamage SMN and out combat-raise it, and BLM clearly can outdamage it. People are choosing SMN because on some level they want to.

Well, also, remember that this is a team game. It's not just about my fun with the job or the pride I feel doing the complex rotation - It's also that I don't want to make mistakes. I am going to make more mistakes on mechanics and cause more wipes during our prog if I play the harder job. If I play summoner, I guarantee that I can just focus on the mechanics and never have to worry about a rotation, so I will hold people back less. It's hard to justify going for the harder option unless you're really confident you won't waste people's time. If it was a single player game I might try it from the start.

Yeah, but that's the problem - then what you're arguing for, if you support making SMN more complex - is arguing to harm your own team, by your own metric.

Semi-counterpoint: if you reduce the barrier to entry via smn being exceptionally easy, good luck finding a group with 1 caster slot available and far too many smn looking for groups.

Semi-counterpoint: Then the answer is just having at least one Job in each role be exceptionally easy.

Breaking this into Spoiler tags to cut down on visual clutter / scroll-torment.

So much this entire post, but especially:

For example, statements like:
...
And I think that it's not a good-faith perspective to discuss things in language that makes a large portion of the playerbase sound like opportunistic petty criminals, rather than people legitimately playing a game using the legitimate tools that the developers have openly offered them.

And...

But I also think that a lot of "high-functioning" players simply do not realize — maybe cannot fully-internalize, due to how their minds function and see the world — that something like Summoner does require "mastery effort" for a lot of players.

What you see as a trivial hour of investigation on a Striking Dummy, followed by having no surprises left to explore, can instead require some genuine amount of consideration for people who don't dedicate themselves to FFXIV the same way, don't seek external resources, or... etc. It's an entirely different standard to be judged against.

For a lot of players, especially when playing content that's already complex and punishing like Savage and Extreme (again, try to temper your own biases when considering how this content "feels" to the broader, average player), details as simple as:

• Adjust whether or not to precast Ruin 3, Searing Light, etc, based on later mechanic alignment
• Adjust your opener based on the Jobs in your party
• Make sure to get 6 GCDs out of every Bahoenix
• Don't spend Festers inside Phoenix if you can bring them into the next Searing Light
• Don't forget to Akh Morn / Revelation inside Bahoenix
• Don't forget to Deathflare during Bahamut
• Don't waste your Ruin IV, but also feel free to put it where it fits best
• Remember to insert 1-2 Ruin 3 hardcasts between "loops", or more if your party is intentionally drifting CDs and it's deemed productive for you to do so as well, rather than intentionally-desyncing; or if you're progging and trying to hold either damage or Phoenix for a specific segment; or if things are just buns-up and you'd rather hold burst until recovering; or etc.
• Make sure to choose your Gem order so that problematic casts (Ruby Rite, Slipstream) don't collide with movement pressure; Ifrit doesn't collide with bad times to pollute the melee zone; the boss doesn't move out of Slipstream; etc.
• Exploit the ability to move Ruins around to help manage problematic Gem phases
• Balance trying to keep Titan's high potency inside raid buffs vs. using its high mobility to manage encounter phases
• Use Radiant Aegis to help your healers / help survive mechanics, and don't get locked out of it at a bad time
• Try not to waste your Rekindle during Phoenix, if it can help your healers
• Weigh the trade-offs carefully if downtime forces you to choose between finishing Gems or leaving Bahoenix sitting off-cooldown
• Consider the possibility of truncating Gems without finishing them
• (etc.)

...are already plenty enough "meat" and "details" to track and adjust around, and feel like they have a "ceiling" to work towards "mastering" on any particular encounter.

It may not be enough for you, but you need to realize that what's "enough" for you may be uncomfortably over-the-head of the wider population.

I don't think I've ever seen truer words spoken on these forums, and it continually shocks me that there are people saying "that's not true" when it's very much and entirely true.

.

EDIT2: The pushback you're getting shows you've probably hit close to the mark/touched a nerve. "Thou doest protest too much" kind of a thing.

Though I applaud your effort...I fear it's a lost cause. From talking with people on these forums, Reddit, etc, I've found it's almost impossible to convince a skill-focused player that not everyone thinks like them. They will admit on some level that's true, but then deny it in every way when you mention specifics, and they'll insist that their insults and caricatures aren't insults and caricatures - as if someone could take being called lazy and entitled in a non-insulting way... <_< ...which wouldn't even be so bad, except for how quick such people are to respond negatively to perceived insults or caricatures of themselves.

It constantly shocks me that skill focused people believe they know what non-skill focused people are thinking and want, that only they get to talk about Job design, and that there's no possible way anyone else can understand what it is they really want. Double standards to insane levels...

[Deo14]

You're going to have to tell me what "snip" means.

It means that original quote is too long or poster couldn't be bothered to post it whole, so if you want to see it, use the link in the quote to be redirected. Don't tell me you don't know how links in quotes work, you intentionally removed that link when you gave me that misquoted quoted back in the Gauius' deleted thread, trying to trick me and hoping it will win you your argument, thinking I won't bother to find original quote. Oh boy how it backfired for you.

As for casuals - depends on the type. But generally speaking, if people are min/maxing, they aren't casuals. That's kind of the only true dividing line between "casuals" and "hardcores" (most of the rest are subjective).

Generally speaking, casuals are players who play 1-2 hours a game, it's not neccessary related to the kind of content they do, or the way they do it. Sure there is more to it, but time spent is most universal and accurate way how to distinquish between casuals, midcore and hardcore players.

If you want to use minmaxing to identify casuals, you will end up with people who spend 10+ hours a day, but are still considered casuals, while players who spend 1.5 hours in game per week reclearing savage tier will be considered hardcore.

Where did I say RDM should be made easier? I said that's what your argument supports.

Yes, and I said that there are 2 ways to fix SMN - give SMN more skill expression, or remove RDM's skill expression, and then I added how removing RDM's skill expression is horrible way to achieve this, so adding proper skill ceiling to SMN is the right solution.

[Aravell]

It'd be one thing if there were many other simple and many complex Jobs. But there aren't. There are mostly very complex Jobs, moderate complexity Jobs, and then a handful of low complexity ones. SMN is one of the few, not one of the many.

I get that you're frustrated and want people to see your point, but you're overblowing the situation a little bit. For the skill focused players, there are only 2 real options for technical/complex jobs, Transpose lines BLM and optimal drift MNK. For simple jobs, you have SMN, WAR, WHM, SCH, SGE. BRD, MCH and RPR are simple but rigid. The rest are middling difficulty at best. 2 out of 19 jobs isn't them having mostly complex jobs. You may not agree with what I said, but the skill focused players can speak for themselves.

[Renathras]

It means that original quote is too long or poster couldn't be bothered to post it whole, so if you want to see it, use the link in the quote to be redirected. Don't tell me you don't know how links in quotes work, you intentionally removed that link when you gave me that misquoted quoted back in the Gauius' deleted thread, trying to trick me and hoping it will win you your argument, thinking I won't bother to find original quote. Oh boy how it backfired for you.

What are you talking about? o.O

You mean when I provided the part he left out, you acted like I needed to include the part he already had, and then I went further and gave you a complete explanation for how you were wrong, only for you to vaguely grudgingly half-say you were wrong while insisting it was my fault you were wrong, before you went back to insisting the thing I proved was wrong?

Don't know about liking to threads, I either quote things or I copy things and manually use a quote tag.

Oh wait, is this more of your childish feuding? Moving on.

Generally speaking, casuals are players who play 1-2 hours a game, it's not neccessary related to the kind of content they do, or the way they do it. Sure there is more to it, but time spent is most universal and accurate way how to distinquish between casuals, midcore and hardcore players.

If you want to use minmaxing to identify casuals, you will end up with people who spend 10+ hours a day, but are still considered casuals, while players who spend 1.5 hours in game per week reclearing savage tier will be considered hardcore.

I mean, people that spend 10+ hours a day and don't min max are generally called casuals, yes. Seems like my definition checks out.

Yes, and I said that there are 2 ways to fix SMN - give SMN more skill expression, or remove RDM's skill expression, and then I added how removing RDM's skill expression is horrible way to achieve this, so adding proper skill ceiling to SMN is the right solution.

That's an either-or fallacy, and it's not even a true list of options.

There's no reason we have to EITHER give SMN more skill expression OR remove RDM's skill expression. Not only are their other options (making it an either-or/false dichotomy fallacy, as you present only two and act like they are the only two), but the two you paired together don't even make sense. Why would we remove RDM's skill expression at all? What's wrong with a more complex Job doing slightly more damage and having better combat utility raises?

RDM can keep its current skill level and just do a bit more damage - or even the same amount as now, but I'm in favor of slightly more. That's honestly the best solution.

.

EDIT:

I get that you're frustrated and want people to see your point, but you're overblowing the situation a little bit. For the skill focused players, there are only 2 real options for technical/complex jobs, Transpose lines BLM and optimal drift MNK. For simple jobs, you have SMN, WAR, WHM, SCH, SGE. BRD, MCH and RPR are simple but rigid. The rest are middling difficulty at best. 2 out of 19 jobs isn't them having mostly complex jobs. You may not agree with what I said, but the skill focused players can speak for themselves.

Okay, breaking this down by Role:

Tank:
Simple: PLD (PLD is easier than WAR, honestly)
Medium?: WAR?
Complex?: GNB?/DRK?
* GNB is super rigid, but whether complex or not is hard to say, it's more technical. DRK is talked about is "WAR with some things", but the resource management and burst is more like NIN, which is not an easy Job. "Outside of burst it's braindead" doesn't counter the burst being super high performance to properly execute, considering how much of modern Job output is from properly executing the opener and burst windows. As much as people meme on WAR, optimal WAR play does involve proper pooling, stocking, and spending resources, and maintaining a personal buff. While this isn't terribly high end gameplay, note that the resources interact with each other in somewhat complex ways. Infuriate generates resources and empowers spenders, spenders themselves reduce the CD of Infuriate so that it isn't static, and you want to pool resources to use them in burst, unlike PLD's rotation which barely cares and only gives slight improvements if you put the "best" CDs under Fight or Flight or not - that is, the ideal of having pressed 1-2 but having your prior combo's Holy Spirit ready, so after Goring and Confetior combo, you hit Holy Spirit, then Royal Authority, another Holy Spirit, and your high damage Atonement combo...but the difference between getting this right and not is negligible, compared to WAR getting theirs right or not. WAR's, by comparison, is a moving target where hitting it or whiffing it is somewhat significant.

Healers:
Simple: WHM
Medium: SGE
Complex: AST/SCH
* This one gets difficult to parse because it depend strongly on whether we're talking progression/new content or farming old content, where all the Healer DPS kits are pretty simple other than a bit of Energy Drain optimizing on SCH and correctly performing AST's burst (the DRK/NIN issue again). However, to look at the Jobs as their design skill cap, we have to be looking at the former of those two, and for progression in new and difficult content, fully optimizing AST and SCH's kits becomes much more complex. SGE is a medium point in this context, since it's abilities are more simple and effective than SCH's, but still require some pre-planning and resource management to function well. SGE's abilities are also more technical and its fallbacks aren't as powerful. Where WHM can salvage most situations by resorting to Cure 2 spam with some Thin Airs and Solace in the mix, SGE doesn't have that option and will run dry on resources quickly if not properly using its oGCDs well. WHM's, on the other hand, are all simple and direct, with only a few abilities with some nuance and indirect effects, namely Plenary Indulgence and Lilybell, with everything else pretty much just doing what it says on the tin, and even those two abilities aren't terribly complex. Even their "oGCD stand-ins" of Solace and Rapture are simple and direct, and the difference between optimizing Misery and not is RELATIVELY minor, all things considered.

Melee:
Simple: RPR (from what I understand, haven't toyed around with it yet)
Medium: SAM
Complex: DRG, NIN, MNK
* Here again, it depends on how one means it, but in a general sense, RPR is relatively easy to pick up and at least understand what the Job wants you to d and play somewhat optimally. SAM has some work to do to get there, but really for very high end stuff. DRG, NIN, and MNK are three varieties of complex, with DRG being very rigid and technical, NIN like DRK and AST has very busy burst phases which it is essential to perform correctly as well as the opener, but the downtime rotation is fairly chill while still managing one personal buff and some resource pooling/spending decisions, and of course MNK is MNK.

Ranged:
Simple? Medium? Complex?: BRD, DNC, MCH
* These are all kind of wonky to rank well. BRD is a proc factory, which many people do not consider simple. On paper, you maintain two DoTs with a single ability, but are punished with two GCDs if they fall off, you keep song's going, you use oGCDs roughly on CD, and you respond to procs. But there are A LOT of procs, and it's easy for players to be overwhelmed both continuing to juggle the plates they must continue to juggle (songs + DoTs) while responding to all the procs, and the rotation changes and branches - even the opener branches depending on what does and doesn't proc - all at the same time. What's more, BRD's optimal rotation isn't just to cycle through songs, but rather to use each one to a SPECIFIC number of seconds, and it has optimization decisions to make regarding Apex Arrow and Pitch Perfect usages. NONE OF THAT is "simple". At easiest, BRD would be a Medium Job, and debatably Complex, though this depends on the player. MCH has the DRK/AST/NIN issue again - super high octane burst (and among the highest APMs in the game), but a relatively chill downtime. Optimal rotation requires proper resource management and pooling understanding, and the burst is simple, but the Wildfire window is very tight, making it difficult based on latency, but also if you hesitate on a button press for even a moment while executing a mechanic. Again, that wouldn't qualify as Simple. DNC is one of those Jobs people only call simple until they understand how many decision points it has, and it's constantly variable. Like BRD, there's no set rotation, and like BRD, there are a lot of procs. Its Step actions both give you a Simon Says system where the penalty for failure is low, but it's also always different. And especially under buff and burst windows, there are a lot of branching decisions based on Fan Dance procs and Espirit. So again, this is probably a Medium Job at this point.

Caster:
Simple: SMN
Medium?: RDM?
Complex: BLM
* We've beaten this one to death. The only reason for the question mark on RDM is that truly high end RDM optimization actually IS much more technical and exacting, possibly harder than most BLM play, and that unless you're doing Transpose lines or Infinite Paradoxes, the rotation itself is theoretically not too difficult.

I think part of all this comes down to where people draw the lines between simple, moderate, and complex. You can say 2 out of 19 are complex, but I'd say at least 6 are, and at least one in each role (other than Ranged, because Ranged is weird). Likewise, you say 5 are simple with a further 3 being "simple but rigid", while I say only 5 are simple...but don't even have the same ones as simple as you do - you list WAR as simple where I might not, but don't list PLD as simple where it clearly is per my way of looking at it.

.

The skill focused players can speak for themselves, true.

...but so can the straightforward desiring players, whatever name we give them.

Neither side gets a monopoly on the conversation.

.

EDIT2:

Notice that I never once said that any one side can't speak on the issue, I'm only offering another opinion. You can take it as you will.

I didn't say you did?

I'm, likewise, offering another opinion. You can take it as you will, as well.

[Aravell]

The skill focused players can speak for themselves, true.

...but so can the straightforward desiring players, whatever name we give them.

Neither side gets a monopoly on the conversation.

Notice that I never once said that any one side can't speak on the issue, I'm only offering another opinion. You can take it as you will.

[Deo14]

What are you talking about? o.O

You mean when I provided the part he left out, you acted like I needed to include the part he already had, and then I went further and gave you a complete explanation for how you were wrong, only for you to vaguely grudgingly half-say you were wrong while insisting it was my fault you were wrong, before you went back to insisting the thing I proved was wrong?

Don't know about liking to threads, I either quote things or I copy things and manually use a quote tag.

Oh wait, is this more of your childish feuding? Moving on.

What a nice streak of derailing the whole point of your whole slidecasting argument. What's the counter at, octuple down?

I mean, people that spend 10+ hours a day and don't min max are generally called casuals, yes. Seems like my definition checks out.

Now this is good signature material. Gaius don't steal this one from me, you already stole my "server side reshader".

That's an either-or fallacy, and it's not even a true list of options.

There's no reason we have to EITHER give SMN more skill expression OR remove RDM's skill expression. Not only are their other options (making it an either-or/false dichotomy fallacy, as you present only two and act like they are the only two), but the two you paired together don't even make sense. Why would we remove RDM's skill expression at all? What's wrong with a more complex Job doing slightly more damage and having better combat utility raises?

RDM can keep its current skill level and just do a bit more damage - or even the same amount as now, but I'm in favor of slightly more. That's honestly the best solution.

Whole point is that if those two things are not at least somewhat balanced, then SMN will always be preffered to RDM, because you simply get more for less effort. And if you want RDM to deal more damage, SMN will be getting out of content. Feels like me and others are just repeating ourselves, and others don't listen and don't even give real counter-arguments.

[Ivtrix]

Semi-counterpoint: Then the answer is just having at least one Job in each role be exceptionally easy.

Both RPR and DNC have a lower barrier to entry compared to other jobs in their field, yet both have a surprising amount of skill expression. There are already player perceived “easy jobs” in all dps fields. But SMN continues to be the one without skill expression

[remiff]

the summoner has a strong visual identity and beautiful spells since the rework but in late game because below level 72 except dreadwyrm trance/bahamut the animations are all the same ruin spell without visual interest,
but on the other hand his spell rotation is totally tasteless and uninspired.