Picto makes the game less fun

[elioaiko]

The buff limit which came up in TOP has nothing to do with DOT’s and is entirely because they keep making every mechanic debuff vomit that places 5 debuffs on you when you have standard/espirit/kerechole/kerecha and all the other double buff clutter

Aren't DoTs considered debuffs?

And agreed on the debuff vomit. They have to find a better way to seperate catergories from the de/buff bar. It just looks so cluttered in general.

[Supersnow845]

Aren't DoTs considered debuffs?

And agreed on the debuff vomit. They have to find a better way to seperate catergories from the de/buff bar. It just looks so cluttered in general.

Dots are debuffs on the boss, the buff limit concerns the player, the debuff limit concerns the boss

You are never hitting the debuff limit in anything besides BA or DRS, the TOP problem was the buff limit which doesn’t affect dots

[PercibelTheren]

"With the release of 7.0, however, we noticed that the DPS of the new job Pictomancer clearly stood out from the other classes. We could have nerfed Pictomancer before the raid, but since many people liked playing it so much, we decided to bring the DPS of the other classes into line with that of Pictomancer."
Interview it came from - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...n_savage_tier/

I got a lot of hate for pointing this out on Reddit, but I just don't understand how a job losing some potency here and there would make playing it less fun. I'm pretty sure barely anyone besides people who like chasing numbers on the funny website would even notice the changes. And the people who do like chasing numbers on the funny website should understand that the jobs being more or less comparable in damage output is a desirable state.

[BabyYoda]

I got a lot of hate for pointing this out on Reddit, but I just don't understand how a job losing some potency here and there would make playing it less fun. I'm pretty sure barely anyone besides people who like chasing numbers on the funny website would even notice the changes. And the people who do like chasing numbers on the funny website should understand that the jobs being more or less comparable in damage output is a desirable state.

It is a PR game nothing else

Yoshi think that in this way he will be justifiable.. and I don't think this is working

[PercibelTheren]

''You play whats fun is the reward'' is i think, to put it bluntly, the most retarded thing i've read all day. Because these jobs are competing for a slot.. A handicap is not a reward.
And since you're inadvertedly okay with the players playing more accessible jobs doing more damage than the others most of the time -by being easier and featuring less fail states. Why can't harder jobs do higher damage by a similar margin when mastered and those failstates are overcome?

I feel the same way about "more complex jobs should put out more damage" because that take makes literally no sense. FFXIV is a game. The primary purpose of games is fun. The vast majority of the playerbase picks their main jobs based on enjoyment. Not everyone is a hardcore sweaty raider who picks their job for the tier based on statistics.

When I mained healer last expansion, I chose Astro over White Mage specifically because I found it more engaging and satisfying. A job being engaging is not a handicap, it's a feature. Because some people prefer chill jobs where they don't have to think about stuff too much, some people like optimising and learning how to execute their rotations while dodging mechanics. There are also people who enjoy both under different circumstances. This is why there are jobs of varying difficulties, at least within the DPS role.

The "competing for a slot" argument is also silly unless you're going for week 1 clears (which almost nobody is). PF is weird about it at times but I have very rarely heard of statics forcing people to play the current FotM job just because it hits slightly harder.

[Connor]

Doesn’t the entire ‘balancing around class difficulty’ idea fall apart when you realise class difficulty is almost entirely subjective?

Bard is by far the easiest class in the game for me. Well besides Scholar, but healers barely count as a real role anymore lol. And Summoner is like a whole other level of ‘easy’ nothing else can touch so not considering that either lol. Bard also one of the jobs I’ve played most frequently since 1.0, or I’d probably see the ‘difficulty’ completely differently. Personally I’d say Dancer is even harder because you’ve got so much ‘jank’ to deal with through Flourish transforming Standard Step into Finishing Move but not resetting the Step, meaning you have to either drift step’s cool-down or drift Finishing Move. Also Tilana overcapping can be a pain lol. To me Bard is literally just ‘doot doot press shining buttons here’s some giant potency attacks and a whole bunch of nothing in-between, you win’ lol

Naturally there are (few) exceptions to this such as Summoner being objectively on the extreme end of ‘easy’, but Black Mage (arguably) at the extreme end of ‘difficult’. But even then, whether or not Black Mage is truly ‘difficult’ is an entirely subjective thing; is it objective, or simply community perception?

Really the only thing that’s objectively true about ‘class difficulty’ in my opinion is that Summoner is the easiest by such a ridiculous degree that it’s practically scientifically proven at this point lol. But personally I think the whole ‘difficulty = strength’ idea the devs are going for is just a huge dead end they’re gonna have to walk back from eventually (or they’ll hit the wall lol)

[Wayfinder3]

This depends on the engagement. Summoner’s original pet system was very poorly handled and jank and necessitated engagement. Gunbreaker continuation is to this day super clunky because of how it really restrains the classes ability to position the boss in more demanding encounters like M1s and M2s.

Features can absolutely be bad, and not well thought out. Just because something is engaging doesn’t mean it’s good.

[Lyth]

I think this quote nicely outlines the core problem in FFXIV's design philosophy:

'With the release of 7.0, however, we noticed that the DPS of the new job Pictomancer clearly stood out from the other classes. We could have nerfed Pictomancer before the raid, but since many people liked playing it so much, we decided to bring the DPS of the other classes into line with that of Pictomancer.'

Reactionary flat potency buffs can only solve so much. PCT's burst is probably the biggest problem from a balance perspective. BLM has to catch up to PCT between burst windows. If you add in downtime, the balance will always tip in favour of PCT.

The solution to balancing burst historically was making it resource-gated vs. timer-gated. You need to land hits to build resources. PCT ignores this by being able to charge motifs both outside combat as well as during downtime. Unless you change how motifs work, you'll never be able to balance PCT (more Crit/DH caps on high potency actions may be required as well).

They also went overboard on the utility as well, probably because they knew the job was going head to head with BLM. Five seconds of sprint on a 20s recast gap closer is just absurd (Aetherial Shift, which is the same effect without the sprint, is on 60s). Tempera Coat/Grassa likewise is surprisingly strong utility for a high damage caster. Even RDM's Magick Barrier is restricted to magical damage only. None of these are going to be rebalanced through upward potency buffs.

I think until SE changes that design philosophy, we're going to see some jobs being underpowered across entire expansions. Which is unfortunate, because the entire point of having so many jobs is to give players choice around playstyle.

[AddictedToWitches]

I don't think you should really care if another job outperforms your main when every job can still clear all content in the game without a problem.
Are you having fun? Yes? Good. Just keep playing your job you have fun with.
Should BLM be doing more damage? Yes, I agree. But if I mained BLM I don't think I'd drop it just because another job currently out-damages it. If people are excluding you from parties because you play BLM instead of PCT then their party wasn't worth joining to begin with

[Ramiee]

I got a lot of hate for pointing this out on Reddit, but I just don't understand how a job losing some potency here and there would make playing it less fun. I'm pretty sure barely anyone besides people who like chasing numbers on the funny website would even notice the changes.

Nah it would look bad, they reworked Viper and then had to nerf Picto on an expansion where most people hated the story. This would be something to add to that, "CBU3 has fallen off Dawntrail's story is the worst and look they can't even design new jobs well!"
It would of had this effect for sure. I think DT is the first time in awhile when we had this many jobs getting miniature reworks straight after launch. EW had Kaiten and PLD rework, DT had BLM, MNK, VPR and SAM reworked and in SAMs and MNKs case they reworked it twice. If on top of all of that PCT got nerfed people would of called this out way earlier and heavier than they are now.