Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Aravell]

Isn't it interesting that we didn't have this kind of discussion about how 'lack of engagement' etc. when, by all observable metrics, Deltascape was horrendous for it, having both O1S (which was cleared blind on the first pull by some groups, I've heard) and O2S, which was equally monotonous to farm. The saving grace of Deltascape was that it had Halicarnassus, still regarded by some players (including me) to be one of the most well-designed Savage encounters to date. And it didn't do it with debuff vomit, all things considered it was rather simple by today's standards.

All things considered, Deltascape wasn't the worst thing. Sure, O1S and O2S weren't great, but O3S and both parts of O4S were great. Then we look at Abyssos, P5S and P8S part 1 were pretty good, but P6S, P7S and P8S part 2 were awful once you learned them.

Regarding TOP, we can definitively say that TOP is a complex fight, but is it a well-designed fight? I'm leaning towards "no" from what I've seen of it.

Maybe I'm talking nonsense since I've never been that far into the fight, but from what I've seen, TOP has far too many moving parts in each mechanic, you have to remember so many things and then execute in order (which also explains why some people use 3rd party assist tools to alleviate some of this).

In contrast, my group cleared DSR with no player markers, we just ran a full priority system for the entire fight and we never had to remember as much as just Party Synergy in TOP. I think the most I had to remember in DSR was during Wroth Flames where we have a descending order from wall to mid with white debuff to Hraesvelgr and black debuff to Nidhogg.

[GrimGale]

[ty_taurus]

*Cries in Sage’s never ending bug zapper spam*

[vetch]

*Cries in Sage’s never ending bug zapper spam*

Imagine how much fun you'd be having if Sage had remained true to its nu-Gundam inspiration and you needed to micromanage your funnels, instead of just ripping off the aesthetic and doing nothing with it.

[rawker]

I would've been drawn to SGE if the dot animation are the nouliths pewpewing around the target like Protoss Carrier's Interceptors on the enemies affected for its duration.

[Somnolence]

Line up in two lines from north to south, based on THMR priority
Identify my Playstation marker
Identify if someone on my side has the same marker, the southmost of the pair adjusts and since I'm playing Ranged here that means me if I have a duplicate
Identify which 3 of the 4 Omega Clones are in a line
Identify if the Male has a shield or not (decides if it's in or out from the male)
Identify if the Female has BladeLegs or not (decides it it's 'in line with Female' or 'Cross shaped AOE to dodge')
Position accordingly within about 4 seconds of the clones appearing
Identify where the big eyeball is
Identify whether we have Mid Glitch or Far Glitch
Line up in spread positions to dodge the eye laser, with the formation respecting the Mid/Far debuff (using BPOG as the order from north to south, but if it's Far, the right hand side has to do GOPB)
Identify who has the two stack markers, and if they are on the same side, the southmost stack and their partner need to swap for the next part
Position around the central Female clone, to get knocked back to the safespots, respecting Mid/Far debuff

This is why "simple" jobs are popular for hard content, because not everybody has mental capacity to handle complex mechanics and complex rotation at the same time.

That's the issue with following the road of 'increase the complexity of encounters, and remove complexity from jobs so they're easier to play'. You end up with design like this, where the way they made it 'complex' in TOP is to just say 'sod it, everyone can get every potential position'. That's okay for in certain scenarios, like Limit Cut for example (you can get any of the 8 numbers), but it comes back with Delta, with Sigma, with Omega.

SE is trying to make this game for everybody. But because different players do different things and expect different difficulty if the job is the same the way they are trying to do this is by making jobs simple and shoving all hard PvE complexity into encounters.

It is a fact that casual content is way too easy and extreme/savage content becomes easy as well when optimized so there is huge disconnect between what is provided in support job kits and what is actually needed.

No wonder why often healer is sought out role for alliance roulettes - if your co-healer is Medica II enjoyer there is absolutely nothing to do than to spam dps spells and rez some newbie that fails mechs.

The fact that most of healer abilities can become unnecessary is bad design no matter how you look at it.

[AsiTsurugi]

This is why "simple" jobs are popular for hard content, because not everybody has mental capacity to handle complex mechanics and complex rotation at the same time.

While I agree with the general sentiment of this statement, the text quoted as context to this describes a full downtime mechanic where the bosses are untargetable, and all you need to do are the things described in the quote with no attention to dealing damage. That being said, Party Synergy is still one of the more complex mechanics in the fight.

[Somnolence]

While I agree with the general sentiment of this statement, the text quoted as context to this describes a full downtime mechanic where the bosses are untargetable, and all you need to do are the things described in the quote with no attention to dealing damage. That being said, Party Synergy is still one of the more complex mechanics in the fight.

Well, consider this - SMN has around the same amount of DRU/TOP clears than RDM and BLM combined.

[ForsakenRoe]

This is why "simple" jobs are popular for hard content, because not everybody has mental capacity to handle complex mechanics and complex rotation at the same time.

Right, but my point is, in the past when we had 'more complexity in jobs', the mechanics of even the hardest fight in the game, UCOB, were not as complex as what we see now. Rather, it is BECAUSE the jobs got simpler for 'accessibility' or 'removing friction' or whatever they want to spin it as, that they had to make up the complexity elsewhere, leading to overdesigned fight mechanics where half of the difficulty is in working out what the heck you're looking at. TOP is an example of following the mantra of 'jobs should be simple, content mechanics should be the source of complexity' to the natural conclusion.

Instead, where we had Job:Content ratio of like 25:75 (or as bad as 90:10 in the case of healers), we should have had more like X : (100 - X), where X is 'an amount between 10 and 50, depending on how much the player wants to interact with their job kit'. As an example, on SCH, if a player wants to use zero of their 3 available DOTs in an EX roulette, they would be able to. But if another player wants to micromanage all three plus the Fairy's position plus who the Fairy is casting Embrace on, then they should ALSO be able to, rather than have their skill ceiling dictated to them by SE as it is now.

SE is trying to make this game for everybody.

Really? Because every expansion, they seem to be making changes that are designed to say 'hey players who enjoy tryharding, we're going to be lowering the skill ceiling you enjoy striving to reach, enjoy'. In trying to make it 'for everybody', they're making it exclusionary to those players who want to 'tryhard'. If a game is too hard, it can drive people away. But if a game is too easy, then it can equally drive people away, due to being unfulfilling. What's the point in playing Mario games, for example, if there's no enemies to die to, or pits to fall in?

[ty_taurus]

SE is trying to make this game for everybody. But because different players do different things and expect different difficulty if the job is the same the way they are trying to do this by it out is to make jobs simple and shove all hard PvE complexity into encounters.

Doesn't seem like I'm included in that "everyone" category. Doesn't seem like many others are either. I would love if the game were designed for everyone. That's what is being asked for here: job design that doesn't have to be too hard, but offers room for skill expression and dynamic gameplay.