Don't let dumb job changes ruin the game for you.

[HikariKurosawa]

I almost think they should just never listen to people who have been playing this game long term. Totally out of touch with the reality of execution of job abilities.

[Reginald_Cain]

I wasn't expecting this many responses. Guess what i said read like "Deal with it. The job balance is optional. auto crossbow is fine." because i didn't try hard enough to make it sound like there's still long standing issues but I'm happy the game has remained in a playable state for me for these last few years. Sorry for any ruffled feathers, but in my experience in live service games, and this one in particular game balance is often trumped by fun. Look at league of legends or warframe. Those games have some of the most egregius examples of powercreep and neglect of certain classes/characters I've experienced, but every character remained playable. I understand frustrations for people wanting to play black mage, machinist, summoner, healers, dark knight and dragoon. You guys lost a lot of features we both loved like nastrond, blood weapon boosting skill speed, gcd abyssal drain, bishop auto turret in pve, bane for scholar and more. Pictomancer is obviously cracked but It's also one of the most satisfying jobs in the game and people are currently used to playing it at current power level. I understand their approach to buff all instead of nerfing but I think they're overly conservative with buffs for all dps roles. One positive to picto being this strong is double caster is a more realistic option for groups. Since Shadowbringers came out, it hasn't been viable to run double phys ranged and double caster was viable but not as reliable as double melee. I'd prefer black mage to be stronger and machinist be more in line with samurai. They're about as easy to play.

[Emitans]

My main (DRK) lost its identity in Shadowbringers. My favorite healer (SCH) lost all but one of its DoTs. My favorite DPS (SMN) was literally removed from the game and replaced with a different job. Combat is how 90% of the game is experienced. It is impossible for job changes to not ruin the game when some of them are this drastic and they are nearly always for the worse.

[Valence]

I wasn't expecting this many responses. Guess what i said read like "Deal with it. The job balance is optional. auto crossbow is fine." because i didn't try hard enough to make it sound like there's still long standing issues but I'm happy the game has remained in a playable state for me for these last few years. Sorry for any ruffled feathers, but in my experience in live service games, and this one in particular game balance is often trumped by fun. Look at league of legends or warframe. Those games have some of the most egregius examples of powercreep and neglect of certain classes/characters I've experienced, but every character remained playable. I understand frustrations for people wanting to play black mage, machinist, summoner, healers, dark knight and dragoon. You guys lost a lot of features we both loved like nastrond, blood weapon boosting skill speed, gcd abyssal drain, bishop auto turret in pve, bane for scholar and more. Pictomancer is obviously cracked but It's also one of the most satisfying jobs in the game and people are currently used to playing it at current power level. I understand their approach to buff all instead of nerfing but I think they're overly conservative with buffs for all dps roles. One positive to picto being this strong is double caster is a more realistic option for groups. Since Shadowbringers came out, it hasn't been viable to run double phys ranged and double caster was viable but not as reliable as double melee. I'd prefer black mage to be stronger and machinist be more in line with samurai. They're about as easy to play.

The actual problem is that game balance actually trumps fun in this game, because everything has to adhere strictly to a script, and remove every form of skill expression or self expression by systematically deleting agency and freedom to the favor of pure mechanical/memory regurgitation with little thought behind, thus sucking half the fun out of it, and only leaving room for a sanitized environment where the smallest balance issue suddenly occupies all the room.