Melbourne International games week Interview about content

[CuteBucket]

Yeah. People love to rag on WoW for reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions, but that's how you keep things fresh, and why so many people still play it this many years later. In FFXIV it often feels like we're still just playing HW part-5, and for the long time veterans, that's super boring.

So here's the thing. I really, REALLY don't want FFXIV to try and reinvent the wheel every two years. Yes, some jobs are feeling stale and homogenized, it's true. But it also really sucks to play a class, get really good at it, get all that muscle memory built up, and then have the rugged yanked out from under you with "We reworked you job and now you have a totally different rotation and buttons!" Sometimes the change, as hard as it is, can be an improvement. But sometimes it's not, or it's actually a downgrade. I don't want change just for the sake of change. I don't want my jobs getting gutted and remade if the new version is just the old version rearranged to play differently with no actual improvement. That gets really frustrating and makes me want to quit. Sorry to those who have played for a decade and think "the job system is the same!" Isn't that...normal? I don't expect the way a game series plays to fundamentally shift with every new installment in the series (though Final Fantasy as a series seems to love to try and do this, and it's partially why I don't care for the newer games), so why would a game that came out in 2013 play all that radically different now? I'm actually kind of glad a lot of the jobs didn't change too much between Endwalker and Dawntrail, because even if they weren't all in a great state then, at least I don't have to relearn the whole thing from the ground up all over again and can jump right into the new content feeling like I know what I'm doing.

I'm not saying "everything is perfect, never touch it or change anything ever again." I expect some amount of updates as the game goes on. But man oh man, I don't want them "reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions" just to "keep things fresh." That would seriously drive me up the wall and irritate me to no end.

[Supersnow845]

So here's the thing. I really, REALLY don't want FFXIV to try and reinvent the wheel every two years. Yes, some jobs are feeling stale and homogenized, it's true. But it also really sucks to play a class, get really good at it, get all that muscle memory built up, and then have the rugged yanked out from under you with "We reworked you job and now you have a totally different rotation and buttons!" Sometimes the change, as hard as it is, can be an improvement. But sometimes it's not, or it's actually a downgrade. I don't want change just for the sake of change. I don't want my jobs getting gutted and remade if the new version is just the old version rearranged to play differently with no actual improvement. That gets really frustrating and makes me want to quit. Sorry to those who have played for a decade and think "the job system is the same!" Isn't that...normal? I don't expect the way a game series plays to fundamentally shift with every new installment in the series (though Final Fantasy as a series seems to love to try and do this, and it's partially why I don't care for the newer games), so why would a game that came out in 2013 play all that radically different now? I'm actually kind of glad a lot of the jobs didn't change too much between Endwalker and Dawntrail, because even if they weren't all in a great state then, at least I don't have to relearn the whole thing from the ground up all over again and can jump right into the new content feeling like I know what I'm doing.

I'm not saying "everything is perfect, never touch it or change anything ever again." I expect some amount of updates as the game goes on. But man oh man, I don't want them "reworking practically the entire game every couple of expansions" just to "keep things fresh." That would seriously drive me up the wall and irritate me to no end.

That would imply the jobs don’t actually get reworked to make them worse versions of themselves every time

Does any DRG main think current DRG is better than EW DRG, same as BLM, EW SMN, AST’s 4th card system

If the jobs didn’t actually change at all that would be one thing but they do change them they just make them worse and more boring

[CuteBucket]

Yeah, I suppose that's what I'm trying to get at here -- I'd honestly rather they had not changed most of the jobs from when I first started than what we have now. I think some of the changes were improvements, or net-neutral, but there were a lot more changes that didn't seem necessary at all or were changes for the worse. So when I hear "I think they should change everything every expansion," I get wary. I already really don't like the changes I've had to endure since I started playing in ShB. Can't we just have job changes that are...y'know...good? and fun? I know it's subjective, but I genuinely don't know who asked for most of the changes (removing Kaiten from Samurai sure wasn't a thing I ever once encountered and everyone I encountered was upset by it). Frankly I don't think it has anything to do with player feedback anymore and is the devs trying to homogenize everything to make it easier on themselves (likely due to budget and employee number restrictions).

[Supersnow845]

Yeah, I suppose that's what I'm trying to get at here -- I'd honestly rather they had not changed most of the jobs from when I first started than what we have now. I think some of the changes were improvements, or net-neutral, but there were a lot more changes that didn't seem necessary at all or were changes for the worse. So when I hear "I think they should change everything every expansion," I get wary. I already really don't like the changes I've had to endure since I started playing in ShB. Can't we just have job changes that are...y'know...good? and fun? I know it's subjective, but I genuinely don't know who asked for most of the changes (removing Kaiten from Samurai sure wasn't a thing I ever once encountered and everyone I encountered was upset by it). Frankly I don't think it has anything to do with player feedback anymore and is the devs trying to homogenize everything to make it easier on themselves (likely due to budget and employee number restrictions).

I mean then that comes back down to when you started

You started in ShB so you don’t know for example my favourite version of the healers, which “version” of the class should we stop at

[CuteBucket]

I mean then that comes back down to when you started

You started in ShB so you don’t know for example my favourite version of the healers, which “version” of the class should we stop at

I don't really want them to fully "stop" anywhere of course. I liked ShB Samurai more than EW and DT SAM, but maybe I would have liked SB SAM even more. All I'm saying is that even in the 4.5 years I've been playing, they've made a lot of job changes that made me go "huh? why??" and made some jobs feel totally different. People around here act like everything about the game is still stuck in ShB, but I feel like a lot has changed for me since then with regards to how most jobs play. I don't know what the game played like in ARR, HW, or SB, and I have no way to experience them to give my opinion anymore. I had a friend who played White Mage during the time who said she really didn't like her job during SB and had a difficult time finding Savage parties to raid with because no one wanted White Mages for whatever reason, and another friend playing Samurai who was having a blast and had no complaints.

My point being I don't want them just to change it for the sake of changing it and nothing else. That's just annoying, and feels like what they've been doing the whole time I've been playing it. Changes to be like "look, we deleted one button and added two new buttons that rearranged your rotation! See, it's new and different now!" Sure, I guess, but not a fun or better way. It's why I'm glad, for instance, Paladin only got a single new attack from level 90-100 that doesn't take up a new hotbar spot and didn't change my rotation at all 6.5 to 7.0. That job was already button bloated back in ShB, I didn't want anything new. I don't need a new particle effect button every 10 levels, I don't care, I just want the job to feel fun for the most amount of people.

I can't really speak on healers as I don't play them much, I'll leave it up to healer mains to decide amongst themselves what they want, I'm just a little tank/melee player who thinks most of the melee jobs were more fun back in ShB than now.

[BunnyQueen]

I don't really want them to fully "stop" anywhere of course. I liked ShB Samurai more than EW and DT SAM, but maybe I would have liked SB SAM even more. All I'm saying is that even in the 4.5 years I've been playing, they've made a lot of job changes that made me go "huh? why??" and made some jobs feel totally different. People around here act like everything about the game is still stuck in ShB, but I feel like a lot has changed for me since then with regards to how most jobs play. I don't know what the game played like in ARR, HW, or SB, and I have no way to experience them to give my opinion anymore. I had a friend who played White Mage during the time who said she really didn't like her job during SB and had a difficult time finding Savage parties to raid with because no one wanted White Mages for whatever reason, and another friend playing Samurai who was having a blast and had no complaints.

My point being I don't want them just to change it for the sake of changing it and nothing else. That's just annoying, and feels like what they've been doing the whole time I've been playing it. Changes to be like "look, we deleted one button and added two new buttons that rearranged your rotation! See, it's new and different now!" Sure, I guess, but not a fun or better way. It's why I'm glad, for instance, Paladin only got a single new attack from level 90-100 that doesn't take up a new hotbar spot and didn't change my rotation at all 6.5 to 7.0. That job was already button bloated back in ShB, I didn't want anything new. I don't need a new particle effect button every 10 levels, I don't care, I just want the job to feel fun for the most amount of people.

I can't really speak on healers as I don't play them much, I'll leave it up to healer mains to decide amongst themselves what they want, I'm just a little tank/melee player who thinks most of the melee jobs were more fun back in ShB than now.

Healing bloody sucks in FF14 now. It is so bad I dropped healing to play warrior so I can heal at least still heal...... in a way.........

[Kuroka]

My point being I don't want them just to change it for the sake of changing it and nothing else. That's just annoying, and feels like what they've been doing the whole time I've been playing it. Changes to be like "look, we deleted one button and added two new buttons that rearranged your rotation! See, it's new and different now!" Sure, I guess, but not a fun or better way. It's why I'm glad, for instance, Paladin only got a single new attack from level 90-100 that doesn't take up a new hotbar spot and didn't change my rotation at all 6.5 to 7.0. That job was already button bloated back in ShB, I didn't want anything new. I don't need a new particle effect button every 10 levels, I don't care, I just want the job to feel fun for the most amount of people.

Pretty much that yeah, im glad RDM is basically the same. I dont want a changed job every expension, it ruined Astro for me, tarnished whm... I feel on many jobs we could cut back on some buttons - we dont need the same attack as AOE and single target with shared CDs, even less if the AOE is "does 800dmg, losses 80% dmg after the first enemy"... ffs just make it one button and give us something interesting instead...

[Brightamethyst]

Does any DRG main think current DRG is better than EW DRG

Current DRG is absolutely better than EW DRG (Spineshatter/Winged Glide aesthetic change aside.)