Dawntrail could live to be an amazing expansion with one single huge flaw?

[Raikai]

why? we are steadily getting and keeping more and more players so it's not like the game is even close to being worried about dying or even hurting.

i will also say not all expansions are the same just because this one didn't add anything amazing and over the top doesnt mean we will never see something new or different in another.

The issue is not a few buttons, but the fact that they are absolutely boring actions instead of new mechanics to play with... And that's to everybody sans AST and DRG, and even those are debatable.

BLM's Flare Star, to me, is the worst case of it all. It's just a plain 400 potency damage that you can only press at the end of your AF phase if you pressed 6 Fire IV's. It doesn't interact back with anything in the kit nor it has a flexible usage. In the end Flare Star could easily be a follow up action to Despair with very little difference. It's such a bland action that I hardly think that a gauge was even necessary.

You see DNC's Dance of the Dawn animation and think "Oh, cool, I wonder what the 100 capstone does!" - and then is just Saber Dance, but more damage.

[Musashidon]

given that we're on year 4+ of a massive downgrade with little added in exchange, i'm seeing a historical pattern of not adding new or different things.

you will need to tell me what you think a massive downgrade is specifically. i get all over endwalker but that is very vague.

i can think of two pretty big changes that came in endwalker alone not counting other jobs i don't pay much attention to.

that being blade of faith combo for pld and the whole summoner rework that changed them fundamentally.

sure over all blade of faith doesnt change base pld but it was a pretty big change from just using some spells or rotating through the normal 1/2/3 combo. i will say the summoner change speaks for itself.

once again this expansion was mild in changes well besides a few like blm and monk but SE does some pretty big changes often with expansions so saying nothing has changed in 4 years isn't correct as we have seen it.

i will say shaking things up when its not what people want is a bad move now it also is a what kind of shake up too as change isn't necessarily bad but it isn't always good either.

what kind of shake up do you want? when i see some of the thoughts on the forum people don't want something new and exciting they want the game to change in a way that isn't FF14, so a good question i like to ask is what is something new and exciting we can get that is still in the mind set of what FF14 wants.

One of the few thousands of people who hate the 2 minute meta that is literally the only thing JP agrees with us on lol?

what is a few thousand people to a million subscription playerbase? i will say i dont personally care if they have or get rid of the 2 minute meta but what is the real number of players who dislike it compared to the number who like it?

The issue is not a few buttons, but the fact that they are absolutely boring actions instead of new mechanics to play with

i will say this is only 1 expansion with some mild changes i won't say next expansion will be revolutionary cause honestly i don't know but not all combat changes to expansions can be huge mechanic changes.

on that note what mechanic would you like added to your favorite job?

[Minarisweet]

I've been thinking. The story arc can be great. The expansion can have more interesting encounters (which they're allegedly doing?), and the content features could be plentiful and fulfilling. Relic done properly again.

Even if all of those end up being true, as optimistic as it sounds, DT will be forever haunted by being the worst expansion for job design because it doubles down on the already bad EW design. I don't think anybody needs to actually play them tomorrow to guess this by now.

And not just for healers, the worst cases, but for DPSers too. I've been reading the job guides and what everybody ends up getting? Mostly an extra "follow up key press" that just do plain damage with AoE falloff.

If you're not into Pictomancer or Viper, there's literally nothing of relevance to look forward with most jobs, in face some like BLM are even dreading upon the changes chopping down gameplay diversity.

It's gonna suck to wait until what, late 2026? With this job design - assuming they'll really do somthing of substance then.

Shb basically ruined healers and added genderlocked incomplete races and it wasnt considered the worst expansion for job design purely cuz people liked the story so much nothing else mattered.

[SpiralMask]

Shb basically ruined healers and added genderlocked incomplete races and it wasnt considered the worst expansion for job design purely cuz people liked the story so much nothing else mattered.

it is STILL weird to me that they apparently still haven't updated their baseline gear creation pipeline to... include two races at all.
like i understand not wanting to dive into the backlog of older helmets and refit them (even if modders knocked it out in a month or so?) because that's a ton of man-hours for the team to spend on that, but not updating your process going forward to include the new races is baffling--you're only making the pile of stuff you have to go back and fix larger!

like the answer to adding new helmets with viera and hrothgar in the game has just been "we have largely given up on making helmets for anyone, it's just glasses, visors, facemasks, and bandanas now" and half the time even those arent compatible.

[Lunaru_F]

…it wasnt considered the worst expansion for job design purely cuz people liked the story so much nothing else mattered.

EW had a pretty lackluster story and I don’t think DT will really be holding any candles, so we see a lot of people no longer giving SE a pass for bad job design philosophy.
I was hoping that they’d grow out of “Bad on purpose,” to where they’d go back to before ShB, but it seems they’re still sticking firmly to it.

[Raikai]

on that note what mechanic would you like added to your favorite job?

Black Mage?

First, not delete Thundercloud mechanic, and instead add a new thunder-themed spell that you can make use of the 'spare' procs you get without ruining your Thunder 3 refresh. Not delete the Paradox from Umbral Ice phase, and allow any spells cast during that to restore MP, so some alternative lines could still exist.

For a new mechanic... Flare Star! But let the charges carry through Umbral Ice. Let Paradox add charges to it, let you cast with less charges for a faster but weaker cast. Let Firestarter procs grant a charge. Basically make it a resource to manage and make it a flexible spell and there you have it. Just in one single spell a lot of engagement.

[SpiralMask]

you will need to tell me what you think a massive downgrade is specifically. i get all over endwalker but that is very vague.

i can think of two pretty big changes that came in endwalker alone not counting other jobs i don't pay much attention to.

that being blade of faith combo for pld and the whole summoner rework that changed them fundamentally.

sure over all blade of faith doesnt change base pld but it was a pretty big change from just using some spells or rotating through the normal 1/2/3 combo. i will say the summoner change speaks for itself.

once again this expansion was mild in changes well besides a few like blm and monk but SE does some pretty big changes often with expansions so saying nothing has changed in 4 years isn't correct as we have seen it.

i will say shaking things up when its not what people want is a bad move now it also is a what kind of shake up too as change isn't necessarily bad but it isn't always good either.

what kind of shake up do you want? when i see some of the thoughts on the forum people don't want something new and exciting they want the game to change in a way that isn't FF14, so a good question i like to ask is what is something new and exciting we can get that is still in the mind set of what FF14 wants.

i was referring to ShB (each expac is about 2 years, and we havent quite started the third of this trend yet, hence 4+ to account for a few weeks of wiggle room) and it's grand "streamlining", making many jobs much less interesting individually by making every combat class more or less have the same basic toolset of single and aoe combos, action removals that distracted from these, and so on (which intended and did accomplish patching a few of the "i dont have an aoe attack until level 43" holes in the earlygame, but not all of them), and replying to the prior several years' WHM questions of "hey i dont have much to do when healing isn't necessary, AST has cards to manage and SCH has DoTs, can i have something?" with completely gutting every healer in the game, including:
-WHM itself losing a shocking number of actions
-SCH losing it's entire DoT kit, leaving a class designed for strong OGCDs freeing up GCDs for damage with nothing
-AST got the worst of it, with a triple lobotomy of their [card effects and power/duration/aoe alterations and cash-outs] and all lore involved therein, every single time-magic-adjacent ability in their entire kit not named lightspeed (and then just recently confirming that time mage isn't on the consideration block for new classes, so just removed for no purpose whatsoever), and then literallt half of it's healing kit with the removal of nocturnal sect in the "pure- and shield-healer" split, which accomplished nothing since every healer has access to powerfuls shields and heals anyway, making the distinction meaningless outside sage and scholar infighting over shield overwrites.

SGE's addition in the following expac being an almost button-for-button copy of scholar, with worse GCDs than SCH gave up in ShB was just insulting, and rather sad that SGE has been a "dps" healer with the simple illusion of choice, since every damaging button is functionally identical and interchangeable regardless of single target or AoE (including their big fancy capstone laser!) with the sole exception being phlegma.

as an aside example from healers: pre-ShB DRK got wholesale cut from the game, and repackaged as an echo-fighter of WAR (with less defensive cooldowns and more OGCDs, but identical gameplan of using "inner release" for dps windows and it's new "infuriate"--and then later DRK got passed over for the "every tank's first defensive is getting a neat secondary bonus" where the other three did not)

.
funnily enough, i did like the PLD change to the ebb-and-flow between melee and magical dps capping with the blades combo, as well as the SMN rework to be a more iconic "summoner" (even if it's gotten pretty stale with the lack of meaningful additions after that, that's a problem of current design process at SE not initial implementation)

as for a shake-up i'd like to see? classes having their uniqueness restored via some older actions returning or newer thematic options being added and encounter design to accommodate all three roles:
tanks get reasons to use their absolutely massive mitigations and sustain--they should get to feel like they're protecting themselves and the party, not just the guy standing in front of the boss with the occaisional buster marker thrown at them
dps get more interesting mechanics and rotations for their classes and more reasons to use their odd party support abilities (personally i'd say dps classes should find more of their difficulty inward than in fights, since spinning your class-specific plates while also dealing with fight mechanics and positioning is already plenty, which the other two roles largely lack)
healers get a reason to use their massively redundant and overtuned healing kits via spiky damage both regular and irregular (especially spread around the party, so the tanks can feel good with their sustain while the healer is addressing others who lack it), a return of cleanse-able debuffs in real content (esuna is more of a suggestion at this point, as all debuffs are generally ignorable if cleansable, not cleansed by esuna (healing-doom, etc), or not cleansable at all and just kill everyone or instantly fail the fight anyway), actual healer mechanics designed and considered in fights in general (maybe Bad Things happen in a phase if you overheal, or if players fall below X threshold during a heavy party DoT, or cleansable debuffs that swap between different types when cleansed and are checked for certain positional mechanics during the fight, or have to be cleansed at certain times, or only become cleansable under certain circumstances and need to be dealt with until then)

with Bad Things serving to ramp up the difficulty of the fight until it's eventually unsustainable, rather than the current punitive/dismissive of the entire fight design (currently if anyone messes up it's more or less just instant death/failure, no recovery possible just wall it). slap people with debuffs or DoTs that need to be babysat by the healers, or the two-touch-death mechanics to telegraph when someone's next mistake will need more attention to course-correct the fight, or just more opportunities TO course-correct a fight in general on the part of the tanks or healers (using their sustain or party mitigation options and their massive redundant healing/shielding/mitigation/ressing/etc toolkits respectively). mechanics that can be squeaked by if you're down a man or two if the party uses their various support options (this lack of resources might be trading survival now for a bit more difficulty while those are on CD, but that's kind of the point of these kinds of decisions)

and the smallest ask possible: goddamn something to do when healers dont need to heal (if the team is already topped up, if they're experienced with a fight and successfully doing mechanics and not taking unnecessary damage). i dont care what it is, as long as its not pressing the same damn button the entire time you're not on-call.
it'd go a ways to making leveling a healer through story feel more engaging as well, since i can only imagine how awful it must be for WHM--when you're dramatically fighting your rival at the edge of creation and all you get to do is press glare the entire time, that'll really pull you out of things.

[Musashidon]

Black Mage?

First, not delete Thundercloud mechanic, and instead add a new thunder-themed spell that you can make use of the 'spare' procs you get without ruining your Thunder 3 refresh. Not delete the Paradox from Umbral Ice phase, and allow any spells cast during that to restore MP, so some alternative lines could still exist.

For a new mechanic... Flare Star! But let the charges carry through Umbral Ice. Let Paradox add charges to it, let you cast with less charges for a faster but weaker cast. Let Firestarter procs grant a charge. Basically make it a resource to manage and make it a flexible spell and there you have it. Just in one single spell a lot of engagement.

i will say i had no idea what your favorite job was but i know as a pld main i can easily say what i would personally want on pld added vs a job i dont liek as much. that's why i said favorite and not just a random job.

so like adding adding thundercloud back which will proc a buff that lets you use OGCD (this way it doesn't directly interfere with rotation) that's on a 5 second cooldown. giving an extra button and leaving you with the feeling of gaining and using a proc. it also wouldn't change what they have done to thunder so no real change on that front.

adding in a trait that lets you keep flare star charges permanently and another trait that lets you use flare star at different lvls maybe not every but like 2 4 6 it could also only use the amount you need for that lvl.

i know some people dislike traits but it also helps build the as you get stronger you use a skill better. (that bit is really just a what i like thing)

i was referring to ShB [SIZE="1"](each expac is about 2 years.

well i mentioned endwalker cause it was the one we were in but i get that people bunch shb and ew together for homogenization of jobs.

i feel the easiest curable stuff to add to the game is blind lots of stuff is just ignorable besides doom and lets be honest just doom is lame.
i say blind cause it directly affects dps which is what most players care about meaning it makes it hard to teams who want to do the most damage ignore it. i also know that blind is in the game just almost no enemy uses it.

how much damage increase do you think would make you feel at least a bit better on healer? if we add too much it's no fun anymore if we don't add any the healers who want more damage to heal won't be happy. as a start if anything i would say if we increased overall damage 20% it would be a good start to see how it affects the overall healer player base in dungeons and content.

[Neoyoshi]

The devs aren't miracle workers, whatever they fix or change is always going to have polarizing effects on a certain portion of the community, it sucks feeling like someone's favorite job feels gutted but this is what balance looks like.

Whatever a job loses, they are probably gaining in some other form because of the number scaling with those additional 10 levels. And then older skills might be adjusted if what their intended target task is no longer performing well with the current changes.

However folk may feel about what is going to happen to their jobs, or what has already happened or hasn't happened, that can change. Heck; patch 7.x.x could end up being some overhaul or adjustment to a job people get excited about, but then it will absolutely piss off another group of people. But there is always room for iteration in future patches.

Balance, it's not something that pleases everyone, it brings joy to some and alienates others, but it's necessary, nothing is perfect.

Except for Perfect Balance.

[Valence]

I am very concerned for this game's future if the majority are actually happy with getting one or two new buttons to hit once every two minutes.

Yoshida has been saying all the time "yes I'm a gamer too and I understand we went too far etc etc", yet they do proceed into doing even more of it with the release of this expansion...

you will need to tell me what you think a massive downgrade is specifically. i get all over endwalker but that is very vague.

The massive downgrade happened in ShB when they gutted the whole battle system.

The rest is merely a series of follow ups and consequences trickling down from it.