Are MNK and VPR on autopilot? Is job design all about bursts?

[AlgernonBlackwood]

I don't see these things as decisions, though, so much as they're just observations about how the encounter works. If you've been playing a job for long enough, you develop fairly standard solutions in your toolbox for dealing with these situations, such as noting how the 6-8y range of some SAM actions aligns with certain mechanics, or counting many UFs you can burn off in a specific fight opener. That's coupled with the fact that a lot of these patterns get reused across tiers.

I would consider adjusting your behavior based on fight-specific observations to be a decision the first time it happens, but we're starting to get into semantic/philosophical territory that extends well outside of the scope of the game. I think I agree that a choice made with perfect knowledge of the resulting outcome isn't really a "decision", but it is still a form of player agency, which is probably the more relevant consideration.

Ultimately, almost every game can be reduced to an optimal set of inputs, with only RNG and human error standing in the way. Executing an optimal BLM rotation is much simpler than speedrunning Mario 64, but the principle is the same. Once you resolve to play optimally, you're pretty much locking yourself onto a single predefined path, even if you don't know exactly what that path is ahead of time.

If you intend to play optimally every game can only offer the illusion of choice. Most just have more variance/moving parts than FFXIV, which allows them to hide it better.

[Lyth]

Decision-making would play a bigger factor if you had more variable/random elements in encounters, and if there were multiple solutions to the same problem (movement tools are good for this sort of thing). A lot of the early community feedback back in Heavensward was based around speedrunning, which is part of the reason why the game is so streamlined in its encounter and job design and why variability tends not to be well tolerated. It's especially obvious when you throw in a fight mechanic with random elements and watch players react to it, which is why I'm really glad to see some of the experiments they did in this past tier. The other problem is that the game code isn't all that responsive, so it doesn't facilitate reactive gameplay very well. You need only consider how janky boss movement is around repositioning compared to some others.

Most of these factors come down to encounter design, rather than job design, though. If you wanted 'decision-making' in the context of target dummy conditions, you would need resource systems where the rate of generation was variable rather than generated on a strict GCD by GCD basis and variable recasts that are influenced by non-player factors (i.e. Low Blow resets). I think that's one area in particular where support jobs in particular could have more interesting gameplay, because of how much of their toolkits are linked to interacting with encounter mechanics, allowing for things like counter-attacks. But as long as someone organically optimizing a job can naturally find themselves on the same GCD sequence on the same mechanic, pull after pull, we can't really talk about 'decision-making' in this game.

[Valence]

Saying a Machinist main likes procs based jobs is very funny. It's like saying to a SMN that they like casts.

For the record I do like proc gameplay, that's my jam. However I'm out of three tiers of Endwalker ran on BRD main and I'm absolutely burnt out of the job that I'm not even able to violence myself to level it up to 100. Next what? Play DNC? I did on some P8S helping friends prog, and on two criterions and the job was literally resident sleepers. I do hate what they did to MCH but I like the aesthetics and at this point that's the only thing I have left. Yeah, it's that bad. May explain why I'm so disheartened at the devs for what they're doing to the role and rng gameplay as a whole.

Also, I find it pretty tragic that this other player has the gal to specifically go all the way to lurk on my character pages and online data to literally go find what jobs I have leveled at all time, bring it up there, and literally uses a blank alt on their forum account themselves. Tells me all I need to know about that kind of jabs.

[Ramiee]

For the record I do like proc gameplay, that's my jam. However I'm out of three tiers of Endwalker ran on BRD main and I'm absolutely burnt out of the job that I'm not even able to violence myself to level it up to 100. Next what? Play DNC? I did on some P8S helping friends prog, and on two criterions and the job was literally resident sleepers. I do hate what they did to MCH but I like the aesthetics and at this point that's the only thing I have left. Yeah, it's that bad. May explain why I'm so disheartened at the devs for what they're doing to the role and rng gameplay as a whole.

Also, I find it pretty tragic that this other player has the gal to specifically go all the way to lurk on my character pages and online data to literally go find what jobs I have leveled at all time, bring it up there, and literally uses a blank alt on their forum account themselves. Tells me all I need to know about that kind of jabs.

IK but he was so locked on talking about you being a Machinist main for some reason then bringing up procs and stuff after bringing up you main a job that doesn't have procs and hasn't for half a decade. It was just pretty funny, it would be like saying I like procs because firestarter exists.

[Lyth]

??

No, Valence has talked about proc gameplay a lot in the past. That was just a passing acknowledgement of the fact. You should probably re-read what I wrote, as well as the post that I was responding to which discusses procs.

[Ramiee]

No, Valence has talked about proc gameplay a lot in the past. That was just a passing acknowledgement of the fact. You should probably re-read what I wrote, as well as the post that I was responding to which discusses procs.

Nah I don't really care tbh I just like seeing arguements

[Higashikata]

Yeah, it's auto pilot.

[AvoSturmfaust]

every melee is autopilot, dont know why people always think different

Ninja the only decision you have to make is Armor Crush or Aoelian Edge otherwise its Autopilot too
Samu its which route you do since you need all 3 routs its autopilot too
dragoon the same example you have 2 paths but you alwayw want to alternate so its auto pilot too

there is nothing behind the base combos from melees which isnt "auto piloted" people think they have freedom, no you dont

[Ayan_Calvesse]

> Is job design all about bursts?
yes.
this has held job design back for a while now.

I don't think they are familiar with the 2 min window design philosophy..