They are gutting Black Mage even more in 7.2

[yesnt]

Please continue with your egotistical self-centered desires. Please destroy it, instead of just acknowledging it's not for you personally.

I remember these exact same discussion when they announced the destruction of Astro. You are right. People who do not want to play the job because they dislike it for what it is should just... not play it. I am sorry they are messing up your main job too. All we can really do is sit and watch our favorite game turn into a graveyard of the things we used to enjoy since the devs don't care. I assume that all the job gutting is supposed to make their jobs easier and therefor optimize profits. Idk. I am just sad about all this.

[Auro_Seldaris]

I remember these exact same discussion when they announced the destruction of Astro. You are right. People who do not want to play the job because they dislike it for what it is should just... not play it. I am sorry they are messing up your main job too. All we can really do is sit and watch our favorite game turn into a graveyard of the things we used to enjoy since the devs don't care. I assume that all the job gutting is supposed to make their jobs easier and therefor optimize profits. Idk. I am just sad about all this.

Believe me, I feel that pain. AST was my original main healer job. I loved managing the cards, but it was killed by raidbrain "MUH OPTIMIZATION"

I lowkey wish raiders would go away. SE just caters to them and they convince SE to optimize the fun and challenge out of literally everything.

[SubmarineAlt]

Believe me, I feel that pain. AST was my original main healer job. I loved managing the cards, but it was killed by raidbrain "MUH OPTIMIZATION"

I lowkey wish raiders would go away. SE just caters to them and they convince SE to optimize the fun and challenge out of literally everything.

You believing that they made the AST changes for raiders, in a thread about changes that prove that they don't give a shit about higher end players, is absolutely wild.

Repair that chip on your shoulder. Raiders didn't kill your dog, and you don't have to let them live rent free in your head.

[Auro_Seldaris]

You believing that they made the AST changes for raiders, in a thread about changes that prove that they don't give a shit about higher end players, is absolutely wild.

Repair that chip on your shoulder. Raiders didn't kill your dog, and you don't have to let them live rent free in your head.

Oh please. The raider optimization Discord was called what again? THE BALANCE. Because that was the only card they thought was worth a damn. They complained about Balance-fishing and "card RNG" and "muh optimization" til the devs gutted the job. Twice. So that all it is now is particle effect showoff and lottery scratch-off tickets. Or whatever tf it is now, because I gave up on it years ago and switched to Sage. Most casual/midcore AST mains were perfectly fine with the job as it was. Those changes were certainly not for normal players of the job, so who was it for then? Raiders. Because it made the job more "statistically consistent".

The fact you don't think they cater to raiders, when they keep coming up with new raider content, and virtually all the content released for DT so far has been raider-coded is, itself, effing hilarious.

Besides, how does this thread prove they don't care about high-end players? According to Exxu Plosion's analysis, that's basically who these BLM changes will benefit most... newbies to the job, and raiders. Because it's going to make it simpler for raiders to execute than current BLM play. (even though personally all he wanted was potency changes and nerft to PCT, not gutting the job's identity and class fantasy.)

Unless you think Exxu doesn't know what he's talking about.

[TheDustyOne]

Oh please. The raider optimization Discord was called what again? THE BALANCE. Because that was the only card they thought was worth a damn. They complained about Balance-fishing and "muh optimization" til the devs gutted the job. Twice. So that all it is now is particle effect showoff and lottery scratch-off tickets. Most casual/midcore AST mains were perfectly fine with the job as it was. Those changes were certainly not for normal players of the job, so who was it for then? Raiders. Because it made the job more "statistically consistent".

I don't think it's a hardcore vs casual distinction that made AST into what it is now. Many of the dedicated AST players I've seen, including hardcore, liked old AST more when it had varied cards. Casual players only care if it's fun, they won't bother to go for absolute optimized play, while hardcore will do what they can to get as much performance out of the hands dealt to them as possible. Make it easy to get best performance, and even the hardcore will get bored, so they also don't want to gut jobs.

The biggest problem came from those who didn't care and just wanted the best performance with little effort. You'll get those people in both ends of the hardcore/casual spectrum, the problem is just people not wanting to learn how to play a job.

I'd argue that Jank isn't 'complexity', and agree with what someone else here said about the difference between 'funk', which gives a job identity, and 'jank', which harms the identity of the job. Black Mage having awkward cast times doesn't 'define' the job, it makes it unpleasant to play. Current Tillana doesn't give Dancer 'complexity', it ruins a core aspect of gauge management by punishing the player for things outside of their control.

You still have to define what "jank" and "funk" are and why Black Mage is "janky" instead of "funky". I only used the term clunky, which also still wasn't all that well defined. The Black Mage example you give sounds more like the "funk" you describe as it was a major part of Black Mages identity as a turret caster; stay in the same spot for as long as possible to cause as much damage as possible. But according to you, it's janky. So what makes something "janky" vs something "funky"? And what other examples would you give? The cast time being longer than the recast time I don't think qualifies as it's ultimately balanced around damage per second, so as long as the long cast is appropriately given extra potency to account for the clipped GCD, it's not a concern to worry about.

[Tint]

I don't think it's a hardcore vs casual distinction that made AST into what it is now. Many of the dedicated AST players I've seen, including hardcore, liked old AST more when it had varied cards. Casual players only care if it's fun, they won't bother to go for absolute optimized play, while hardcore will do what they can to get as much performance out of the hands dealt to them as possible. Make it easy to get best performance, and even the hardcore will get bored, so they also don't want to gut jobs.

I think you are both right. It were not the ASTs who complained. They changed AST because the DDs complained about not getting the right cards. Which I think is a general theme: They dumb down the jobs to remove friction points between the players. Not to the benefit of the people who are playing the job, but everyone else. Who wants to have a BLM in the party when they could have a Picto? Who wants to deal with a bad healer when you can reduce healing requirements and give tanks more healing skills? Who wants to deal with a bad tank when aggro and boss positioning can become more or less automated? Who wants to deal with a bad DD when they can make the rotations even more easy?

[Riusvell]

Believe me, I feel that pain. AST was my original main healer job. I loved managing the cards, but it was killed by raidbrain "MUH OPTIMIZATION"

I lowkey wish raiders would go away. SE just caters to them and they convince SE to optimize the fun and challenge out of literally everything.

If they'd cater to us, we'd have more complex jobs.
I don't get your point.

[Doopliss]

If they'd cater to us, we'd have more complex jobs.
I don't get your point.

I know somebody already replied to you, but I want to say--as somebody who has been raiding since ARR and only gave up out of boredom during the last tier of Pandaemonium--I honestly agree with Auro_Seldaris, too...to a point (I don't think it should be blanketed as "raiders" in general).

However it's usually not casual players complaining; they don't tend to give enough of a shit about being optimized or competent. Most complaints are done by completely middling-tiered raiders who want to go through the motions of raiding to score high on third party websites with as little pushback and as few fail states as possible. These aren't the type of people raiding because they love the RPG fantasy or engaging with complex mechanics; they want to humble brag and engage with the most boring spreadsheet simulator in the world.

It's why endgame fights are a goddamn bore, too. The completely flat arenas with easily recognizable floor patterns; the bosses with hitboxes so large they may as well be striking dummies; the lack of role-specific duties; the complete avoidance of any mechanics that might require a player or two to opt out of 100% uptime; the culling of positionals, timers, dots, stances, cast times, etc.

While I can see some of these as having been removed to ease player-specific burdens in casual play (namely stances, but I still think the removal of those sucks hard), most job mechanics were things casual players could ignore and still get through the, you know, casual part of the game just fine.

But, no, in fact most of these changes have been to appease the type of player who thinks a job with a lower skill requirement not scoring as high as a job with a higher skill requirement on FFLogs or some shit is bad design and needs to be rectified. You can't have RNG with AST because that could ruin their parse run. You can't have fail states because that might shatter their ego. It's the type of player that wouldn't let a WHM in their party back in HW because it didn't have as much overall DPS output as SCH or AST did, despite WHM being a far more accessible and easy healer that was good for progression (and still extremely easy to clear the fights with lol).

Unfortunately these type of players tend to be the loudest about balance and why we're here today. It's all in the name of "optimization".

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]I do not have an issue with Black Mage's cast times on Fire 4, what I do worry about is the now abundance of movement it is going to have with more Triple/Swiftcast usage available.

Did they mention giving BLM even more triple/swifts in 7.2? AFAIK, no words has been said about that at all. Although the implication of reducing Fire IV cast time to 2.00s does means that Triple/Swift usage on Fire IVs will no longer result in DPS gains. Which means they are there solely for mobility option than serving dual purpose like they currently do.

[...]Unfortunately these type of players tend to be the loudest about balance and why we're here today. It's all in the name of "optimization".

There's a term to address these sub-type: the Meta Slaves.

Taking an example of what I just replied a paragraph prior:

- Triple/Swift is an option to deal with movement requirements while also serving as a DPS gain tool if the BLM wishes to go for it.
- Triple/Swift is now solely a mobility tool. There is no more consideration needed to be given.

God forbid people have to actually think about anything else besides 'MuH dPs/BarSe!!', we can't have that! Option two is way to go!! ... is what I'd advocate if I'm a meta slave.

Yuck. Just yuck.

[Kazuke_Miso]

There's a term to address these sub-type: the Meta Slaves.[/SIZE][/I]

Honestly a better term, though less well understood, is FFLogs discord dwellers.

Seriously, if you've ever checked out the FFLogs discord for more than a week or so you'd understand what I mean.

Those people will cry, kick, and scream if they had to drop a WHM auto attack to do a mechanic. They whine and whine and beg Kihra to count DPS differently to cater to their specific raiding disability. I have no idea why Kihra keeps listening to these people, but I guess now that FFLogs itself is a microtransaction I can hardly be more surprised.

And it's also no wonder Xenosys Vex is their cheerleader, the guy who basically ghostwrote modern WAR and made it a braindead, overpowered tank. And not content to stop there he kept bitching about Gunbreaker too just because it needed more than one brain cell. He unironically believes that it's fine to gut jobs into amoeba-level gameplay just so you can do a slightly harder DDR raid.

Modern gameplay, from both encounter and job design, caters towards these amoebas, who take joy in repeating the exact same sequence of actions 100000 times to get a rank 2 on fflogs. I honestly think out of all the content creators out there Xeno has probably done the most damage to this game's design. It's weird that he even was a DRK main in HW, like he was a completely different person back then.

I'll admit I haven't watched him at all since late EW though, so IDK if he changed his mind. But man, his takes during ShB and EW were the peak of idiocy and the devs really listened to him.