Players and the game design's mindset has become increasingly individualistic

[GoatOfWar]

Good post OP.
With the introduction of Trust system and simplification of combat/gameplay, seems like the devs want to slowly convert this into a semi single-player MMORPG. Unless you go to EX and Savage Trials, we might as well play with bots now.

Also same, used to like tanking very much before ShB because of those enmity control, now the role is so braindead I might fall asleep mid fight. Not to mention the issue with self-sustain healing too *cough*WAR*cough*.

The streamlining and job cannibalisation was largely because of the Warrior playerbase not accepting any sort of weaknesses to offset their job's strengths.
So now every tank is going to be the same. There's a good reason they mentioned that they wanted to fix job identities in 8.0 whilst covering Dark knight.
Dark knight has seen the most of it's toolkit homogenised and cannibalised thanks to Warrior mains. I wish they would stop listening to streamers.

[AnnRam]

All we have gained is a mediocre single player expirience.
The MMO part of this game is dead. The players are only in their ERP head space, there is no flavour or texture. You just go in a dungeon with 3 or more other players who are so robotic, they may as well be bots. The expirience is so much on rails that you start falling asleep not even half way through the first boss.
I used to like doing the daily roulettes and talking with other players. Now I can't even do more than 3 at a time cause I start falling asleep, and even then I need some sort of distraction like a YT video or music to even get through. No role is engaging enough after the 3rd run, no job is interesting after a few days of playing.
Everything is just boring. The most fun I had in game recently was when the tank got disconnected and the rest of us didn't notice, we got to the last boss by the time the tank returned. And it is sad.

Welcome to Second Life XIV.
If you aren't in to mod beast / venues / ERP and talk about sex jokes in Uldah or any main city then you aren't part of the group.
Don't forget to carry your "uwu f/f+ femra/kitsune Kon kon" preset and share your <Mare> tag.

[Zadood]

I really don't see what you are trying to convey here. Jobs have always had an optimal rotation, so nothing has changed in that regard.

The difference of job design as well as job optimization between expansion is mistake tolerence.

Player in general tend to have more "tolerence" toward mistake and misplay when it's come to job/class that is known to be complex.

By streamlining a class, it's true that the said class will easier to play, but at the same time, the "excuses" for not able to play a job/class optimally will reduced quiet a lot.

I will clarify first that I only started to play FFxiv at Shb expansion, feel free to correct if I m wrong.

For example,
At ARR period, if a Tank make some slipped up and failed the aggro management, most folk will be like, "welp, crap happen I suppose".

Fast forward to EW, if a Tank make some slipped up and failed the aggro management, most folk will start to judge the tank negatively and be like, "you only have one job, and yet you failed, how incompotent you can be???"

[Mikey_R]

For example,
At ARR period, if a Tank make some slipped up and failed the aggro management, most folk will be like, "welp, crap happen I suppose".

Fast forward to EW, if a Tank make some slipped up and failed the aggro management, most folk will start to judge the tank negatively and be like, "you only have one job, and yet you failed, how incompotent you can be???"

Just to note on this. In ARR, when the game was fairly new, it was acceptable to stay in tank stance as the whole DPSing in DPS stance never really hit until the end of ARR (and even then, only really in raid groups). It was only once HW came out and the first raid tier that there was a bigger push to have tanks in DPS stance.

Also, for ARR, Paladin's only combo was their enmity combo (they technically did have the riot blade combo, but that was never used in ST situations), so, even if there was a case where tanks were going to be put into DPS stance, they could still easily hold enmity. As for Warriors, they technically had 3 combos, however, the most damaging combo was the enmity combo, then you had the Storm's Eye combo which granted both a damage buff and a slashing debuff. The Storm's Path combo was the weakest and, whilst it did give the damage buff (via Maim), it's only other thing was a heal for 50% of the damage you done (stacks built up 1 at a time on all combo actions other than Heavy Swing, so there was no extra Wrath stacks generated here either). So, in both cases, the tanks had their enmity combo as part of their damage rotation, enmity was never an issue. Even in AoE, PLD only had Flash, which generated a ton of enmity and Warrior had Overpower and could cross Flash. Just as an FYI, flash done no damage and on PLD it did blind targets.

Now, coming to HW, PLD had a relatively easy job tanking in DPS stance, it helped that, at the time, Royal Authority comboed off of Savage Blade (enmity) and Shield Swipe, which proced off of blocks, also generated enmity. With these 2 things, PLD could comfortable tank in DPS stance and not lose enmity. Warrior was in a slightly different boat, with a proper DPS stance, Warrior could now pump out even more damage, which meant even more enmity. DRK, being the new tank, had no enmity moves in it's DPS rotation, however, a quick Dark Arts Power Slash and you would be set for the majority of the encounter. Which is also what most tanks done. 1 enmity combo in tank stance, swap to DPS and be fine for the remainder of the fight.

Come SB, things changed. All enmity was removed from damage rotations, for PLD, that meant Royal Authority was changed to combo off of Riot Blade, for Warrior, Storm's Path now generated 20 Wrath gauge, so it has more damage potential than Butchers Black and DRK was mostly the same. With this, they also added enmity control to all roles. Diversion (all DPS), which halved enmity gain and Lucid Dreaming which cut your current enmity by half (for all casters). This then created a weird state that enmity control wasn't the sole responsibility of the tank. Tanks could stay in DPS stance, but they wouldn't be able to generate enough enmity to keep ahead of the DPS, so it was down to the DPS to minimise their enmity gain to enable tanks to do their job. Now, I would say this system might seem good on paper, what it essentially boiled down to was the tank doing an enmity combo in tank stance at the start of the fight to generate a massive enmity lead, then swapping into DPS stance for the remainder of it. As long as the other people in the party used their enmity tools, you would be fine (assuming equal skill/gear levels). If they didn't, you were forced to use your enmity combo which had other consequences by this point, the main ones being, less damage and lack of resource generation.

Going into ShB, that is when the big change happened. Enmity generation was solely on the tanks and so, was massively increased so that it wasn't a problem. There was also no downsides to having your enmity stance on (of which there were downsides to the tank stance, mainly much lower damage). It basically went back to the ARR/HW system where the tanks were the only ones who manipulated enmity (HW Ninja is the exception) and just went full in on it. Whether this was a good change or not is highly dependant on who you ask.

As for other things to comment on. What makes a job complex? Ultimately, once you have learnt how to play a job and know how everything works, doesn't it then lose that complexity? Also, surely what people find complex is going to vary from person to person. i have seen people say that how Monk handles it's GCDs is complex, however, I have no issues with it.

As for streamlining, is it streamlining, or is it removing jank/adding QoL? Take Black Mage for example. It never used to have 0MP cost ice spells in AF (and vice versa), but now it does. This not only helped it's ST rotation (thanks to despair) but it also helped it's AoE rotation, which has had the pain of waiting for an MP tick after Flare in order to cast again. Was the changes to Enochian over the expansions a QoL upgrade or streamlining? Maybe someone thought it was fine. However, the big question is, did it enhance the job's playstyle at all?

This is the problem with making sweeping generalisations, you miss the nuance. This also goes for job gameplay. Something that gets thrown around alot is 'all jobs play the same', when that is far from the truth. Even actions that have similar uses interact with the kit differently. Take Inner Release from Warrior, which allows 3 uses of Fell Cleave without Gauge cost and Delirium, which allows 3 uses of Blood Spiller without gauge cost. Fundamentally, they seem the same. However, Inner Release also has anti status effects, including anti knockback, which could play a role in a fight and access to Primal Rend, a GCD gap closer, it also gives you extra time on your Surging Tempest damage buff. On the Delirium end, there is only one thing you have to be conscious of, and that is making sure your Blood Weapon Blood gain doesn't lose you any blood due to overcapping as you have no way to empty your blood gauge except with Living Shadow, which is only available every 2 minutes. As you can tell, getting into the nitty gritty of things shows differences between the 2.

Now, some might say, it isn't anything to worry about or, it's easy to manage but that then comes down to job knowledge. What could have been complex for someone has been made easy just with job knowledge.

[Kaurhz]

Some of the older systems I do think were bad, but it is just as bad to try and reduce everything out of those systems, rather than finding an appropriate balance for them.

Not every dungeon needs to take 13 minutes, heck even 15 minutes. Not every trial needs to be a single one-shot attempt to kill -- Wiping needs to feel a little more normalized. Not every job needs to be devoid of inconvenience, nor does every job need to be something that every player can learn with the utmost simplicity.

Even as a casual, that wasn't necessarily good at the game or even the classes at the time, it was always nice to have small subtleties in the class to play around with like stance dancing.

I will say not all classes need to have complexity, and nor do I think complexity is even necessary -- But I do think the feeling of engagement is necessary, and at times it is difficult to get even that.

It's like someone replied to my comment once said on a hash of the story... - What people gained from ease they lost to apathy, and in this case I just think you're losing as many players to apathy as to what you're gaining with the sheer ease of those systems. It's OK for people to have long-term goals.

[UkcsAlias]

Not every dungeon needs to take 13 minutes, heck even 15 minutes. Not every trial needs to be a single one-shot attempt to kill -- Wiping needs to feel a little more normalized. Not every job needs to be devoid of inconvenience, nor does every job need to be something that every player can learn with the utmost simplicity.

This is caused by a the side effect of: the most important part is the story. If people struggle at dungeons and trials, it might block story progression. Which is a very bad thing. As long as this argument exists, you cannot make stuff significantly harder.

The best way to get around that is by making the dungeons have difficulty tiers. Plenty of us are missing the 'hard' dungeon concept. Yet for a good experience its vital to get that back. Its content not easily clearable by anyone, but its also not extremely hard in such way you can take a day to complete it. The mechanics are just harsh enough to be able to cause wipes quite easily, but outside of that well doable and quickly clearable.

I think normal trials are already doing somewhat fine but do need some HP tweaking over time to avoid power creep from causing too fast kills. You should at least always get into a later phase of the fight were it fully performs its mechanics in combinations. Instead of already beating it during its tutorial phase.

And then I think it would be good if dungeons get the same treatment as trials: 2 diffirent modes with their own features. However, not as an extreme dungeon or even 2 modes normaly playable. Instead, we have the tutorial mode (duty support), and normal mode (the dungeon you get in roulettes). If the dungeon ends up blocking story progress, the duty support mode can help you get around that then. Duty support can give you the explenation of mechanics in a more safe and controlled way. You can even make the NPCs give hints here (and maybe after you died once). The normal mode (just like the extremes) can then directly focus on the actual mechanics that matter.

Feeding back from that idea, the same could even in theory be applied into the trials again as duty support could take a slower tutorial approach while the normal trial now very quickly starts doing the lategame (full) mechanics.

Duty support is one of those things that can always be used as a fallback, if needed we can even use the difficulty select window similar to instanced msq fights.

[Araxes]

I haven't had a guild in Years. I simply do not need one at the Games current state. Everything i wanna do i can do with my Wife and randoms. Guess that says it all.

[Kaurhz]

Snip.

A little struggle is fine, and honestly it isn't necessarily the fact of making the trials nor dungeons themselves more difficult, but more-so the recovery factor when things go south. In these instances a wipe is far more understandable than other things we see like on-level tanks laughing at dungeon bosses and trial bosses, like quite literally laughing at them.

If I can see a duo pair of tanks sit there and spend nigh on the better part of an entire second phase of Seat of Sacrifice and duo him as though he's meant to impose no threat whatsoever then that is a problem -- It's also a problem if I can sit there in Vanaspati and laugh at the final boss whilst everyone else in the party is laying on the floor then this is also a problem. The amount of outgoing damage should exceed what a tank or a duo pair of tanks are capable of sustaining themselves on.

I'm not expecting difficulty to shoot through the roof personally, as I think difficulty on fights hasn't been too bad, but the amount that people can sustain without a healer is borderline ridiculous.

It's only really capstone fights that struggle from power-creeping and honestly they need a stricter item level sync to adjust for this, e.g., how Endsinger is at the moment is perfectly fine -- Compare that to something like Hades, or even Nidhogg, then it's a problem. Again, I just think one of the biggest problems is the general outgoing damage. Maybe we disagree here, but personally no amount of "It should be easy" -- Is enough to warrant nor justify the things that classes are able to pull off.

I would be down for additionally difficulty, I personally think the game needs that anyway.

[Valence]

Explain what made job design harder back then if you can. From what I have seen and what I am reading in these posts, it was annoying busywork rather than deep mechanics.

From that answer alone I see there is no point in continuing: you kinda closed the door yourself already. But your answer illustrates perfectly the OP in any case. If you think the OP was about making things harder, I think I either formulated it very badly, or you're just being obtuse on purpose. It just makes you sound a little clueless if I may say so, considering you didn't even play through the parts that I mentioned and still jump into it head-on with gigantic prejudices like if you knew better than anyone.

Because it's more enjoyable than playing with bots? What even is this argument? I am only allowed to enjoy playing with others if my success in game is dependent on them knowing contrived game systems that don't come naturally? What a weird take. Try running a savage in party finder with a group that doesn't know what they're doing and see what happens. We're co-dependent enough as is. You can't just do your own job right and win. Do you even play this game?

I asked why you played online with random players, and I do not think your answer was bad or anything (except perhaps the needlessly aggressive last bit... why are you being so mad about it?). Again, it just illustrates the OP perfectly well. Some people want limited failure states coming from team mates, some want more. Yours is not necessarily a wrong mindset to have, it's just more individualistic, that's all.

And yes, I do play the game, thank you. If you're not convinced you'll see that my profile is public.

Why are you doing so much bozja to begin with? Do it when it is fun, avoid it when it is a grind. There are so many activities in this game there is never an excuse for running content that makes you want to watch netflix on the side. If you complain about that, that's your own self-inflicted problem and not one with the game. It's not a reasonable complaint.

Believe me, I went through eureka hell at release, didn't like it, but tried every new iteration all the same with the hope to see some changes, or new things. With that experience in mind, and knowing it was just not my thing, I strolled through bozja by just doing the story because I do like XIV stories and lore. I didn't overstay my welcome for more than it was required of me to achieve that. But you're not even replying to the actual point, you're just moving the goalposts here. I just took bozja as an example of why people could come to watch netflix on the side, as you put it so nicely.

On top of that, there is more to engagement than just pressing buttons optimally. It's an mmoRPG. Have you tried immersing yourself in the fantasy of it? That's kinda the point after all and will never happen if you are doing something else on the side. I think tons of mmoRPG players are not actually into the whole fantasy aspect of roleplaying games. They play "roles" and don't care about the imagination, only the gameplay. Who could care about that demographic to begin with? You might as well be playing counter-strike.

You're assuming so much about me, and chaining ad hominem and strawmen like it's the olympics already I'm not sure if I have to laugh or cry. I don't think I have ever opened netflix or anything else while doing actual content myself, if that's what you were asking about though. I'm not sure where this discussion is leading to be perfectly frank.

You know what there is inside RPGs though beyond story and immersion (that I do enjoy very much btw as evidenced by what I said above already)? Actual party roles and systems beyond playing a scripted DDR game.

[UkcsAlias]

Maybe we disagree here, but personally no amount of "It should be easy" -- Is enough to warrant nor justify the things that classes are able to pull off.

Yet the current design looks like its intended to be like that (and horrible). They seem to be too scared to see a party fail repeatedly and then abandon. Trials have the echo to at least reduce difficulty significantly, but in dungeons im not noticing anything to push the difficulty upward.

And thats why i said duty support can be a great aid to negate the excuse. Is content too hard? go duty support. It doesnt matter if duty support is easier, since you are already solo in that. And if that has the 2 difficulties: easy/normal or normal/hard (depending on how you want to name it), it means you could still play the intended difficulty. But now with at least properly scaled damage etc.

I want that little bit of struggle to exist. Its now just lacking completely.