Yoshi P in a nutshell

[Deo14]

With respect, I don't think there is an easy solution to the Kaiten issue. I assume that you mean that the "easy solution" is to just add Kaiten back to the game? But the developers had reasons for removing it, reasons that they stand by. It's fair for you to disagree with that; in fact, it makes sense that you would, considering those reasons were to improve the game's accessibility — which is something that you personally don't directly benefit from — and the method to increase that accessibility was to remove something you liked. A rollback would be positive for players like you, but be negative for the players the devs made the change to improve the experience for; there's nothing easy about deciding which demographic of players to inconvenience when push comes to shove.

Why would one of the most popular jobs need more accessibility? Both skill floor and ceiling is low enough anyway. Why should the changes be aimed at players that don't even play the job, instead to those that main it? And looking at some poll from some youtuber that Ren Thras linked me, it seems that SAM popularity in EW has dropped compared to ShB, and that poll seems to be recent. Obviously better data would be 6.08 vs 6.1, but that's the best we can get.

Those reasons they provided are factually incorrect. Action bloat was proven wrong, it does only change APM outside of the burst and at best, it potentially removes 1 action from burst if you pool 100 Kenki. Button bloat is community made reason, and future proofing is bad excuse, why would you remove something to make a space for new ability, that still didn't come 1.5 years later?

Additionally, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "biggest outlier", but if the magnitude of negative feedback for Kaiten is only a few hundred out of the millions of players the game has, then it wouldn't be ranking among the highest magnitude of feedback. So yeah, I would say it's reasonable not to expect CBU3 to act on feedback provided by any group that's even smaller than that. My best advice would be that when you provide feedback for a game, never, ever expect anything to come of it. At best, you can hope they'll listen and consider your feedback. But replies and changes are a rarity.

There was like 22 changes to SAM in 6.1 patch notes, basically Kaiten removal, making Tenka a goddamn circle for some reason, implementing 4 guaranteed crits (keep in mind that compensation for that was implemented in 6.2), and generally putting potency from big hits to regular GCDs, so now Midare deals about same damage as 2.5 regular GCDs. It even deals less damage than some tank skills. But people don't usually put whole essay about this, they just pinpoint the biggest outlier/frontman, which is Kaiten.

I'll also say that if I were Yoshi-P, I wouldn't respond further to this issue. If Yoshi-P did give you an additional response and told you something along the lines of

"Thanks for the feedback, as expected there were some players who felt negatively about the changes, but that was only a minority of players, so we're sticking with our design,"

...would you be satisfied? I can't speak for you, but I'm guessing most of the pro-Kaiten players wouldn't be. The response they want is a response they agree with, and they've already made it clear they disagree with Yoshi-P's stance. And those players are going to pick apart every last word of what Yoshi-P said, which will fuel a new wave of backlash. The smarter move is to say nothing at all. Especially since the message is only directed at a small subset of players anyway.

What makes you think that it's small subset of players? SAM became most talked job, the "majority" argument is terrible, once again, you won't ever get all players' opinion, that's fine, you just need to learn how to extrapolate data. If this amount of feedback for single specific job is not enough, nothing else is.

Those 100+ likes on Celesti's thread is good chunk, especially since there is 150+ thread just on EN forums. At most in these forums I've seen about 350, and that's about general topics or about roles as a whole, 100+ likes for single job is really decent, and it seems that it's biggest one compared to the rest of the jobs on these forums in EW.

I guess I'd say to write in to the Live Letters, post a message in the forums every few months, respond to any surveys that FF14 sends out. I imagine that gives you the best chance of being heard. But it's just a chance.

I think I'll pass on that. From people that did those, I've seen multiple that got response from other twich chatters that told them to off themselves. GCBTW.

And vitally, accept the fact that these efforts might never bear fruit, and find peace with that. Find ways to continue offering the feedback but to simultaneously allow yourself to move on. It's hard to do this. But it's probably the best path towards health and happiness.

Honestly, if EW wasn't lacking content, I probably wouldn't even be there complaining about it. I still do play SAM, it just feels bad to know that I'm playing worse iteration of job that I like.

It really would be great if the devs could take the consolidation tech from moves like PLD's Confiteor and SMN's Gemshine and apply them to existing classes. I'm 100% onboard for this! Though there may be valid reasons they don't do it? Even though I'd love it? XD

Though even if they did such a thing, they might still feel like the lack of Kaiten makes things even better? Or there may be supplemental reasons in addition to the primary reason. Which is just to say, I would suggest tempering hopes. But it would be nice if a solution like this did work and made everyone happy! ^^

Considering I have not see them talking about button bloat, I doubt it. They even added extra skill to PLD in 6.3, and that job already had most skills in the whole game.

But yeah, at the very least, Iki should merge into Ogi, there's no reason why it shouldn't.

[LilimoLimomo]

Why would one of the most popular jobs need more accessibility?

I presume that Yoshi-P would like for even more players can enjoy it, and the more accessible it is, the more incoming players can do that. This is just my guess, but they seem to be making a big push to make the game more welcoming to casual players.

Both skill floor and ceiling is low enough anyway.

With respect, all I can say is that this is subjective. It seems like Yoshi-P disagrees with your opinion on that, though. And it makes sense that if you have different opinions on this then you'd both be in conflict over actions taken using this as the basis.

Those reasons they provided are factually incorrect. Action bloat was proven wrong, it does only change APM outside of the burst and at best, it potentially removes 1 action from burst if you pool 100 Kenki. Button bloat is community made reason, and future proofing is bad excuse, why would you remove something to make a space for new ability, that still didn't come 1.5 years later?

I don't think you can "disprove" the concept of action bloat because it's a subjective opinion. It seems like you don't feel it's a thing, but in my experience I feel like it's a major thing for all classes. I hope that as things go forward, the devs can find more elegant ways to please both camps.

What makes you think that it's small subset of players? SAM became most talked job, the "majority" argument is terrible, once again, you won't ever get all players' opinion, that's fine, you just need to learn how to extrapolate data. If this is not enough, nothing else is.

Good question, I'll explain. Forums always skew towards hardcore players, and they always skew towards players with negative opinions, which is why they shouldn't ever be treated as representative of the overall player population. It's still good to listen to the feedback there, but it's not a good way to gauge what the overall player base is feeling.

However, Yoshi-P explicitly requested that those who were displeased with the Kaiten change say so on the forums. Out of the 100,000's of players who viewed this request during the Live Letter, less than 400 thought the changes were worth answering Yoshi-P's call to action. To frame that another way, of the X00,000 viewers across Twitch and YouTube who were engaged enough with FF14 to bother watching the Live Letter, less than 0.4% of them were opposed to the change enough to say so when Yoshi-P explicitly asked them to. That's a small subset of players.

I think I'll pass on that. From people that did those, I've seen multiple that got response from other twich chatters that told them to off themselves. GCBTW.

Ugh, that sucks, I had no idea. That's terrible. I can understand not wanting to do that then.

Honestly, if EW wasn't lacking content, I probably wouldn't even be there complaining about it. I still do play SAM, it just feels bad to know that I'm playing worse iteration of job that I like.

Yeah, I feel you there. I was once a WHM main T^T. But things have changed and the result is that I've moved to other classes for the most part. If things change again, I'd be happy to go back to it, but I'm not holding out hope for that; instead, I just try to get the joy I can out of the classes I enjoy as they are now, and I cross my fingers that when changes come they'll improve instead of diminish my enjoyment. ^^;

[Deo14]

I presume that Yoshi-P would like for even more players can enjoy it, and the more accessible it is, the more incoming players can do that. This is just my guess, but they seem to be making a big push to make the game more welcoming to casual players.

But the question is why? There is 19 jobs already, wouldn't it be better to make jobs as distinct as possible, both in sense of job fantasy, gameplay and difficulty? Look at healers, if you don't like the way WHM plays, you will very likely not like other healers because they're just so similar in so many ways.

With respect, all I can say is that this is subjective. It seems like Yoshi-P disagrees with your opinion on that, though. And it makes sense that if you have different opinions on this then you'd both be in conflict over actions taken using this as the basis.

Low skill ceiling is objectively bad. Easy to learn, hard to master, that is pillar of skill expression. Plenty of gamers want that. But we have easy to learn, easy to master, difference between SMN who played for 2 hours or 2 years is minimal.

I don't think you can "disprove" the concept of action bloat because it's a subjective opinion. It seems like you don't feel it's a thing, but in my experience I feel like it's a major thing for all classes. I hope that as things go forward, the devs can find more elegant ways to please both camps.

Why couldn't I? Existence is subjective, yes, but whether changes actually changed something, that is factual. Rotations are static, in your typical midare first opener, number of executed actions is identical as it was in 6.08, with possible 1 extra action in even minute burst if you pool Kenki properly. Then you have lower APM outside of your burst, but that's close to irrelevant, EW's 2 minutes meta means that if there is action bloat, it's always inside your burst. Shinten is 25 Kenki, Kaiten was 20, that 20 Kenki is transferred to Shinten instead, you don't need to simulate timeline to realize that this wouldn't change a lot. So did this change decrease APM and potential action bloat? Yes. By significant value? Not at all, if my math is right, only by 4% in even burst window if you pool Kenki properly. You could also argue that Kaiten had strict place in your rotation, so you can now move Shinten to different weave window. But why? SAM was known for strict rotation.

Good question, I'll explain. Forums always skew towards hardcore players, and they always skew towards players with negative opinions, which is why they shouldn't ever be treated as representative of the overall player population. It's still good to listen to the feedback there, but it's not a good way to gauge what the overall player base is feeling.

It's devs job to extrapolate data out of small subset of players. And what happens, if players start to feel like their feedback is being ignored? They give up, and stop giving it, then we get smaller subset of player, it's self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, Yoshi-P explicitly requested that those who were displeased with the Kaiten change say so on the forums. Out of the 100,000's of players who viewed this request during the Live Letter, less than 400 thought the changes were worth answering Yoshi-P's call to action. To frame that another way, of the X00,000 viewers across Twitch and YouTube who were engaged enough with FF14 to bother watching the Live Letter, less than 0.4% of them were opposed to the change enough to say so when Yoshi-P explicitly asked them to. That's a small subset of players.

0.4% expressing feedback doesn't mean only 0.4% disagree with it. ChatGPT tells me that percent of dissatisfied players that decide to leave feedback can be anywhere from 5%-40%, this could transform those 0.4% to potential 1% to 8%. Then you also want to account for the fact that SAM is just one job out of 19, only fraction of those 100 000 viewers play or care about SAM. They really didn't talk about Kaiten in LL 70, they just skimmed over it, and talked about it in patch reading stream, which has even worse english coverage, which is another problem. In fact, I didn't know there was any conversation about it in that stream, until I dug deep into the issue while researching for my Kaiten thread.

Then also account for the fact that community is pretty split into people playing the game, and into people "playing" the game. Author of Mare mod supposedly calculated that 14% of all players use his mod. Which might be overshot, but the fact is that the mod tracks active players currently using it, and that number seems to be 20K, which is comparable to current number of all steam players.

But those are all absolute numbers, you should go with relative numbers. Biggest thread in EW in here is about the EW's story, with 1.2M views and 850 pages, that is main element of the game, that affects us all. So if there is 150+ threads, with biggest ones having some 50 pages and 85K views, which are dedicated to much smaller part of the game, which is one individual job, then I would say that's relatively large subset of players.

Yeah, I feel you there. I was once a WHM main T^T. But things have changed and the result is that I've moved to other classes for the most part. If things change again, I'd be happy to go back to it, but I'm not holding out hope for that; instead, I just try to get the joy I can out of the classes I enjoy as they are now, and I cross my fingers that when changes come they'll improve instead of diminish my enjoyment. ^^;

After 6.1, I started playing more PLD. Then 6.3 PLD rework happened, and I rather went back to maining SAM.

[Hurlstone]

[Renalt]

Can I interest you in a nutshell in a Yoshi-P?

[LilimoLimomo]

But the question is why? There is 19 jobs already, wouldn't it be better to make jobs as distinct as possible, both in sense of job fantasy, gameplay and difficulty?

Personally I think both are good. Make things accessible, but also make a variety of jobs that are distinct. I do like the idea of having easier jobs and more difficult jobs; SMN for those who want something easier, BLM for those who want something more challenging, etc. But Yoshi-P might think differently. There's no one right way to do it, it really depends on what Yoshi-P's specific goals are and what resources he has access to in order to best approach those goals.

Low skill ceiling is objectively bad. Easy to learn, hard to master, that is pillar of skill expression. Plenty of gamers want that.

But plenty of gamers don't want that, which is why it's not actually objectively bad. Some people want their game time to be chill and easy; Yoshi-P recognizes that and is trying to make a game that all these different kinds of players can enjoy.

Why couldn't I? Existence is subjective, yes, but whether changes actually changed something, that is factual. Rotations are static...Then you have lower APM outside of your burst, but that's close to irrelevant...

I get the impression that you and I may be talking about different things when we talk about "action bloat", because actions-per-minute doesn't need to come into it. The controller and UI have a limited amount of space with which to contain all the actions a job has access to. The more actions there are, the less comfortably they fit in that limited space. It sounds like you play with keyboard and mouse, and if that's the case it makes sense that you wouldn't experience this problem in the same way as controller users. There are band-aids like macros and bar-swapping that can technically give players access to all of these actions, but these solutions are generally either clunky or less accessible. There's an argument to be made that the design of the game's interface would be improved with fewer action buttons so that they could more comfortably fit on the crosshotbar. And I say "arguably" because like most game design, this is subjective.

It's devs job to extrapolate data out of small subset of players. And what happens, if players start to feel like their feedback is being ignored?....0.4% expressing feedback doesn't mean only 0.4% disagree with it

I think you may be getting something confused, because when it comes to extrapolating data, that is exactly what it means. You get a large enough sample of users, get their data, and then provided that there aren't any confounding variables, you can safely assume that the data you found proportionately generalizes to the overall population. That's how researchers get statistical data for everything.

And in this case, we have a really great sample size of over 100,000 players. The call to action is put out, and of those players, less than 400 care enough to express negative feedback. If we generalize this data to the overall player population, those 400 players represent more than just 400 players. But the same is true for the 999,600+ players who weren't bothered enough to provide negative feedback; they too represent more players. Which is why the percentage of 0.4% generalizes to the rest of the player population.

Then you also want to account for the fact that SAM is just one job out of 19, only fraction of those 100 000 viewers play or care about SAM.

Oh of course. I had been hoping that the estimates would be enough to showcase that the amount of negative response was small, but if we want to we can try to get more accurate numbers. So let's dive in!

The 6.1 patch stream had 364k views on YouTube. The Twitch stream is too old so I can't see it anymore, but we can get an estimate of its views by looking at the 6.4 patch stream, which had 197k on YouTube and 34k on Twitch. 34/197= 0.173, so 364k x 1.173 = an estimated 426k total viewers for the stream.

Now there are 19 classes in the game, and while most people do use multiple classes, let's be overly generous and assume that the only people who care about Samurai are people who main them. So let's divide the total viewership of 426k by 19 to get the number of viewers who care about Samurai: 22,000.

So, of the people 22,000 Samurai watching that stream, let's again be generous and say that 400 took Yoshi-P up on his offer to write negative feedback. That's 1.8% of Samurai.

I imagine you could probably find some other reasons to adjust this number in some way. But I would be incredibly, incredibly surprised if there were any other meaningful operations that would transform a number as low as 1.8% of Samurai to a number high enough to be worth the developers rolling back. You would need to find some way to multiply that by around 30 to get a soft majority, or around 20 to get a minority that was still large enough to have weight. I don't think there are additional factors that will lead to multipliers of that magnitude.

The long and short of it is that not many people have cared enough to do so much as make a post or give a like. And while I'm sad that those people have lost something they care about, from a business perspective it makes sense for the devs to interpret their change as having very minimal opposition and move on.

Then also account for the fact that community is pretty split into people playing the game, and into people "playing" the game.

With respect, it seems dishonest to pretend that the players who RP and play dress-up aren't also doing content. MSQ gates everything and it contains mandatory combat. The fact that they have different preferences than you does not make them any less players who do combat in FF14.

After 6.1, I started playing more PLD. Then 6.3 PLD rework happened, and I rather went back to maining SAM.

I'm surprised that even without Kaiten you still enjoy SAM. What is it that you enjoy about the class? I've got it leveled to 80 and while I enjoy some of what it has to offer, I think the 3 different combos to gain "stickers" just wasn't my style.