7.1 Dragoon Changes Complaints

[HikariKurosawa]

There were just buttons that deserved it more that wouldn't hurt the fun of doing stuff like old Ultimates so significantly.

Yeah I mean, if they removed life surge I'd be fine with it. I don't think mirage dive should ever be removed though. I think there is also a lot more interesting stuff they can add to dragoon's burst window than simply having 3 nastronds though.

Removing life surge, and adding my suggestion of high jump + mirage dive during lotd leading to an upgraded high jump and a red mirage dive is probably the best case scenario. More mirage diving, more blue/red theme, more jumping, more ogcd, and no additional buttons since it would be the same keybinds as high jump and mirage dive.

Since I made the suggestion everyone is going to be contrarian about it, but it really is a good suggestion.

To further expand on my suggestion, I think they should move acquisition of scales to high jump and the new jump and make it so that we can do raiden thrust and draconian fury in our opener. Prioritize animation upgrades and consistency over automatic mechanics that don't align naturally. This would mean we would always have a WWT for our burst windows and always have one every other high jump that happens out of burst. I know that this suggestion removes thinking from the job, but it also makes the job flow much more consistently and organically. I don't think it is a bad thing for a job to be designed in a way that just works, personally I view it as good and satisfying design. Plus they could buff the potency of WWT since it would happen less frequently, giving us stronger burst windows.

Call it "boost jump" as a throwback to cid highwind's limit break.

[HeavenlyArmed]

Yeah I mean, if they removed life surge I'd be fine with it. I don't think mirage dive should ever be removed though. I think there is also a lot more interesting stuff they can add to dragoon's burst window than simply having 3 nastronds though.

Removing life surge, and adding my suggestion of high jump + mirage dive during lotd leading to an upgraded high jump and a red mirage dive is probably the best case scenario. More mirage diving, more blue/red theme, more jumping, more ogcd, and no additional buttons since it would be the same keybinds as high jump and mirage dive.

Since I made the suggestion everyone is going to be contrarian about it, but it really is a good suggestion.

To further expand on my suggestion, I think they should move acquisition of scales to high jump and the new jump and make it so that we can do raiden thrust and draconian fury in our opener. Prioritize animation upgrades and consistency over automatic mechanics that don't align naturally. This would mean we would always have a WWT for our burst windows and always have one every other high jump that happens out of burst. I know that this suggestion removes thinking from the job, but it also makes the job flow much more consistently and organically. I don't think it is a bad thing for a job to be designed in a way that just works, personally I view it as good and satisfying design. Plus they could buff the potency of WWT since it would happen less frequently, giving us stronger burst windows.

Call it "boost jump" as a throwback to cid highwind's limit break.

Since this is actually a real suggestion I won't ignore you on this one. Personally I prefer the idea of adding scales to something rather than moving them from being generated by one skill to another. As the old meme says, "por que no los dos"? Especially because I feel like that would help give a feeling of different parts of our toolkit all tying back into each other. But the idea of scales being generated by something else in some way is one I do like. As for the extra jump idea I think for 8.0 that does sound like an idea worth considering. The problem is the odds of them introducing new skills mid-expansion is next to nothing, and most of us would like the extra buttons to press in the next possible patch, not two years down the line. But when they do, assuming the 8.0 reworks don't go in an entirely different direction, that's one idea I see some potential in.

[HikariKurosawa]

Since this is actually a real suggestion I won't ignore you on this one. Personally I prefer the idea of adding scales to something rather than moving them from being generated by one skill to another. As the old meme says, "por que no los dos"? Especially because I feel like that would help give a feeling of different parts of our toolkit all tying back into each other. But the idea of scales being generated by something else in some way is one I do like. As for the extra jump idea I think for 8.0 that does sound like an idea worth considering. The problem is the odds of them introducing new skills mid-expansion is next to nothing, and most of us would like the extra buttons to press in the next possible patch, not two years down the line. But when they do, assuming the 8.0 reworks don't go in an entirely different direction, that's one idea I see some potential in.

I think it would be good for them to add the extra jump and mirage dive outside of a new expansion for the specific reason of having it introduced at a lower level, like 70 so it's present in all ultimate content. This leaves them freedom for more unique abilities in the 8.0 patch, since a reskinned jump + mirage dive isn't the most exciting addition for a new expansion. Especially if they remove life surge or rework it into an actual defensive ability.

For expansion ability ideas, I'm not even sure what they could do. The jobs are becoming very close to full(I said bloated but I don't really think that's true. It's not over the limit, just close to the limit). Pruning is necessary but there isn't even much to prune other than life surge. Maybe an oGCD followup ability for nastrond and an animation/potency upgrade to sonic thrust?

Then our 8.0 burst window oGCDs would be: High Jump, Mirage Dive, Boost Jump, Red Dive, Nastrond, Nastrond followup, Wyrmwind Thrust, Dragonfire Dive, Rise of the Dragon, Stardiver, Starcross.

Level 70 burst window would be: High Jump, Mirage Dive, Boost Jump, Red Dive, Nastrond, Dragonfire Dive. I think this is a good amount of buttons for the first two ultimates and it only gets better for the following ultimates.

[HikariKurosawa]

Since leveling the job a bit and doing some of the dawntrail dungeon/trial content, it's crazy that people want 3 nastronds back. I do think they should remove life surge and add my suggestion, but yeah this job has way too much going on in burst.

The opinions and preferences of veteran players are so out of touch with reality that it's crazy. Given enough practice, everything becomes normal. Should this level of execution be the norm in a video game? No way in hell. You're pushing away new players. It's discouraging and disengagingly overwhelming to approach current job design, and it was even more complicated and busy in endwalker.

In 8.0, I really hope they make serious efforts toward simplification and streamlined job design. It's gone too far, and the people who have stuck around with the game the entire time have no clue what it really feels like. It's all just muscle memory for you after all.

[Carighan]

Since leveling the job a bit and doing some of the dawntrail dungeon/trial content, it's crazy that people want 3 nastronds back. I do think they should remove life surge and add my suggestion, but yeah this job has way too much going on in burst.

The opinions and preferences of veteran players are so out of touch with reality that it's crazy. Given enough practice, everything becomes normal. Should this level of execution be the norm in a video game? No way in hell. You're pushing away new players. It's discouraging and disengagingly overwhelming to approach current job design, and it was even more complicated and busy in endwalker.

In 8.0, I really hope they make serious efforts toward simplification and streamlined job design. It's gone too far, and the people who have stuck around with the game the entire time have no clue what it really feels like. It's all just muscle memory for you after all.

Having played around it with a bit now, I also don't really see a downside.

I don't like the current Dragoon design. At all. But 3 Nastrond -> 1 Nastrond seems positive, tbh. There's no need for the extra-RSI of pressing Nastrond 3 times, mentally you're not doing much more than going through rote button motions anyways. Might as well cut that down, give your hands a better time, and have exactly as 0 brain engagement as before.

Does Dragoon need a rework? For sure. But this change doesn't hurt it. There's nothing left to hurt anyways. :P

[HikariKurosawa]

Having played around it with a bit now, I also don't really see a downside.

I don't like the current Dragoon design. At all. But 3 Nastrond -> 1 Nastrond seems positive, tbh. There's no need for the extra-RSI of pressing Nastrond 3 times, mentally you're not doing much more than going through rote button motions anyways. Might as well cut that down, give your hands a better time, and have exactly as 0 brain engagement as before.

Does Dragoon need a rework? For sure. But this change doesn't hurt it. There's nothing left to hurt anyways. :P

I don't think it really does need too much of a rework though.

I think they should take away life surge, make scales come from high jump/boost jump, change lance mastery 3 to make it so that true thrust and doom spike are just outright upgraded into raiden thrust and draconian fury. Then add the followup boost jump+red mirage dive combo into LotD.

Then next expansion, lance mastery 5 upgrades sonic thrust into new dragon themed thrust, also upgrades wheeling thrust + fang and claw into modern animations. New capstone ability being a followup for nastrond with maybe a white animation themed after hraesvelgr. This ties into the artistic direction of starcross being white themed.

If life surge was removed, then it would not be too overwhelming to manage all of this. Maybe they would have to give us a trait to have LotD last longer too, but if we were able to fit everything in with both life surge charges and 3 nastronds, it would be doable this way too. It's the same amount of oGCD as pre-7.1 dragoon but they're all flexible oGCDs and don't have to be lined up with heaven's thrust or drakesbane, plus the timing for WWT would be consistent and non-variable. You would always have a WWT for your burst windows.

This leans the job's identity completely in the direction of being oGCD heavy during burst windows, and also gives us further red/blue theme with the red mirage dive(boost jump could also have a red animation, and maybe they could call it dragonblood dive), while also giving us a cool hraesvelgr themed nastrond followup.

After that though? What can you really do to advance the job? It would be completely streamlined. Every animation would be modernized, the burst window would be as full as it should realistically be(I find it overwhelmingly packed as is, but life surge and WWT make it more complicated than it would be in this idea), and everything would flow naturally. I guess they could make additions to our combat outside of burst, but it's a delicate balance.

[Carighan]

After that though? What can you really do to advance the job? It would be completely streamlined. Every animation would be modernized, the burst window would be as full as it should realistically be(I find it overwhelmingly packed as is, but life surge and WWT make it more complicated than it would be in this idea), and everything would flow naturally. I guess they could make additions to our combat outside of burst, but it's a delicate balance.

Oh I'd mostly want jobs to break away from the "all the exact same combat design with visual differences"-mold. Meaning I'd want reworks for all combat jobs that heavily heterogenize them.

My big idea for Dragoon would be to make many GCDs "jumps" of 1.5x-2.0x GCD timer, and while airborne you get a targetting cursor akin to the PvP LB, and while airborne you're invulnerable. Center the job around jumps and airtime, 105%!

[HikariKurosawa]

Oh I'd mostly want jobs to break away from the "all the exact same combat design with visual differences"-mold. Meaning I'd want reworks for all combat jobs that heavily heterogenize them.

My big idea for Dragoon would be to make many GCDs "jumps" of 1.5x-2.0x GCD timer, and while airborne you get a targetting cursor akin to the PvP LB, and while airborne you're invulnerable. Center the job around jumps and airtime, 105%!

Hmm lol, maybe they could do that for pvp but I would prefer to keep pve dragoon similar to how it already is. I really like how it plays and it is extremely satisfying, I just wish it was a little bit cleaner and more streamlined.

Or maybe the future of job design should be "limited mode" versions of the existing jobs, where they really go wild with the ability designs. They could have really in depth job quests that way like the blue mage does and it would give them a ton of creative freedom over how the jobs play, since they wouldn't have to balance them around the main battle content.

Since the jobs are already pretty much full and approaching a dead end of development, it's either 1) rework entirely and scrap nearly everything, 2) focus on overhauling the low level experience, or 3) give each job a limited version that is really unique.

[HeavenlyArmed]

Having played around it with a bit now, I also don't really see a downside.

I don't like the current Dragoon design. At all. But 3 Nastrond -> 1 Nastrond seems positive, tbh. There's no need for the extra-RSI of pressing Nastrond 3 times, mentally you're not doing much more than going through rote button motions anyways. Might as well cut that down, give your hands a better time, and have exactly as 0 brain engagement as before.

Does Dragoon need a rework? For sure. But this change doesn't hurt it. There's nothing left to hurt anyways. :P

After playing a bit more myself I have no idea where you're coming from. One minute windows are very boring now with so few buttons to press, and as I stated initially at levels below 100 there's just nothing to do ever. At level 70 after a Jump, Mirage Dive and your one Nastrond your one minute "burst" is finished, if you can even call it that. Again, I don't necessarily mind it being a little less busy during 2 minute windows at 100, but god this was not the way to do it, because everything that isn't that scenario feels significantly more boring. It's pushed me into basically maining Dancer in the new Ultimate because at least they have some variance and some stuff to build toward.

[Carighan]

After playing a bit more myself I have no idea where you're coming from. One minute windows are very boring now with so few buttons to press, and as I stated initially at levels below 100 there's just nothing to do ever. At level 70 after a Jump, Mirage Dive and your one Nastrond your one minute "burst" is finished, if you can even call it that. Again, I don't necessarily mind it being a little less busy during 2 minute windows at 100, but god this was not the way to do it, because everything that isn't that scenario feels significantly more boring. It's pushed me into basically maining Dancer in the new Ultimate because at least they have some variance and some stuff to build toward.

Ah, yeah I can see how others think differently there than me.

To me, mechanical complexity in dexterity need to the player is a kind of complexity that yields no depth in a static-rotation setup (which if we're being honest all combat jobs currently are). That is, I find it superfluous. If my rotation is static either way, all having to press 3 buttons every 2.5s instead of 1 button does is give me RSI faster. And RSI is not a good thing, so that setup isn't a good thing. Either way I mentally am zoned out since it requires no thought to follow this rotation - that's why the devs do it that way so we can all focus on the fight mechanics.

And hence to me, there's no "loss" in having 2 extra free oGCD weaving spots. Honestly they could make the money alternating combat sequence an autocast, and that'd actually be more interesting (since it plays on its own that keeps me at least marginally on my toes for positionals). But it'd be exactly as "complex" as the current one. And it's the same with the excessive weaving to me.

But I know others really like mechanical complexity, so it's a very personal thing, and I can understand that. I don't agree with it, but fair enough.