What happened to job inter-play? Was it any good?

[Shurrikhan]

Manasong has almost never been required on cooldown, and that's what kept it apart from quelling strikes for instance. On top of it, it was a gigantic dps loss for the bard or machinist to swap to MP/TP party refresh (-15%) back in HW.

20% in 2.0. 15% shortly after. 10% by 3.3. But that's solely for Mage's Ballad. Promoted Bishop (HW MCH "Manasong") never had a percent penalty. It only dropped your separate turret tick damage, as it did not attack while Promoted.

Again, I thought pre-Stormblood Ballad was basically fine; they just needed to lose their GCD cost so that they wouldn't be obliged to be used as for as near to an entire MP bar as (A) could be delayed until after Foe's and (B) done without overlapping with DoT reapplications. (Promoted Bishop? Less so, since it had no impact on your rotation, only on your AA damage, which then made it have no interaction with your rotation from which to vary its optimal length even slightly.)

And, thereafter, when they were replaced by rigid CDs? While you'd delay your first use of Manasong slightly (using Tactician instead for your first threat drop, but not delaying it so far that the other Ranger's FR or HC wouldn't get the full extension from it) in SB, you would thereafter use it at some 98% of optimal value... by hitting it on CD. It also specifically encouraged double-ranged not just due to further exploiting DRG but also because each Ranged then propped up each other's MP-spending raidbuff, which in turn made DRG a near must-have across the expansion, frequently leaving only one flexible space until going full caster-comp or Brotherhood comp.

My fundamental problem is that SE being SE, they decided to axe everything instead of improving, and i'll never agree that their choice was the correct one considering how one dimensional everything has become now in terms of systems and facets, which seriously limits any kind of creative design whether we're talking about encounters, jobs, roles, identities, etc, for the very reason that the depth of the battle system directly informs all of those like a motherlode.

Agreed. I just don't think the direction they went in Stormblood was, outside of perhaps Rescue and Mana Shift, entirely for the worse, nor that a buttons-centric approach would ever have been the right one for such interplay. Button count additions should be a solution of last resort -- sometimes useful enough as keystone or capstone to an already good idea to warrant having, but not something one should include for mere appearance of complexity (which, without those underlying prior solutions, tends to be mere illusion).

Tangent:

things could have been made better here and there (notably on aggro if just by letting the whole rphys roster access shadewalker type abilities)

There's also something to be said for job-specific / unique skills, though, such as in Ninja alone having Shadewalker. Should Monk have also granted AoE Refresh? Should BLM have been able to nullify the next incoming debuff against an ally? Where does one draw that line?

While I'd be all for more skillshot attacks aimed at random or non-tank targets that would, in effect, give other tanks (and DPS with defensives, in a pinch) frequent access to functionality akin to Cover, I'd prefer a similar more-sophisticated solution to Enmity (e.g., unseen and less seen attacks split their Enmity among all known attackers, such that a tank or ranged could get an early Enmity lead to retain that threat if others attack from somewhere other than the front)... or to leave that as a feature for Ninja alone (just as Bard's Warden's Paeon and the Paladin's [longer-range] Cover --perhaps Paladin's and target's Defense and Magic Defense combined against incoming attacks-- and BLM's Mana Wall and SMN's Phoenix heals and RDM's Verraise would remain theirs alone). No, I don't consider Trick Attack utility; it was just rDPS around which Ninja would be tuned anyways, even if around not quite perfect exploitation, and it concentrated party damage no more than simply swapping out another un-bursty DPS for a more-bursty DPS would have.

[Valence]

20% in 2.0. 15% shortly after. 10% by 3.3. But that's solely for Mage's Ballad. Promoted Bishop (HW MCH "Manasong") never had a percent penalty. It only dropped your separate turret tick damage, as it did not attack while Promoted.

The turret loss of damage when switched to MP/TP promotion was approximately 15% if I remember correctly. Perhaps different in HW now that I think about it, but the percentage of damage of the job coming from the turret in SB was about 15% iirc (which included detonation). Maybe I remember wrong and would have to recheck the website that makes yoshi sad though. Either way it was most logically in line with BRD's if so.

And, thereafter, when they were replaced by rigid CDs? While you'd delay your first use of Manasong slightly (using Tactician instead for your first threat drop, but not delaying it so far that the other Ranger's FR or HC wouldn't get the full extension from it) in SB, you would thereafter use it at some 98% of optimal value... by hitting it on CD. It also specifically encouraged double-ranged not just due to further exploiting DRG but also because each Ranged then propped up each other's MP-spending raidbuff, which in turn made DRG a near must-have across the expansion, frequently leaving only one flexible space until going full caster-comp or Brotherhood comp.

Quite easily fixed if SE really had wanted to do anything about it, but I guess it's easier to just nuke the whole thing and throw the baby with the bathwater.

While I'd be all for more skillshot attacks aimed at random or non-tank targets that would, in effect, give other tanks (and DPS with defensives, in a pinch) frequent access to functionality akin to Cover, I'd prefer a similar more-sophisticated solution to Enmity (e.g., unseen and less seen attacks split their Enmity among all known attackers, such that a tank or ranged could get an early Enmity lead to retain that threat if others attack from somewhere other than the front)... or to leave that as a feature for Ninja alone (just as Bard's Warden's Paeon and the Paladin's [longer-range] Cover --perhaps Paladin's and target's Defense and Magic Defense combined against incoming attacks-- and BLM's Mana Wall and SMN's Phoenix heals and RDM's Verraise would remain theirs alone). No, I don't consider Trick Attack utility; it was just rDPS around which Ninja would be tuned anyways, even if around not quite perfect exploitation, and it concentrated party damage no more than simply swapping out another un-bursty DPS for a more-bursty DPS would have.

I'll take anything that re-adds some manner of depth to the core system. Most people those days just argue about homogenization, 2min meta, all those things, but they're just going after the tip of the icerberg, which is attached to the actual immersed colossal chunk that is the progressive loss of the rpg battle system after ShB.

[Shurrikhan]

The turret loss of damage when switched to MP/TP promotion was approximately 15% if I remember correctly.

Right. After 3.3, Bard was a bit less affected so long as its DoTs finished up around the same time and they could drop Ballad/Paeon just before refreshing them.

My point, though, was that rotational impact. Bard would time its exit around higher potency GCDs (via DoTs, Straighter Shot, Empyreal Arrow, oGCDs), while MCH had no such interaction.

Quite easily fixed if SE really had wanted to do anything about it, but I guess it's easier to just nuke the whole thing and throw the baby with the bathwater.

Agreed to the first half. And agreed that the second was unfortunate.

I'll take anything that re-adds some manner of depth to the core system. Most people those days just argue about homogenization, 2min meta, all those things, but they're just going after the tip of the icerberg, which is attached to the actual immersed colossal chunk that is the progressive loss of the rpg battle system after ShB.

Again, agreed to the first half and agreed that the second was unfortunate.

...Heck, now we've got people simultaneously complaining about button-bloat and yet insisting that reducing some of our versatile skills (such as damaging gap-closers) being reduced to a single dimension is the best thing since glamour, simultaneously reducing skill ceilings (any rewards for fight knowledge / forethought) and decreasing the amount of button-press variance we get per actual button required...

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Would stance dancing be compatible with today's ffxiv version?

Not as they were, but potentially.

The last thing you'd want are multiplicatively effective Enmity modifiers from discrete enmity tools and enmity stances, since that encourages using enmity skills only under enmity stances, reducing flexibility -- which in turn fetters any systems that would otherwise make one want to commit to a given stance for more than a single GCD or two. You'd want those modifiers to at most be additive. Even then, you have redundancy though, unless you weave them together somehow.

Of the two options, stances are the far, far more button-efficient, especially so long as we keep our current design wherein one may have 10 buttons but only have more than a single real "choice" among them once every 3 to 10 GCDs. With an enmity stance, a single button, to toggle increased Enmity on or off, allows you to intensify or shirk Enmity generation.
On the other hand, if, say, we kept the number of options per GCD consistent and consumed only as many buttons at a time as there were choices at a time, Enmity skills could slot in with likewise only a single button more in cost. Let me explain:

Let's take Samurai, for instance. Outside of Meikyo Shisui, has at most 3 choices in any given GCD made from melee range of its target. To open, it can use Fuga (later Fuko) or Hakaze [2 choices]. Thereafter, if it uses Fuga, it can viably use only Oka and Mangetsu [2 choices]; restarting the combo is an utter waste. If it uses Hakaze, it can use use Shifu, Jinpu, or Yukikaze [3 choices]. If it uses Oka, Mangetsu, or Yukikaze, it returns to its null state, from which it again has just 2 choices. If it uses Shifu, its only competitive option is Kasha [1 choice]. If it uses Jinpu, then it must next use Gekko [1 choice]. The only complicator is under Meikyo Shisui, especially now that a thus-buffed Kasha and Gekko each provide their combo chain's buffs, where you can arguably use Gekko, Kasha, Yukikaze, Oka, or Mangetsu. By just using range conditionals for Enpi and a cleave conditional for Meikyo-Kasha and Meikyo-Gekko, you can do all that via 3 keys with no loss of control.

Granted, that's just haphazard consolidation. We can do better. For that, we can either (A) make each skill fit freeformly into far more variable rotations, raising the skill floor and ceiling but finally getting value out of such a large button count... or we could (B) make the number of choices per GCD consistent.

Option A:

This isn't quite worth doing a full mock-up for, but just imagine that rigid combos have been, in most important ways, removed, in favor of more general "flows" and MP consumption. In place of those rigid combos you instead have [1] a larger variety of additional effects by which skills may benefit more than a single other skill without necessarily providing a universal buff (+Haste, +Damage, etc.) either, and [2] broader "flows" akin to combos, whereby a skill may reduce the MP cost of others of like type and/or part of the prior skill's potency can be duplicated onto that higher-order skill of like type.

In this way, you still have "finishers" of a sort, but at more variable length, and with far more variable pathing, and every job has significant access to bursting vs. conserving resource even without oGCD banking. In the above case of Samurai, let's say that Gekko, Kasha, Yukikaze, Oka, and Mangetsu always deal their full power, but at very high (unsustainable) cost without prior actions. In this way, MP itself can offer everything Meikyo Shisui did, but far, far more flexibly.

Other logical compliments to such a revamp include skills having Stagger effects (with a more sophisticated CC or displacement system backing it), interactions with enemy Armor, all skills doing as much AoE as they appear to (if your skill cleaves from left to right, even if previously categorized as "single-target", it now cleaves anything that its animation would go through), etc.

Option B:

You simply give a third opening attack, a third skill post-Fuga/Fuko, and allow Shifu and Jinpu each three possible outcomes (e.g., can funnel into Oka, Kasha, or some new skill, or Mangetsu, Gekko, or some new skill, respectively). In this way, 3 buttons covers every viable rotational melee option at every GCD. Iaijutsu, chaining into Tsubame Gaeshi (whose CD surrounds the current Iaijutsu and remains usable until your next Sen generated) would be your fourth and final GCD key. (Enpi would be a passive extending the range of your ST line at %damage cost and chargeable over time and by Yaten to reduce that potency loss, thereby retaining control, timing anchors, and optimization (for ultimately more skill expression)... without costing a single button.

If we so desired, and were willing to make Enmity a fulfilling mechanic (e.g., a means of mob manipulation to change the timing, aim, and/or selection of their special attacks), then Enmity skills would have a place. Without that... it'd likely be mere bloat as before, providing only a Price is Right minigame for how much Enmity one's lead DPS will generate over the whole fight as to just barely meet that margin before dropping stance and use of any enmity skills, both (especially, once debuffs were no longer attached to them). [/HB]

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That all being said, there's certainly a place for stances as a form of active mitigation. See Protection Warrior in WoW: Dragonflight, for instance. While the stances are painfully imbalanced right now, sacrificing 20% mitigation for just 8.4% extra damage (and would likely be better off with something like +15% mit vs. +10% dmg), there's still been quite a bit of room to leverage stance-dancing even in high-level combat, in no small part because that tank heals for a percentage of damage dealt (20%, atm, on mine, due to getting lucky with Leech items atop the 10% baseline value).

Of course, there's no reason for every tank to have access to that, though, and off the top of my head, it doesn't seem a great fit for any of the tanks we have now, barring maaayybe Dark Knight, with some small alterations. All others have historically had something close enough and more thematically fitting (like Paladin, say, being able to just hard turtle behind its shield, with the cost being refunded through Shield Oath generation when absorbing significant damage, Warrior using its Deliverance vs. Defiance skills, and Gunbreaker focusing on suppression and evasion).

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this is a bit random but I am thinking of a hypothetical where players could customize some of their skills/spells/abilities. What if you could customize card effects? So like for example, give bole a new effect but for the cost of a resource. Would that work in ffxiv?

Customize? Not really. But like Dark Arts or Royal Road before, you could design Cards to be augmentable in certain ways. Your options then are that each Card has only one augmented form (a la Dark Arts via MP expenditure, or some manner of resource charges), or each Card can be sacrificed to augment any other in a way unique to that sacrificed card (or, as before, each of three pairs of suits -- Celestial/Time, Solar/Damage, and Lunar/Resource).