Why current job design is boring?

[ovIm]

We would also do well to understand how we got at this point. Lets review a bit, shall we?

The damage calculation in this game is not additive, its multiplicative. This means that stacking buffs will always be more worth than not doing it, unless timers are way too diverse.

Also, classes have a lot of high potency nukes on high cooldowns, often tied to damage buffs.

These two factors alone caused people to always try and sync up their cooldowns, as this was the way to dealing the most damage (after all, the goal of most encounters is "reduce enemy HP to Zero"). And of course, people wanted to make this easier. Square Enix simply catered to peoples wishes there.

To mitigate this, it would usually help to flatten the damage curve a bit, reduce the potency of the finisher nukes and redistribute the potency to other skills. And if damage cooldowns affected others differently, it would reduce the need to sync up cooldowns.

Now, whether this is something players want, or something that has no drawbacks, that is a different story altogether.

[*] introduce new role "Supports" who will responsible for party buffs.

We already have a Support role, that is Healers. Let me explain.

When designing a game, you work with 3 base "interaction directions": Player to Opponent, Opponent to Player, Player to Player.

For each of these directions, you have a role that covers that.
Attackers work on the Player to Opponent direction
Defenders work on the Opponent to Player direction
Supporters work on the Player to Player direction

If you were to add a Supporter role, you would have 2 roles (Healers and Supporters) taking care of "Player to Player" stuff.

[Unyqua]

If there was an easy fix we would already have it, but the 2 min window is a solution to a obvious problem. there is no easy fix without reworking all classes and when you just remove the group buffs, classes with self buffs on a timer will still have to do them in that window.
Even in wow it was best practice to sync your stuff with Bloodlust/Heroism. You might had a bit more controle about it but in they end you had to play around that buff if you did it on pull, in the middle or before enrage.
The moment you have group buffs people will try to sync them in the best way and with the best comp. In this case the Meta will define the window and not SE

[BabyYoda]

If there was an easy fix we would already have it, but the 2 min window is a solution to a obvious problem. there is no easy fix without reworking all classes and when you just remove the group buffs, classes with self buffs on a timer will still have to do them in that window.
Even in wow it was best practice to sync your stuff with Bloodlust/Heroism. You might had a bit more controle about it but in they end you had to play around that buff if you did it on pull, in the middle or before enrage.
The moment you have group buffs people will try to sync them in the best way and with the best comp. In this case the Meta will define the window and not SE

I mean no one ask for 2 min or 1 min window.. it is philosophy that is holding the game back to not be creative

[BabyYoda]

We would also do well to understand how we got at this point. Lets review a bit, shall we?

The damage calculation in this game is not additive, its multiplicative. This means that stacking buffs will always be more worth than not doing it, unless timers are way too diverse.

Also, classes have a lot of high potency nukes on high cooldowns, often tied to damage buffs.

These two factors alone caused people to always try and sync up their cooldowns, as this was the way to dealing the most damage (after all, the goal of most encounters is "reduce enemy HP to Zero"). And of course, people wanted to make this easier. Square Enix simply catered to peoples wishes there.

To mitigate this, it would usually help to flatten the damage curve a bit, reduce the potency of the finisher nukes and redistribute the potency to other skills. And if damage cooldowns affected others differently, it would reduce the need to sync up cooldowns.

Now, whether this is something players want, or something that has no drawbacks, that is a different story altogether.



We already have a Support role, that is Healers. Let me explain.

When designing a game, you work with 3 base "interaction directions": Player to Opponent, Opponent to Player, Player to Player.

For each of these directions, you have a role that covers that.
Attackers work on the Player to Opponent direction
Defenders work on the Opponent to Player direction
Supporters work on the Player to Player direction

If you were to add a Supporter role, you would have 2 roles (Healers and Supporters) taking care of "Player to Player" stuff.

The problem is having healers to support is overwhelming for most people.. there is a reason why SE reduce the support kit from AST..
Why playing a job who is responsible for 2 things instead of 1 ?
I get it is fun but also not fun at balance perspective.

That's why we have AST designed around 1 min and 2 min because it is overwhelming to do 2 jobs at once

Healers are missing esuna's and now we give them 10% of party damage? It is too much to ask for

[PercibelTheren]

The problem is having healers to support is overwhelming for most people.. there is a reason why SE reduce the support kit from AST..
Why playing a job who is responsible for 2 things instead of 1 ?
I get it is fun but also not fun at balance perspective.

That's why we have AST designed around 1 min and 2 min because it is overwhelming to do 2 jobs at once

Healers are missing esuna's and now we give them 10% of party damage? It is too much to ask for

What are you on about? Who are these "most people"? AST got gutted because they rework it every expansion, as they clearly have no idea what they want to do with it. What Esunas are healers missing? The vast majority of debuffs can't even be removed anymore.

[BabyYoda]

What are you on about? Who are these "most people"? AST got gutted because they rework it every expansion, as they clearly have no idea what they want to do with it. What Esunas are healers missing? The vast majority of debuffs can't even be removed anymore.

AST ShB and EW have more skill expression than WHM.. because you have to understand card system and act fast after drawing random card AND manage people HP

It is overwhelming for most healers.. I have seen people complaining why RNG is there even in balance perspective
You can't design RNG job with scripted encounter design with no algorithm that will change how boss behave

[Supersnow845]

AST ShB and EW have more skill expression than WHM.. because you have to understand card system and act fast after drawing random card AND manage people HP

It is overwhelming for most healers.. I have seen people complaining why RNG is there even in balance perspective
You can't design RNG job with scripted encounter design with no algorithm that will change how boss behave

AST was complained about because it’s excessive APM bloat disguised as complexity, there was no complexity to EW AST it was just a test of horribly bad APM (especially on controller) that heavily punished failure

Healer pDPS shouldn't be cut, in fact it should be increased.

But, for making them the dedicated support... Take away the partywide buffs from most DPS... BRD and DNC maybe can keep theirs, since they were intended to be partially support...But Brotherhood, Enbolden, Arcane Circle, Battle Litany, Starry Muse, Mug and Searing Light losing their boost to the raid... And then boosting Divination and Chain Stratagem to like 20% Damage boosts and also giving WHM and SGE something as well to buff damage... Could always give them different flavors of damage boosts, like Haste and Direct Hit chance... Like making WHM's Presence of Mind stronger and raidwide...

If you buff rDPS then you can easily cut pDPS without much of a change, also buffing pDPS would make the healers way too strong on the damage front

[CaptainLagbeard]

If you buff rDPS then you can easily cut pDPS without much of a change, also buffing pDPS would make the healers way too strong on the damage front

I would say that pDPS wise, they should be at the level of tanks, as they are also a role where supposedly DPS isn't the primary purpose...

[Supersnow845]

I would say that pDPS wise, they should be at the level of tanks, as they are also a role where supposedly DPS isn't the primary purpose...

If they were at the tanks pDPS wise then had strong raid buffs like they currently do then the healers would be doing physical ranged level damage

The tanks already do DNC/BRD pDPS numbers and we are also suggesting buffing healers rDPS contribution as well

[BabyYoda]

AST was complained about because it’s excessive APM bloat disguised as complexity, there was no complexity to EW AST it was just a test of horribly bad APM (especially on controller) that heavily punished failure



If you buff rDPS then you can easily cut pDPS without much of a change, also buffing pDPS would make the healers way too strong on the damage front

I agree APM is a problem.. but think of it as a casual player.. you have to manage:
1- damage buffs consistently ( currently 1 min or 2 min)
2- Reactive time mage fantasy.. you have to plan things out.
3- managing people HP and removing debuff

Sorry but this is too much for casual players without mentioning APM issue.

AST have to be gutted or I would rather suggest splitting the job to 2 version one support role and other is time mage healer