The tonedeaf Live Letter LXXXVI 86

[Loggos]

It's honestly bizarre how the PvP team seems to have nailed good gameplay, even if I personally thought Feast was better (but it had an unreasonably high skill floor for most).

I wonder why. I wonder if management just does not have a directive for the PvP team, there's no concern about making things too deep or challenging, there's no concern about innovation causing imbalance... I wonder if they're given free rein to do what they wanted and unleash their creativity, while the entire game's PvE is completely locked down, designed with rows of spreadsheets instead of human creativity.

This is probably just one of the reasons but I think playing against other players also inherently allows for a wider variety of skills and effects that can either not be implemented the same way or not at all in PvE, leading to a more varied gameplay experience.
Many skill effects are also immediately noticeable compared to PvE which too opens up more possibilities for kit design I think.

(Hidden because I couldn't help myself and started to ramble, sorry lol.)

Even though some skills and LB timers actually align you don't really feel a "2 minute" meta in PvP, because dying messes with your (LB) timers differently than it does in PvE and you have no DDR style of gameplay that devs can balance around.

Since everything is inherently chaotic and random in PvP every job needs to be able to cope with randomness and chaos.
You don't have to periodically adjust jobs because of the particular design of, say, one specific raid fight in a given season that favours certain jobs and has other jobs underperform either.

Also, in PvE (trash mobs aside) you spend the fight killing one boss so effects aren't really "felt" the same way. Buffs and debuffs are important but you only really get that feedback by the end of the fight (e.g. by checking your clear time or hitting enrage).

You can also barely stun or properly CC bosses (outside of the tank holding/reclaiming aggro), if at all, and mobility skills (dashes, teleports) effects can feel a lot more static because of the scripted and repetitive fights whereas it can be downright exhilarating if you manage to escape near death against other players with your given tools (dancer and picto dashes feel much more satisfying to use in PvP than in PvE)

In PvP you have much more direct feedback such as people dying (or surviving) and you can actually meaningfully afflict enemies with negative effects (like CC or mana steal) so you are immediately rewarded for good or bad gameplay.
Not only does that makes everything a lot more dynamic but it also opens up the possibility for skills or various LBs (ast, wmh, dancer, reaper, pct, drk, sage, etc. etc.) in the first place that would make zero sense in PvE boss fights (and can therefore not even be considered for PvE kits).
Other skills like PLD's cover or sage's toxicon mechanic technically exist in PvE but feel pretty meaningless there. But even though they are "the same" (type of) skills they are much more impactful in PvP.

And you can create job diversity by leaning more into AoE or single target profiles.
In PvE this makes less sense because every job needs to be able to fight single target bosses and packs of mobs. But in PvP it's perfectly fine to have jobs specialise more in one or another.

That is not to say that the PvP team can't screw it up. I'm sure if they are creative they can homogenise the fun out of this mode too (and as Azuraok pointed out they have already done that to some degree in 7.1).
But I think PvP has a lot of inherent potential to cater to dynamic and diverse skill sets that the current approach to PvE (kind of) lacks (letting go of the DDR formula would already help a lot) and at least so far I think the devs were able (and willing) to tap into that potential.
Let's hope they keep that up...

[Veritas-Ancora]

I am genuinely losing interest in this game.

No drama, no tea, no shade, just getting tired of it.

Waiting over two more f@#%ing months just to play content that interests me, are you kidding? I've been waiting since the end of last year.

[dspguy]

I don't know what to expect from "improved encounter design." I will say that this game has been heavily formulaic since HW or SB.

• New dungeon every major patch.
• New gear tier every even patch.
• New 24-man raid every odd patch.
• That tier's gear can be upgraded with hunt marks/24-man tokens in the odd patches.
• X.3 patches tend to have the left/right DoH/L last upgrade for the expansion, except for the "crafting/gathering relic tool."
• Relic weapons tend to start in X.25. How you obtain them does change from expansion to expansion though.
• New dungeons are commonly like most other dungeons these days - wall-to-wall, 2 groups at at time, twice before the boss. Then boss. Repeat 3x.
• Etc etc etc

My point is, the game has been formulaic for about 10 years. Why are we expecting to NOT be what it HAS been for so long?

Could it be better? Of course it could. But, asking why it isn't different than it is is kind of illogical.

[Gunz_Zbestest]

It's honestly bizarre how the PvP team seems to have nailed good gameplay, even if I personally thought Feast was better (but it had an unreasonably high skill floor for most).

I wonder why. I wonder if management just does not have a directive for the PvP team, there's no concern about making things too deep or challenging, there's no concern about innovation causing imbalance... I wonder if they're given free rein to do what they wanted and unleash their creativity, while the entire game's PvE is completely locked down, designed with rows of spreadsheets instead of human creativity.

You're answering your own question. Just from my view, seeing people here who are associated with the pvp community, speak to each other with at least a minimum level of respect when having personal disagreements; from sound macros, to premades, to old rewards. Nobody I've seen is trying to make their idea seem like the superior one, just an opinion.

[Red-thunder]

I don't know what to expect from "improved encounter design." I will say that this game has been heavily formulaic since HW or SB.

• New dungeon every major patch.
• New gear tier every even patch.
• New 24-man raid every odd patch.
• That tier's gear can be upgraded with hunt marks/24-man tokens in the odd patches.
• X.3 patches tend to have the left/right DoH/L last upgrade for the expansion, except for the "crafting/gathering relic tool."
• Relic weapons tend to start in X.25. How you obtain them does change from expansion to expansion though.
• New dungeons are commonly like most other dungeons these days - wall-to-wall, 2 groups at at time, twice before the boss. Then boss. Repeat 3x.
• Etc etc etc

My point is, the game has been formulaic for about 10 years. Why are we expecting to NOT be what it HAS been for so long?

Could it be better? Of course it could. But, asking why it isn't different than it is is kind of illogical.

I don't think anyone expects it to be different.

It is just shameful.

[Red-thunder]

Other skills like PLD's cover or sage's toxicon mechanic technically exist in PvE but feel pretty meaningless there. But even though they are "the same" (type of) skills they are much more impactful in PvP.

The thing is there used to be job uniqueness shining through in raids. In O4S Paladin can cover the white mage to soak earth shakers because white mage generated a lot of aggro and Paladin can stay in sword oath instead. It's little quirks like these that made jobs feel unique. They sanded down everything into a homogenized slop these days.

But back then there was a hope that they would expand on raid design in all dimensions. The dance fights were fun. The healing was fun. Tank aggro and CC were simple as to be an afterthought, but they could have expanded on it. Utility was there.

I should've seen the writing on the wall when they removed Disable and Virus... They funneled FF14 into a single template and designed themselves into a corner. The players will riot if they ever deviate from DDR raids, because both the players and the devs have grown complacent. It's a very sad downfall for this game.

[MAJRIS]

No mention of housing made one specific group veeeery happy.

[Kaliesto]

No mention of housing made one specific group veeeery happy.

If you're talking about those FC Cabals, they can keep it.

Who cares about their massive amount of gil operations.

its not the house that makes the FC, its the the people and sooner people realize this the better and those Cabals can stay miserable in their box.

[Red-thunder]

No mention of housing made one specific group veeeery happy.

At this point I sincerely doubt even if WoW made an unironically perfect, flawless housing system SE will deign to do literally anything to compete.

It just frankly seems that they don't feel threatened by their competitors, and when it is brought up Yoshi P just says "FF14 will be here, enjoy Monster Hunter/Zelda/Elden Ring". Maybe they have given up on the game long before the players have.

[Basteala]

Isn't that guy a dancer/performer and this battle is sort of a choreography, which would make sense to be somewhat DDR-related?

It would. But it's a whole lot less special when every fight is doing that already.