They're thinking about job identities for 8.0

[vetch]

That's how feedback has always been. Development pipelines are long and span years. They've not even released Dawntrail yet and they're already in early stages of working on 8.0. It was same way before. Any feedback that was given during Endwalker won't be implemented until 8.0 and feedback during Dawntrail will likely wait until 9.0. The development process is always way ahead of what people actually receive, and they're not going to scrap things theyre already working on right now to respond to feedback in the middle of process, they'll just slot it in for when they start working on new expansion from scratch again, while keeping the work on current next one going as is

The current feedback of 'stop simplifying jobs, we hate it' has been given since before Shadowbringers launched. It started in Stormblood. By the timetable you've laid out, Dawntrail is the expansion when we should expect it to bear fruit, but instead we're being told they're 'thinking about' doing something about it in 2-3 more years (not guaranteed).

You don't owe it to Square to apologize for their bad development cycle and doing it makes you look naive.

[SieyaM]

I just don't know why they though adding another finisher to the RDM melee string was a good idea. The finishers now outnumber the actual melee combo, this is absolutely ridiculous. You're spending more time pumping out finishers than doing anything else on RDM because they all also fill gauge.

[Ayer2015]

The naive part of me is hopeful 8.0 will bring about a lot of positive change regarding job design. The rational side looks at what they did with jobs this expansion and is very underwhelmed.
Hopefully they stop adding new jobs and focus on the existing ones, which have become increasingly less enjoyable to play.

[Xeliot]

Honestly, everything I've read and seen so far screams 'filler expansion.' Am I doomposting? Perhaps, but it's not my fault that I feel this way before a new expansion.

[AnimaAnimus]

As someone who has been a huge fan of smn since ff4 and mained smn in ff11 and a legacy who has been a smn most of ff14 I have never been so disappointed in a pre-expansion LL as I was in yesterdays and I unless things change dramatically I will def nope out before 8.0. It's almost like they are being willingly ignorant of any job feedback. Ppl have been complaining about the lack of job identity for years and then instead of getting ramuh/levio/shiva and a more interesting rotation, like smns have been talking about since HW, some even before, we get "ppl were debating on whether bahamut actually looked like that or not, so we created a new bahamut!" just.....just.....aaaaaaaahhhhhhh.

Yoshida saved this game, but he is also going to kill it.

[ty_taurus]

Someone definitely mentioned this elsewhere already, but what probably happened is, by the time they started actually getting feedback about Endwalker... Things like the positive reception of PVP design, the frustration over the simplicity, etc. It was already too late for Dawntrail. The design was locked in, and for whatever reason, the development of FFXIV is 90% on rails and is not allowed to deviate from those tracks outside of what is otherwise deemed "drastic."

And that's really a shame. I think it's such a disappointment that jobs aren't allowed to receive more drastic adjustments during an expansion rather than only at the beginning of one. It's 2.5 years... And you're telling me there's no time at all to work on and develop a job identity rework at all between any of that time? Honestly, since the solo-players got to siphon development resources for the development of the duty support system throughout all of Endwalker, I'd appreciate the same amount of effort go into a job design reboot, even if it has to be staggered throughout all of Dawntrail.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I just don't know why they though adding another finisher to the RDM melee string was a good idea. The finishers now outnumber the actual melee combo, this is absolutely ridiculous. You're spending more time pumping out finishers than doing anything else on RDM because they all also fill gauge.

I agree. PLUS the finisher ability looks like an ice spell. Doesn't feel especially RDM finisher at all and could very comfortably slide into rotations elsewhere alongside the upgraded Aero and Thunder spells. Actually they could totally just upgrade Fire and Stone spells to this Ice spell and a Water spell.

[OgruMogru]

I'll see you again in 2.5 years

[SeverianLyonesse]

So apparently we'll have to wait for 3 more years until we get a single consideration for actual job flavor?

Is this for real? You couldn't do that for this expansion?

Meanwhile everything is simplified in order to remove any failure state (notably gauge costs for bursts among other things).

They'd better just totally redo half the jobs in 8.0 or even earlier in DT patches:

* Replace SCH's Seraphism with Alexander/Eden or even Omega/Athena stuff.
* Replace SMN's Solar Bahamut with a Shiva Diamond Dust trance.
* Get rid of DRK's Living Shadow, not sure why DRK is a pet job.
* Get rid of WAR's self-sustain, wtf.
* Redo AST so that they play slot machine cards for their *own* damage instead of ruining the entire job fantasy for the sake of "consistency."
* Give WHM back Stone/Aero dammit.
* Give SAM Kaiten back, and fix the colors in the moon/snow sen symbols.
* Give Viper more of an identity than haste-Dragoon. Add some treasure hunter or corsair or judge or Zidane runes. Something to give a pretty flat job concept more dimension.
* Give Pictomancer more interesting things to paint. I'm really not digging hammer+landscape and then a weird creature gambler mini-game that should have been AST's gimmick.
* Reorganize RDM's flow so that it's not piling on finishers; also upgrade fire and stone to visuals that match the new aero and thunder.

[AmiableApkallu]

I think it's such a disappointment that jobs aren't allowed to receive more drastic adjustments during an expansion rather than only at the beginning of one. It's 2.5 years... And you're telling me there's no time at all to work on and develop a job identity rework at all between any of that time?

I wasn't around for the event(s) I'm about to allude to, but…

If this were up to me, I'd take each job and work out its new tooltips. No worrying about writing code. No worrying about whether new sound and visual effects are needed. As soon as I'm happy with the new tooltips, I'll post them online, and let the feedback roll in for a bit. Then, I wipe my tears, suck it up, and make another pass at the tooltips. Another online posting. Another round of feedback. Another round of tweaks, and then I start the coding.

I actually did something like that in a previous life. The difference is that SE has to deal with a far more diverse audience than I did, so they would need to be willing to put their foot down and say, I don't know, "AST is about taking what fate would seem to have in store for you and learning to overcome it. The RNG stays."

The important thing is that this structured proposal-feedback loop is only necessary when your starting point is so… "lost"… that you can't be (or shouldn't be) confident in how to course correct.