Combat system is beyond saving.

[Boblawblah]

I was a WAR main during Heavensward and can confirm that it was a far different class. I spent a lot of time in dungeons during that time just because it was fun. I actually wanted to run roulettes. Now WAR is a pittance along with most other classes in this game.



You and your ilk killed off every other MMO by incessantly spamming every forum, Reddit thread, comments section, etc. about how much better FFXIV was better than WoW and so on. FFXIV has a near-monopoly among MMOs and now you tell us to go back to playing those other games? The same games that you killed off?



World of Warcraft, I'm sure you would agree. Final Fantasy is another good one, I don't think Yoshi-P did the PS5 any favors. FFXIV is an exception to the rule because of the former's implosion and people spamming every single orifice of the internet with free shilling for this game. And the explosion of low-quality G'raha fans, big-titty modbeasts, "nightclubs" and assorted drivel that turned FFXIV into Idiocracy. I'm sure you're aware that turning FFXIV into a one-button porno game would probably rankle some people?

As I've said before Macchiato, sub away, I and many others thank you for your angry money. I don't understand it, but it's your money.

[Rekh]

No it absolutely was not. There was a huge amount of community pressure to use cleric stance in dungeons. This whole idea now where people get mad when healers don't dps in dungeons? Happened back then, too. Healers have never be allowed to just focus on their given role.

Thank you. I vividly remember the community divide between those who refused to stance dance and those who did not.

[Vyrerus]

As I've said before Macchiato, sub away, I and many others thank you for your angry money. I don't understand it, but it's your money.

I mean, there's plenty of reasons to keep someone subbed even if they don't like the game.

Housing is the biggest, explicit one. Some houses took the efforts of entire FCs to obtain originally, and some long time hold outs hold onto those because of not only the perceived value but the memory of what it took to acquire the house.

Another reason is OF access. You can't access the forum if you can't login, so you can't unsubscribe and participate in the forum discussions. Which, fruitless though they may be, probably help with boredom and venting.

Third reason would be socialization. I.E. Friends or at least social groups/places to hang around in from the comfort of your own home. There's no small amount of streamers or other gaming social networks that use XIV as a gathering point/common point of interest. Even a bad game is still fun with friends. Anything can be made fun with friends.

And fourth, if it's as Caffe Macchiato says, then they feel like there's no other space that gives this experience, even though other MMOs still make more money and have higher player counts (WoW and Runescape).

People are angry because they care and care too much. And are angry that they care. It's a vicious cycle. Not too hard to understand imo.

[Nebelheim]

I wish they would get away from the "perfect balance" crap there insistent on doing since stormblood and making every job feel like they play the same and get at least a little experimental with jobs and job balance to mix things up a little. I would like to have a mix of wow ff11 and various aspects of other games combat where jobs and content weren't created around a perfect balance.

[Vyrerus]

Yeah, back when accuracy was around we had such deep stat choices for our gear. Let's not forget that tanks had to meld more accuracy than others and mages the least amount.

And, *checks notes* they still have to meld precisely the same Materia for Direct Hit now instead, which actually causes an even higher disparity between their biggest and lowest DPS through being an RNG stat, whereas Accuracy was modular depending on the content you were doing, so you could have multiple gearsets with less accuracy for things like the 24 mans if you knew the accuracy caps...

[xivYuiM]

It's not that they want people to quit, but they absolutely do not want expression of skill, and nor do they want players to feel like underperforming or failing are options. Which is a shame, because regardless of what they do people are always going to fail and underperform, whether this be on a skill-level, or just a level of outright lazy, and I will admit they have slowly been trying to actually compensate for lazy as well.

There seems to be a struggle discerning between actual difficulty behind something, and streaming versus just outright being lazy or uncaring for playing at even a fundamental level.

It's unfortunate because even on a casual level some of these things were fun to engage with and interact with, be it stance swapping or making aggro-management being a party-wide responsibility rather than individual responsibility. It made things fun everywhere.

This is probably a less incendiary way to convey my confusion with the changes over the years. Other than occasional issues with top end content this game has NEVER been hard. Ever. The content that 99% of the playerbase consumes has always been easy and the old mechanics that you list are what made it fun. Ever since 4.0 it has felt like the goal has always been to pander to the people who were never going to engage with battle content in the first place. They are pandering to the type of person who will queue as BLM and ONLY cast thunder 3 over and over for the whole dungeon because they "don't feel like using anything else" and if you complain to them you get banned for harassment. Why the hell would they spend YEARS adjusting the game just to pander to that audience? They don't care. No matter how hard SE panders to that audience they will never do any combat content beyond roulettes and log out/afk in limsa.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

And, *checks notes* they still have to meld precisely the same Materia for Direct Hit now instead, which actually causes an even higher disparity between their biggest and lowest DPS through being an RNG stat, whereas Accuracy was modular depending on the content you were doing, so you could have multiple gearsets with less accuracy for things like the 24 mans if you knew the accuracy caps...

Only ex and savage had acc requirements. Normal content did not, so no one had multiple sets. Cap acc for highest raid fight and called it a day.



Dh is not comparable. Accuracy was required. Missing hits in ex and savage was inexcusable. Dh is just another damage multiplier, and varies depending on job and stat spread.

[Tint]

Only ex and savage had acc requirements. Normal content did not, so no one had multiple sets.

Well maybe it was changed later but I remember that I didn't had enough accuracy on my healer to hit enemies in Antitower, so I could not dps properly. And since enemies hit like a wet noodle I had nothing to heal either. That was the moment I quit healing (came back to it in late ShB).

[Vyrerus]

Only ex and savage had acc requirements. Normal content did not, so no one had multiple sets. Cap acc for highest raid fight and called it a day.



Dh is not comparable. Accuracy was required. Missing hits in ex and savage was inexcusable. Dh is just another damage multiplier, and varies depending on job and stat spread.

Not true. Fights lower than Savage and Ex had accuracy requirements, albeit far lower ones. People would and did have sets almost entirely absent of accuracy for doing things like the 24 mans. Most people did just gear for the highest accuracy check and call it a day, though.

And they are comparable, everything can be compared, silly. Direct Hit is also required in order to do direct critical hits at all. Advertised as a new facet of the battle system, even. It features in some way in almost every tank BIS since its inception, and even in the odd cases where you didn't want it, the jobs (cough Warrior cough) had a skill that forced Direct Hit to happen because it's the new maximize your DPS stat.

Accuracy was just a whole lot more honest about its requirement.

[xivYuiM]

(power is still ultimately driven by skill and not just ilvl).

I appreciate your genuine reply to my inflammatory rant post but you are genuinely misinformed if you believe this to be true unless we are talking about the very top percentile of players (who I would assume are in BiS gear anyway). During the time period that I am wishing could return it was not uncommon for someone to be able to do more damage in worse gear if the person in more powerful gear was completely clueless as to how to play their job. Not the case anymore.