Please Share Updates on 8.0 Job Design

[Gyson]

I can't speak for others, but me personally... My expectations are very low. I've already been gone. I'm just putting in a last ditch effort to share my feedback after Yoshi P promised to better listen to player feedback, but I'm hesitant to believe that sentiment is genuine. But I don't agree that fun, healthy, and unique job design is at odds with the current encounter design or that fixing the atrocious state of job design requires reworking years of encounter designs. How can you possibly know if any particular set of changes to the job roster will or won't function with the current encounter design? We have no frame of reference for what such a set of jobs could even look like other than at best looking back at Stormblood, and jobs in Stormblood were not so complex that a player today couldn't navigate any of them through whatever dungeons are currently in expert roulette or Savage even.

My personal observation has been that earlier content focused more on tactics and respecting mechanics, and later content focuses more on mobility, dexterity, and awareness. The latter works better with more simplified rotations and combat (what we have now), while the former allows players more opportunity to babysit their UI and take advantage of procs and situational skills (what we used to have/what Bards largely still have relative to other classes).

Think about the style of boss fights in, say, World of Darkness back in the day compared to today's Jeuno: The First Walk. In the former we had people needing to focus on specific tasks, mechanics that would wipe the raid if not respected, etc. Today we have dodge, memorize and dodge, run run run dodge.

At any rate, I don't believe you can radically change every job and then just believe it'll all mesh well with all the content without running into problems. Much of that content has been balanced under the current class design.

[ty_taurus]

My personal observation has been that earlier content focused more on tactics and respecting mechanics, and later content focuses more on mobility, dexterity, and awareness. The latter works better with more simplified rotations and combat (what we have now), while the former allows players more opportunity to babysit their UI and take advantage of procs and situational skills (what we used to have/what Bards largely still have relative to other classes).

Think about the style of boss fights in, say, World of Darkness back in the day compared to today's Jeuno: The First Walk. In the former we had people needing to focus on specific tasks, mechanics that would wipe the raid if not respected, etc. Today we have dodge, memorize and dodge, run run run dodge.

At any rate, I don't believe you can radically change every job and then just believe it'll all mesh well with all the content without running into problems. Much of that content has been balanced under the current class design.

A few things... First, you're using the term "radically," but how have you come to the conclusion that any solution that resolves the issue of job identity and gameplay can only be described as "radical?" You've written off all possible solutions as extreme before there's even been an attempt to change jobs. It's not helpful to say that there's no solution to a problem when you don't even try.

But even if that was the case, the "oh well, we're stuck this way" is not good enough of a response to the real issues of job gameplay being medicore. It's not going to bring me back. it's not going to bring back others who have left. And it's not going to keep the people who are on their way out the door because of this issue. What players value most in XIV differs. Not everyone cares about job gameplay as much as someone like me, and that's fine. We all prioritize different things, and for many, it wouldn't really matter if jobs were completely gutted into oblivion. As long as the fights look cool, have good music, and have a satisfying story, you could literally do anything to their favorite job and they'll deal with it. But that's not everyone. Rather than abandoning a chunk of your players, would it not be a better alternative to find a middle ground? Or do you truly believe that middle ground is impossible?

Of course, up to this point, the design team has clearly not cared at all about the quality of their own game's job design, so expecting them to suddenly care is foolish. It's really just about whether or not Yoshi P's determination to regain player trust is genuine or fake. Which is really what I'm trying to determine myself here. If his words are genuine, then I want to see a real response and real change. If they're fake and shallow PR hot air, then it doesn't really matter anyway.

[Gyson]

A few things... First, you're using the term "radically," but how have you come to the conclusion that any solution that resolves the issue of job identity and gameplay can only be described as "radical?" You've written off all possible solutions as extreme before there's even been an attempt to change jobs. It's not helpful to say that there's no solution to a problem when you don't even try.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but in the context of my points I'd define a shift from the current class design back to something akin to what we had in ARR and Heavensward as a radical change. As I said, I think if people are expecting that to happen they're going to be disappointed.

And I don't see the changes in class design over the years as "not caring about the quality of their own game's job design". That's hardly fair to claim. The developers simply had their own ideas of what worked best for the game and those ideas differed from yours. You can argue that difference drove you away from the game, but that's different than painting them as a group of developers who don't care about the work they're doing on this game. They're not going to "suddenly care" because they've likely always cared. Whether they care or not isn't defined by whether the design matches the direction you want them to go. Your argument seems to be that Yoshi P is either genuine or full of hot air based on whether the results put a smile on your face. I don't recall him standing on a stage, citing your name, and promising to make you happy specifically, though. Going by your comments, you are definitely setting yourself up for disappointment.

[ty_taurus]

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but in the context of my points I'd define a shift from the current class design back to something akin to what we had in ARR and Heavensward as a radical change. As I said, I think if people are expecting that to happen they're going to be disappointed.

And I don't see the changes in class design over the years as "not caring about the quality of their own game's job design". That's hardly fair to claim. The developers simply had their own ideas of what worked best for the game and those ideas differed from yours. You can argue that difference drove you away from the game, but that's different than painting them as a group of developers who don't care about the work they're doing on this game. They're not going to "suddenly care" because they've likely always cared. Whether they care or not isn't defined by whether the design matches the direction you want them to go. Your argument seems to be that Yoshi P is either genuine or full of hot air based on whether the results put a smile on your face. I don't recall him standing on a stage, citing your name, and promising to make you happy specifically, though. Going by your comments, you are definitely setting yourself up for disappointment.

I don't really understand how I can set myself up for disappointment when I have virtually no expectations for the future of this game at this time. I'm here simply to do the only thing I can do before I completely give up and never look back, because I'd rather be proven wrong. What I talk about is based on what is possible, and what needs to be done to regain trust from those who have been continuously ignored and let down by the ongoing design philosophy.

I'm not convinced that the designers care at all about job design in this game other than having it be good enough and left alone. I say this because we have continued to see sloppy execution of even basic design changes that shouldn't be pushed, yet are. Like the sloppy potency and MP adjustments to white mage DOTs in 6.1, where Aero II and Dia had the exact same potency, only Dia's MP cost increased. Or how Macrocosmos' potency was not updated with the launch of DT. Or how Pictomancer's nerf botched the numbers of their hammer phase. These are things that would never get pushed by a team that cared enough to properly balance test and quality control their adjustments before pushing.

[Valence]

I don't really understand how I can set myself up for disappointment when I have virtually no expectations for the future of this game at this time. I'm here simply to do the only thing I can do before I completely give up and never look back, because I'd rather be proven wrong. What I talk about is based on what is possible, and what needs to be done to regain trust from those who have been continuously ignored and let down by the ongoing design philosophy.

I'm not convinced that the designers care at all about job design in this game other than having it be good enough and left alone. I say this because we have continued to see sloppy execution of even basic design changes that shouldn't be pushed, yet are. Like the sloppy potency and MP adjustments to white mage DOTs in 6.1, where Aero II and Dia had the exact same potency, only Dia's MP cost increased. Or how Macrocosmos' potency was not updated with the launch of DT. Or how Pictomancer's nerf botched the numbers of their hammer phase. These are things that would never get pushed by a team that cared enough to properly balance test and quality control their adjustments before pushing.

I agree, but I do think they don't care and decided to cut their losses with their veterans, and gave us a nice quarantine zone in pvp for those of us who enjoy it.
I do dare them to prove me wrong for 8.0 though, and I do hope they listen to you.