I was almost in the mood to play FF14 again

[Renathras]

You didn't, you merely corrected my use of hyperbole and wrote like 4 essays so far about it. Just send the links for the "well thought out counters to it having been removed" you talked about so the discussion can actually start. So far we've been just throwing technicalities around without anything meaningful.

I WASN'T REPLYING TO YOU:

Partly a meme, partly rose-tinted goggles, partly some people just like to have something to complain about, and partly some people just liked it.

And I don't mean that to be derisive - some people genuinely liked it - but mechanically, it was like PLD having Fight of Flight and Requiescat. You never used the second without the first, so it didn't bring anything to the table. It also made balance and the auto crit stuff kind of weird and devalued crit and stuff (this was before they implemented the "auto-crit/direct hit abilities do more damage based on crit/direct hit effects" thing, which would have helped with that). It was slightly more involved since it was tied to pooling a resource, but in practice, it was kind of bland in the "you always use these together, why have a second button?" way.

But some people really really liked it. I've also seen very rational and sober minded theorycrafters and guide makers say that it really wasn't all that and explain why they thought so. So both sides have a decent argument to make. (It's funny, I still haven't leveled SAM...but I still have the grayed out version on my bar for posterity. )

You're right, though, that SAM feels very good right now. If you never played with Kaiten and you do like current SAM, don't feel like you have to hate it or should "join the chorus", just keep loving the thing you love. Nothing wrong with that. : )

EDIT:



Believe it or not, the complaints are not unanimous.

Again, there are theory crafters, guide makers, etc that can give reasoned arguments for why Kaiten's removal was not a bad thing/was a good thing. On other forums (not this one for some reason), the position is not unanimous. Reddit, for example, but r/ffxiv and r/ffxivdiscussion (which is more technically minded people discussing mechanics and stuff) has dissent against Kaiten being a good ability.

I'm not saying one way or the other - both sides, imo, have good arguments - but I am saying complaints are not unanimous.

.

Oh, and don't get me wrong, I don't know that removing Kaiten WAS a good idea. I'm just pointing out there is more discussion/disagreement on the topic than skimming this forum would suggest.

I wasn't correcting YOUR "use of hyperbole", and I didn't write "like 4 essays". I made a note of it in one post where I was also talking about other things. That post wasn't even responding to you. It was replying to Raikai and Ggwppino, respectively. YOU weren't even part of that conversation.

YOU decided to become party of that conversation and YOU are the one that picked a fight about it and accused me of bad faith and moving goalposts and technicalities, and then refused to admit when you were wrong, which is why I've made several posts to reply to your inability to just say you were wrong in your knee-jerk attack on me in the first place. All you had to do was NOT make that initial knee-jerk post to someone who wasn't addressing you or NOT attack said person or not continue to make posts bashing the person or not try to get off on technicalities when your INITIAL POST was on a technicality you got wrong (accusing me of a goal post move when that was literally the goal post then later trying to weasel out of it with "well, unanimity is just a concept anyway" when it isn't).

And you're still trying to do it.

You're trying to get me to post links so you can attack THEM the same way or, should I not do so, so you can attack me as lying or not having any. You haven't learned the lesson and you're still trying to do the same thing. Because you don't want a good faith discussion. Even after me saying straight up THAT I SUPPORT YOUR OVERALL POSITION:

This is my position as well.

It IS an obsession, people that want it back ARE irrational in how they will lash out at anyone they perceive as preventing that (even if said person has actual arguments or is offering fair rebuttal to them), but I personally don't care. If it made people happy, give it back to them? As long as it isn't making a bunch of other people upset, what's the harm? No one hurt, lots more happy, win-win/net positive.

You can't take the L and, for some reason, you ALSO can't take yes for an answer. Maybe you should at least try doing the latter of those things.

.

Have a meager but coherent job (and not even that much since the whole aetherflow system no longer makes sense to exist and doesn't go well with the rest and the carbuncle which is arm candy), or have a "Frankenstein's monster" but that everything had to be reasoned? The second for me, thank you.
And still a job that literally makes you spam a single button for 30 seconds and having 2 out of 3 elementals doing the same stuff I really wouldn't consider it a job well done, maximum ifrit is well reasoned by designers, just as I don't consider a job well done if for 90 levels it stays the same and increases just the powers of the skills.

And yes, I agree, if they hadn't done the crap of reworking a job by not considering the old smn players looking for a certain challenges, the new smn wouldn't have been hated so deeply. At least by me.

Small parenthesis that I don't want to dwell on too much. The protagonist is the sam and how slowly they are emptying it.

I agree that Aetherflow on new SMN seems mostly vestigial (just have Painflaire - which is SMN aesthetically since it's a Bahamut attack - as a 30 sec oGCD that stacks to 2 charges and have Further Ruin/Ruin IV triggered by Summoning Baha/Phoenix (so it's still 1 per min) and it would make a lot more sense.

I don't consider SMN meager, it's actually a functional and intuitive Job, which is probably why it's one of the most played. It's the only Caster you don't actually need to read an internet guide on a third party site that was developed using non-ToS compliant tools to get good performance (50+) from. You can literally read the tooltips and figure it out on your own and be fairly close to what theorycrafters can do, which means a well designed Job. Jobs that require third party tools and out-of-game guides to get good at are, imo, not well designed. SMN has some nuance to it and a rotation that has solid anchor points (Summons) while also being flexible in the order you play out the module/segments of it (Primals) which allows skill expression by choosing when to use the different parts. Contrast with something like DRG which is hyper rigid so you have little you can adjust to reward fight knowledge, or DNC/BRD where there are so many procs that you can barely exercise foresight at all.

SMN and PLD both have a good system where the parts of the rotation can be moved, meaning players thinking ahead can adapt to get better performance. SMN also has a bit of optimization somewhat on par (somewhat) with SCH's Energy Drain in its own use of Festers. That is, it's not optimal to ED+2xFester in the Baha/Phoenix phases. It's optimal to Energy Drain in each, but hold the Festers you get from the odd minutes (Phoenix) until you get into raid buffs on the even minute (Baha), spend the two Festers then ED then two more Festers. It's also optimal to use Titan under raid buffs UNLESS the fight is such that you need that movement later within the cycle, meaning each 2 min cycle you have a chance for optimization via fight knowledge of whether to use Titan for max damage or to use Ifrit if that's the safest time to do so so you have better uptime later. Further, even if you do an Ifrit at the wrong time, you can improve with that as well by placing your Ruin IV and/or Swifcasts there.

SMN has more depth than people actually give it credit for. The thing is, the depth is INTUITIVE (which means good design) and not clunky, and for some reason some people think "mastering clunk" is skill, and the gap between doing it right or doing it wrong is fairly small (unless you're so bad you're dropping Primals or drifting Demis really bad; though there IS actually a build which optimizes on that). But it's deeper than most people's initial analysis gives it credit. It'd be like saying you an play RDM by going to 50/50 then melee phase and doing that over and over. Yeah, you CAN, but that's hardly optimized. Knowing when to and not to do your melee combo, which abilities to use to bend proc RNG into your favor, etc, are all important skills which give the Job depth despite that.

.

In accordance with my general viewpoint, though, I think the harder/less intuitive Jobs also should absolutely be in the game. Because I 100% get that many people enjoy that and I want things in the game that diverse people can enjoy. But I don't think it's the best design.

Old SMN was a mashup of "we're adding a new mechanic this expansion and don't care if it actually synergizes with the existing kit or not" done 3 times. It somehow still worked, but very few people would have figured out how to play it anywhere close to correctly without guides.

Also - more hyperbole - there's no point in SMN's rotation where you press only one button for 30 seconds. Nor do 2 out of 3 elements do "the same stuff". That's like saying BLM's Thunder and Fire spells both "just do damage" so it's the same, regardless of how the cadence differs between them or the mechanics associated with the abilities.

I do think - and will die on this hill - that new SMN should have been added as Evoker or something, and if they REALLY wanted it to be "Summoner" (since old SMN really WASN'T very Summoner-y), they should have retained the old gameplay by making IT the new Job (Green Mage would have been pretty fitting for a poison and debilitating mechanic Job). They shouldn't have just removed it.

I'm pretty much always against blanket removal of things - old SMN, old PLD, old Kaiten - and in general, I think the game is better when things are being added to it instead of taken from it. They literally did a total rework of SMN to the point they could have added it outright as a new Job (just give old SMN some potency boosts, new VFX, and some oGCD that gives them a full 4 stacks of Further Ruin and let them play with that). Would have made a lot fewer people upset to almost do nothing with old SMN vs to remove it.

It's why I'm worried about the DRG remake, since they're giving it the same explanation as SMN "We weren't sure where else we could go with it". Pretty sure if they asked the community, the community would have some ideas. And hell, if a Job is "essentially perfect", WHY CHANGE IT? "It needs something new every expansion like everyone else" is not a compelling argument to me if it means moving AWAY from perfection.

[Deo14]

Bruh, just send the goddamn links you were talking about at the beginning.

Don't try your deflections, this thread has just 6 pages, anyone can read it through to get enough context, you won't fool anyone.

[Renathras]

Bruh, take the L.

If THIS is what you want for "discourse" or "argument", then I can oblige in dishing your own medicine back at you.

The fact you WANT to attack someone LITERALLY saying they want you to get your whiny cry-baby way is just you being beyond stupid. The only one trying to "fool" people is you. Anyone reading this can see you've been arguing in bad faith, you attacked me for no reason, you butted into a conversation you weren't involved in or mentioned in, you belittled me repeatedly in posts up to and including posting a whining gif, you made it about you, then you cried about technicalities and tried to attack me more to save face instead of just admitting you were wrong.

Get over yourself.

[Deo14]

Bruh, take the L.

What L? I backed up all my claims, while you were ranting about some irrelevant technicalities. Your only argument was:

Again, there are theory crafters, guide makers, etc that can give reasoned arguments for why Kaiten's removal was not a bad thing/was a good thing. On other forums (not this one for some reason), the position is not unanimous. Reddit, for example, but r/ffxiv and r/ffxivdiscussion (which is more technically minded people discussing mechanics and stuff) has dissent against Kaiten being a good ability.

And you have yet to provide source. Even if you disagree with everything I say, what's holding you from just linking it? Surely you didn't made this up, did you?

[ZiraZ]

Bruh, take the L.

Are you a parody account?
I've never seen so much brainlet drivel with nothing to back anything up in a thread about SAM when you don't even have a 90 SAM while constantly being dead wrong about everything
You do know the mount is for 2k mentor roulettes and not 2k posts right?

[Deo14]

Are you a parody account?
I've never seen so much brainlet drivel with nothing to back anything up in a thread about SAM when you don't even have a 90 SAM while constantly being dead wrong about everything
You do know the mount is for 2k mentor roulettes and not 2k posts right?

I don't think he is, even though his essays do give the ChatGPT vibes. He always makes his mind at the start, and then never backs down, no matter what. He even claimed that BLM cannot slidecast, and when few people politely corrected him, he did same thing as he's doing here and tried to defend himself by any means necessary. Then people start to make fun of him for it, then he throws tantrum. Next week comes, and he does that again.

This is the lengths he's willing to go to prove he's right:

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.

[Renathras]

What L? I backed up all my claims,

You backed up ALL your claims?

You mean when you accused me of moving a goalpost and I pointed out that was the actual conversation so it wasn't a goalpost move? When did you back up that claim?

When you said there was unanimous agreement that removing Kaiten was bad? When did you back up that claim? You even had to walk it back to "unanimous is just a concept".

You didn't back up all your claims. You didn't back any of them up in your replies to me. As I shot them down, instead of acknowledging it, you kept bringing up more things - mostly insults and personal attacks - that you also couldn't back up.

And you have yet to provide source. Even if you disagree with everything I say, what's holding you from just linking it? Surely you didn't made this up, did you?

Because you won't read them in good faith. YOU JUST SAID SO in General:

Come on, just link it, I want to have a good laugh about what some theory crafters and guide makers think about job design.

Why should I bother going through the forums and YouTube videos I've watched and read over THIS LAST YEAR to find the specific links just for you to mock them and discard them? And the point is, it's not even RELEVANT. The point I was making - which you've since conceded while pretending not to - is that there is not unanimous agreement removing Kaiten was bad. I already proved THAT by pointing out someone in General saying so. Even one person technically breaks unanimity. And by you saying it's just a concept, you even admitted that you know it's not a unanimous position.

MEANING I proved my point and you even admitted it while trying to pretend not to.

I don't live and breathe Kaiten like you do. Meaning I don't save links to discussions about it with the intent of posting them in random places later. I know Mr Happy mentioned it, I believe Wesk Alber mentioned it, and in any given Reddit thread or non-DPS forum thread here where Kaiten is discussed, there are people saying that it being removed wasn't the worst thing ever and that Kaiten itself wasn't an interesting or enjoyable ability, or wasn't mechanically that great. Most will say the issue is having so much gauge now and nothing to spend it on, leading to over-spam which is boring - a similar argument to SCH with Faerie gauge being useless - but not not that Kaiten should be returned, per se. I already posted you one from General, though. You just ignored that.

Are you a parody account?
I've never seen so much brainlet drivel with nothing to back anything up in a thread about SAM when you don't even have a 90 SAM while constantly being dead wrong about everything
You do know the mount is for 2k mentor roulettes and not 2k posts right?

Are you a parody account?
I've never seen so much brainlet drivel with nothing to back anything up in a thread about SAM when you don't even have an argument while constantly being dead wrong about everything
You do know the mount is for 2k mentor roulettes and not 200 posts right?

In short, Dio, your argument is this:

You: "There's unanimous agreement!"
Me: "No there's not."
You: "YES THERE IS!"
Me: "No, there's not."
You: "PROVE IT!"
Me: <proves it>
You: "UNANIMITY IS JUST A CONCEPT!! GIVE ME LINKS TO PEOPLE DISAGREEING!!!"
Me: <quotes people disagreeing>
You: "DOESN'T COUNT! I NEED LINKS TO VIDEOS AND THEORYCRAFTERS AND STUFF!!"
Me: "Why? You won't listen to them and you won't accept the argument that you were wrong on it being unanimous agreement..."
YOU: "POST THEM!!"
Me: "Again, you're just going to mock or attack them. And I don't live and breath Kaiten so I don't have them bookmarked so would have to take time to find them again."
You: "POST THEM SO I CAN LAUGH AT THEM!!!"
Me: "Dude, the argument was whether or not there's unanimous agreement with Kaiten removal being bad, not people trying to give you something to mock."
You: <post crying memes and (more) ridicule>

You're arguing in bad faith. FOUR TIMES you've brought up things from outside this thread to discredit me rather than just admit you were wrong.

And this is how you treat someone...WHO IS AGREEING WITH YOU on bringing Kaiten back!

You're unhinged.

[Deo14]

Why should I bother going through the forums and YouTube videos I've watched and read over THIS LAST YEAR to find the specific links just for you to mock them and discard them? And the point is, it's not even RELEVANT. The point I was making - which you've since conceded while pretending not to - is that there is not unanimous agreement removing Kaiten was bad. I already proved THAT by pointing out someone in General saying so. Even one person technically breaks unanimity. And by you saying it's just a concept, you even admitted that you know it's not a unanimous position.

So you watched some videos about SAM year ago, even though that you still don't have leveled SAM now? You just listened to some videos, while not even knowing how SAM works, and somehow made a conclusion out of it? You just took the author's opinions, without crosschecking with your own knowledge? That's very gullible behaviour, you should first level SAM, play it long enough to get your own opinions, then look up some theory crafters and see if you agree with them or not.

When it comes to providing sources, I did the same for you when you asked me for the source of those numbers in the "Just Quit" thread few weeks back, then you discarded them. Maybe give me back favour? Nevertheless, it's not for me, it's for your redemption, what kind of image do you think you put when you claim something but don't back it up? Also, I wasn't only one who asked you to prove it:

Genuinely curious, could you quote some of these counters? Or are you saying counters in support of it being a bad idea it was removed? Almost every single discussion regarding kaiten I've seen has been against it's removal, or at least pointing out how its removal does nothing of substance. The few posts/comments I have seen that are for kaiten removal were pretty obvious rage bait.

She was very nice to you, much nicer than you deserve, so why won't you give those links to her?

MEANING I proved my point and you even admitted it while trying to pretend not to.

Who could have possibly guess that from multiple million players, there's more than 0 amount of people who agree with Kaiten removal? Great, what did you prove by it? Are you ready to start actual discussion?

Where did you even get that I said unanimously?

What I said is

[Bunch of nonsense, justifying change that commnuity pretty much unanimously disagrees with, and devs have yet to respond to us, after they specifically asked for feedback]

Can you see the "pretty much" part? So why did you started to rant about some 100%? How can phrase "pretty much unanimously" portray same thing as unanimously by itself?

How about asking our little friend about it?


So you try to go after technicalities just to prove your argument, but you fail even at that.

[Renathras]

So you watched some videos about SAM year ago, even though that you still don't have leveled SAM now?

Would you just actually stick to the discussion?

The discussion was "Is there unanimous opposition to Kaiten being removed?" not "Do only people that know everything about SAM watch videos about SAM?"

Once again, since you seem kinda dense and unable to read:

I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU. THIS IS THE POST I WAS TALKING TO:

So is it stupid that your job, most likely main, got neutered overnight because they woke up crooked? So is it silly that with unanimous complaints, designers and devs have blatantly ignored community feedback? Maybe he's one of the least stupid, maybe.

.

Anyway, it's 100% clear you're talking in bad faith. So let's put that to the proof:

And no, this isn't for me. And it's not for you. It's because Spigg did ask nicely and so I'm giving it to her.

I fully expect you to be incapable of admitting you're wrong, much less apologizing for being a jerk. But as I say, let's test that. Let's see if you're acting in good faith or not as a side-game to me answering Spigg's good faith question:

.

Genuinely curious, could you quote some of these counters? Or are you saying counters in support of it being a bad idea it was removed? Almost every single discussion regarding kaiten I've seen has been against it's removal, or at least pointing out how its removal does nothing of substance. The few posts/comments I have seen that are for kaiten removal were pretty obvious rage bait.

Sorry I missed this. Here are a few:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...t_kaiten_post/

"The solution to this isn't really to obsess even more over Kaiten but to develop the class further in a different direction and rebalance its power budget in a way that gives Midare more room and bigger numbers. This isn't an easy problem to solve but it's one the design team absolutely have to confront because they're painting themselves into a corner with their "just add another big finisher" approach every expansion. Kenki obviously needs a rework since it's currently just the place where SAM's leftover design points gets dumped and if we're looking for a mechanic that would reduce the number of iais, well, Hagakure is right there.

(But in the meantime sure, just give people back Kaiten.)"
[While ending with the same position I have "just give it back for now", this person seems not overly upset Kaiten was removed.]

"I could not bring myself to care about Kaiten. It feels like the entire thing was massively over blown, as is the community is want to do all the time. The only real complaints I could get behind was Auto Crits lowered party syngery and even that that's an issue for parse parties only. I don't take part in parse parties. I am still on p4s.

Saving Kenki to use Kaiten on every Iuijitsu wasn't amazing gameplay for me, nor was it a detriment. It just was. The pull to the Job I found was the core rotation of generating Sen and doing Iuijutsu. Kaiten buffed Midare was nice and felt cool but I care more about how the job functions as a whole. Which Kaiten's removal didn't effect for me.

I agree with the widespread sentiment that Kenki management could do with -something- to make it a little more complex and a little less brain dead. I wouldn't know what that something is though."
[Again, person not disagreeing with Kaiten's removal, and seems to think Kaiten's removal has been overblown by the community.]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ill_be_missed/

"Lets be real, The lost of Kaiten doesn't affect SAM DPS or its job at all. (minus 3 DPS? )

You all just miss the weeb animation for it (I know I do)"
[Personally I dislike ad hominems and name calling, but pretty sure we can add this one to "doesn't disagree with Kaiten removal"]

"Eh, I won't miss it at all, honestly. It wasn't an interesting skill to use."
[In the "wasn't interesting/won't miss" camp.]

"I will be honest I felt like it would be a loss initially, but this week I went back to play SAM some more as its not my main job, and to be honest, after a while I was convinced that it will not really be missed after we get used to it, it was just really unnecessary IMO.

I would go so far and say they could just remove the kenki system altogether and just go more into the Iaijutsu skills, its what I love about SAM after all, kenki just feel tacked into the class."
[inb4 "not a SAM main"; remember the question is do people unanimously disagree with Kaiten's removal]

"You'd think Kaiten was the only thing that was good or fun about Samurai based on the doomsaying around here. All it really was was requiring two button presses to do one attack. The animation was cool, but the effect was boring. I'm also generally against unnecessarily keeping things complicated or difficult for the sake of it and Kaiten didn't even do that very well.

I'm sure this comment will be nuked for going against the hive mind but I think all the potency adjustments and crit changes for Samurai are way more interesting/worrying."
[Another case of "Kaiten wasn't interesting, it being removed is fine"]

"An animation. An ANIMATION. I'm both sides of this most of the time but the doomsaying I'm reading is 90 percent about the animation loss, nothing else. At least you see the design perspective. :thumbsup:"

"I was referring to the WORLD IS OVER kinds of reactions for the ones that are basing that end of the class talk on nothing *but* the loss of an animation, yea?"
[Person calling it "doomsaying" and that 90% of the complaints are about the cosmetics of it, not Kaiten actually being any good/the removal being bad.]

"You aren't being dickish. Those people are being insanely over the top hyperbolic to get internet points. Calling out idiots for being idiots is perfectly fine, and the people who say kaiten was the entire job to them are idiots. And just like you said, anyone that ever argues against it is getting downvoted, that's the definition of a hive mind, alternate opinions aren't allowed. Nothing you said was wrong or mean at all. They just don't like hearing it."
[Pretty sure we can include this in the camp as well.]

"But it is the definition of a hive mind. Don't act like reddit isn't an echo chamber where what gets the most upvotes gets amplified. People are saying the core identity of the class is gone because you don't spin a katana anymore. That's fucking silly."
[Same]

"In this past week the number of people saying Samurai lost its identity is insane. One skill with a cool animation was the identity of the entire job? The job is still essentially the same, it is impossible for the identity to have changed."
[Same]

"As a DRK main who does not miss Dark Arts spam, while I am definitely no SAM main, I do feel like Kaiten was samurai's DA. As you say, useless bloat, two buttons to perform one action and illusion of choice at high levels where every use window is already predetermined. Pruning out this kind of illusionary choices to make in your rotation is only good for the gameplay.

The animation was alright and could be used for something else, but the skill itself I'm not going to miss."
[Same]

"Yeah, honestly losing Kaiten isn't as big a deal as this place as making it out to be, but we've got a karma farm going. The crit and potency changes are actually a bigger deal that "But I lost my sword spinny animation!""
[Same]

"Yep. I think the SAM mains just aren’t use to big changes/action removals that is normal with balancing online games"
[Same]

Don't even have to go to other forums, just read somewhere here that isn't the DPS forum:

Ahh, more spam, lovely.

And no, kaiten can stay dead. What we really need is to Un-nerf setsugekka.

Why? Because I genuinely don't care about Kaiten I was apparently not good at SAM? Is that really what we're going to assume here?

There can be SAM players who were great that want Kaiten back.
There can be SAM players who weren't great that want Kaiten back.
There can be SAM players who were great that DON'T want Kaiten Back.
There can be SAM players who weren't great that DON'T want Kaiten back.

If you need a coping mechanism, go get a coping mechanism but don't assume how good someone was at Samurai back then based on how much they want Kaiten back now. That's a strawman if I've ever seen one.

You can also look at my history on a certain site and see certain numbers were higher with than without. I still don't want it back.

In fact, you can see I did best in 4.x, during Sigma, when sam was arguably the jankiest it's ever been.

My favorite playstyle of it is still 5.x, it was near perfect at the end of 5.5. Yet that wasn't because of kaiten.

They made sam terrible with 6.0, before kaiten was removed, not after. Nerfing setsugekka just to add it back as a 120s CD ability ruined sam.

Because I personally don't play Samurai as much as I play tanks. I never had a problem with playing Samurai before nor after. And as much as that devalues my previous comments, as I am fully aware - there is always the option that whoever you are looking up for their parses has more than one character which you wouldn't know unless they told you. To save you the mystery, I don't.

To the original point though, when I said "I" I meant that as a collective for players who don't miss Kaiten, not "I" myself. The point was to call out the baseless claim that it's a two-camp split between "the good SAMs who want Kaiten back" and "the bad SAMs who don't want Kaiten back". One can be biased for all I care, but this is just a strawman argument.

Look, I get you guys are genuinely mad since 6.1, I well acknowledge this but does every single SAM thread have to turn into a segregation between Kaiten-loving-good-SAMs and Kaiten-not-loving-bad-SAMs? The core of the issue, before as after, is that Samurai Kenki spending has been monotonous. The difference between a Shinten and a Kaiten button press is so minimal, I literally couldn't care less.

Seigan? 50-gauge Guren/Senei? Alternative Kenki spending options that actually do something other than damage that still synergizes with SAM's damage tool kit? Maybe a reduction in base Kenki generation if its generated too much? What about giving Shinten -> Kyuten a sort of synergy? Like:

Shinten -> Next Kyuten has Shinten Potency
Kyuten -> Next Shinten is AOE

But no, it has to always be Kaiten, nothing else.

At this point so do I just so they can stop talking about how much they miss it and go back to complaining about the actual issues SAM has...

Most of the people that were mad over its removal aren't even really that mad about Kaiten itself, they're mad that SAM's rotation has devolved into Shinten spam. Kaiten itself wasn't really a very interesting button, it just offered a different button to press than Shinten. So instead of reimplementing Kaiten, why not design a better ability that uses Kenki? That solves the actual issue at hand while also making SAM more interesting than either pre or post Kaiten removal.

I don't even really disagree with a lot of what you said in this particular post. The devs are terrible at listening to feedback. There were much more deserving targets of getting removed/changed if the reason is button bloat. But at the same time, Kaiten wasn't an interesting button. You chained it with certain abilities in literally every case possible, making it essentially a combo action that you weaved. It should have gotten reworked to be more interesting or replaced by something else. It getting removed with no replacement is the only reason why its removal is a problem other than "I think it looked cool".

Outside of that, I believe Wesk Alber mentioned it in one of his videos, though I can't remember which (maybe the Job poll?). Which...I just found:

https://youtu.be/W5V2xhS8GKs?t=230

"SAM meanwhile: Kaiten was bad and should stay gone. Let the animation come back for next expansion, but the skill needs a different effect or be better tied to how the Job's played. Kaiten has been pointless since the Hagukure change. Hagakure is still good and useful in new way, but it isn't integral to the rotation like it used to be."
...and he goes on a bit as to the why.

Further in the video, around 8:30 - "Are people really THAT angry about Kaiten? A BAD skill that didn't need to exist?" "But seriously though, why such a huge drop for SAM? Other than the removal of cones, it's just a better Job all around. Just, SERIOUSLY PEOPLE! Kaiten was ONE skill, and it actively was equally replaced by nearly the same number of Shintens. Do that for the other Jobs and you just loose APM outright."

There was also a Mr Happy (Mondays with Mr Happy) question a month or so ago where he basically said the same thing, and I think he's fielded Kaiten questions more than once and said the same thing each time.

.

In a nutshell, there's plenty of people saying its removal was no big deal or even a good thing since the ability (to them) brought very little to the Job, many with explanations of why they think so.

Very clearly, opposition to its removal is not unanimous, which is the only claim I've made on that topic thus far.