Quote Originally Posted by Lyth View Post
'Complexity' is a self-congratulatory feelycraft word as far as discussions about this game is concerned. Mutual agreement can be the byproduct of objective findings, but can arise just as easily as folie à deux.

Fight design is scripted to the point that you generally learn what you're doing on a GCD-by-GCD basis by the end of prog. There's very little that this game involves in the realm of on-the-fly decision-making. You're solving a chess position to which all the remaining possible moves have already been well mapped out.

I think that it's worth talking about making jobs more engaging to play, but I think the direction needs to be around creating uncertainty and variability. I'm interested in seeing what comes of these hotbar 'layers' (i.e. action swaps) in the future, and it may be that adding more context-dependent hotbar swaps may lead to more on-the-fly decision making. I think there's been a strong push to make pulls more predictable that dates back to Stormblood. Part of that is a reflection of players wanting to achieve the 'perfect' run and not tolerating any variance that might ruin that. I would much rather every pull feel unique in its optimizations.
The reason why player want to "optimize" their run in dungeon and want get it quickly done because...

FFXIV is not a fun game to play in general. And that's precisely the reason why a lot content is heavily reliant on reward to stay relevant.

And now you might asking "If game is not fun for them to play, then why they keep playing it at all?"

Well the answer is, if you are a player that love MMORPG genre, but ALMOST every single MMORPG in the said genre is riddled with P2W, LootBox, Gacha, BattlePass predatory monetization.

What option you still have left in this otherwise what they so-called a "free market"?