Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Absurdity]

The desire is there, the question imo is whether the devs will ever have the audacity to step on minmaxer toes again. Because that's what I think about when I read that thread-- "This sounds cool but the base of the game doesn't want jobs to be cool".

This gets brought up every time and I have to ask, why would more job complexity step on min-max player's toes? I have only dabbled in optimization when I had fun playing my job but that was the biggest enjoyment I got out of it, optimizing my job gameplay for a given fight because it wasn't on auto pilot. I would assume someone who wants to min-max would like more complexity in their gameplay to actually min-max.

What is optimization now? When to delay the party's 2 minute window because there's downtime soon? Banking your free Edge of Shadow for the next 2-min window? Please, wake me up when there's actually anything interesting to min-max.

The only time I remember optimization actually having any real impact on my gameplay in Endwalker was in P3S as GnB (I assume other jobs with cleave could do the same) and only because I had to slightly adjust my rotation to pad my DPS on the Darkened Fire adds with Double Down.

[Turtledeluxe]

This gets brought up every time and I have to ask, why would more job complexity step on min-max player's toes? I have only dabbled in optimization when I had fun playing my job but that was the biggest enjoyment I got out of it, optimizing my job gameplay for a given fight because it wasn't on auto pilot. I would assume someone who wants to min-max would like more complexity in their gameplay to actually min-max.

What is optimization now? When to delay the party's 2 minute window because there's downtime soon? Banking your free Edge of Shadow for the next 2-min window? Please, wake me up when there's actually anything interesting to min-max.

The only time I remember optimization actually having any real impact on my gameplay in Endwalker was in P3S as GnB (I assume other jobs with cleave could do the same) and only because I had to slightly adjust my rotation to pad my DPS on the Darkened Fire adds with Double Down.

Yes but as I said in my previous post-- who are the people calling out for the changes to the jobs and the two minute meta? These are not people who want the game to be more fun-- they want job viability to an extreme degree and easy access to optimal damage output. This is the number one reaction anyone gives when people talk about jobs having more unique identity-- "well in 2.0 no one wanted warrior" etc. Obviously every game needs balance, but I'd argue XIV will not tolerate an ounce of risk out of fear of the 2.0 era or whatever.

And every time they cave to player demands "no one wants my job bc they don't have x", homogeny grows. This is what I said earlier-- original feedback isn't likely when players typically only think of rotations or dps in relation to other jobs that they perceive to be outpacing them.

And what do I mean when I say original feedback? I mean player ideas for rotations or deepening their role in the encounter. Those ideas go largely ignored in favor of steamrolling the jobs.

I live in constant fear that one day they're going to give BLM res or self healing. Pls don't.

[ForteNightshade]

Yes but as I said in my previous post-- who are the people calling out for the changes to the jobs and the two minute meta? These are not people who want the game to be more fun-- they want job viability to an extreme degree and easy access to optimal damage output. This is the number one reaction anyone gives when people talk about jobs having more unique identity-- "well in 2.0 no one wanted warrior" etc. Obviously every game needs balance, but I'd argue XIV will not tolerate an ounce of risk out of fear of the 2.0 era or whatever.

No offense but... you clearly haven't been around those circles. Even min maxers have been complaining about the boring job design and especially the two minute meta. In fact, it's downright reviled because now everything boils down to crit RNG. Didn't Crit, Direct Hit your blade combo? Whelp, sucks for your parse even though it's quite literally identical to your previous runs.

Very few higher end players, be they speed runners, parsers or simply hardcore players who raid log want "job viability to an extreme degree". That is a very common misconception. Do they have their preferences? Naturally. But they'll either play whatever's good or are good enough to overcome job deficiencies, provided they aren't too absurd ala tank balance for early Abyssos or 6.3 TOP in general. The issue is how the dev team has approached balance. You can have job design with healthy amounts of similarity yet still manage to differentiate themselves enough. Melee, for instance, mostly accomplish this. Ninja doesn't play at all like Dragoon nor do either play like Monk. Their far bigger issue is a lack of engaging gameplay outside the two minute window. Which is why you weren't seeing nearly as much criticism towards job homogenization in Shadowbringers despite it existing there too.

So why is the dev team balancing this way? If I were to hazard a guess. It's significantly easier when everything is largely similar, And with soon to be 21 jobs, the already understaffed design department simply has reached capacity. Sebazy has talked about it at length but for cliffnotes sake, we've essentially have the save 5-6 people working on job design since ARR. Couple that with the overemphasis on accessibility the last two expansions and you start to see why jobs have been dumbed down. They're easier to balance and more casual players can pick them up without much thought.

The reality is a game that wants every job to be viable at the highest level will always have some degree of homogeny. It's unavoidable. What is frustrating this expansion is despite placing so much emphasis on making jobs easier, we've seen some of the worst balancing decisions since Heavensward. Which leads me to believe it's a lack of creativity being the biggest culprit.

[Turtledeluxe]

Even min maxers have been complaining about the boring job design and especially the two minute meta.

Minmaxers aren't a monolith, but that rule applies to all posts on the subject. I've already explained in another post that you cannot make the assumption these "meta slaves" (I've also heard of them being called "s***tters") are all casual joes who just want easy access to big rewards at any cost. When we talk about this group, certainly a portion of them (if not a majority of them) have the wherewithal to discuss rotations, aDPS/rDPS, build crafting, etc. Yes, some of them are probably more casual players in the mix as well. There can be range of motivations for someone to prefer the two minute meta-- acting like some of those people aren't minmaxers because you have noble perception of minmaxing in RPGs is your preference. I don't agree and I do not need to know an alleged group of them to say that.

The reality is a game that wants every job to be viable at the highest level will always have some degree of homogeny. It's unavoidable. What is frustrating this expansion is despite placing so much emphasis on making jobs easier, we've seen some of the worst balancing decisions since Heavensward. Which leads me to believe it's a lack of creativity being the biggest culprit.

You could say every MMORPG wants this. I'd argue it's a waste of time because metas can and do form anyway based on highly contextual variables, in XIV and in most games. Yoshi P is on record as saying "we could do" , "we would like to do", etc., but they don't because of "players". I have already covered that it could be a creative issue or a resource constraint, but a. That's not my problem and b. They can fix it and they should.

Also it is avoidable, it's called listening to players and saying "I am sorry that does not align with our vision for the job, no". Circling back to the issue of "minmaxers", devs wouldn't be listening to the feedback about raid buff metas from casuals who likely aren't even aware of the two minute meta as a concept. Does that mean every single person giving feedback is a minmaxer? No, it does not. My original post about stepping on the toes of minxmaxers doesn't make this clear, but in that case yes I was using minmaxer because I was thinking about players whose feedback actually has the context and detail necessary to really be considered by the game designers. Not just people saying "I wannna win more".