They're thinking about job identities for 8.0

[ty_taurus]

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.

Well, if we take what was said at face value and assume 8.0 is absolutely going to reboot job identity, then we have to ask who is that change serving? Let's say the catalyst for this decision is, in fact, the voices of disappointed players that we see here on the forums as well as in a few other places on occasion. If that's the case, and the goal is to create a future where everyone is happy with the state of their jobs, then would it not make sense to be open and transparent with that community to ensure the changes you are making do actually appeal to the people you're trying to satisfy?

But there is also the possibility that they are in fact "lost" with how to proceed with job design anyway. In which case this identity reboot might more be inspired by their own uncertainty with how to maintain the current direction otherwise. Because if we look at the job actions we just saw, what new things have we actually seen? Upgraded animations and finishers all over the place. And that's kind of what Endwalker was as well. They can't do that forever, just add a couple animation upgrades and a new finisher or two. So maybe they're just feeling like the jobs need a reboot so that future changes after 8.0 can actually feel like the jobs are changing and evolving, or that there's actually room to add new things anyway. Because you can't physically fit so many finishers into a rotation. At a certain point, the balloon will pop and it will stop working correctly, which we've already seen a little bit of in Endwalker. Gunbreaker says hi.

[Musashidon]

Well, if we take what was said at face value and assume 8.0 is absolutely going to reboot job identity.

well face value isn't a reboot. it was just said 8.0 will work on individualization and some players have taken that has some system overhaul.

[LordMcMutton]

Does anyone like that new Bahamut summon ?

To me, it looked like Bahamut on a tight budget cosplaying a fusion of Irelia + Shyvana.

I think the design looks cool. Especially the sword wings!

* fix the colors in the moon/snow sen symbols.

Wait, is there something wrong with the colors I haven't noticed?

This is the first time I have ever gotten the vibe from the not just the community but also the game devs that this is a filler expansion. I have been around since 2.0 for context as to the span of time. I would say your current thinking isn't unwarranted.

Why do you say that?

[SeverianLyonesse]

Wait, is there something wrong with the colors I haven't noticed?

The Edo-period concept of Setsugekka is not only a visual representation of the passing of the seasons (Moon = Autumn, Snow = Winter, Flower = Spring), but can also be viewed as a color motif showing how the seasons progress through different tints of white (Moon = yellow white, Snow = blue white, Flower = pink white).

The new Midare Setsugekka move we are getting in DT correctly reflects this in the sword colors. You could also see the proper colors reflected in the respective Gekko, Yukikaze, Kasha (and Mangetsu/Oka) skills and hotbar symbols for each.

But the actual Sen symbols and Meikyo Shisui have been wrong from the beginning. Moon should not be blue; snow should not be green.

It's honestly baffling to me why they designed the sen symbols the way they did. There are mods which deliberately change them to different colors because Snow and Moon can be easily confused. But also, like, why go 99% of the way there and then totally ignore the color motif in the gauge?

[ty_taurus]

well face value isn't a reboot. it was just said 8.0 will work on individualization and some players have taken that has some system overhaul.

Semantics, but regardless, it was a hypothetical about the best case scenario.

[Valence]

Well, if we take what was said at face value and assume 8.0 is absolutely going to reboot job identity, then we have to ask who is that change serving? Let's say the catalyst for this decision is, in fact, the voices of disappointed players that we see here on the forums as well as in a few other places on occasion. If that's the case, and the goal is to create a future where everyone is happy with the state of their jobs, then would it not make sense to be open and transparent with that community to ensure the changes you are making do actually appeal to the people you're trying to satisfy?

But there is also the possibility that they are in fact "lost" with how to proceed with job design anyway. In which case this identity reboot might more be inspired by their own uncertainty with how to maintain the current direction otherwise. Because if we look at the job actions we just saw, what new things have we actually seen? Upgraded animations and finishers all over the place. And that's kind of what Endwalker was as well. They can't do that forever, just add a couple animation upgrades and a new finisher or two. So maybe they're just feeling like the jobs need a reboot so that future changes after 8.0 can actually feel like the jobs are changing and evolving, or that there's actually room to add new things anyway. Because you can't physically fit so many finishers into a rotation. At a certain point, the balloon will pop and it will stop working correctly, which we've already seen a little bit of in Endwalker. Gunbreaker says hi.

When you continuously delete whole facets of your gameplay engine again and again with absolute peeks like when ShB happened, and you're left with so little to play with, then it only makes sense to me that thinking about bringing bigger, actual meaningful changes again is going to be a colossal work for the simple reason that you'd need to rethink a lot of general systems, intricacies between job design, battle system and encounter design, make sure old content is still playable and relatively decent with those new systems, but also code them and implement them, test them and reiterate the process again and again internally until it's workable. Building whole new things is long and arduous, I should know, I've worked in the game industry for a while.

But they only have themselves to blame for it if that's the case, I still maintain that ShB killed their battle system and they painted themselves into a corner with it. The only systematic reaction they seem to have to bring changes or fix things is to delete what they flagged problematic. They've been at it for so long that if they want to start and proceed differently, it's getting harder and harder as we go. But at some point they'll have to do it, and like for climate change in a way, the sooner the easier. Procrastinating isn't gonna do us any good there.