Please stop alienating the playerbase with job total reworks

[Jeeqbit]

whenever you decide to rework a job entirely for X or Y reason, please be considerate into what you're about to do.

You really think they aren't considerate? They are in Japan and people in Japan are more considerate than most people in the west. Dealing with people in the west is exhausting tbh. Me this, me that.

When they did the DC split (where Aether was split into Aether and Crystal), they knew it would disrupt friends and FCs and cause some people to quit the game (and it did). But it was also necessary to grow the game. They apologized a lot and expressed a lot of empathy for it, but they had to do it as well. They felt bad enough about it that they overcame the technical hurdles to create DC travel to allow friends to reconnect.

I could believe that some western companies wouldn't think about things like this, but this is SE, a company that is so considerate they will warn people for hurting others' feelings in a dungeon.

if you start turning the job into something entirely different where it could just be a new job, you're essentially deleting a job out of the game

They do have to weigh it up. Take MCH for example - a job that virtually didn't exist it was so unplayed. They redid it like a whole new job for Shadowbringers. Did it upset the few people who played it? Sure, but when weighing it up, they didn't affect the scale next to the amount of people who didn't like the job in Stormblood.

the issues you were trying to fix were deemed too problematic to even try and fix them to begin with.

Sometimes when trying to fix a job you discover that it requires a bigger overhaul. Most likely in trying to solve problems they kept running into other problems and determined it just needed an overhaul.

People always asked to have a job that feels more like an actual summoner of primals, summoning more than a single pitiful egi. I get that you tried to address that and turn it into actually rotating between impressive summons. However, you forgot halfway that a summoner job implies summoning pets that you control. Maybe it didn't in early final fantasy titles sure, but it did in XIV and has since its inception, even if the egis were absolutely underwhelming in that regard.

Many, many people are glad it's an actual Summoner now. It's a very popular job now as well. And although some people like the "constantly out" summons, I personally prefer it like the old final fantasy titles where they are temporary. Regardless, you can glam Carbuncle to make it seem like it's out all the time.

You also deliberately chose to change the gameplay entirely, removing cast times

You still have 3 casts, and Ruin as filler if you didn't delay the GCD enough prior to repeating the rotation.

removing spell choice

You can literally choose earth, wind or fire and at level 90 you can choose between two buttons, such as the ifrit dash or the ifrit casts.

the dot system

Garuda's wind AoE would qualify as a DoT, technically, except it doesn't have 100% uptime.

Did you seriously expect the fans of the job would get behind such a drastic change?

Obviously they didn't. It was intended to make it super popular and "an actual summoner". It was worth it in my opinion because the egis just weren't fitting. Most of the people playing it, did so for the gameplay, not "because it was a summoner", and SE could easily make a new job that is similar to it "for the gameplay".

Did it warrant a full rework though?

Of Machinist? Absolutely yes.

Monk was reworked extensively and I'm sure a lot of people mourn greased lightning stacks.

I personally preferred the old Monk. It became my most-played DPS in Shadowbringers. I didn't like the aesthetic, I just enjoyed playing it a lot for the gameplay, much like I did Bard in Stormblood.

But I have to admit that nobody else could get their head around Monk. It's always been one of the least-played DPS, both for aesthetic reasons and complicatedness reasons. So I can understand it having been reworked.

But quite honestly, it doesn't seem... less-complicated now. So I'm not sure that it helped anything lol. I still don't see any Monks.

[Valence]

You really think they aren't considerate? They are in Japan and people in Japan are more considerate than most people in the west. Dealing with people in the west is exhausting tbh. Me this, me that.

Spare me the cultural clichés.

If anything I have faith in the devs to listen, and I do know they are considerate. Even too much so at times.

They do have to weigh it up. Take MCH for example - a job that virtually didn't exist it was so unplayed. They redid it like a whole new job for Shadowbringers. Did it upset the few people who played it? Sure, but when weighing it up, they didn't affect the scale next to the amount of people who didn't like the job in Stormblood.

I am also not sure respectfully to appreciate your "screw the minority" approach and discarding it like it's just an inevitable fact of life. A game that consistently sends middle fingers to its veterans is threading into weird waters already. When you see the amount of people that are just scared now when any job rework is announced instead of being thrilled (like we were for MCH back then), it's very telling in itself.

Many, many people are glad it's an actual Summoner now.

There is something morally crooked in discarding your biggest fans to make room for more, when there is often alternative solutions or better middle grounds (or new jobs...).

You still have 3 casts, and Ruin as filler if you didn't delay the GCD enough prior to repeating the rotation.
You can literally choose earth, wind or fire and at level 90 you can choose between two buttons, such as the ifrit dash or the ifrit casts.
Garuda's wind AoE would qualify as a DoT, technically, except it doesn't have 100% uptime.

Do I really have to reply to this?

It was intended to make it super popular and "an actual summoner". It was worth it in my opinion because the egis just weren't fitting. Most of the people playing it, did so for the gameplay, not "because it was a summoner", and SE could easily make a new job that is similar to it "for the gameplay".

Having an actual summoner is mutually exclusive with having good gameplay?

But quite honestly, it doesn't seem... less-complicated now. So I'm not sure that it helped anything lol. I still don't see any Monks.

Some jobs having less numbers and being more niche is not dirty. We constantly have to deal with absolute tools that don't even play the job that will always show up and argue for it to be changed under the guise that it's not played enough.