Challenging Jobs + Easier content > Easy Jobs + Harder Content.

[Renathras]

"there's people that cheat so jobs should just be as easy as possible and make a majority of the playerbase unhappy"

I don't think that's a fair interpretation of what she said.

It reads to me more like "No matter how complex the Job can be made, as long as people are cheating to make it easy, it generates a fairness gap between those not cheating TRYING to play it right and those cheating doing it easily. Moreover, it may make a Job that's too complex and almost no one is playing 'fair' appear easier than it is since people are cheating, leading to Jobs that are too complicated to be played and enjoyed by most people existing because people are automating it to make it playable."

That is, if you had a Job that had 50 DoTs, it would be unplayable by basically any actual Human, but if people are allowed to cheat, you'll get some people playing it with AI cheating automation. This doesn't mean the Job should continue to exist at that complexity, since no one is playing it "right" at that point. It means the Job should be less complicated because the extreme complexity makes it impossible TO play fairly, leading to people only playing it if they cheat or don't know better.

I think that's what she means.

The notion that "people would stop cheating if the game was easier" is a weird one. If people are already cheating, why would they stop?

No it's not. It's actually very easy to understand.

If something is too hard to do, people may cheat to make it manageable. On the other hand, if it's not too hard, then they have little reason to cheat. Take the Ultimate controversy with the super zoomed out camera. Why were people doing that? Because it was hard to see everything they "needed" to see to clear the encounter fairly with the native camera zoom. If the encounter had been designed where you COULD see all of that with the native camera zoom OR the game naturally included the extended zoom, people wouldn't have cheated with the satellite-vision because the content wouldn't have "demanded" it of them. As Yoshi P kinda said at the time, why make something extra hard if people are going to cheat it down to easier to play? Likewise with Job design, there's little point in making a complexity so high if people are cheating to make it easier. It would make sense just to aim the Job's difficulty at the easier level people are trying to ease it down to, that way people wouldn't need to cheat to get to that difficulty level, since it would already natively be at it.

It's like how in WoW for years and years (and probably still) most people use Add-Ons to help them track things like DoT timers and such. It's not cheating in that game, but it IS not using the native UI. One could argue that the issue is the classes are too hard/complex because if everyone's having to use an Add-On to make them playable, that indicates bad design. In a game where Add-Ons are considered cheating, the problem becomes much worse.

I don't think this argument is 100%, though. Some people are always going to cheat no matter what and some people are going to refuse to cheat no matter what. But it is logical to consider that if Jobs are so complex everyone just about is cheating to play them "correctly", because they're too hard for a normal Human to play correctly without cheating, then that would indicate the Jobs are too complex and need to be simplified at least somewhat. There is absolutely a limit to that, again, no matter how simple they get, some segment of people will always cheat, but if a large amount of people need cheating to play the Job correctly, then the Job is badly designed.

And consider here: Parsing is considered cheating. Meaning any Job that requires a guide to figure out how to play correctly, a guide that was generated via parsing, requires cheating in order to figure out how to play. Just because someone else is doing the cheating for you doesn't mean the Job isn't requiring cheating. Very few Jobs can be figured out and played optimally essentially just reading their tooltips. Offhand, I'd say SMN, WAR, and possibly PLD are the only non-healers that's true of. For healers, WHM (if we ignore Temperance only affects healing MAGIC, but at least you can figure that out yourself if push came to shove and it doesn't make a huge difference) can more or less be figured out and played optimally without cheating. That's a pretty short list.

And what I can say, is that I don't remember these kinds of 'dungeons are boring' and 'there's no content' back in Stormblood.

Well, there was some, but those are also different arguments.

Stormblood had a lot more to do in general. Deep Dungeon, Eureka, extra dungeons every patch (so even if they weren't harder, you got more different scenery in your que), and so on. So people were less likely to be bored not because Jobs were more complex but because they had more to do. RDM, when introduced, was easier than it is now, yet people weren't more bored on it. WHM was fairly comparable to what it is now as well. Many Jobs were easier in ARR than they are now. Not ALL of them, but many. The game's systems in general were more simplified because they hadn't developed the HW complexity yet. Even the Jobs that are easier now often have more overall buttons to get there in many cases.

As for influencers, that's not a good metric considering there were far fewer OF THEM. And I don't think FFXIV had attracted all the drama farming ones like Xeno that like to stoke drama for the hell of it.

What changed isn't "The rotations, and the skill ceiling of them"; it's a lot more than that. If SB hadn't had any of the side content, people would probably have complained then, too. If Mr Happy is to be believed, and I suspect he is in this case, 3.1 and subsequent HW patches had a similar problem since there was little for non-raiders to do, and people WERE complaining about being bored at the time, despite the game having the most complex rotations and damage kits for most Jobs than at any other point in FFXIV's history.

...also, Ex roulettes were harder to heal back then...our healing kits were weaker and we had to devote more GCDs to healing. You're making an apples-to-oranges comparison. While it is true that some of the rotations and skill ceilings have changed (some have gone UP, though), you can't just look at that in a vacuum and ignore the rest of the changes that also have generated the different situation we have now.

[Renathras]

...but what I actually want is some jobs to be easier some jobs to be harder. I'm fine with more easier Job designs I should have made that more clear and I don't think I did a good job of stating my opinion correctly here, I think what the game needs is actual difficulty Varity instead of making harder jobs more like the easier ones.

I think this is a point most of us can agree on. There are some who really don't, but I think most people recognize the game is best when it has that variety, and then players can filter to whichever they like best. Again, it's why I think the Caster role is so great. Maybe you pick up SMN as an alt Job or "my DPS when I DPS" for someone who mains another role, or maybe someone just likes SMN, or maybe someone is just a causal player and they find the rotation easy to understand and play. And if that's where you settle and are happy, then more power to you.

...but then someone maybe wants a little more, so they filter over to RDM and play around with that optimization and the more strict movement requirements and so on. Maybe that's where they get comfy. Maybe they love its utility or its Job fantasy. And that's great for them.

...then someone else maybe wants to have something even more complex with an even higher skill ceiling and more competitive field against other players, so they move to BLM. Or maybe they just like big explosions and don't like SMN and RDM's big explosions for whatever reason. Either way, they end up there and end up happy there.

It's got something for just about everyone, and so it just kinda...works.

I think that idea should be expanded across all roles and would work well if done so. It already KINDA has been for a bit (WAR, WHM, and SMN on the one end, GNB, AST and/or SCH, and BLM on the other end, and the others somewhere in between them), so it's really just a matter of cementing that and extending it to also the Melee and Ranged roles.

[Aravell]

I still think that Jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master would be a better approach to this, but what I actually want is some jobs to be easier some jobs to be harder. I'm fine with more easier Job designs I should have made that more clear and I don't think I did a good job of stating my opinion correctly here, I think what the game needs is actual difficulty Varity instead of making harder jobs more like the easier ones.

While I would prefer jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master, there's also nothing inherently wrong with jobs being simple, with one condition. Take RPR and SAM for example, both are very simple jobs with very easy core loops, however, both have optional optimisations to eke out an advantage over people who aren't as well-versed in the job. While simple jobs are fine, I firmly believe that every job should have optional things they can do to eke out an advantage should the player choose to engage in that, if such an option does not exist, it would mean players have nothing to master and it never feels nice to be forced off a job you enjoyed learning because there's no ceiling to reach for after you've gotten comfortable.

[Rithy255]

While I would prefer jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master, there's also nothing inherently wrong with jobs being simple, with one condition. Take RPR and SAM for example, both are very simple jobs with very easy core loops, however, both have optional optimisations to eke out an advantage over people who aren't as well-versed in the job. While simple jobs are fine, I firmly believe that every job should have optional things they can do to eke out an advantage should the player choose to engage in that, if such an option does not exist, it would mean players have nothing to master and it never feels nice to be forced off a job you enjoyed learning because there's no ceiling to reach for after you've gotten comfortable.

I that jobs should have a celling to a extent, I agree that there needs to be more of a higher celling if you want to maximise your job. Samurai I think in particular does this really well, I love how even third eye feels as a way to squeeze out more when you know the fight well, while I think summoner sort of misses for me (I guess more because it's not because the jobs "easy" it just doesn't feel like a caster to me, I want cast times on magic jobs).

I think you can have fun jobs that are easy to play but hard to master, you can also have harder jobs that are harder to play in more serious content at a decent level like Black mage, you can have harder to learn from a starting point jobs. I think the key is good mix of starting difficulty and a high celling. Most DPS also don't need to be good to get through most basic content, So room for difficult rotations is something I think we should have.

[Renathras]

While I would prefer jobs that are easy to pick up but hard to master, there's also nothing inherently wrong with jobs being simple, with one condition. Take RPR and SAM for example, both are very simple jobs with very easy core loops, however, both have optional optimisations to eke out an advantage over people who aren't as well-versed in the job. While simple jobs are fine, I firmly believe that every job should have optional things they can do to eke out an advantage should the player choose to engage in that, if such an option does not exist, it would mean players have nothing to master and it never feels nice to be forced off a job you enjoyed learning because there's no ceiling to reach for after you've gotten comfortable.

Yeah, but what do you define that as?

SMN has that:

Optimal SMN play is to use Titan in burst (every 2 min it should come right after Bahamut), and to use Energy Drain but NOT Festers under Pheonix, instead saving the festers so at the 2 min burst you can use 2 Festers, then Energy Drain, then 2 more Festers to maximize damage under raid buffs.

These are very much points of optimization, and something that people less well-versed in the Job wouldn't be aware of. Most casual adopters of the Job tend to use Ifrit at the earliest convenience of not having to move a lot so that they "get it out of the way", when the ideal is to use Titan after Bahamut every time if possible, many people don't save Festers for 2 minute bursts only, many people don't use Swiftcast as a normal part of their burst, nor do a lot of people seem to realize you can use Ruin 4 for movement during Ifrit (as well as Ruin 3 if you need a second GCD's worth of movement and can slidecast it), which gives you a LOT of flexibility to use Ifrit even during times that might seem less optimal.

SMN itself, despite being panned as braindead, already has "optional things (you) can do to eke out an advantage should (you) choose to engage in that".

WHM, likewise, is an easy Job that has some minor avenues of optimization, such as making sure to place Misery in raid buffs as well as snapshotting your DoTs under them.

So even the simple Jobs in the game already meet that requirement as specified...

[Volgia]

Yeah, but what do you define that as?

SMN has that:

Optimal SMN play is to use Titan in burst (every 2 min it should come right after Bahamut), and to use Energy Drain but NOT Festers under Pheonix, instead saving the festers so at the 2 min burst you can use 2 Festers, then Energy Drain, then 2 more Festers to maximize damage under raid buffs.

These are very much points of optimization, and something that people less well-versed in the Job wouldn't be aware of. Most casual adopters of the Job tend to use Ifrit at the earliest convenience of not having to move a lot so that they "get it out of the way", when the ideal is to use Titan after Bahamut every time if possible, many people don't save Festers for 2 minute bursts only, many people don't use Swiftcast as a normal part of their burst, nor do a lot of people seem to realize you can use Ruin 4 for movement during Ifrit (as well as Ruin 3 if you need a second GCD's worth of movement and can slidecast it), which gives you a LOT of flexibility to use Ifrit even during times that might seem less optimal.

SMN itself, despite being panned as braindead, already has "optional things (you) can do to eke out an advantage should (you) choose to engage in that".

WHM, likewise, is an easy Job that has some minor avenues of optimization, such as making sure to place Misery in raid buffs as well as snapshotting your DoTs under them.

So even the simple Jobs in the game already meet that requirement as specified...

Figuring out those buffs and raid aligments is what makes high levels of play fun. Optimizing a RDM can be just like that too, how many melee combos can I do during a raid buff aligment considering it's so RNG heavy and the such? It's pretty cool.

[Colt47]

[...]I think that easy job design is more or less very popular in endgame raids because of how hard the fight is already, Taking a black mage in a harder fight rather then a summoner is just not worth the effort.[...]

This is the major reason jobs are being simplified. A lot of designers are adhering to a tight form of gameplay design that has less flexibility in order to have higher control of difficulty, and this mindset is also taken into account for PvP. There is a balance on the number of different mechanics needed to make sure it is still interesting as symmetrical games tend to be boring, but regardless, the number values are generally pretty tight, to the point that a small gain can become extremely exaggerated in the actual results it produces.

Some people want to have MOBA style tightness in combat and places where they can flex and show off skill, but these contests do not necessarily reward people for thinking about situations and how to resolve them in other ways. BG3 for example, is a game that completely goes against everything that FFXIV and MOBAs are about. It has tons of cheap ways to resolve situations and even has methods that do not involve direct combat to solve problems. While there is something to be said about simplicity in direction, there also is a lot that gets lost in such a pursuit, and FFXIV tends to come off a bit too much like it wants to become an e-sport MMO hybrid with the direction it is going right now. I stated in another thread that FFXIV can easily exist without having hardcore savage fights because originally it was built around having multiple ways to handle different situations. This was the case as well with classic WoW, though they didn't really think too much about it outside of PvP interactions (you couldn't snare a gnoll under water and have it drown, but you could always do it to that dumb night elf player).

Some examples of interactions the old game had with content: There was a choice between using a stun, a snare, or a slow effect. Stunning a target was a short duration interruption, but you could hit the target without breaking it and could also change position around it in order to inflict more damage or apply another debuff. Snaring a target was longer duration, but hitting the target generally would free it so you had to hold back and obviously it could still hit you if you went into melee. And then slowing the targets movement had the longest duration, but since it could still move it was meant more for buying time to do something, like casting a spell such as a heal.

They annexed this kind of choice from the later versions of FFXIV, or limited it to legacy content where it is irrelevant. If someone can tank all the hits there is no real point to stunning, slowing, or snaring. If attacks are assured to hit everyone if they go off, the only option of the three that makes sense is a stun. Since they wanted the design to be about interrupting key attacks while keeping battle flow the same, they removed stuns and replaced them with interrupts, and also made mitigation a primary mechanic since it doesn't interrupt battle flow and just cuts damage. In the designers mind, these are more controllable than the old stun, snare, and slow mechanics. They also changed it so tanks always have aggro no matter what and many bosses always face a certain direction when recentering, so directional attacks are much easier to land and become part of a rotation instead of an optional attack.

IMO I feel like end game as we see it was a self manifesting destiny of design choices, since someone decided they wanted to introduce hardmode end game bosses and realized that the loose system that was far more flexible made it a nightmare for them. Someone could easily cheat a boss dead or they make some boss completely nightmarish without realizing it because of some choice in the arena.

[KenZentra]

IMO I feel like end game as we see it was a self manifesting destiny of design choices, since someone decided they wanted to introduce hardmode end game bosses and realized that the loose system that was far more flexible made it a nightmare for them. Someone could easily cheat a boss dead or they make some boss completely nightmarish without realizing it because of some choice in the arena.

Omg all of this, and especially the quoted section here. I've talked a bit on a different thread, but it goes exactly like this.

A Gladiator/Paladin has the ability Shield Swipe. After you block an attack, you deal 100 potency of damage and pacify (prevents weaponskills) the target for 6 seconds.

Paladins use the ability every chance they get cause it locks down a enemy from a lot of actions, such as the poison dragon from Brayflox Longstop, almost being like a psuedo-stun, but doesn't stop spells.
The devs design a trial or raid encounter, lets say Ifrit Extreme. After designing the fight, they realize that Shield Swipe can either throw off the timings of his attacks or completely prevent them from coming out, such as his flame breath cleave. Preventing the cleave from coming out trivializes the tank swap mechanic by not getting the stacking suppuration debuff from the cleave. Going forward the devs will not allow pacification to be applied to high end encounters.
Sometime later, Shield swipe's pacification is only being used on trash mobs and older bosses from the start of ARR, its not even able to be applied to new dungeon bosses anymore.
The devs question why PLDs even have the ability since it doesnt really do anything.
Shield Swipe is removed.

There are so many systems and abilities lost this way, it drives me crazy. I'd be surprised we still have Esuna if it wasn't for its necessity from so much older content.

[ZiraZ]

current SMN shouldn't exist

[Colt47]

Omg all of this, and especially the quoted section here. I've talked a bit on a different thread, but it goes exactly like this.

A Gladiator/Paladin has the ability Shield Swipe. After you block an attack, you deal 100 potency of damage and pacify (prevents weaponskills) the target for 6 seconds.

Paladins use the ability every chance they get cause it locks down a enemy from a lot of actions, such as the poison dragon from Brayflox Longstop, almost being like a psuedo-stun, but doesn't stop spells.
The devs design a trial or raid encounter, lets say Ifrit Extreme. After designing the fight, they realize that Shield Swipe can either throw off the timings of his attacks or completely prevent them from coming out, such as his flame breath cleave. Preventing the cleave from coming out trivializes the tank swap mechanic by not getting the stacking suppuration debuff from the cleave. Going forward the devs will not allow pacification to be applied to high end encounters.
Sometime later, Shield swipe's pacification is only being used on trash mobs and older bosses from the start of ARR, its not even able to be applied to new dungeon bosses anymore.
The devs question why PLDs even have the ability since it doesnt really do anything.
Shield Swipe is removed.

There are so many systems and abilities lost this way, it drives me crazy. I'd be surprised we still have Esuna if it wasn't for its necessity from so much older content.

Again, nothing wrong with wanting a MOBA, but the hardest concept for some designers is the idea of "play". Creating a tight set of mechanics for a competitive game is only one type of direction someone can take and often comes at the cost of making the game enjoyable for less aggressive playstyles. Savage fights and tight mechanical systems in general force people to overcome a challenge in often the least effective and bullish way possible, completely negating all other aspects or advantages people are able to leverage in a situation. Then it is supposed to be amazing or some crazy breakthrough when a side character comes up with an idea like dropping a cage on a boss instead of fighting it, only because the game never even bothers to let us interact or have the option to analyze a situation and solve it organically.

Perfect example of a situation like this: Athena opens her chest and has the orb start floating into the air. How do I interpret the situation? What happens if we had someone teleport, grab the orb, and throw it into the abyss? At the points where the ultima angels are preparing to fire lasers, what exactly is preventing us from throwing our lalafel companion at one of them, having him grab the darn thing at the little ear wings, and force the crazy thing to shoot the laser at Athena? It pretends to lock us in place, but that's a cop out as she doesn't really do anything in that scene, it was done for pure cinematic purposes. My friend: when there is a cinematic moment in a DnD game, it is when the players aren't within striking distance, viewing remotely, or don't have a reason to attack instantly. Athena literally is trying to kill everyone and there is no reason to even try to talk to her during the transition.