Please reconsider an upcoming Black Mage change.

[Supersnow845]

Gameplay is important, I agree. It's just not part of the job fantasy. You can't conflate two separate components of job design. Everything else you're saying is just not very bright.

No you think it’s not part of job fantasy (and you are just about the only person I have ever met who thinks that gameplay has nothing to do with job fantasy because gameplay is literally how you interact with your job). If you believe that fantasy and gameplay are completely unrelated to each other then the way the job plays is literally irrelevant to how the fantasy of the job is as long as the visuals match the fantasy. While a really weird opinion that I’ve tried to explain to you leads to weird extreme examples where you can turn BLM into another job simply by retaining its visual flair under your own logic but regardless of your willingness to engage with that though exercise that doesn’t explain why you believe that job fantasy and gameplay not being linked means that in a gameplay focused thread the fantasy means the gameplay can be changed Willy nilly when people have been explaining that they think it makes the GAMEPLAY worse

[HikariKurosawa]

No you think it’s not part of job fantasy (and you are just about the only person I have ever met who thinks that gameplay has nothing to do with job fantasy because gameplay is literally how you interact with your job). If you believe that fantasy and gameplay are completely unrelated to each other then the way the job plays is literally irrelevant to how the fantasy of the job is as long as the visuals match the fantasy. While a really weird opinion that I’ve tried to explain to you leads to weird extreme examples where you can turn BLM into another job simply by retaining its visual flair under your own logic but regardless of your willingness to engage with that though exercise that doesn’t explain why you believe that job fantasy and gameplay not being linked means that in a gameplay focused thread the fantasy means the gameplay can be changed Willy nilly when people have been explaining that they think it makes the GAMEPLAY worse

It wouldn't be another job though, it would be black mage.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. There is a reason I have you on ignore and it's pretty clear why that is from these interactions. Every time I read one of your posts I just can't help but disagree with everything you have to say. Lo and behold, it's the same story this time too lol.

Some people say the gameplay has been made worse, while others say it is better than ever. The job fantasy and gameplay are very loosely linked, of course it's going to involve casting, but there's no reason it can't have a lot of instant cast abilities. There's no reason an entirely instant cast rotation can't exist. It's more adaptable and in depth this way.

At the end of the day though, I can't even read what you are trying to say. Just jumping to extremes and giving knee jerk reactions to "prove" your "point".

[Supersnow845]

It wouldn't be another job though, it would be black mage.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. There is a reason I have you on ignore and it's pretty clear why that is from these interactions. Every time I read one of your posts I just can't help but disagree with everything you have to say. Lo and behold, it's the same story this time too lol.

Some people say the gameplay has been made worse, while others say it is better than ever. The job fantasy and gameplay are very loosely linked, of course it's going to involve casting, but there's no reason it can't have a lot of instant cast abilities. There's no reason an entirely instant cast rotation can't exist. It's more adaptable and in depth this way.

At the end of the day though, I can't even read what you are trying to say. Just jumping to extremes and giving knee jerk reactions to "prove" your "point".

“It’s more adaptable and in depth this way”

YOU LITERALLY PUT ME ON IGNORE BECAUSE I ARGUED WITH YOU THAT REMOVING NON STANDARD WAS BAD WHEN DT LAUNCHED AND YOUR ONLY ARGUMENT WAS EVERYONE SHOULD PLAY STANDARD

I guess non standards is fine if it requires less thinking than standard

[Kabooa]

I guess non standards is fine if it requires less thinking than standard

I honestly find this questionable. Looking at the No Cast rotation it looks easily screwed over by user error. Maybe it's just due to a decade+ of muscle memory, but nothing about it looks like it takes "less thinking".

[GartredZW]

It wouldn't be another job though, it would be black mage.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. There is a reason I have you on ignore and it's pretty clear why that is from these interactions. Every time I read one of your posts I just can't help but disagree with everything you have to say. Lo and behold, it's the same story this time too lol.

Some people say the gameplay has been made worse, while others say it is better than ever. The job fantasy and gameplay are very loosely linked, of course it's going to involve casting, but there's no reason it can't have a lot of instant cast abilities. There's no reason an entirely instant cast rotation can't exist. It's more adaptable and in depth this way.

At the end of the day though, I can't even read what you are trying to say. Just jumping to extremes and giving knee jerk reactions to "prove" your "point".

you put people on ignore just for disagreements?

I think if you're still confused about what he and I are trying to get across to you, then you may just have something wrong with your ability to read and parse information. I'm not even trying to insult you (any more) I mean that we've been very clear about what we mean in every reply, and you just keep on regurgitating the same points over and over again.
What's worse is that you're not trying to understand what either of us are trying to say. If you were truly confused about the points being made, why not just ask for a bit more information instead of completely ignoring that part?

Imagine if you will, your favorite job. Any of them at all. Now think about all of it's abilities being changed to work completely differently. Now imagine further that the new changes just don't feel as fun to you.
That's what we mean when we say that it's changing into another job. The actual name of what they call the class doesn't matter. It's how the class plays. The same way anyone can have things they like or dislike, changes to one thing can turn it from something one likes, to something one dislikes. And we have every right to make our voices heard. Especially when nowhere else in the game can we get such an experience of that thing we liked before. (The only exception being level 80)
I'm sorry if I'm being condescending here, but I genuinely don't know where the disconnect is.

You say there's no reason it can't have a lot of instant cast abilities. I ask why should it have a lot of instant casts, when the majority of players who enjoy Black Mage the most enjoy it because of those long casts. Not in spite of them.
And honestly, I don't have an issue with the new non-standard in theory. I hate what it signals. It's factual proof that Black Mage has far too many instant casts, and using only them, you can manage to be nearly as effective as if you play the class as it's supposed to be.
At least with old non-standard, you couldn't play like it all the time. There was a hard limit that you'd hit very quickly. Now, you can go upwards of six minutes without needing a single hard cast spell, and can stop at any time to play normal to get even more free movement time.

[Carighan]

If combat is going to evolve to be more engaging and position dependent, then casters also have to evolve alongside it or else they will become redundant.

Sure.

Of course, so far all they've done is make caster combat less engaging because having to mentally track valid movement times and balance that against your job's inherent need to stand still has been removed, with no replacement in gameplay. So empirically, all removing casts does is make gameplay less engaging.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be done. But we're now on the fifth expansion of slowly but continuously reducing the amount of casts needed, while also making the fights easier to do even if you had to cast (despite all the extra movement needed nowadays, because now the fights get designed for specific burst points and damage spikes and what players are doing or not doing during that). How many more times do we want to "wait" until maybe, just maybe, we accept that all existing data indicates that going for less-casting is a strictle negative change of gameplay engagement? We have only data points that indicate this, and not a single one that contradicts this. At what point do we accept reality?

[HikariKurosawa]

Sure.

Of course, so far all they've done is make caster combat less engaging because having to mentally track valid movement times and balance that against your job's inherent need to stand still has been removed, with no replacement in gameplay. So empirically, all removing casts does is make gameplay less engaging.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be done. But we're now on the fifth expansion of slowly but continuously reducing the amount of casts needed, while also making the fights easier to do even if you had to cast (despite all the extra movement needed nowadays, because now the fights get designed for specific burst points and damage spikes and what players are doing or not doing during that). How many more times do we want to "wait" until maybe, just maybe, we accept that all existing data indicates that going for less-casting is a strictle negative change of gameplay engagement? We have only data points that indicate this, and not a single one that contradicts this. At what point do we accept reality?

I just don't agree with this perspective. I get that you personally enjoy fights that are easier and less demanding mechanically. I get that you prefer the difficulty to come from managing your cast times or whatever. Most people enjoy the combat direction currently and consider dawntrail to be the best expansion from a gameplay perspective.

[Supersnow845]

I just don't agree with this perspective. I get that you personally enjoy fights that are easier and less demanding mechanically. I get that you prefer the difficulty to come from managing your cast times or whatever. Most people enjoy the combat direction currently and consider dawntrail to be the best expansion from a gameplay perspective.

Where are you getting that from

People are cautiously optimistic about the direction of the encounter design. Nobody is already calling DT the best expansion combat wise ever, that title is almost unanimously currently given to SB and BLM is strongly considered to be in a bad state right now

Even though DT has been better than EW that’s got nothing to do with caster cast times it has everything to do with reducing body checks, speeding up the rate mechanics come out (but not speeding up the mechanic) which engages the healer more and not having Jupiter sized hitboxes so melee uptime actually means something

[Carighan]

I just don't agree with this perspective. I get that you personally enjoy fights that are easier and less demanding mechanically. I get that you prefer the difficulty to come from managing your cast times or whatever. Most people enjoy the combat direction currently and consider dawntrail to be the best expansion from a gameplay perspective.

Oh I don't disagree with that, but I think Dawntrail fights are easier. And I like that. Hence I don't get the perspective. I want fights to be more involved, and Dawntrail initiatially (early dungeons + normal raids) showed some nice ideas, as for the time:

* Damage on the group was far far far higher, improving the healer experience massively. This did not last through outgearing as later dungeons (like the new one) and savage/extreme fights did not mirror this increase in damage, savage in particular continues the trend set in Shadowbringers, sadly.
* Movement was specific but didn't care about your job, highlighting the role differences more, and important aspect of job identity. Many early bosses did not make allowances for melees to be able to keep uptime 100% for example, and neither for casters to always be standing still every GCD. A very positive aspect, a caster that can just fire off abilities 100% of the time is something we already have, we call that a Bard (or, since the newest patch, a Black Mage, granted).
* Bosses recycle more abilities again, combining them. A good trend, as it allows more blind progging and less having to watch videos.

Sadly this did not last, and in particular Savage fights are back to the usual spiel, and in even more extreme ways. Coupled with a loss of job identity steadily progressing as expansions go by and everything becomes more and more samey, and apart from having to take a tether I might as well not care whether as r1 Red Mage I get asked to swap to m2 Reaper. It's all a wash at this point, do your burst every 2 minutes, do your 1 minute minor burst in between, use the near-static filler rotation, and everything else has been washed out. And I mean that's on a Red Mage, the caster with the most casts left at this point.

I grant you that if they would push the gameplay into the fight mechanics, I could see the point. But they don't, so why erode job gameplay? All this did is make the whole package (playing your character in a fight) more boring compared to previous expansions as while the fights are marginally improved even in savage and extreme, the loss of job gameplay more than offsets this and leads to a less engaging overall package. Healers don't have to heal, tanks don't have to tank, casters don't have to cast, melees ... actually still have to melee but like always the fight is designed to just about ensure this.

[GartredZW]

Healers don't have to heal, tanks don't have to tank, casters don't have to cast, melees ... actually still have to melee but like always the fight is designed to just about ensure this.

I think the fact that the giant hitboxes being the only thing to be reverted somewhat just proves that anyone who isn't a melee is a second class citizen in the eyes of Square. And the only reason Tanks are treated the way they are is because they're just viewed as more versatile melee DPS.
For an expansion that finally made melee disconnect from the boss sometimes, they added a melee with what's essentially a reverse-Xenoglossy. You use it for it's big damage to avoid overcapping, but it's also useful to help your movement. Only instead of time allowed to move, it's distance.

Also, I'd have to really math it out, but I think Pictomancer has the most casts out of the casters. Just goes to show how much mom and dad abandoned us to give all the attention to the new baby.