Bring difficulty back to job rotations, not just boss mechanics.

[Daralii]

I don't know? Why are you asking me that? I'm genuinely confused

I assume it was an attempted joke about how MCH and SMN are the absolute worst jobs for it.

[Aidorouge]

Yeah that's what I've been told for 6 years now since they ran MCH to the ground in 2019. Welcome to the club.

I heard SMN mains are experiencing the same thing now.

I'd rather nobody got screwed out of their preferred jobs, but it seems impossible at this point because different people want different things out of them, and Square-Enix can't please everyone.

Naturally, some people will say it's a GOOD thing that they shouldn't be trying to please everyone, that they should only cater to specific players. These same people will, of course, never volunteer to be the ones being pushed out of the game based on Square-Enix doing exactly as they suggested: Leaving one side twisting in the wind to placate the other.

And there really doesn't seem to be an out. Hard fights and easy jobs? Got us bored hardcores and struggling casuals that left. Easy fights and hard jobs? Still gonna end up with bored hardcores and struggling casuals leaving.

Easy fights/easy jobs or hard fights/hard jobs? Oh, that's just asking for things to go nuclear. I don't envy Square-Enix's position even as I get frustrated with them too because I just bloody KNOW they're going to homogenize MCH at this rate because it's the "nail sticking up" compared to BRD and DNC. It's either that or make BRD and DNC to play like MCH, but Christ, I don't want them losing their jobs either like that.

[Dulcia]

I'd rather nobody got screwed out of their preferred jobs, but it seems impossible at this point because different people want different things out of them, and Square-Enix can't please everyone.

Naturally, some people will say it's a GOOD thing that they shouldn't be trying to please everyone, that they should only cater to specific players. These same people will, of course, never volunteer to be the ones being pushed out of the game based on Square-Enix doing exactly as they suggested: Leaving one side twisting in the wind to placate the other.

And there really doesn't seem to be an out. Hard fights and easy jobs? Got us bored hardcores and struggling casuals that left. Easy fights and hard jobs? Still gonna end up with bored hardcores and struggling casuals leaving.

Easy fights/easy jobs or hard fights/hard jobs? Oh, that's just asking for things to go nuclear. I don't envy Square-Enix's position even as I get frustrated with them too because I just bloody KNOW they're going to homogenize MCH at this rate because it's the "nail sticking up" compared to BRD and DNC. It's either that or make BRD and DNC to play like MCH, but Christ, I don't want them losing their jobs either like that.

In a way what you describe is already happening, people are getting pushed out to placate the others. However the greatest sin of Homoginzation of classes is ultimately that it makes it boring. I really want jobs to keep their identity, and I'd like for the npcs in the setting to acknowledge my skill and talent as a person in xyz job.

[Aravell]

Honestly, screwing people out of their preferred jobs has already been happening for a very long time, so you'll have to forgive me for not seeing why the newer players deserve priority on enjoyment of a certain job, considering that I've personally already lost out on WAR, PLD, DRK, SCH, AST, SMN, MCH, BRD and MNK so other people can enjoy them.

Do people actually enjoy them though? No. They ask for DRK to become more like WAR, they ask for SCH to be dumbed down further so they can play the cute fairy mage.

[BlisteringFrost]

Screwing over more players doesn't fix anything though, it just shifts the problem unto someone else and we're back to square one of people leaving because they ended up with nothing (or even less than nothing).

No matter what Square-Enix does at this point, somebody loses and gets pushed into quitting, and it seems more and more people are becoming okay with this regular culling of the playerbase.

Much in the say way that hardcores didn't care when casuals were struggling on fights, it seems only fair that casuals shouldn't care about bored hardcores, and round and a round it goes again.

Nobodys talking about hardcores or casuals.

[Supersnow845]

Screwing over more players doesn't fix anything though, it just shifts the problem unto someone else and we're back to square one of people leaving because they ended up with nothing (or even less than nothing).

No matter what Square-Enix does at this point, somebody loses and gets pushed into quitting, and it seems more and more people are becoming okay with this regular culling of the playerbase.

Much in the say way that hardcores didn't care when casuals were struggling on fights, it seems only fair that casuals shouldn't care about bored hardcores, and round and a round it goes again.

Right now there are 20.5 jobs that are simple “I want the difficulty to be on the encounter” and 0.5 “I want job difficulty” jobs

Are you saying if that number was bought to more around 16 vs 5 it would trigger a mass exodus of the “I want the difficulty to be on the encounter” players

Because that kinda sounds a bit selfish

[CidHeiral]

I would imagine that the way to go about it would be to make the 123 combos a bit stronger, and the OGCD once-per-2min burst attacks like Dragonfire Dive/Rise of the Dragon, Stardiver/Starcross, etc, a little weaker, to reduce how much impact the 2min burst window has on your overall performance, so that while using your actions in the optimal order is still good, just using them with some degree of regularity gets you most of the way there (and misaligning them from the burst window is less punishing due to their lower impact on your overall performance).

I see, thanks for the reply. It seems the root issue here is the two minute meta and less about adjusting the potencies themselves. Most dungeons are designed in such a way that a group of people all pressing their damage buttons at random will still eventually win as long as the tank has their stance on and the healer is healing while they all do the mechanics somewhat successfully. Even if jobs were reworked to be significantly more complex most people could still just freestyle their way to victory in casual content.

Another way to go about addressing the issue would be to just unshackle the game from raid buffs entirely. Without being forced to design around syncing this or that buff timing you could have jobs with all sorts of wildly different damage profiles. If someone didn't like the gameplay around a burst phase and potentially missing their abilities in that window, they could try a job that is more about sustained damage over time or any number of other playstyles.

[Supersnow845]

My pick would have just been one class from each role that already has a reputation for being harder (even if it’s totally unearned)

So like

SCH
BRD
BLM
GNB
MNK

Although I still think the premise is selfish as many people liked the old iterations of these jobs and didn’t get a choice in their simplification and now job simplification is ruining the content

[Anvaire]

The solution to jobs have two opinions on how it is played is to implement sub jobs or talent trees for customisation opportunities. Though that is easier said than done, as effectively it would mean doubling or tippling the number of available jobs that need balancing.

[UkcsAlias]

Creating 5 extra difficult jobs will completely break balance, and has been repeatedly proven acros many games.

If something becomes more difficult, it needs to reward that, otherwise no pro player will ever use such job, and the job will never become meta.
The less such job get used, the less optimized its use is going to be, causing its status to get worse, into a state were people will consider it trolling (look at what mch already faced).
In this case, the job becomes useless to exist, even if you use it in easier content, whats the point? Its not going to feel rewarding (and if it does, you most likely were dragging your team significantly down, effectively trolling them)

If however we make it reward its difficulty through being stronger, it now becomes mandatory to learn the job if you want to play at the top level.
It now will outperform all the alternatives, and people will now demand such job to be used, even if at the average performance level it isnt the best. Its damage compensates enough to still force it into any meta.
In this case, the other jobs become useless to exist, except in content where it realy doesnt matter what you play. But as meta demands this job, good luck using anything else in any PF content.

In PvP games this is compensated by hard countering certain jobs and allowing you to adjust for this. But in PvE, this is not an option, so usualy the results are quite static acros any tier.