Quote Originally Posted by Valence View Post
I also suspect that in their systematic attempt to dramatically reduce or outright remove buffs and debuffs and other rpg elements from encounters, jobs and the game in general, they genuinely think that going for the "action/reaction" type of gameplay will reach more people and a bigger audience than things that actually require players to think actively. Ultimately I don't know whether it's true or not, but it's also betraying their core audience in the process and throwing the baby with the bathwater.
Those RPG elements were a decently big part of what I derived enjoyment from when I first started playing back in Stormblood. The fact that they're now gone is definitely a factor in why I feel combat isn't as fun as it used to be.

I remember Yoshi-P talking about debuffs that affect movement like heavy and bind sometime around EW launch, and how they were "unfun", especially when applied to the player (I could very well be misremembering such a conversation, it can be very hard to keep track of what he says sometimes). I get the sentiment when it comes to more annoying dungeon designs like old thousand maws, but sometimes those "unfun" elements are there BECAUSE they're something we want to avoid; don't want your casts getting interrupted? Don't stand in the AoE that would silence or paralyze you.

The "unfun" elements are there to make the fun elements more rewarding, stripping those away makes playing incorrectly only a minor inconvenience to playing correctly, and sometimes leads to better outcomes than playing correctly because the consequence is minimal and the gains may be more than worth it; why bother moving out of an AoE that'll only tickle you when you could get that Flare cast off instead? If that AoE was to silence the player however, now it's a threat, time to move.