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

[Aravell]

Some things they did going into SHB were for the best, such as removing Slashing/Piercing debuffs, those can stay gone

While I liked the fact that jobs could have synergies with each other, the strength of these debuffs were way too high. Didn't really like how there weren't actually 2 tank slots back then, there was a WAR slot and a free tank slot.

[Azurarok]

Maybe if the jobs weren’t so easy that half the jobs are completely meaningless then you wouldn’t be able to carry people through them. When was the last time the off tank and the regen healer were “essential meaningful roles”

M6S is probably pretty close, and ironically it walls PF not because the fight has strict ddr patterns, but because you can't just be doing your standard 2min rotation and follow the dance steps listed out on a raidplan to meet the required checks for that add phase.

[BlisteringFrost]

M6S is probably pretty close, and ironically it walls PF not because the fight has strict ddr patterns, but because you can't just be doing your standard 2min rotation and follow the dance steps listed out on a raidplan to meet the required checks for that add phase.

That's exactly why M6S is such a wall. Most players are functionally just bots. As soon as a fight is even slightly off the normal script they suddenly can't play the game to save their lives in any capacity.

[Valence]

This keeps getting repeated to me whenever I criticise my current main's design: "But BRD does good damage! Aren't you glad about that?"

I don't really care about damage, if I did I would play a more powerful job. I just want to play a fun class that also offers decent support options. Though I do believe the interconnectivity between jobs in StB was better for teamplay overall.

All this to say: yeah I believe the systems pre-ShB were better all-around because it offered options in how you approached content. Right now? Not so much. If you get walled by a boss your only path forward is to bash your head against the wall until it breaks.

It not only offered options (cross/class and sb role actions like in pvp), but also could allow you to carry or help lower skilled players. I guess it was harder when the healer or tank kept dying though, but that was to mobs and not bosses, that's the twist. And the solution was usually to pull slower and smaller when it happened.

The irony is that BRD is currently a very heavy buffer job, in fact the raid buffs it offers can often reach over 20-25% of its total party contribution in good 8 man parties. Even in casual parties I'm sure you can reach at least half of that. It's the only buffer job like DNC that can reach such dps support. But then that's pretty much it. The support options are bland and underwhelming. There is no real funny toys to use. DNC does it somewhat better there, but it's not exactly stellar either.

Which brings us back to the issue where people seemingly "never complained" about anything back then apparently, and yet Square-Enix still felt the need to throw so many things out and rework other things entirely over the years, and everyone has been collectively baffled as to why ever since.

I'm sure there was some complaints here and there. I haven't bothered reading this forum's history but it's what the forum does. And perhaps the game was still being carried by the huge hype wave it was riding back then as well.

No, what I meant as in the system worked fine, is that I do believe it worked a lot better than it does right now. Everything is half broken in this current day, the trinity is dead and makes zero sense, some roles are superfluous while others run on godmode, there is no balance left in anything that's not savage+ or 8 man content (and even there it's not better than it used to be, and a lot more arbitrary at that). They were so worried about removing friction from everything that they've turned the game into a single player experience with other players taking the role of nameless AI bots. DDR is rampant and body checks aplenty, the pace has been cranked up to a level that literally bends the server's backbone in half, and everything happens at the player's individual level, which means someone failing can either be carried across the floor to the end of the dungeon, or just left for dead, but actually helping each other get through threats and hurdles? Nah.

Anyway, I do suspect that they started to try out a whole new paradigm with encounters in SB as they tried to go away from buff/debuff based systems and mechanical RPG components, as they wanted their encounters to be more cinematic, and probably easier and more intuitive to read for everyone. It's a lot less cryptic to just "move out of the orange puddles" than noticing icons and job mechanics. Ironically though, they've removed the basic orange puddle system in favor of visual cues and puzzles to solve in fast succession in DT, resulting in a crapload of casual players to be suddenly thrown overboard, because yes, they made everything a lot less intuitive and accessible again for the sake of increasing difficulty.

At most, some people here seem to be asking for a revolving door of everyone being forced to pick up and abandon jobs per some yet undefined cycle and thinking its "their turn" to have a job be how they want it at the expense of those who currently have no problem with a job's present form or even enjoy it. Not to say you deserved to have a job you liked be so radically altered, but the fault for that lies on Square-Enix changing it as they did... likely due to fights changing in tempo first, but who honestly knows their motives? I'm not to blame for having no attachment to a bygone era and knowing only what was available when I joined though, and telling me its "my turn" to suffer and do without a job for years on end isn't the compelling argument you or anyone else thinks it is, especially when I had zero say or influence in every job change ever ...unless people really think I've been holding a gun to Yoshi-P's head the last almost-3 years with the express purpose of ruining everything.

I at least acknowledge that keeping things as they are isn't working, otherwise people wouldn't be leaving in droves citing difficulty or boredom, and that SOMETHING needs to change for both jobs and fights. But I don't know what the solution would be, I'm just not as inclined to believe the "old days" were the best ever or they would still be the "present day" with little or no changes. If anything I'm as baffled as you are why anything changed at all then.

I'm not asking to take turns between job reworks or anything. Ideally I don't want people to lose their beloved jobs, whatever expansion they started playing and enjoying them.

I'm saying that your wishes for the game and my wishes are literally incompatible. It's sad but that's how it is, much like I don't like souls like games while some people will love them, and I do love tactical RPGs and some people hate those. I just wish the current direction they have chosen for the game actually made sense in the action game genre though. Honestly considering the course this game has been taking since end HW/SB, I wouldnt be surprised that the next on the chopping bloc is the actual trinity and we end up with a role agnostic system where everything is dedicated to action and DDR, because the more they remove of the RPG battle system (nothing much is left beyond healing and mitigation tbh), the less what's left makes any sense.

So, all in all, you'll keep your job, don't worry about it. It's me that will not get what I'm after. Odds for this are literally in the negatives for the very reason you stated yourself: they'll never convince the playerbase to go back. And I hope they make the game more accessible again for very casual players. But reading you i'm actually confused as to what you're after, because you seemed to say you hate every content past HW, so what are you expecting out of it exactly? Just to warn you, ShB is nothing comparatively to DT in terms of pace and untelegraphed DDR.

[AmiableApkallu]

Ironically though, they've removed the basic orange puddle system in favor of visual cues and puzzles to solve in fast succession in DT, resulting in a crapload of casual players to be suddenly thrown overboard, because yes, they made everything a lot less intuitive and accessible again for the sake of increasing difficulty.

The removal of the orange puddle system started in Shadowbringers, if not earlier. The final boss of Holminster Switch has you looking at which arm is raised and the name on the cast bar. The final boss of Dohn Mheg has you looking at which way they're facing lest you get transformed. The first boss in Qitana Ravel has you looking which side of the boss is on fire and which totem outside of the arena is lit. Etc. etc.

I don't know why people keep acting as if the lack of obvious, early orange puddle telegraphs is some strange, new (mis)feature of Dawntrail. It's not. We're into our third expansion of this style of gameplay.

What's actually different, if I had to place a wager, is that failure is punished much more harshly in Dawntrail.

[Azurarok]

The removal of the orange puddle system started in Shadowbringers, if not earlier. The final boss of Holminster Switch has you looking at which arm is raised and the name on the cast bar. The final boss of Dohn Mheg has you looking at which way they're facing lest you get transformed. The first boss in Qitana Ravel has you looking which side of the boss is on fire and which totem outside of the arena is lit. Etc. etc.

I don't know why people keep acting as if the lack of obvious, early orange puddle telegraphs is some strange, new (mis)feature of Dawntrail. It's not. We're into our third expansion of this style of gameplay.

What's actually different, if I had to place a wager, is that failure is punished much more harshly in Dawntrail.

They're faster and more movement intensive while also needing more precision too, which also makes trusts leave even less safe space to move to while giving you less time to adjust as well

[CidHeiral]

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.

I can only speak for myself but when I talk about a return to better job design I'm referring to a return to the interconnected depth the kits used to have. That can't come from talents because removing a link in that sort of design to make it a talent causes the rest of the kit to fall apart. Talents end up just being stat sticks, passive bonuses, or uninteresting buttons like "press on cooldown for some damage and a stun." Talent trees in FFXIV would just be a continuation of DT design but now you're choosing the boring buttons, which doesn't really solve the problem.

[RedLolly]

The removal of the orange puddle system started in Shadowbringers, if not earlier. The final boss of Holminster Switch has you looking at which arm is raised and the name on the cast bar. The final boss of Dohn Mheg has you looking at which way they're facing lest you get transformed. The first boss in Qitana Ravel has you looking which side of the boss is on fire and which totem outside of the arena is lit. Etc. etc.

I don't know why people keep acting as if the lack of obvious, early orange puddle telegraphs is some strange, new (mis)feature of Dawntrail. It's not. We're into our third expansion of this style of gameplay.

What's actually different, if I had to place a wager, is that failure is punished much more harshly in Dawntrail.

I don't know if it's just because I have so many more hours in those SHB dungeons, but I never really struggled dealing with those tells in the way I have Dawntrail. I also believe it's mostly due to the speed increase, but also how things are telegraphed. It's very frustrating to watch Trusts dodge stuff AFTER me and yet I still take a hit because of ping. That's an issue DT has that SHB and EW didn't despite personally having worse internet when those expansions were current.


At this point, I absolutely believe the theory that the combat design giving less chances to recover mistakes is hurting and pushing out casual players more than simpler jobs or "DT story bad, dur hur."

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Damages are definitely going out faster in DT. The reason I believe this because I'm one of those green dps who's quite zealous to only letting Assize heal everything whenever I zone in as WHM in these casual ShB/EW duties (or if I'm a SCH, just let Eos do it lol). Maybe drop 1 benison when somebody accidentally eat something unnecessary, but most are taken care of by waiting for Assize. Incidental heals from burning lilies tend to not count, especially back in ShB and early EW days where it was still a loss to actually use any lilies.

Come DT, I actually needed to drop an extra or two (pick whichever: Asylum, Tetra, Temp, or Lilybell etc) to ensure no deaths. I'd say that's tiny smidge improvement but that's where the good stuff stops (because jobs still sucks at its base). There's only so much they can do to increase -encounter- difficulty without touching job's and I think we're coming close to the boiling point.

[ForsakenRoe]

That of course comes back around to the idea some propose that "some jobs should be complex while others stay easy" because again, anybody can just play something else, right? But that doesn't work if the person doesn't have something to pick from, and they're stuck with jobs that either bore or frustrate them. What DOES the fan of old MCH swap to? The old BLM players? What are healer mains supposed to do it at all? (Because "go play ultimate" is an equally useless piece of advice as "play something else.")

Right, but that's what I try to get at: that in the system I'd like to see, someone who likes how jobs are NOW, would still be able to play that way, whereas someone who wants more complexity to interact with, would have said complexity available. Again, I say this as a Healer main, and again I have to admit that I don't really understand the implications it'd have for DPS. But the fact is, DPS having this problem is a relatively recent turn of events, compared to Healers who have been going through it for far longer. So, theoretically, it'd take less to pull DPS out of the quagmire, compared to the Healers that have had more time to sink into it

Anyway, as an example of a Healer change to illustrate the idea of 'players who like the current version, would still be able to play the current version', while still giving toys for optimizers to optimize (and those same casual players to mess with in slightly less optimal fashion but still have fun with), WHM. Currently, we use Dia when the DOT falls off (every 30s), use POM every 2min and follow up with the 3 casts of Glare4 that it provides, and use Glare otherwise. For players who want a bit more complexity, they can also aim to use 3 Lilies per minute, and then use Misery on the minute mark to align every 2nd cast of it with Raidbuffs.

By comparison, here's the list of changes I'd make (bear with it, it's long):

- Cure1 upgrades into Cure2 (copying Cure1's MP cost), Medica1 upgrades to Medica2 (by frontloading a tick of M2's HOT, the on-cast potency of M1 and M2 would be equal)
- Cure3 gains a Trait where its MP cost is halved while you have Medica2 or Medica3's HOT active on yourself
- Aero/Dia duration reduced to 12s, potency increased to 150p, plus 70 per tick to rebalance
- new instantcast spell Water (upgrades to Banish) with a 15s CD. Is always exactly 40p stronger than the current Stone/Glare (at max level, Glare3 would be 330, Banish3 would be 370p)
- New 0-100 Gauge added (unlocked at level 50), called the Vigilance Gauge, with the following actions increasing the Gauge:
..... Stone/Glare: 1 point per cast
..... Aero/Dia: 1 point per cast, 1 point per tick (total 5 over the full duration)
..... Water/Banish: 5 points per cast
..... Holy: 2 points per enemy hit
..... Misery: 5 points per cast
..... Cure2: 5 points per cast
..... Regen: 4 points per cast, 1 point per tick, (total 10 over the full duration)
..... Medica2: 3 points on cast, 3 points per tick (total 15 over the full duration, only increases from your own copy of the buff, not everyone in the party)
..... Cure3: 10 points on cast
- New Gauge spender that costs 50 points, Blessing of the Elementals. GCD, instantcast AOE heal. Grants a Petal of River's Rage, Petal of Wind's Wrath, Petal of Earth's Ire (these stack to 2, shown on the Gauge)
- Petals upgrade Stone/Glare, Aero/Dia and Water/Banish, into Quake, Tornado and Flood. The potencies are tuned to make BOTE damage neutral via the use of Quake/Tornado/Flood
- Quake, Tornado and Flood are all also AOE with 50% damage falloff. This includes Tornado applying the Aero/Dia DOT to all targets struck (with reduced potency for secondary targets)
- Learn levels of actions would be adjusted to make room for some new additions
- Divine Seal added at level 40, boosting Healing Magic potency. Upgrades to Temperance
- Protect added at 8, acting as a 60s CD mitigation tool to mirror AST's access to mit via the bubble. Upgrades to Plenary Indulgence, which inherits Protect's mitigative effect
- Afflatus Tragedy (or Melancholy, name is kinda WIP) added at 60
- Lily system unlocked at 30 instead of 52
- Stoneskin added as a Lily spender at level 30. ST shield with no healing component
- Graniteskin added as a Lily spender at level 45. AOE shield with no healing component
- Stoneskin and Graniteskin upgrade to Afflatus Bastion and Afflatus Sanctuary respectively at level 76, increasing in potency when they do. Graniteskin, Afflatus Sanctuary and BOTE all trigger Plenary's bonus healing effect
- Afflatus Rapture moved to level 70 so we have access to it in UCOB/UWU

Thanks to Cure1/Medica1 upgrading to Cure2/Medica2 respectively, we save 2 buttons. Those 2 buttons are then spent on Water/Banish, and BOTE. Therefore, this whole list of changes would only need 2 extra hotbar slots over what we currently have, for Stoneskin/Graniteskin. Assuming you are doing 'optimal rotation' on a singletarget boss, a 2min loop would generate you 120-ish Gauge

A player who likes how WHM currently plays, would be able to continue to use the playstyle they currently employ: refresh Dia when it falls off (it'd just be more often in this cos of the shorter timer), POM/Glare4 when it's up, Glare3 as filler. Use Lilies to prep Misery for raidbuffs, or don't, because the damage difference is A: miniscule in the grand scheme of things and B: doesn't affect the WHM's barse as all the additional damage from it being in raidbuffs, is given to the players who applied the raidbuffs. The player could hide the new Gauge on the UI, not put any of the new buttons on the bars, and just pretend like nothing got added, and they'd still clear even FRU, or TOP, or Savage Arcadion (though if they're doing those contents, I expect they're a bit beyond the moniker of 'casual player'). The damage the player would lose by not using Banish at all, would total to 320p per 2min cycle, less than a single Glare. No enrage is going to be caused by a single Glare being lost, unless some far more easily addressed issues get resolved first in other players' rotations. Players who spam Medica2 would be less punished because the potency would at least equal Medica1, but Cure3 would light up on the hotbar (due to the trait activating) to incentivize the player to try using that for even more healing power (as it'd also be cheaper than Medica2's MP cost, being halved down to 750MP). the extra uses of Dia in the rotation, and the addition of Banish, both being instantcasts and thereby reducing the number of Glare3 casts per minute, would also contribute to making the job feel far more mobile, helping casual players keep damage rolling even in movement-heavy situations. Heck, the increased potency of Dia's on-cast damage means that if you spam it (for movement, for example), you'd even be punished less for that too.

But for the optimization minded player, this list of changes would be a godsend, I'd like to imagine. They'd be able to shift Banish in their rotation, delaying its use (at a cost of about 6.6p per GCD delayed) in order to line it up better with mobility sections in the fight. Dia/Banish having staggered timers (12/15) means that they will naturally overlap at times, and the player would have to decide in the moment which is going to be more value (usually it'd be Dia, but if the fight ends in, say, 5s, Dia doesn't have time to reach its full damage output so Banish is better). They'd be able to work around healing requirements using a combination of both BOTE and Lilies, and try to line things up in such a way that the final GCD they press before POM, is BOTE, such that their burst window contains Quake, Flood, Tornado, Misery and 3 Glare4s. They'd be able to potentially cover for a SCH/SGE, removing the need for them to use a Succor/E.Prognosis to mitigate a raidwide, by using Afflatus Sanctuary, allowing for a damage-neutral application of shields (at the cost of said shields being weaker potency, and having no healing component), so it would have to be weighed, is the Lily better spent on healing after-the-fact, or a damage-neutral shield before the hit? The lack of healing component on Stoneskin and Graniteskin also means that, in situations where the target has 'Healing Received is lower' debuffs, those actions would be unaffected, as they're not applying a shield 'equal to X% of Healing dealt', they're a direct 'shield of X potency' and would retain 100% effectiveness, giving them a weird and unique niche

It'd also have a huge impact in the enjoyability of Dungeons, Maps, general 'chill' content, especially in the multi-target scenarios. Thanks to Dia's lower duration (meaning 10 uses per 2min) and Banish's addition (8 uses per 2min), an 'optimal' player would be using Glare3 around 33% of their GCDs per 2min (by comparison, we currently spend about 70% of our GCDs per 2min on Glare3). Additionally, the TrashPack gameplay of Dungeons, of spamming Holy (and maybe some Glare4, Lily Heals/Misery, and Assize) would change to Holy (building Gauge), BOTE (to spend Gauge and heal), Quake, Tornado (DOT-ing the whole pack), and Flood (and maybe the aforementioned Glare4, Lily Heals/Misery, and Assize). Taking the majority of the gameplay experience in trashpulls from 1 button, up to 5


That's what I mean by 'players who like the current version, would still be able to play the current version'. We as a playerbase HAVE to get past this toxic relationship with this 'damage>all' mentality. It stifles the growth of the game's systems/content far too much