XIV EW Job-Gameplay is Terrible... Why?

[LynxDubh]

I'll throw my favorite iterations as well. I'll only list ones I have clear preferences on since I don't enjoy Tanks or Melees.

DNC: EW - This one's my main. I was resistant to the changes at first with them losing melee, but the other skills made up for it. And this version has a goofy Improv that you can double weave, so that's fun.
BRD: SB - The kit was tied to the dots better and didn't have too many finishers.
MCH: SB/EW - I liked both equally.

SMN: SB - The job felt really good and tied to aetherflow. We are sorely missing a dot mage after its death. I like EW SMN, but it does not compare to SB.
RDM: SHB/EW - Hard to say, RDM has not changed much outside of gaining finishers, change to mana, and change to aoe skills. It's core gameplay is mostly the same since SB and it was good then as it is now.
BLM: ARR - This one is funny, I just like ARR BLM most for the proc gameplay. But BLM has been good throughout the multiple expac series and is in a great place now.

WHM: SB - Barring the tacked on lillies, This was the best WHM as it had its dps skills and a trim effective healing kit. I enjoyed Cleric Stance in HW, but I can see why it was not a great thing for the game.
SCH: SB - The kits were again, more trimmed and efficient. And Deployment Tactics was nice to use with Eye for an Eye.
AST: SB - My main at the time. Just the best AST has been, outside of having to deal with Sleeve Draw shenanigans.

[Oizen]

GNB: How does adding a single extra cartridge make a job this tangibly worse to play.

IMO I don't think its the 3rd bullet that makes GNB feel bad, its the fact Double Down costs 2 bullets. GNB's resource generation is surprisingly strict, between a 2m burst you'll only risk overcapping exactly once. Which means in any fight with downtime, or just mistakes on your end can make it very easy to not have enough bullets by the burst causing Doubledown to drift.
If Double Down was just a no-cost GCD, or just cost one bullet, I think GNB would feel significantly more forgiving to play.

[OgruMogru]

I have to say I'm very torn because on the one hand I think EW Blm is the best feeling to play but I YEARN for the alternative timeline where we have our current kit but also never lost any of the more granular abilities/job aspects that we had to also juggle in Stormblood - lucid dreaming and diversion for aggro management, apocatastasis and manashift would be less clunky now with the extra instas we now have for weaving opportunities. For a treat I want the enochian refresh juggling to see a return as well but just the damage buff with diminishing returns on refreshing and do away with the old caveat that it locked you out of using F4/B4 if it was dropped. I Love BLM a lot but it feels like since the removal of these extra aspects our toolkit is full of answers to problems we don't really have anymore - no instafoul, all those utility spells needing to be weaved and only 1 charge of triple and no xenos to weave easier - THEY TOOK THE HEALTH PENALTY FROM MANAFONT/CONVERT give it back! I loved the risk!

[VentVanitas]

I don't think there's a single job in EW that I consider to actually be at their peak. if you asked me before 6.3, I would've said PLD maybe but... lol, lmao even.

at best, a lot of the EW additions were marginal improvements that didn't really substantially evolve their jobs (outside of BLM with Paradox, even then I still have my gripes with EW BLM). at worst we have SMN that has become the community's go-to punching bag just because of how easy it is to make fun of that nothing of a job.

as for my main, MNK, all I can really do to summarize my feelings for it is to call it "frustrating." as if it took 2 steps forward and 2 steps back at the same time, thus ending up nowhere. I see a lot of people herald Monk as "one of the very few mechanically interesting jobs left in the game" but I honestly don't share that sentiment, it feels more like every other job was dragged down to its level in my eyes. I get it though, when jobs have gotten to the state they're in now people rightfully feel the need to preserve what little we have left but MNK has always had massive problems with its design. even the iteration that I personally consider to be the job's peak, Stormblood Monk, still had a lot of issues.

[Vyrerus]

Let's see... for me... favorite iterations of jobs over the expansions:

DRK - HW
WAR - HW
PLD - EW (until they made the split weird and also fucked up Goring Blade. Mainly because it screams FFT Holy Sword and is a continuation of SHB's design in reality)
GNB - SHB - EW's version just feels like they tacked on Double Down and tried to up the ante on it, but it feels weird and worse.

DRG - I've actually liked all of DRG's iterations enough that I haven't felt terrible about playing it, but I will say I miss it feeling powerful which last time it did was in HW.
MNK - SHB
SAM - Stormblood
NIN - HW

BRD - ARR (I really like its Stormblood version too, but I miss it having Healer LB3)
MCH - Stormblood
DNC - No preference. I don't care much about Dancer.

RDM - Similar to DRG. They haven't screwed it up too much rotationally over the years. I admit I like its EW version the most. But I mean... it hasn't really lost anything from its old main kit anyway so... why wouldn't I?

BLM - I don't care at all about BLM.

SMN - SHB. I like phoenix even when it was bad and just felt it really jived with that expansion storyline wise for the WoL as well. I liked all of its iterations prior to SHB as well. I really miss Shadowflare still, though.

BLU - BLU hasn't changed But SHB I guess, since that's when they endorsed soloing by adding Basic Instinct.

WHM - HW RIP Aero III

SCH - HW, give us back Shadowflare, damn it!

AST - Late HW. Cards got OP. No silly unnecessary gauge that interfered with holding multiples and such. Stella, my beloved, was still in the game.


Not really paying enough attention to the game to know if Reaper and Sage have had any significant changes yet. I like them both as they are now, and do not have faith that they will be as enjoyable as they are now in the future.

[Aravell]

I see a lot of people herald Monk as "one of the very few mechanically interesting jobs left in the game" but I honestly don't share that sentiment, it feels more like every other job was dragged down to its level in my eyes. I get it though, when jobs have gotten to the state they're in now people rightfully feel the need to preserve what little we have left but MNK has always had massive problems with its design. even the iteration that I personally consider to be the job's peak, Stormblood Monk, still had a lot of issues.

I think people herald MNK as one of the few mechanically interesting jobs remaining in the game because it is, in fact, one of the few remaining jobs that allow you to think and plan. DRG has this too, but it's getting reworked soon (presumably to remove any thinking required like every other job). Personally, I'm not particularly impressed with EW MNK either, but there's no denying that it requires more thought than other jobs like RPR. I don't think any iteration of MNK has had no issues, but SB MNK was peak because the playerbase were able to creatively use the job kit to overcome some of the problems (mainly TK being absolutely worthless when playing normally). In fact, if you think about it, a lot of the really cool interactions in old job kits were unintended design. Kind of sad, honestly.

[Supersnow845]

Would anyone put the ShB or EW versions of the healers first if they experienced the old healers, I’m genuinely interested. The healer forums lean very strongly no but I’d be interested in the opinions of people who do

For me all three healers peaked in SB but the collective healer balanced peaked in ARR

[SargeTheSeagull]

Would anyone put the ShB or EW versions of the healers first if they experienced the old healers, I’m genuinely interested. The healer forums lean very strongly no but I’d be interested in the opinions of people who do

For me all three healers peaked in SB but the collective healer balanced peaked in ARR

If anyone would I’d imagine on average it would be white mage. But that’s more due to how bad WHM has always been than how “good” it’s ShB/EW variations are

[Supersnow845]

If anyone would I’d imagine on average it would be white mage. But that’s more due to how bad WHM has always been than how “good” it’s ShB/EW variations are

That’s fair, lilys seem beloved despite how………meh they are and how little they actually add to WHM

[Valence]

I disagree with Xeno’s cup analogy because as I said in my previous response, my job is not fun in the first few parts of DSR either. The content is still not making my experience fun. Maybe this is true for other roles.

To be honest, SCH did have problems in ShB that were fixed in EW, but it was at the expense of removing even more job depth. My best experience was probably in some 4.xx patch.

You're speaking of fun (subjective), Xenosys is speaking about complexity/intricacy and difficulty overload.

I do not have fun in ultimates either because like you I care more about job intricacy than encounter mechanics or even difficulty (to a point).

This is XIV history that I know very little of as I joined late in end of SHB, its good to share insight. Hmm... Could take an angle? where you compare EW Savage encounters, compare them to previous expansions ( Coils/Alexander/Omega/Eden ) and how much more difficult it has become with mechanics and features such as hitbox increased, melee uptime, pulling as a Tank - then see if that difficulty we reached in EW justified all the simplifications we received... I would say with some fights I done at minilvl? Like Halicarnassus, Shiva Eden, Oracle, Kefka, ExDeath, a lot of streamlining wasn't required? or as well thought through as possible. I leave out Ultimate for the actual experts on it, as I found no joy in doing them, thus I have no expertise on Ultimate.

The hardest fights used to be the puzzle mechanic fights in savage usually, so the last fight of each tier. You can compare them to current 4S p2, 8S p2, 12S p2, etc. Those aren't the hardest anymore by far. Mechanically, things like Superchain, Gorgons, or even Pinax etc (aka doorbosses), can feel a lot more involved, fast paced and very stringent on mobility (which is where big hitboxes and less cast times are probably meant to help... rip RDM/BLM). More generally, I feel that the difficulty has increased tenfold for the earlier fights of tiers rather than the last fights. P5S was noticeable already but P9S has felt especially gruesome to prog for a first fight and required for most of the people I talked to, including myself, almost twice or thrice the time then older equivalent fights like O5S, O9S, etc... Even some extreme trials have increased in difficulty, like Golbez notably. Even P1S, while easy, was a lot harder than the very first savage fights of older expansions like A1S, O1S (lol), or even E1S, just because it had an actual puzzle mechanic (a puzzle in a first fight??? even if easier, that's literally never heard of so far). Now take a look at P10S and tell me if that wasn't gruesome for a 2nd fight in a tier?

I'm not saying it's systematic and noticeable everywhere, and difficulty is a very subjective thing, but it directly ties to my own experience. I am a semi hardcore raider that has raided since Stormblood, and the more expansions released and the more I felt that it become actually difficult for me to follow and learn. Maybe I'm getting old? But more seriously, especially Abyssos and Anabaseios have proven excruciatingly painful for me when it came to my most hated mechanic so far that is Superchain (I'm still unable to properly trudge through 2A and 2B without callouts and delaying burst). It's been especially frustrating and depressing because jobs and especially the battle system is supposed to be easier right? Yes, but no. It took me long enough to actually admit that yes, fights are getting harder, are shifting in paradigm and asking for a lot more precise DDR paying attention to countless things at the same time on the platform and the encounter compared to previously: you used to pay a lot more attention to your rotation (and various things like enmity for tanks, MP for casters or rPhys, etc), while nowadays a lot of your attention is required on the arena itself. My point is that, I enjoy RPG mechanics and player agency and rotational choice much more than I value encounter mechanics. Incidentally, it also makes me very good at the former and pretty average to sometimes passable at the latter.

Needless to say, I hate that shift.

Note on Ultimates: I have progged UwU halfway, TEA past phase 2, and DSR up to time reset. This has been enough for me to say that those fights, while definitely very difficult mechanically on top of additional things to deal with like short mini bursts and multi target scenari, just do not respect my time. You eventually end up having to go through 10+ minutes of fight again and again and again just to have the luxury of maybe see 10 more seconds of prog where you're currently stuck at. I feel this is artificially inflated difficulty at best, and I do not find this enjoyable, but a lot of people seem to, so props to them.

This is my main gripe with it all indeed. It doesn't feel balanced, it feels very heavily loaded on mechanics and as we know? most of XIV's mechanics are dull unless you go High-end content, making most the content extra dull... I know Square can do better then this, they even showed they have. It's really a matter of if they will. There is no negative to be had for Job-Gameplay to be improved for the Players-Experience, mhm

This also indirectly ties in with what I said above: while it's true for high end challenging content, it's not for casual content (roulettes, storymodes, dungeons etc). Difficulty has remained at a baseline level and hasnt much changed over expansions. If anything, the EW Alliance Raids have been a boring cakewalk comparatively to the more involved Mhach, Ivalice and Nier. Meanwhile, there is little left of the battle system and jobs have at least for some of them been very dumbed down, and/or dullified.

It seems to feed into a toxic logic of player castes where casuals stay in casual content, midcore players in extreme trials at best, and hardcore in savage and potentially ultimate.

YoshiP said it himself: go play ultimate if you're not happy with easier difficulty segments..........