Revisiting the 10 year roadmap

[Ath192]

This is one and only area of CBU3 that I genuinely hope they just flat out fire everyone (job team) because they are incredibly incompetent.

Firing people isn’t the solution. They just need to change what their goals are. These sorts of comments create a lot of animosity between devs and the player base because they read these things sometimes. We are not talking in a vacuum here.

I completely dislike the state of the game and how disposable it has become but I don’t think it’s because they can’t change it, it’s because they want to do something else with it. Either way if it continues down this path I will stop playing it but I wouldn’t like to see heads rolling on the team.

I do hope they realize their 10 year road map is less about giving the MMO enthusiasts what they want and more about ignoring them and trying to get people who don’t like MMOs to play XIV. This is a slap in the face to their current customers because they are ignoring us to chase the people who haven’t wanted to play the game.

[Tsumdere]

To put it as gently as possible, you have no idea what went into that decision and have no grounds to justify that statement other than being mad. You're perfectly allowed to not like it and want it to go back - I'm still bitter about Kaiten and will probably die mad about it - but it's very likely there's telemetry data driving this decision that none of us are privy to.

Firing people isn’t the solution. They just need to change what their goals are. These sorts of comments create a lot of animosity between devs and the player base because they read these things sometimes. We are not talking in a vacuum here.

I completely dislike the state of the game and how disposable it has become but I don’t think it’s because they can’t change it, it’s because they want to do something else with it. Either way if it continues down this path I will stop playing it but I wouldn’t like to see heads rolling on the team.

I do hope they realize their 10 year road map is less about giving the MMO enthusiasts what they want and more about ignoring them and trying to get people who don’t like MMOs to play XIV. This is a slap in the face to their current customers because they are ignoring us to chase the people who haven’t wanted to play the game.

I dun care if they don't like me. And they don't read these forums anyways.

Just tired of people squawking about "buh hard to balance buh" and "you don't know what they are thinking uwu they got so much data" when we ALSO have data through FFLogs and Lucky Bancho. Players aren't stupid. We're not in the dark.

Also Kaiten change was very stupid because it didn't solve any the issues they claimed to want to change, but altered the playstyle to Shinten spam. SAM still has button bloat and still has incredibly wide damage variance. And like... every job presses buttons... before other buttons... That's how rotations work. If they wanted to get rid of "buttons we always pressed before skills" they should remove the 12 from every 123. Remove Life Surge. Remove Reassemble. Remove Requiescat. Remove Blood Weapon. ETC ETC

Truly genius.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Also Kaiten change was very stupid because it didn't solve any the issues they claimed to want to change, but altered the playstyle to Shinten spam. SAM still has button bloat and still has incredibly wide damage variance. And like... every job presses buttons... before other buttons... That's how rotations work. If they wanted to get rid of "buttons we always pressed before skills" they should remove the 12 from every 123. Remove Life Surge. Remove Reassemble. Remove Requiescat. Remove Blood Weapon. ETC ETC

I don't think the buttons you listed can be compared to Kaiten that easily...


123 combos aren't transformative in the way using abilities is so that one I don't get why we compare it.
Requiescat isn't a "press before every single Holy Spirit" button, though at Lv90 it is basically the glorified spell combo opener.
Life Surge is best used on Full Thrust / Heaven's thrust, but you don't use it on every single Full Thrust / Heaven's Thrust.
Reassemble is best used on Drill / Air Anchor / Chainsaw, however you don't use it on every single Drill / Air Anchor / Chainsaw.
Blood Weapon is a glorified Infuriate since Shadowbringers and was a Haste buff + resource generation boost pre Shadowbringers, why is this listed?

The reason why Kaiten was different, which is likely why they did the change they did, is because other than pre Lv52 and pre 62 on AOE, there was never a single instance where you DIDN'T press Kaiten -> Iaijutsu, you did always and without question as any of the Iaijutsu's charged with Kaiten was a complete gain over using Shinten/Kyuten and/or using Kaiten on non-Iaijutsu combo finishers. It was so baseline you always did, which they saw as "well if you always do it, why do we even have the option to use it without?" and decided to get rid of it.

Do I like it? Personally yes and I say this as someone who lost Dark Arts and Speed Weapon, because it was a 100% mandatory button press on every Iaijutsu without question. Do I understand why people are pissed? Also yes, it essentially didn't get any Kenki spender replacement.

That said, where is my Hissatsu: Seigan counterattack? I miss that one a ton more than Hissatsu: Kaiten and just flat Kenki gain on Third Eye is boring.

[Eorzean_username]

The reason why Kaiten was different, which is likely why they did the change they did, is because other than pre Lv52 and pre 62 on AOE, there was never a single instance where you DIDN'T press Kaiten -> Iaijutsu, you did always and without question as any of the Iaijutsu's charged with Kaiten was a complete gain over using Shinten/Kyuten and/or using Kaiten on non-Iaijutsu combo finishers. It was so baseline you always did, which they saw as "well if you always do it, why do we even have the option to use it without?" and decided to get rid of it.

Which is why this is a perfect example of SE's tendency to "overcorrect" on potentially-legitimate criticisms — outright-obliterating things, rather than first refining them.

Oftentimes, SE sees "A" is a problem, and then decides to Plunge straight from "A" to "Z" in one go.

Rather than something like:

A — Manually press a separate Kaiten key before every Iaijutsu.

M — Each Iaijutsu now automatically consumes up to 20 Kenki per use to increase its damage by up to 50%.

Z — Completely remove Kaiten, bake its potency into Iaijutsu baseline, and push all Kenki management onto Shinten.

...where "M" would accomplish everything that removing Kaiten supposedly did, while also still retaining an extra layer of Kenki reward and management, as well as the possibility of automatically performing the Kaiten animation that people are attached to.

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This "A to Z" habit is a very strange, impatient design style, and probably a manifestation of too few designers having too many tasks under too much pressure... so there's a tendency to not want to keep too many long-term "plates spinning" in terms of wait-and-see observations.

Also, it's probably seen as more efficient for an overworked/understaffed team to rebalance the Potencies of a Job fewer times total — which may also contribute to not wanting to make incremental changes, and rather try to just "get to the point" that they imagine is the ultimate endpoint anyway (something that we see in a lot of other FFXIV design, where Yoshida frequently justifies it as "Oh, that would have happened anyway" or "Oh, everyone would have done that anyway" — eg, turning Dungeons into rigid hallways, etc).

[Shurrikhan]

Which is why this is a perfect example of SE's tendency to "overcorrect" on potentially-legitimate criticisms — outright-obliterating things, rather than first refining them.

Oftentimes, SE sees "A" is a problem, and then decides to Plunge straight from "A" to "Z" in one go.

Rather than something like:

A — Manually press a separate Kaiten key before every Iaijutsu.

M — Each Iaijutsu now automatically consumes up to 20 Kenki per use to increase its damage by up to 50%.

Z — Completely remove Kaiten, bake its potency into Iaijutsu baseline, and push all Kenki management onto Shinten.

...where "M" would accomplish everything that removing Kaiten supposedly did, while also still retaining an extra layer of Kenki reward and management, as well as the possibility of automatically performing the Kaiten animation that people are attached to.

That "M" wouldn't actually "accomplish everything that Kaiten" did, though, for a few reasons:

1. You need time enough for the Kaiten animation to go off (without delaying the Iaijutsu itself), if retaining whatever part of the appeal of Kaiten was its animation.
   
   
2. You're removing the ability to salvage a mismanagement. If one would need a Gyoten to cancel an otherwise-fatal knockback or to return to the eye of a 'donut' AoE in time after having burned Sprint early, now they have to actively avoid using Iaijutsu at all.
   
   
3. To many, part of the of Kaiten appeal was that actual key-slide from Kaiten to Iaijutsu, for much the same reason that many PC players fine with using plugins still nonetheless prefer to use separate buttons for each step of a combo, 'wasted' button-space though such may be.

This "A to Z" habit is a very strange, impatient design style, and probably a manifestation of too few designers having too many tasks under too much pressure... so there's a tendency to not want to keep too many long-term "plates spinning" in terms of wait-and-see observations.

On this general point, though, agreed.

[Eorzean_username]

That "M" wouldn't actually "accomplish everything that Kaiten" did, though, for a few reasons:

I am confused, because you quoted my statement, then responded to something that I didn't say.

...where "M" would accomplish everything that removing Kaiten supposedly did, while also still retaining an extra layer of Kenki reward and management, [...]

—————————————————————————————

...But while we're here anyway, for the sake of posterity:

You need time enough for the Kaiten animation to go off (without delaying the Iaijutsu itself), if retaining whatever part of the appeal of Kaiten was its animation.

Technically correct, but there are plenty of possibilities for adapting this to function, such as automatically performing "The Twirl" upon reaching 20 Kenki, or simply re-keying how the Iaijutsu animation itself progresses.

—————————————————————————————

You're removing the ability to salvage a mismanagement. If one would need a Gyoten to cancel an otherwise-fatal knockback or to return to the eye of a 'donut' AoE in time after having burned Sprint early, now they have to actively avoid using Iaijutsu at all.

This example seems ridiculous to me.

I cannot think of a situation in which any serious Samurai would not be mortally-embarrassed to have spent Kenki needed for Kaiten on a gap-closer, and in that case, it's an obvious misplay and lack of proper planning that "deserves" a rotational "slap on the wrist" — especially if operating by the standards of "skill expression" argued for so frequently around here.

Furthermore, in my off-the-cuff example of a mid-way compromise for Kaiten (which was not meant as an actual technical design document), it says:

M — Each Iaijutsu now automatically consumes up to 20 Kenki per use to increase its damage by up to 50%.

...Meaning that, in the situation of your example, the "M" method would actually be more forgiving and allow more salvaging of mismanagement, because if — say — you just had to Gyoten at, say, 25 Kenki to survive a mythical knockback and already blew your Arm's Length, then you could still gain a Kaiten bonus of at least 37.5% when you arrived back in range.

In the "classic Kaiten", you would be faced with an all-or-nothing choice — Iai for 0% bonus, or don't Iai at all. In which case, you're still "actively avoiding using Iaijutsu at all". (?)

—————————————————————————————

To many, part of the of Kaiten appeal was that actual key-slide from Kaiten to Iaijutsu

If we're now getting into "key-slides" being a justification for never editing anything, then the game's design has basically become paralytic and ossified.

Developers should not be held hostage to people wanting to press an exact number of keys (which, yes, works in both directions, and is an issue with excessive "bloat reduction" crusades as well).

If the "key slide" change is that offensive, create a pure-text macro that emotes, "/e <0> activated Kaiten!" and push it before each Iaijutsu.

That said, I'm aware that gaming is a complex experience from the user-satisfaction perspective, and I'm not trying to glibly invalidate that some people genuinely took satisfaction from this (or any other subtle detail that's been deprecated over time).

I'm just saying that, sooner or later, "something has to budge" when designers want to design, and while "non-destructive editing" is an ideal to follow in concept, it's not always going to work out in practice.

In that sense, "I lost my key slide" is going to end up pretty low on the list of potential consequences, and join a gigantic pile of other actions that have also gone extinct over time.

Like yeah, I personally miss my "key slide" of Cleric Stance into SCH DOTpocalypse and Dark Arts into... everything, but at some point I had to "Remember that we lived" and move on with the day.

[Reimmi]

I don't think the buttons you listed can be compared to Kaiten that easily...


123 combos aren't transformative in the way using abilities is so that one I don't get why we compare it.
Requiescat isn't a "press before every single Holy Spirit" button, though at Lv90 it is basically the glorified spell combo opener.
Life Surge is best used on Full Thrust / Heaven's thrust, but you don't use it on every single Full Thrust / Heaven's Thrust.
Reassemble is best used on Drill / Air Anchor / Chainsaw, however you don't use it on every single Drill / Air Anchor / Chainsaw.
Blood Weapon is a glorified Infuriate since Shadowbringers and was a Haste buff + resource generation boost pre Shadowbringers, why is this listed?

The reason why Kaiten was different, which is likely why they did the change they did, is because other than pre Lv52 and pre 62 on AOE, there was never a single instance where you DIDN'T press Kaiten -> Iaijutsu, you did always and without question as any of the Iaijutsu's charged with Kaiten was a complete gain over using Shinten/Kyuten and/or using Kaiten on non-Iaijutsu combo finishers. It was so baseline you always did, which they saw as "well if you always do it, why do we even have the option to use it without?" and decided to get rid of it.

Do I like it? Personally yes and I say this as someone who lost Dark Arts and Speed Weapon, because it was a 100% mandatory button press on every Iaijutsu without question. Do I understand why people are pissed? Also yes, it essentially didn't get any Kenki spender replacement.

That said, where is my Hissatsu: Seigan counterattack? I miss that one a ton more than Hissatsu: Kaiten and just flat Kenki gain on Third Eye is boring.

The reason it was good for the game is it added error to play, where if you didn't use kaiten on your abilities you lost damage

The game needs a higher skill ceiling, not lower. the skill floor is already pretty low for most jobs, but things like that are objectively good for the game.

You don't need to do it to succeed, but a player who does do it stands out more. even if kaiten is a relatively minor upkeep thing, the point still stands

[Sindele]

I dun care if they don't like me. And they don't read these forums anyways.

Just tired of people squawking about "buh hard to balance buh" and "you don't know what they are thinking uwu they got so much data" when we ALSO have data through FFLogs and Lucky Bancho. Players aren't stupid. We're not in the dark.

Also Kaiten change was very stupid because it didn't solve any the issues they claimed to want to change, but altered the playstyle to Shinten spam. SAM still has button bloat and still has incredibly wide damage variance. And like... every job presses buttons... before other buttons... That's how rotations work. If they wanted to get rid of "buttons we always pressed before skills" they should remove the 12 from every 123. Remove Life Surge. Remove Reassemble. Remove Requiescat. Remove Blood Weapon. ETC ETC

Truly genius.

The problem is that our data is in the dark compared to their data.

Can you slice your data to break down the Kaiten usage of players that leveled SAM from at least 52 to 55 but no more than 89 in the past 30 days? What about those who did that in the last 60 and then haven't played SAM in the last 30 days? How about the Kaiten usage rates of players that attempted content above Extreme difficulty as SAM and then went on to not play it for over 30 days?

No. You can't. It's literally not possible to do with any kind of useful accuracy, FFLogs is a fraction of a fraction of the relevant data to a business. Player data sources simply are not complete enough. You and I cannot know what went into that decision unless they tell us. It is truly a completely different level of ability to peer into the practicality of what players do.

You can certainly argue that the result is silly, heaven knows I have. You can certainly argue with the lack of transparency and obfuscatory responses. But "hur dur they clearly don't play the job" is just useless clownshoes nerd emoji behavior. Gotta be willing to put yourself in the mindset of "why would they think this was a good decision?", even for the decisions you hate, if you want to understand them and how to avoid them in the future.

[Aravell]

You can certainly argue that the result is silly, heaven knows I have. You can certainly argue with the lack of transparency and obfuscatory responses. But "hur dur they clearly don't play the job" is just useless clownshoes nerd emoji behavior. Gotta be willing to put yourself in the mindset of "why would they think this was a good decision?", even for the decisions you hate, if you want to understand them and how to avoid them in the future.

I would agree that "They clearly don't play the job" is a useless argument most of the time, especially in regards to Kaiten, since removing Kaiten does not significantly break the job in any way. It changes the flow and makes some aspects unsatisfying, sure, but it really doesn't completely break the job and stop it from functioning. However, they have broken jobs before and made them unable to function properly, like when they briefly removed Hagakure from SAM and Energy Drain from SCH, it's fair to say "They clearly didn't test this" in those cases, because you'd clearly notice a job was unable to function properly if you actually tested it.

[Deo14]

I would agree that "They clearly don't play the job" is a useless argument most of the time, especially in regards to Kaiten, since removing Kaiten does not significantly break the job in any way. It changes the flow and makes some aspects unsatisfying, sure, but it really doesn't completely break the job and stop it from functioning. However, they have broken jobs before and made them unable to function properly, like when they briefly removed Hagakure from SAM and Energy Drain from SCH, it's fair to say "They clearly didn't test this" in those cases, because you'd clearly notice a job was unable to function properly if you actually tested it.

Argument is usually not about functionality, it's more about "if they actually were in touch with said job, they would have immediately realized why this change is stupid, and why would majority of players hate it". Are people's standards so low they're fine with "at least it's functional"?

I really doubt if whoever is behind Kaiten changes actually played SAM, he would conclude that removing it is a solution. When it comes to action bloat, you could reduce Kenki generation or increase cost of Shinten/Kaiten, when it comes to button bloat, you could finally merge Iki with Ogi, and possibly merge some ST/AoE skill pairs. Future proofing also makes no sense, since we still have no replacement for it. It was simply dumb change, which didn't solve anything.

I wouldn't say that it's about testing either, because they clearly didn't fully test SAM, since now you spend a whooping 20-23% of all actions on pressing Shinten. If they actually tested it and concluded that it is fine that you have 30+ skills, but spend more than 20% of your time pressing single one of them (especially since it's just an oGCD), then I think it's safe to say that job design is at the bottom of Mariana Trench, and they're just digging a hole to get even lower.