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

[Renathras]

^first of all I’m going to ignore your “I feel like you (insert baseless speculation)” comments because I know despite how often you discuss wanting fair discussion what you really mean is you want us to be nice while you are free to fling around any insult and hyperbole you want

Going to try to ignore this, since as far as I can tell, that's what you want.

.

As to the point itself:

No.

Again, you're narrowing down the definitions of terms until they mean something vary narrow (and disparaging) to make a sophistry point of "technically, by definition...", except you've so narrowed the definition to where it's meaningless.

Potential: Capable of being but not yet in existence; latent or undeveloped.

Every Job has this. When you try to narrow it down to "only complete changes from what it is now to the point of abandoning what it is now in favor of something else", that's not how potential is defined.

Similar exercise with the concept of limited - you say within some constraints of the Job's design, but this is true of literally every Job in the game, yet I don't see you calling them this same thing.

Now you're using the term evolution/"evolution of the design of the job in a meaningful sense", which is PACKED with baggage. That's a lot of terms that could be defined a lot of ways and a lot of qualifiers instead of you just saying "You're right, it has potential and isn't really that boxed in". And never mind we're already multiple steps from your original statement:

Let’s be honest here where can they actually go with SMN as it is
...
The job isn’t a solid foundation, it’s a dead end

^ that was what you said. "where can they actually go" with it and "it's a dead end" not "a solid foundation".

It's clearly not "a dead end" the way you were using the term as they CAN clearly go a lot of places with it, which would make it, by your terms used there, "a solid foundation". You were incorrect in that post.

Now we're several steps removed from that worth of goalpost shifts on your part to "evolution of the design...in a meaningful sense". If you want to have a separate conversation we can, but we need to tie up the above one first that started this. Your initial statement was incorrect, and you've moved the goalposts several times to avoid admitting that, complete with (as is custom) a disparaging attack on me in the process.

[Shurrikhan]

...

Being able to pick your Summon and not have them be almost entirely interchangeable? That much summon-related choice... on a Summoner? The heresy...

[Shurrikhan]

SMN isn't overpowered by any definition of the term, though.

Has "overpowered" ceased to refer to producing the same output at lesser risk and effort, or greater output at the same risk/effort?

All the arguments for SMN numbers being higher now other than people enjoy/prize simpler things don't hold up when you realize ShB SMN had those things (and even better damage), yet it was played less then. The most logical answer seems to be: People do, indeed, prefer simpler things.

Shadowbringer's vs. Endwalker's SMN's 95th+ percentile damage is relevant... to those vying for the outputs of a 95th+ percentile caster in that era. Which is not the majority of players.

And when a player can put out a good 10%+ more playing a middling SMN than playing RDM to the same degree of effort, especially while doing more complex of fight mechanics, yes, differing ease of output becomes a relevant factor that does have to be accounted for.

Which makes the player numbers not nearly so cut and dry to analyze as just 'the simpler, the more enjoyable'.

[Supersnow845]

^Again if you would actually read my point ren rather than arguing semantics you would see that the changes that square might add will do nothing to actually change the job so really it doesn’t have any potential, shiva replacing Garuda is not potential

I’m consistent on This point, it’s why I don’t like current DRG, because 90 did what, changed the animation for true thrust, and chaotic spring, and upgraded geirskogul at 90, nothing about the job actually changes, there was simply more new pretty animations to replace the dated animations

If I had seen DRG’s rotation before it released I would have also said DRG is at a dead end (or at the very very minimum square is not capitalising on changes to the classes in meaningful ways), MCH, DNC, WAR, the healers also fell into this category with EW

Meanwhile BLM is an example of a job that got a fantastic new skill that can completely change how you interact with its rotation, that is an example of a job that got meaningful upgrades to its rotation, NIN is another example, double down makes no mercy awkward but it was a change that changes how GNB works so I would argue that as well

[Renathras]

Has "overpowered" ceased to refer to producing the same output at lesser risk and effort, or greater output at the same risk/effort?

No.

It can't cease to have that definition since it's never had that definition.

Overpowered is defined as being too powerful for a given type of content or experience. For example, if BLM Flare did 999,999 damage, that would be overpowered since it would clearly make encounters easier than intended. Overpowered has never been defined as "relative to effort". Ever. I'm starting to wonder if our conflicts are less because we disagree on things and more because you have definitions of words that no one else shares...

What you're talking about is risk/reward or feeling something is more rewarded than it should be. Neither are related to the concept of being too powerful for content.

Shadowbringer's vs. Endwalker's SMN's 95th+ percentile damage is relevant... to those vying for the outputs of a 95th+ percentile caster in that era. Which is not the majority of players.

Agreed. And those are the only people that care SMN does more damage than RDM. Casual players literally don't care. RDM and SMN are both highly played (and far higher) than BLM in casual content. Point being: This isn't why people are picking SMN, exactly the point I was making. People aren't picking SMN because "it's easy to do high damage" except for a very small portion of the playerbase, who would have been picking SMN for that reason before in ShB, meaning it cannot be the driver of the difference now.

And when a player can put out a good 10%+ more playing a middling SMN than playing RDM to the same degree of effort, especially while doing more complex of fight mechanics, yes, differing ease of output becomes a relevant factor that does have to be accounted for.

Again, this isn't relevant for the majority of the playerbase. AT BEST, it's relevant for a sliver of the midcore.

Which makes the player numbers not nearly so cut and dry to analyze as just 'the simpler, the more enjoyable'.

I agree it's not 100% "simpler = more enjoyable". But that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying the people saying "simpler = LESS enjoyable" are wrong. That is, simpler is at least part of the calculation, and for lots or even a majority of players, the lion's share. You have zero evidence to oppose this other than you don't like simple (and you're part of that "Which is not the majority of players" group), and seem not to want it to be true since it makes arguments for changing SMN far more difficult if the bulk of players actually DO enjoy it because it's simpler. In other words, it's an attempt to defuse an opposition to your position, but a very poor one.

[Renathras]

...

/sigh

It's not a semantics argument.

There's potential and SMN is a good foundation. Whether they use that or not is a question - I suspect they will, though I suspect it won't be a way you enjoy.

But, that doesn't mean it's a "dead end", it just means the avenues it is likely to advance along are not ones you will enjoy.

And that's okay. It's okay for there to be one or two Jobs in this game of 19 that you don't care for. I don't like over half of them. I just don't play those ones. I recognize that not every Job needs to be made for me and am not so selfish that I'd demand it. It's okay for there to be some Jobs for the rest of the playerbase who like different things from me.

It'd be nice if everyone felt that way.

[Supersnow845]

/sigh

It's not a semantics argument.

There's potential and SMN is a good foundation. Whether they use that or not is a question - I suspect they will, though I suspect it won't be a way you enjoy.

But, that doesn't mean it's a "dead end", it just means the avenues it is likely to advance along are not ones you will enjoy.

And that's okay. It's okay for there to be one or two Jobs in this game of 19 that you don't care for. I don't like over half of them. I just don't play those ones. I recognize that not every Job needs to be made for me and am not so selfish that I'd demand it. It's okay for there to be some Jobs for the rest of the playerbase who like different things from me.

It'd be nice if everyone felt that way.

Makes up an entire other post in a different forum about how you are an attacked battler and don’t understand why you are being treated the way you are

Proceeds to not even have an argument in this post beyond “you are selfish for wanting the job to be exactly what you want” when that’s exactly not my point, I DONT CARE ABOUT SMN, it’s never been my main it never will be my main, I already have DNC for “I want to turn off my brain and be a DPS”, my only point with SMN is that shiva after pheonix with the same 3 casts of gemshine plus a slightly different astral flow is not job potential and square has shown they are totally unable to give the jobs real meaningful changes (except BLM and a few other jobs by accident)

You are free to disagree with that, but argue that with actual reasons as to why you think they will innovate the job, how they could do it in a short level span and give examples of a job that already had an existing similar change, not what you are doing right now which basically amounts to “I think you are using the word potential wrong so therefore your argument is invalid”

[AmiableApkallu]

Has "overpowered" ceased to refer to producing the same output at lesser risk and effort, or greater output at the same risk/effort?

Overpowered is defined as being too powerful for a given type of content or experience. For example, if BLM Flare did 999,999 damage, that would be overpowered since it would clearly make encounters easier than intended. Overpowered has never been defined as "relative to effort". Ever. I'm starting to wonder if our conflicts are less because we disagree on things and more because you have definitions of words that no one else shares...

These two definitions are compatible with each other.

For example: BLM Flare doing 999,999 damage compared to what it does now is obviously "greater output at the same risk/effort." It's also obviously "too powerful for [FFXIV's encounter design and job design]."

If we have job A, and job B "[produces] the same output at lesser risk and effort," at some point, a sufficient amount of "lesser risk and effort" becomes "too powerful for a given type of content" because it would "make encounters easier than intended."[1]

If we have job A, and job B "[produces] greater output at the same risk/effort," at some point, a sufficient amount of "greater output" becomes "too powerful for a given type of content" because it would "make encounters easier than intended."

And I can say something similar for all the points on that output vs. risk/effort spectrum.

[1] In the concrete case where job B is SMN, the obvious counter here is that maybe SE intended the current situation. Fair enough, given that I don't think we know SE's mind one way or another. But I think it's also fair to consider here what players desire. It's not hard to imagine that there are extremes, e.g., BLM Flare @ 999,999, that would not be desired by everyone. It's also not hard to imagine less extreme designs that would engender some amount of debate...

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

I never liked SUmmoner Personally, I just played Scholar since Im a Healer Main and it also lvs Summoner.
But a Job I hope to see improved is Ast. And Im a little nervous how Dragoon will change, not so much worried about dumbing it down, but that they will just mess it up entierly

[Ivtrix]

I never liked SUmmoner Personally, I just played Scholar since Im a Healer Main and it also lvs Summoner.
But a Job I hope to see improved is Ast. And Im a little nervous how Dragoon will change, not so much worried about dumbing it down, but that they will just mess it up entierly

SMN rework has me VERY concerned for DRG