The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[Valence]

Complex is not the greatest word I'd use. Some people would probably love insanely difficult job kits but I doubt that's the whole point. It's more about fun channeled through elaborate designs, intricacies etc. There is a reason people regularly bring up pvp toolkits as they do exactly just that with 4 times less buttons. Every ability synergizes with the others and works within a coherent entity focused around a specific purpose and mechanic. It gratifies with rewards in effectiveness when pulled properly.

Any job would work, but if you take DRK for instance, the whole point is about spending HP to unleash potent attacks, and balancing your tanking with your spending of HP. Some abilities like Sole Survivor can snowball as when you kill someone with it, you regain HP and MP and reset plunge/survivor, which allows you to kill more people. The LB also makes you self heal from damage done which further compounds the spending of HP and recuperating it before the end of the timer. It's a perfect example of a virtuous circle that rewards you with more as long as you keep the loop going. RPR generates harvest stacks by spending their main gcd spender and killing people, and those stacks are consumed like in pve to boost the damage of plentiful harvest. The more you kill people, the most powerful your harvest can be for its use every minute. Using harvest also makes you LB replenish way faster so you need to know when to use it and when to hold it. The whole point of RDM is knowing when to shift between white and black stances, one being defensive/curative and the other for pure damage. Being able to swap at will can even allow people to make combinations in the middle of combos to adjust and transform the effects of their skills at a whim. And so on. Every job is designed with a clear and specific purpose in mind, unlike pve. And what does pvp also have? Resource scarcity and management, notably MP.

A whole pvp toolkit is usually encapsulated into 7-8 buttons, and 4 more universal actions. Many abilities have multiple effects coming attached to them and they tend to synergize with others from other skills. Is this complex? Somewhat but that's not exactly the word I'd use to describe such a simple system with so little buttons. Intricate or elaborate, yes. Or maybe, just focused on rewarding good uses. Current pve rewards people with a big shiny button every 2 minute with follow up finishers that you get when pressing a button, that's about it. Next you have skills filling up gauges and some gauge spenders to spend the time and that's pretty much it.

Fun doesn't need to come necessarily from complicated systems, but giving rewards for using your toolkit well when presented by various situations also means that skill gaps are gonna appear again, and they obviously don't want that.

[AmiableApkallu]

*snip*

Fun doesn't need to come necessarily from complicated systems, but giving rewards for using your toolkit well when presented by various situations also means that skill gaps are gonna appear again, and they obviously don't want that.

PvP kits also exist in the context of highly dynamic, unscripted, unpredictable encounters.

"Using your toolkit well" in PvE will never mean or feel like the same thing, regardless of what PvE kits look like, so long as PvE encounters are the polar opposite.

[MagiusNecros]

PvP kits also exist in the context of highly dynamic, unscripted, unpredictable encounters.

More of that stuff in PvE pls. All for that no dungeon/boss run is the same experience. Because dynamic gameplay is exactly what people are looking for in this game.