I'm One Of The Filthiests Of Casuals And Even I Can See How Dumbdown FF14 Has Become!

[Raven2014]

Have you looked at monk in like 2 expansions, greased lightning is gone, modern MNK is one of the best designed classes in the game

No it's not. (I played MNK during the first tier of this expansion). They just remove the stack management (which was never the issue) and make it into a passive trait, the effect is still there. The change in effect is just a QoL change, not a fundamental change to the system. The point is you can't make MNK any faster without making it almost impossible to play. I also played it extensively toward the end of ShB. That ridiculous speed is what made MNK super fun in Borza and DR when you do casual content, in raid ... not so much. I remember when the 4th tier of Grease Lighting was added, the most common reaction was "really, does mnk really need that?".

About it being the best class ... hey, people have different taste but I'll say this. You're the first person I've seen with that claim, and I know a few people playing MNK at high level.

If you want an example of a complete tear down and rebuild of mechanics, I'd like to point you to MCH. What did MCH get from ShB to EW? One extra use on cooldown button and a new finisher on their robot pet. Do you see why people have no faith they'd do anything great with SMN or any other job they tore down?

I already addressed this point a couple times with my reply. To recap for your reading pleasure, the different between SMN and MCH are:

- MCH never seem to have an actual design vision outside of its original 3.0 appearance. The new SMN feels like it actually has a long term vision.

- The complete tear down of the 3.0 MCH was done as an emergency rather than as a per-determined plan. All the "fixes" and "remades" done are all based on the emergency 4.0 foundation. If I have to sump up MCH's change each expansion, it would be: let's add some cool animations and hope that enough for the players to over look it flaw. Even then, the 3.0 to 4.0 change of MCH is still a lot less radical comparing to the 5.0 to 6.0 SMN.

In short, they need to "re-imagine" what MCH is, instead of focusing on this "cooler is better" mindset. You can try to tie MCH or any other class to the SMN as you want. But I'll maintain that SMN is something they have never done before.

[VentVanitas]

No it's not. (I played MNK during the first tier of this expansion). They just remove the stack management (which was never the issue) and make it into a passive trait, the effect is still there. The change in effect is just a QoL change, not a fundamental change to the system. The point is you can't make MNK any faster without making it almost impossible to play. I also played it extensively toward the end of ShB. That ridiculous speed is what made MNK super fun in Borza and DR when you do casual content, in raid ... not so much. I remember when the 4th tier of Grease Lighting was added, the most common reaction was "really, does mnk really need that?".

About it being the best class ... hey, people have different taste but I'll say this. You're the first person I've seen with that claim, and I know a few people playing MNK at high level.

why would they make MNK faster? the job has always generally operated at around ~1.9s GCD and I doubt 7.0 is gonna change that. but no, MNK isn't reaching its "limit" when it comes to future additions/changes, far from it. it still has so many dead skills that are easy grounds for changes, then there's the whole mess that is Chakra.

there is literally zero reason to go nuclear on the job, not when they already reworked it and gave it systems that are ripe for future additions like Blitz.

[Aravell]

I already addressed this point a couple times with my reply. To recap for your reading pleasure, the different between SMN and MCH are:

- MCH never seem to have an actual design vision outside of its original 3.0 appearance. The new SMN feels like it actually has a long term vision.

- The complete tear down of the 3.0 MCH was done as an emergency rather than as a per-determined plan. All the "fixes" and "remades" done are all based on the emergency 4.0 foundation. If I have to sump up MCH's change each expansion, it would be: let's add some cool animations and hope that enough for the players to over look it flaw. Even then, the 3.0 to 4.0 change of MCH is still a lot less radical comparing to the 5.0 to 6.0 SMN.

In short, they need to "re-imagine" what MCH is, instead of focusing on this "cooler is better" mindset. You can try to tie MCH or any other class to the SMN as you want. But I'll maintain that SMN is something they have never done before.

You can dismiss the comparison if you want, but the same thing could very easily be applied to SMN. Can you say for sure that they have a long term vision for SMN beyond "make more summoner and less warlock"? Unless the dev team shows they have a concrete plan, they will continue to be judged upon other reworks they've done before.

[Renathras]

Have you looked at monk in like 2 expansions, greased lightning is gone, modern MNK is one of the best designed classes in the game

Uh......

Agree to disagree.

I know we disagree on a lot, but this is one of those most glaring cases. I feel MNK is one of the worst designed classes in the game. It's a total mess that completely upends itself. While most Jobs build on themselves, MNK completely changes how it plays. And Greased Lightning still exists; it's not an upkeep buff that falls off during downtime, but the shorter GCD is absolutely still present and clearly what Raven is talking about there.

But ew, no. MNK? No. It's the absolute least played Job in the game right now by every metric I've seen. It's definitely different - and per my norms, I appreciate and encourage that for those that like it - but very clearly it is NOT a hit with the playerbase. One would think the "best designed classes in the game" would be ones a lot of people would play - on account of them being well designed - not avoid like the plague.

I already addressed this point a couple times with my reply. To recap for your reading pleasure, the different between SMN and MCH are:

If you want an example of a complete tear down and rebuild of mechanics, I'd like to point you to MCH. What did MCH get from ShB to EW? One extra use on cooldown button and a new finisher on their robot pet. Do you see why people have no faith they'd do anything great with SMN or any other job they tore down?

To be fair, Aravell isn't wrong on this. MCH - in 5.0 - was a complete tear down and rebuild. And it was, going to your definition of what that entails, Raven, giving MCH a core concept and identity. Before 5.0, it was kind of all over, but with 5.0, they really made it about Hypercharge, Wildfire, and tools (Battery Gauge/Queen as well as Air Anchor/Drill/etc), which is its theme now. FF6 Edgar with Wildfire and a touch of FF8 Irvine's limit break (Hypercharge where you are also throwing out the oGCDs every other GCD there makes me think of Irvine's LB where you spam the triggers and he shoots his guns to that timing, especially the machine gun version).

That said, MCH is in a good state now that they returned Dismantle to it, and is largely a fun Job that is coherent but takes some effort to optimize. Low skill floor, highish skill ceiling. The only issues at this point are some hokey stuff like Wildfire kind of being pushed to the side, Flamethrower still not being that great despite looking cool, and the ping reliance for Hypercharge in a world where stuff like Clemency gets the stack treatment. Still, it has Scattergun, which is just a fun button to hit. *chuckchuck* And...while I'm actually serious about that, I am the rest as well. MCH 5.0-Present is fine and has plenty going on with the gauges and CDs you're actively juggling and rotating through.

I feel like we're getting to the point of the conversation where we're seeing some people just don't want to be pleased. It's one thing to say SMN is bare bones, but to say that everything else is is just...nonsensical.

And one thing that's funny to me in all these conversations; somehow DNC avoids being mentioned, and it's more slimmed down and boring than MCH is. "Tilania optimization" is a total canard that doesn't support that. And not for the first time, I'll say PLD isn't like GNB at all. I'm not even sure how that one persists.

Can you say for sure that they have a long term vision for SMN beyond "make more summoner and less warlock"?

To be fair, imo, that's a FANTASTIC vision to have...

The less like WoW Lock and more like an actual FF Summoner SMN is, the better.

[Aravell]

To be fair, imo, that's a FANTASTIC vision to have...

The less like WoW Lock and more like an actual FF Summoner SMN is, the better.

I'm not disagreeing with the vision. I like the new aesthetics, I'm just pointing out that their vision for SMN may very well end at "make more summoner and less warlock" without anything beyond that, which would be confirmed/debunked when the 7.0 media tour stuff comes out.