What Dawntrail Changes Were for the Worse?

[Oizen]

Allow me.

The argument being put forth for Plunge's removal is that it reduces the amount of buttons being pressed in DRK's burst window. That's the reason that was given, but as you pointed out, it makes little sense, because us DRK mains only play it for that high APM. It's the only time when the job extends past 1-2-3 gauge spender, so the removal of 2 oGCDs and potential fight optimization is a net loss for the job. I don't know who actually gains from this.

Further more, Shadowstride, as cool as it is thematically for those who are okay with losing the Berserk reference, has the "unintended?" drawback of nerfing Enhanced Unmend, a trait that was already the laughing stock of the game. Now you can't even get theoretical potency gains off increased Plunges. Doesn't even return the entire Shadowstride, it's still five seconds. Meanwhile Raiton, something you actually use, gives you FREE Shukuchis on NIN.

Like, why not have Shadowstride TURN INTO Plunge after using Unmend? Like how SAM/RPR's change when they are forced to disengage? Why am I not allowed to gapclose to friends if I'm not hitting them with my giant sword? If you're going to give me Thunderclap, why not go all the way?

There's an inverse relationship with how much I want to say about DRK vs what was meaningfully added to the job this time around. Three expansions running, and we're still failing to meet our potential.

I will say that Dark Knights changes were as bare minimum as you could really get. Which is pretty notable in what was basically the most bare minimum job changes as a whole.

I don't really feel like the dev team has passion for this game anymore, they're just going through the motions at this point. And you can see it in their odd decision to nerf DRK's defenses with the MP nerf of all things. They're just out of touch, they change for the sake of change, because exapnsions need change, and then they go develop other games.

[GoatOfWar]

I will say that Dark Knights changes were as bare minimum as you could really get. Which is pretty notable in what was basically the most bare minimum job changes as a whole.

I don't really feel like the dev team has passion for this game anymore, they're just going through the motions at this point. And you can see it in their odd decision to nerf DRK's defenses with the MP nerf of all things. They're just out of touch, they change for the sake of change, because exapnsions need change, and then they go develop other games.

If they cared about job design they wouldn't make everything the exact same.
The Drk nerfs were more of an accidental oversight i'm guessing, stemming from that lack of care.

[sindriiisgaming]

The lips. They'll go down in history with those cursed grapes

[merkykrem]

Not a fan of the MNK changes at all. Perhaps it's a matter of me not getting used to the 2-3-4 cadence, but regardless I don't think it's satisfying to stay at the flanks for 11 GCDs in a row (or more if you throw in the new Reply attacks and blitzes). The new HUD element is difficult to read quickly, and simple mode doesn't help. I could enlarge it, but it's linked to the nadi element which would become massive and take up too much space on my screen. Potencies are bugged as well, and basically you ignore every other blitz except for Elixir Field until lvl 86. And Dragon Kick doesn't have a form requirement so Bootshine is best followed up with Dragon Kick rather than your raptor form moves. Likewise you want to follow up your last Perfect Balance GCD with Dragon Kick if you don't have opo-opo's fury up before you execute your blitz, so you can go straight into an empowered Bootshine immediately.

BLM is a hot mess. Not being able to regen MP in between dungeon pulls before you get Umbral Soul is just bad. Are we expected to Transpose > Thunder > Transpose > Thunder > rinse and repeat while we run after the tank?

AST cards feel anaemic. As the most buff-heavy healer, I don't feel like I'm doing any buffing anymore. AST is already well equipped to handle any incoming damage with its existing toolkit; more card-based heals and mitigations aren't needed, so gameplay has become less engaging with less things for me to do.

Seraphism. this ability alone is lore-breaking and the effect is OP


Oh.. and it's ugly

I know there are folks who like the way Seraphism looks, but I'd really prefer to have a toggle to turn off the forced outfit change. It definitely is a powerful skill, but I haven't levelled my SCH to 100 yet so I can't give my review of the skill. Not that I'm inclined to play SCH anytime soon given how the skill looks and how underwhelming the changes to SCH are in general.

[Valence]

Not going for a job redesign at the same time than encounter redesign (which we still have to see any colour of so far...).

[Shurrikhan]

Guess I'll put in my own $0.02.

Although things have trended in this way for a while now so maybe it does meet every criteria for a "change", it feels like this trend has sharpened even more with Dawntrail:

Falling back on simplifications to forgot the need for technical advancements or even basic UI polish.

Let's take Monk for example. Let's start from the a couple potential issues that the dev team has, apparently, taken issue with: unnecessary barriers to accessibility, button bloat, and action bloat.

• Let us also say that, due to frequent player complaints about tracking DoTs or buff timers, that difficulty could be considered an unnecessary barrier to accessibility.
  
  
• Next, let us define "button bloat" as any button(s) the control or gameplay from which could be provided without loss with (fewer or) no buttons used.
  
  
• Finally, we'll take the former examples of old Power Surge (buffs next single-target Jump or SSD, meant to only ever be used on every third Jump and only ever Jump and therefore providing no real further thought beyond hitting it when it's available since Power Surge was on a multiple of Jump's timer anyways).

Given these issues commented on in the past and the opportunities, therefore, to address them, which of the choices below would seem to do the greater general good and least harm to job design?

OPTION ONE:
Improve the combat UI gamewide through simple but effective changes, thereby making essential (de)buff tracking a non-issue; revitalize lackluster actions; trim unnecessary constraints and buttons without opening rotation to ill or degenerative effects; and, in doing so, inadvertently make Monk more open to nuance and unique.

Click below to expand for details:

• Status Effects can now be placed separately and/or at separate sizes for one's own debuffs and Target Status Effects may now similarly be customized into chosen layouts of icons per row / total number of rows, left or right aligned. You may now customize the order of different types of status effects, including separately by self, party, and others.
  
  
• By default, timers for core debuffs, specific to each job, are now tracked directly below or to either side of enemy nameplates, with an icon, faded icon, small icon, or just the timer; said timer may be given as a bar beneath the enemy health bar, a number, or both. You can customize this to remove these timers or permit more effects to be tracked. Enemy nameplates may be further customized to reduce seemingly unnecessary information and now carry further information by default, such as interruptible casts, stunnable special actions, level of threat, and whether one is out of range, etc.
  
  
• HUD Layout has been revamped to include Gauges, Targeting, and Groups as separate categories. Additionally, many more pieces of UI have become separable and show this by default; UI elements with separable parts, including these new ones, now list each potentially separable element indented below the name for the combined form of that UI element.
  
  
• Most gauges and parameter bars are now separable in this way, including the Mana Bar, Song Gauge: Codas, Soul Voice, and Song Progress; Beast Chakra Gauge: Blitz Progress, Nadi, Forms, Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, Demolish, Perfect Balance Stacks; Balance Gauge: Black Magic, White Magic, Mana Crystals; Elemental Gauge: Elemental Timer, Elemental Counter, Umbral Hearts, Astral Soul, Polyglot Timer, Polyglot Counter, Paradox; etc.
  
  
• Twin Snakes and Dragon Kick potency reduced by 20 and True Strike, and Demolish potency increased by 20. This significantly increases the punishment of using simplified Dragon Kick rotations (from about 92% to ~86% of regular damage).
  
  
• Riddle of Wind now, for 10 seconds, increases you auto-attack and movement speed by 40%, allows auto-attack critical strikes to generate Chakra, and causes the use of single-target and multi-target attacks with Form to replace The Forbidden Chakra and Enlightenment, respectively, allowing you to use that skill again as an ability. Brotherhood and Riddle of Wind now both allow your Chakra to overcharge, up to a total of 10 Chakra.
  
  
• Anatman now grants 1 second of Riddle of Fire, Riddle of Wind, and Riddle of Earth for each second it is channeled. These durations do not begin to fade until the channel ends.
  
  
• Greased Lightning has been returned in a rehauled state. It now reads, "The damage of your Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl skills are increased by 20% and their recast times reduced by 20%. Outside of Perfect Balance, each Form that benefits from these effects cannot benefit again for (3 GCDs' time)." Moreover, all Form Bonuses have been removed, their benefits rolled into the original abilities, but the bonus damage from Leaden Fist has been reduced to 80 potency and Snap Punch potency has been increased by 20 in its stead.
  

  This causes optimal play to follow the same rotations as before, as one can only get full value out of the form every but makes Form Shift unnecessary.

• Revamp the default Beast Chakra Gauge, having it instead by default show the three forms, Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl, from left to right, with each losing its glow and shrinking upon consuming the effects of Greased Lightning, gradually restoring to normal size and glow over 3 GCDs' time to mark when it will again have full power. By default, the remaining time on Leaden Fist, Disciplined Fist, and Demolish (on your current target) are shown as a radial timer around and a numeric timer below the Opo-opo, Raptor, and Coeurl nodes.
  
  While in Fluid Form, all are shown again at full size and glow (since Fluid Form guarantees the effects of Greased Lightning) regardless of recent progress, and a stacking chevron appears above reused forms.
  

  This, in effect, maintains the same general rotation as before, but without need for windup (beyond Disciplined Fist), a single direction of progression (O->R->C->), or the bloat of Form Shift in order to begin from a different point in that set order. Essentially, for fewer buttons, you get a Monk who is more uniquely Monk, and by removing the need for set Form bonuses, you more nuanced use of Forms is now available.

• (Steeled/Forbidden) Meditation (and Inspirited/Enlightened Meditation) has (have) been removed, though Chakra spenders remain and can now be used at three or more Chakra for a fifth of their current potency per stack. Instead of needing an active button-press, you generate 1 Chakra per half of a global cooldown's time that you have not been under the global cooldown. Progress towards this the next Chakra granted in this manner is saved and accumulated and is now tracked just above your Chakra counter by default (and is separable).
  

  This provides roughly the same Chakra generation over time but without the need for a separate button press, therefore allowing more flexibility among Chakra spending and reducing the chore of use between fights.

OPTION TWO: Make players look at their job gauge, instead of their more customizably placed (Conditional Buffs portion of the) Status Effects bar, to see whether they should use Dragon Kick or Leaden Fist, Twin Snake or Raptor Strike, Demolish or Snap Punch; remove Monk's GCD nuke, replacing it with a much more rarely pressed maintenance buff; remove any interaction between surrounding rotation and Blitz; remove any rotational interaction with downtime; rather than giving Anatman any purpose (again), remove it entirely.

For details, play Dawntrail Monk or even just review its job guide.

[Anarnee]

I'm also in the camp of it ruined how my character looks. I love Thyn'a I tried to go through and get screenshots of this new thing to compare so I can give more feed back but it was just so upsetting to have to go and get the same feedback from the first benchmark cause they didn't fix anything.

Good thing our character doesn't really get a lot of time in the story...


That said, I'm pleasantly surprised with most other things. DRG felt the most fun is has since HW for me, WHM it's fun, can't wait to see how all the others feel too. The dungeons have all been fun. I am looking forward to the content.

To bad I didn't get to enjoy doing the story with the character I've loved for over ten years now.

[freekyfreezer]

What Dawntrail changes do you think have negatively affected the game or your experience thereof?

I have a broader issue of the game that has (as far as I am concerned) begun in Shadowbringers. MSQ writing has been paralysed in order to cater to people who could not let go of their "WOLship". I have had a lot of discussions with friends about the game and came to the conclusion that the writers seem to be scared of sacrificing a key character because of social media backlash. The realisation that any given plot consists of not being allowed to sacrifice someone has been killing my interest in the main scenario. It kills all suspense because any threat you may see it's just Goody Two-Shoes WOL and the Scions to the rescue and nothing ever goes wrong except for the occasional expansion-exclusive side character dying (see Tesleen, Galool Ja Ja). The last time we genuinely lost a Scion was Papalymo all the way back at Baelsar's Wall. That was in 3.5, that was seven-and-a-half years ago. That is still more than double the time I've been playing this game. The Exarch has been the greatest offender. He repeatedly hints and then tells us all that he will sacrifice himself for us. Two expansions later he is sitting on a love boat with the WOL, how convenient for all the Twitter WOLship fanatics. Not so much for the players that just want a thrilling story.

What does it mean for Dawntrail? I already entered MSQ with a poor taste in my mouth, knowing that there would be no key characters lost. And I was right! The only key supporting character they have killed off was the parting two-headed Dawnservant whose wiser face has already died years ago. That is about the most cowardly way you can write a death. Yshtola and Graha have not even been close to any threat. Yshtola's involvement in the MSQ was poor in general. Basically comes in just to tell us what an interdimensional rift is, and then tells Graha to fix it basically. Estinien's involvement in the plot was to kill a few drones in Shaaloani. Krile has been advertised as a woman on a mission with a newly acquired fighting skill. In the end, she gets two truly relevant plot sections (the Lalafellin couple handing the child to Galuf, and Krile later meeting the Endless of her parents. She was also seen using her pictomancer kit once in the MSQ. Even Alisaie and Alphinaud may as well just stayed in Sharlayan for the first 70% of the story. Just don't put anyone in danger please, the Twitter horde might not like it.

[Shurrikhan]

<Some spoilers>

Just a tip, in case it may be of use: you can use [ HB ] [/ HB ] (without the spaces) to hide spoilers until clicked upon.

[lolnotacat]

1. Writing. I don't need to go over it here since it's already been said but I agree with 95% of it, and not just the complaints about a certain Hokage.
2. Pacing. I am just eternally bored so far. I've finally reached Texas (after needing to take numerous breaks) and it feels like a slog. The only time I've enjoyed myself so far with the MSQ is the duel with Dad. Every other Expac (since HW) I practically played straight until completing the MSQ because I was hooked by the story and gameplay.
3. Graphics Update*. This has an asterisk because I think it has potential, but it's not done and needs a lot of work.
3a. DLSS/FSA - There are a lot of issues with it ranging from blurriness, inability to disable it properly, etc... but it's so bad some people get motion sickness or eye strain.
3b. Character changes - The changes to characters really wasn't for the better IMO. I miss the old look of my Face 2 Xaela.
3c. Texture glitches and bugs - Many of them were addressed with the benchmark but not all of them. The messed up scale texture on the hands of Au'ra for example is glaring, particularly for a race with generally darker skin. It should've never made it past QA.
4. Job balancing. I'm not gonna get into it with the healer strike since I'm not striking, but there are a lot of valid complaints they have and there are times my role feels relegated to second class.
5. Location/Monster names. I get it, you want something that's culturally sensitive or whatever. But it's hard to pronounce and hard to type. For example, if someone asks where to go I can't just say "Oh head over to Elpis!" or "It's right outside Uldah!" I can't remember the names, spelling or pronunciation for words that long.

It just feels like little thought was put into the player experience. Just lots of "Oh this is a good idea!" without anyone there to critique said ideas and how they would affect the actual gameplay.