Unsubs vs Resubs over BLM changes

[Carighan]

I sometimes think that if they expanded on the Ice phase somehow and made it more meaningful, I would really like a conceptual "Black Mage 2.0" where an Enochian timer exists, but it's automatic. Say every 15s I swap, no matter what. And my goal in Ice is to a) fill my mana, b) use whatever I can in ice to get it done with and c) stack self-buffs I can get somehow, then in the 15s Fire I ideally got nothing else to do than use 6 casted fire GCDs for maximum fwoosh, but that's the ideal thing and I cannot guarantee I can always do that, regardless, after 15s it's back in Ice or so.

Granted, would have nothing to do with the current job really. But just a random thought that popped into my head thinking about how Ice is a far more meaningful thing in PvP and basically as important/powerful as Fire, just in a very different way.

[Zakuyia]

Honestly jobs should be complex to add a bit of flavor and fun. Thats like telling ppl on fps that sniping rifles shouldn't have slow reload, bullet drop, and high skill cap cause I wanna play with the weapon.

The problem is. Ff14 has become big and in the mix of players we have try hards, mid core, hard core, casuals, and the lazy af ppl who refuse to learn how to play and expect everything to be given to them cause they lack any semblance to actually learn this game.

So now all of us are being punished cause ppl. Hate to fail, refuse to try, and refuse to put effort into this game. XD you gotta love how ppl with no skill level what so ever are the main voices they listen to. Aka I wish this game was personalize for me crowd.

[NobleWinter]

I sometimes think that if they expanded on the Ice phase somehow and made it more meaningful, I would really like a conceptual "Black Mage 2.0" where an Enochian timer exists, but it's automatic. Say every 15s I swap, no matter what. And my goal in Ice is to a) fill my mana, b) use whatever I can in ice to get it done with and c) stack self-buffs I can get somehow, then in the 15s Fire I ideally got nothing else to do than use 6 casted fire GCDs for maximum fwoosh, but that's the ideal thing and I cannot guarantee I can always do that, regardless, after 15s it's back in Ice or so.

Granted, would have nothing to do with the current job really. But just a random thought that popped into my head thinking about how Ice is a far more meaningful thing in PvP and basically as important/powerful as Fire, just in a very different way.

I always thought Ice and fire spells should have had the same MP cost/gain for the respective spells. So one Blizzard 2 would provide enough MP to cast a Fire 2 and so on and so fourth. Ice spells being instant cast for movement in addition to MP Regen and fire spells with full length and varied cast times for big damage. So chasing a tank in a dungeon would use a full rotation of Blizzard spells until you can camp and spend the MP gained with Fire spells. Switching from Ice to fire would be a matter of doing movement mechanics or not with Aetherial Manipulation allowing you to stay in fire and still move appropriately. In my ideal world you would be able to AM during casts. Things like Enochian and Ley lines would remove the MP cost from Fire spells allowing you to stay in them longer during boss fights. I always felt that using one Blizzard spell and going back to fire felt really underwhelming. I want to feel just as powerful using ice magic as I do using fire. Tactical even. If the spell costs were reduced overall this could be a very fun system of choosing between movement with ice or damage with fire and balancing your MP between the two in the more chaotic encounters to come.

[Carighan]

Yeah in my ideal world it'd be close to that. Also fire-damage keeps escalating as you stay in fire (no limit), but your only source of instant-cast spells are:

* That 1 Swiftcast.
* Paradox (see below)

No Triplecast, no Xenoglossy (casted in Fire, only instant in Ice!), no Despair, no nothing. Need to move? Go Ice again! All ice-spells are fully instant. Of course, you lose the escalating fire damage bonus, but hey, you also regenerate mana, get the procs you need to refresh Thunder etc (I'd only give it on going into Ice). So ice phase would be a dual nature phase of instant-casts + mana-regen, while Fire is a dual-burden of mana-drain and ~slidecasting-only.

In return this would allow fire damage to be massively bumped (the escalating bonus I'd in fact lower per stack, but raise the base damage significantly). And Paradox would act as a "wrong stance" spell, acting like Fire IV in Ice and like Blizzard IV in Fire. Xenoglossy is casted and simply costs no mana, otherwise it acts like Fire IV / Blizzard IV, effectively being a "reverse Paradox". Or rather Paradox is a reverse Xenoglossy, I suppose.

[HikariKurosawa]

I'm just glad square enix is in charge of their game because these ideas are abhorrent.

[Asari5]

20 jobs in this game... 20!!....

imagine having jobs for different kinds of people.

if you like a difficult job but arent that great with it... combine it with easy content.
if you wanna do difficult content but arent that great... combine it with an easy job.

mindblowing

[PyurBlue]

Ice for movement is an interesting idea and it ties in to having timers back since it would put a limit on mobility. EW BLM is still my ideal, it kept the original spirit of the job while having more than enough tools to deal with modern content design, but even that iteration could coexist with additional ice mechanics.

[RezPls]

Oh look its the person who doesn't play black mage at end game level trying to tell other people to put up with the job changes.
In such a hypocritical way.

This quote is pot meeting kettle.

I'm enjoying the BLM changes a lot and actually play it in endgame.
Can you say the same?

[Owyn_Addens]

This quote is pot meeting kettle.

I'm enjoying the BLM changes a lot and actually play it in endgame.
Can you say the same?

I'm playing it in Savage right now and I get absolutely no enjoyment from the job. I'd be on RDM instead if this tier didn't make it uniquely bad if it can't fake-melee.

[Carighan]

20 jobs in this game... 20!!....

imagine having jobs for different kinds of people.

if you like a difficult job but arent that great with it... combine it with easy content.
if you wanna do difficult content but arent that great... combine it with an easy job.

mindblowing

It might be counterintuitive, but the vast array of classes is in fact why they all have to be ultimately work quite similar.

Because it means difficulty cannot viably be established through class interaction. It's just not realistic. For any given PvE encounter, any balance the devs achieve would either:

* Exclude a vast portion of classes entirely, if balance is aimed at the few classes performing best in this encounter. You are simply expected to, say, bring Pictomancers for FRU. That's what FRU is balanced for, and intentionally no other DPS can produce the DPS needed for this encounter.
* Or, alternatively, you balance for the average or even minimum performance, in which case every group can trivially beat fights by just bringing whoever "overperforms" here. And this is an effect we already see, despite 5%-6% outliers in both directions. Imagine if it were 20%-50% outliers due to mechanical design differences!

This issue, coupled with the frankly inane need (and community desire) for more and more classes, means difficulty has to lie entirely in the encounter. It's the only way to centrally control the difficulty. But to establish this, all jobs of a specific role need to be "flattened", to ensure their perform about equal independent of the context. Look at what a huge problem Picto not fitting that mold was and still is, or how Vipers with their weird faceroll-lulz burst overperform in M6S. These things have to all be taken out. So naturally a job not fitting on the other end - too immobile - also has to be changed. All difficulty must come from the PvE encounters if your game has too many classes unless your community embraces and enjoys intentional irrelevance of some jobs in some contents (EQ1 and DAoC are good examples of this design paradigm).