2 minute meta: Rework or Remove?

[vetch]

The original issue raised around raid buffs this expansion was homogenization. Players have been syncing up raid buffs in raid content for the lifespan of this game. Openers have been designed around TA timings since at least Heavensward. Standardization always leads to a degree of homogenization. It then gets harder to differentiate between individual job playstyles when everyone bursts at the same intervals. It's also a simplification of the system, as you no longer need to have as much of an understanding of how to sync up with other jobs in your particular comp, or as much of an awareness of what other players are doing.

Removing raid buffs actually accentuates both of these problems, leading to greater homogenization and simplification of the current system.

Hard to imagine how. One of the first effects of killing the buff-stacking meta would probably be an increase in build diversity as jobs like GNB and WAR that generate resources off of their GCDs realise, "oh, I can build skill speed for more frequent gauge dumps and not be griefing my party." And that's before any developers get involved with the newly excavated design space that appears when not every job has to be able to burst for 20s every 2min.

Nice dichotomy, btw. Standardization leads to homogenization, and removing the standardized elements... also leads to homogenization! Even if it were true, if I'm damned either way, I may as well ask for the removal of things I don't like, and I don't even need a content creator to help me come to that conclusion.

There are benefits to using standardized raid buff timings. Because the system is a bit more obvious and independent of comp, you actually have greater player awareness and engagement with timing raid buffs and teamplay.

"And if you don't like doing that, f*** you, because we don't have any of those jobs anymore. Play a burst job or unsubscribe." Cue river of PLD/BLM/MNK tears.

This is also one place where fight design can cross-compensate for standardized raid buff timings. Because every group bursts at the same time, mechanic timings can be designed to specifically inconvenience this. I think the real question to be discussed is around the interval of buff timings, because that comes down to intensity. Shorter intervals (i.e. one minute) lead to more opportunities for intensive mechanic checks and less downtime. Longer intervals allow for jobs to involve some actual resource management, giving you an adequate build phase and making you think about where you actually want to place your mini-burst relative to the standardized big burst. But this isn't really an issue for jobs that are functionally timer based.

Not every group bursts at the same time. To prevent the stress and potential errors of doing burst and mechs simultaneously, lots of skilled raid groups just... delay the burst. If the devs want to force engagement with 'during-burst' mechanics then they need unforgiving fight durations and unforgiving DPS checks, which both reduce the clear rate KPIs that CBU3 is definitely tracking. It's not free player engagement, not by a long shot.

Downtime is a question of kit design, and bad kit design is exacerbated by the existence of such a prominent burst window. Look how the crappy DRK cooldown spam was papered over by people pointing to how much burst damage it did. Further, you don't NEED to have downtime in a burst-less or long-interval meta, it's not a given at all. You could have a kit like HW DRK where you're constantly playing two gauges against each other, or like sustain-damage MNK. The point is, long-interval and burst-less design can accommodate the spectrum of downtime and non-downtime jobs and thus appeal to multiple types of players, while short-interval bursts naturally favor only one type.

One last point - I hope that we can all eventually move away from this idea that physical ranged DPS are somehow just there as 'support DPS'. That concept was eradicated with the job gauge systems of Stormblood, since you no longer had the opportunity to help your teammate generate additional resources. Treating physical ranged as a watered down 'support DPS' that provides 'utility' (read: 1% benchwarmer buff) just isn't good design.

Setting aside the tedium of every buff being a direct DPS buff without any obfuscation whatsoever, none of the buff jobs will ever be attention-getting even to support mains under a multiplicative buff-stacking meta. Bard isn't any more snoozeworthy for 120 seconds of 1-2% than Astro is for 15s of 6%. They're all forgettable numbers -- they don't seduce you on the tooltip, they don't seduce you in the leveling dungeons, and they don't seduce you in raids even though they finally make a difference there when stacked with five other buffs.

Deleting some or all of the raidbuffs from jobs like RPR, NIN, and DRG that scream 'I'm supposed to be selfish!' anyway, switching to additive stacking, and juicing the remaining buffs up to 10/20% makes the buff jobs a lot more attractive.