The new player experience and how FFXIV fails as an MMO.

[Shurrikhan]

But that's the thing. All of what you listed, I find interesting and never considered it remotely hard. I've never seen people struggling with it like I've seen people struggling with what you say is not above average difficulty.

Then that's where we differ. I've seen quite a few wipes in Tam Tara Hard, in Stone Vigil Hard, in pre-nerf Pharos Sirius, against Mist Dragon, even some wipes against whatever the HW white dragon was called, the last and second-to-last bosses of Keeper of the Lake, in Wanderer's Palace HM, Gubal Hard, and Saint Mocianne's, against the last boss of Ghimlyt Dark, and even the last of Anamnesis Anyder, the first of The Twinning, and the second of Hero's Gauntlet, etc., etc.

In all of Dawntrail thus far, despite leveling almost exclusively via dungeon spam (doing async commission work while in queue as DPS) and doing the daily Expert Roulette to reach weekly caps, there's only been two bosses I've seen multiple wipes on: the last boss of Skydeep Cenote and the first boss of Strayborough Deadwalk. Despite the added movement requirements of, say, Yuweyata last boss, I still have yet to see more than a couple wipes in total not caused by d/cs across all other Dawntrail dungeons. And that's far from a small sample size of runs.

I'll however disagree on that last part, as it is absolutely obvious with a lot of job changes notably the latest BLM patch that they do this specifically to accommodate for increased pacing and DDR.

I disagree. Even pre-prancing BLM could manage the most movement-intensive fights when well played. It was dumbed down not because the fights specifically needed it but because they thought players wanted it dumbed down in that way.

It's become a job about mobility casting, whether or not its spells were long casts by default or not. It's been a job about burning mobility tools in a clever way (or on a memorized spreadsheet per fight) in order to keep casting while moving.

It always has been. Even in ARR under wrap-over MP (able to get a natural MP tick just after using Fire spell, since the MP-regen-prevention was slightly delayed) and double-quickened casts (when you could get a second spell hasted by the opposite element if you queued it fast enough), BLM played around smart use of mobility opportunities. That's always been what made it an interesting "turret" class -- constraints and ingenuity therearound.

The differences since have simply been how much excess one has (how many mistakes one must make before they feel potency loss, and how sharp or cumulative that cost is), but make no mistake that we had those kinds of capacities to min-max around movement even before -- it's not a new concern, nor even a newly emphasized one by any significant margin.

Again, I suspect that the reasons for BLM mobility increases, which are in further excess of need, follow the same lines of reasoning as the simplifications to Monk, Viper, Ninja, etc., none of which were warranted by or required by fight design, either.

Tl;dr: Again, no, we can have fights less limited to DDR under the present kits and we could have managed the current levels of DDR even before each job's latest wave of simplifications. The two merely come from a similar aim, rather than the one requiring the other.

[Valence]

Then that's where we differ. I've seen quite a few wipes in Tam Tara Hard, in Stone Vigil Hard, in pre-nerf Pharos Sirius, against Mist Dragon, even some wipes against whatever the HW white dragon was called, the last and second-to-last bosses of Keeper of the Lake, in Wanderer's Palace HM, Gubal Hard, and Saint Mocianne's, against the last boss of Ghimlyt Dark, and even the last of Anamnesis Anyder, the first of The Twinning, and the second of Hero's Gauntlet, etc., etc.



In all of Dawntrail thus far, despite leveling almost exclusively via dungeon spam (doing async commission work while in queue as DPS) and doing the daily Expert Roulette to reach weekly caps, there's only been two bosses I've seen multiple wipes on: the last boss of Skydeep Cenote and the first boss of Strayborough Deadwalk. Despite the added movement requirements of, say, Yuweyata last boss, I still have yet to see more than a couple wipes in total not caused by d/cs across all other Dawntrail dungeons. And that's far from a small sample size of runs.

You misunderstand. I specifically said that wipes used to happen a great deal more, even in dungeons. It was a recurring thing actually, and part of life.
Individual, constant deaths from the same exact player from DDR though, that was almost unheard of. That same player that just keeps dropping dead while everybody continues, that's something more new. That's what we traded the team wipes for. That poor soul that just cannot get through the dance and has to get dragged by the healer/tank all the way to the finish line.

I do agree with the assessment, actually. I just don't agree on which one is better than the other especially because team wipes back in older dungeons were rarely 100% binary and pointing universally at one single culprit either. It was a team effort, and a team mistake. Was there a lot of back and forth and tension between tanks and healers? Sure. I don't think a functional trinity system could even avoid that problem, but I'd be open to suggestions. I just disagree with the path that SE has chosen to fix the problem (aka, just break the trinity until it limps through).

I disagree. Even pre-prancing BLM could manage the most movement-intensive fights when well played. It was dumbed down not because the fights specifically needed it but because they thought players wanted it dumbed down in that way.

Nobody said BLM couldn't. When well played is the important part and why even the devs said that was the exact reason they changed it (unless they did lie), and I can see why. I think people just don't realize how much more demanding by the patches BLM has become to play over time in relation to an ever inflating pace and DDR everywhere.

It always has been. Even in ARR under wrap-over MP (able to get a natural MP tick just after using Fire spell, since the MP-regen-prevention was slightly delayed) and double-quickened casts (when you could get a second spell hasted by the opposite element if you queued it fast enough), BLM played around smart use of mobility opportunities. That's always been what made it an interesting "turret" class -- constraints and ingenuity therearound.

The differences since have simply been how much excess one has (how many mistakes one must make before they feel potency loss, and how sharp or cumulative that cost is), but make no mistake that we had those kinds of capacities to min-max around movement even before -- it's not a new concern, nor even a newly emphasized one by any significant margin.

Again, I suspect that the reasons for BLM mobility increases, which are in further excess of need, follow the same lines of reasoning as the simplifications to Monk, Viper, Ninja, etc., none of which were warranted by or required by fight design, either.

Tl;dr: Again, no, we can have fights less limited to DDR under the present kits and we could have managed the current levels of DDR even before each job's latest wave of simplifications. The two merely come from a similar aim, rather than the one requiring the other.

Strong disagree there. BLM was less about movement and a lot more about positioning which is a gigantic difference to my eyes. The paradigm is just not the same at all for the reason I exposed, but I feel that I don't want to continue there because I'll go back in circles just repeating my arguments.

This is also why a lot of BLM players have eventually started hating on the modern design or just dropped off the job over time, if just to cite a few from those forums like Mao or Taranok. And like them, I hate what they did to BLM and encounters all the same.

[Shurrikhan]

Strong disagree there. BLM was less about movement and a lot more about positioning which is a gigantic difference to my eyes. The paradigm is just not the same at all for the reason I exposed, but I feel that I don't want to continue there because I'll go back in circles just repeating my arguments.

This is also why a lot of BLM players have eventually started hating on the modern design or just dropped off the job over time, if just to cite a few from those forums like Mao or Taranok. And like them, I hate what they did to BLM and encounters all the same.

I didn't disagree that it's about positioning. You cannot, however, change positions without movement, nor prepare that available movement without timing phase changes or banking resources, which we'd been doing since ARR. It wasn't just 'pick a starting position and hope for the best'.

It's precisely because the amount of movement tools we have now are excessive for (not demanded by) our typical encounters even now that BLM feels less skill-expressive in that regard. We should want to know when to early swap, etc. Now, we have little to no reason to, which has made the kit feel less involved.

I do agree with the assessment, actually. I just don't agree on which one is better than the other especially because team wipes back in older dungeons were rarely 100% binary and pointing universally at one single culprit either. It was a team effort, and a team mistake. Was there a lot of back and forth and tension between tanks and healers? Sure. I don't think a functional trinity system could even avoid that problem, but I'd be open to suggestions. I just disagree with the path that SE has chosen to fix the problem (aka, just break the trinity until it limps through).

I made no claim on which one is better. I just pointed out that we didn't merely go from low difficulty to high difficulty but rather from having many more factors of difficulty towards a more singularly "DDR" focus.