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

[Supersnow845]

I'm no more selfish than the people wanting to take MCH away while giving me nothing in return, or indeed, anyone else in the topic insisting "their" job be kept simple or made complex, with the exceptions of those few who realize as much as I do that there's no real winning move on Square-Enix's part. Somebody WILL be upset what they do to any and every job.
+++

The problem with your argument is that you’ve acknowledged that doing nothing isn’t the best solution but also say that since some people will be unhappy that changing is dangerous as well which basically just circles back to defending the status quo

People made this topic because they believe that changing is necessary for the continued benefit of the game, it’s what they think is wrong with the game. You are right, some people will hate the changes made to their job if they reinvent the jobs, but people here think that that sort of ground up change is what’s necessary rather than this hollow slowly declining playerbase we have right now.

If in this case between “change the jobs” and “leave the jobs the same” you think the latter is “safer” then what is your proposed solution to the fact that I think even mainsub agrees that jobs are the current biggest problem with this game.

It’s not selfish to want SOME complex jobs in this game. Because as has been explained job complexity doesn’t mean higher floors, it means higher ceilings. We have the ability to play every job, if your current job changes and you don’t like it then you change to a different job, that’s been how people who have lost their complexity over the years have done it. @aravell, @reiner and me are just lucky we’ve been attached at the hip to the one job that still pretends the game didn’t launch with ShB in SCH

[Raikai]

Gotta say the glamour changes hooked me back into the game even a month before coming in (with planning and item hunting)... But I wonder how long that will last if jobs, which are the main way you experience most of XIV's content, remains in this state.

[Shistar]

They can clearly do it. "Summoning" your mount now works while moving and doesn't slow you down either.

I'm mostly thinking it'd look stupid in some cases? Sure, BRD can ready up an arrow and shoot at the end of the cast, makes perfect sense. MCH can tinker with their gun or reload it before shooting, also makes perfect sense. But what is DNC supposed to do? Do a little shimmy before throwing the chakrams? Maybe I just need to see it to have it make sense in my head, but it might look really silly. Unless we go from just throwing chakrams to supercharging them with a lil' dance before we send them off. Then we get tons of extra VFX I'm not sure we really want for every single skill...

I'm no more selfish than the people wanting to take MCH away while giving me nothing in return, or indeed, anyone else in the topic insisting "their" job be kept simple or made complex, with the exceptions of those few who realize as much as I do that there's no real winning move on Square-Enix's part. Somebody WILL be upset what they do to any and every job.

There are indeed people who are only interested in making their job what they want to see at the expense of everyone else who also plays it, but I don't think it's the right way to go about things. No one is getting anywhere because you want one thing, someone else wants something wildly different, and in the end you guys are only fighting about who gets to keep what they want and who "gets the scraps" instead of discussing about which parts are worth keeping and which parts are better replaced to make a better MCH in general.
I personally agree with seeking to make a job's skill ceiling higher while keeping its skill floor low enough for those who only care to play it on a surface (or simpler) level. In this situation, all you'd be losing on is a bit of damage. You don't have to perform at the top 1% of your chosen job, I sure as hell don't. I just do enough to ensure I'm contributing to the damage in what way I can and making sure I don't mess up my mechanics. If you don't play anything above and EX, you really don't have to worry about most things.

Then again, I don't play MCH very much so I won't get into specifics. I do play PRanged often enough to have a generic idea though.
I'm just asking you to consider that some opinions here are not an attack against your playstyle or your person, and may be worth seeing if any of them would actually benefit you and you haven't realized it yet. (I'm not saying all the ideas are good, many I am not sure about myself, but just a consideration. I don't think MCH is in a good spot right now, so doing nothing in the name of keeping a "playable for me" but generally bad job is what I mainly disagree with you here.)

[Azurarok]

Gotta say the glamour changes hooked me back into the game even a month before coming in (with planning and item hunting)... But I wonder how long that will last if jobs, which are the main way you experience most of XIV's content, remains in this state.

I expect a bigger spike than usual for players scrambling to put new glams together, but I doubt it'd last long, especially with the dresser limiting what all we can store. If they manage to allow dungeon drops to be bundled I'd certainly be out collecting those for a while though.

[Shistar]

I expect a bigger spike than usual for players scrambling to put new glams together, but I doubt it'd last long, especially with the dresser limiting what all we can store. If they manage to allow dungeon drops to be bundled I'd certainly be out collecting those for a while though.

This is what I hope they're cooking when they said they'll work on the glamour system after Housing. If they can't/won't make a Collections sort of system, at least giving us as many tools to reduce the slot bloat is what I would like to see.

[Aravell]

No one is getting anywhere because you want one thing, someone else wants something wildly different, and in the end you guys are only fighting about who gets to keep what they want and who "gets the scraps" instead of discussing about which parts are worth keeping and which parts are better replaced to make a better MCH in general.)

Despite all the fighting over a direction for MCH to go in, I think most people can agree on a few things:

- The ammo system can be interesting and should return in some form
- Flamethrower is useless and needs to be reworked
- MCH is not fulfilling the job fantasy of selfish DPS (especially seeing as they're not a viable dance partner)

All these are easily actionable things if the dev team could just actually fix on a clear vision for MCH, because right now MCH is just languishing as a half single target/half AoE bloat job (and parts of their AoE isn't even a gain until like 7 mobs).

[Valence]

This also makes me curious if other roles got shaky and one got neglected for a while when the number of choices was 3 or 5. For that matter... was BRD ever in an awkward spot for a while when it was the loneliest number? Or did it fly instead of stumble right out the gate?

People complained about BRD in ShB when they decided to remove about two thirds of its buffs in favor of DNC. The first raid tier had BRD sit between DNC as a heavy damage buffer and MCH as a selfish DPS, making it stand like any other melee or caster DPS with the average 2min party buff button. The problem was less about the comparison and more about people being genuinely pissed that it lost what was core to its identity, namely heavy buffs AND the passive buffs behind the songs. They added the latter back to the job and reduced its damage output slightly, then in EW added Radiant Finale to make up for the loss of Foe's Requiem (lost after SB, rest in peace, you were the best actual raid buff).

It's the same thing about MCH, people don't complain about it because it's not like the others. People complain either because 1) it lost what was core to its identity before ShB butchered it and/or 2) it mathematically doesn't fit within a dps role that does less party damage contribution than other dps roles. FOr 2), see what they did last patch, they buffed the job, now it outperforms BRD and DNC, especially at lower percentiles, when previously BRD and DNC outperformed it especially at higher percentiles. You can't mathematically solve that conundrum. MCH will never be able to keep up with other selfish jobs since it cannot benefit from party raid buffs and 2min burst synergy as well as SAM or BLM. It just doesn't belong.

But, to be perfectly fair to the job, 8 man boss fights aren't the alpha and omega in spite of what fflogs would us to believe, and MCH absolutely rocks in other types of content like deep dungeons. Even in 4 man dungeons, it still beats the crap out of BRD and DNC who can't just keep up since they're buffers and have twice less people to buff in there.

If I knew, for a fact, that encounter design would be radically altered to play nicely with the self-same drastically revised jobs in this hypothetical grand overhaul, I would at least be curious to see how it works out. But being told I have to spin another dozen plates while still needing to pay attention to which side of their ass the boss is scratching before they turn 80% of the floor into lava?

You wouldn't have to spin another dozen plates. Unless you literally do ultimates.

[ForsakenRoe]

Long, sorry in advance (stuff to reply to is coming in too fast for me to keep up with)

I do trust you, Supersnow, and Valence and some others as not having malicious or self-serving intent at least, but that's because you're actually ENGAGING with the problem and possible solutions instead of just going "play something else" or "git gud" or "skill issue" like that's supposed to be good or well-thought advice.


That said, the much bigger issue with wanting job complexity is trying to fit that in with current fight design so we would need their own complexity decreased, but you know as well as I do that some people would deem that a blasphemy and refuse to see it happen and then its back to the drawing board for all of us despite the fact that encounters are the only recognizable influence on job design regardless if the content is normal or high-end. Something most definitely changed in the current, and jobs have been getting dragged under ever since.

If I knew, for a fact, that encounter design would be radically altered to play nicely with the self-same drastically revised jobs in this hypothetical grand overhaul, I would at least be curious to see how it works out. But being told I have to spin another dozen plates while still needing to pay attention to which side of their ass the boss is scratching before they turn 80% of the floor into lava? I'm not going to be throwing my support behind that, nor would I be keen on making the whole game automated because jobs and fights were both reduced to nothing challenging.

Thanks for the vote of confidence


You're again looking at 'Job complexity increases' and 'Encounter complexity remains the same' as mutually exclusive. Let's take M8S, and my hypothetical SCH rework as the example fight/job combo in this example, because there's some complexities in the fight for Healers moreso than other roles (eg, the whole 'heal people while you're split up' in P2). For reference, this is the very short-form description of the changes I'd do to SCH:

Broil potency increased to 340p
Biolysis cast potency of 70p, DOT potency of 30p per tick for 30s (total 370p)
Miasmalysis (replacing Ruin 2) added, with a potency of 280p, DOT potency of 10p per tick for 24s (total 360p)
Shadowflare added, with a potency of 100p to target and nearby targets, drops a puddle for 15s, which deals 50p per tick to all targets inside (total 350p)
Bane added as an upgrade of Energy Drain, dealing 100p to target and all nearby targets, and spreading Biolysis, Miasmalysis and Chain Stratagem (if present) from primary target to all other targets hit
Deployment Tactics upgraded via Trait, to also allow Deployment of Protraction and Excogitation, albeit at 50% effectiveness (Excogitation would heal 400p, Protraction's effect would be 5%)

Physick upgrades to Adloquium (with Physick's MP cost). Enthuse (AOE healing action akin to Medica1) upgrades to Succor (with Succor's current MP cost). This saves some hotbar space.

3 actions added, dubbed Strategies: Offensive, Defensive and Emergency. Offensive and Emergency can be set to the hotbar, Defensive replaces the current active Strategy on the hotbar.
While in Defensive, Lily (the Faerie, yes that is her real name) takes the form 'Selene' and her Embrace applies as a small barrier. When in Offensive or Emergency, Lily takes the form 'Eos' and her Embrace is regular healing.

Offensive Strategy is DT SCH, in terms of gameplay, potencies, etc. If you stay in Offensive, you can clear everything that is currently in the game, because it was designed for those potencies.
Offensive Strategy also increases the 'on cast' potency of your DOTs by 10p

Defensive Strategy is defense focused (of course), and adds additional protective effects to certain actions. For example, increasing Expedient's mitigative effect from 10% to 15%, changing Indomitability to apply Galvanize instead of healing, adding a second copy of Protraction's Max HP increase effect (dubbed Perpetuation), or applying a Galvanize alongside Excogitation (both of which can then be Deploy'd via Deployment Tactics).

Emergency Strategy is HPS focused, replacing Emergency Tactics as a button. Adloquium reverts to Physick, Succor reverts to Enthuse, and the potency of both are doubled. Additionally, many actions have burst healing, or 'emergency' themed bonus effects. For example, Expedient's Sprint buff is increased from 10s duration to 15s, Indomitability's potency is increased, Protraction and Excogitation instantly heal on use as well as applying their respective buff.

Some players might not be able to fully optimize in M8S, and leverage this rework's full potential. They might not be able to perfectly juggle all 3 DOTs, they might not be able to swap to Offensive for the +10p on one of the DOT refreshes because they need to stay in Defensive to protect from an attack that is coming in at the same time, etc. But that does not ultimately matter, because the fight is designed to be clearable with the current Job kit (which in this, is 'stay in Offensive 100% of the time'). Swapping Strategies would thus be 'optional' to the gameplay, to eke out a bit more from each of your healing tools, but unrequired for any content in the game. Even the Ultimates we have wouldn't require it. The complexity of the encounter, would not need to be adjusted to accomodate this new kit.

A hypothetical player would play the new kit, in the current design of the encounter, and if it's too hard to optimize, then they just remove pieces of the optimization side of the kit, until they reach a point where they can keep up with the encounter and the job kit's complexity combined. And if that point is 'where we currently are', eg, they can keep up with the Fight design only when they use Broil, Biolysis each 30s, and they ignore Strategy swapping, Miasma and Shadowflare entirely, then that's fine, because the total damage potency they're losing by doing so is... 310p per 2 minutes. Less than a single Broil.

The issue, instead, is that there's this pervasive mentality that you're either playing optimally, or wrong. That if a player, playing the above kit, cannot do perfect Strategy swaps, and perfectly refresh their DOTs, and that they do end up losing that 310p per 2min, then they're playing 'wrong'. This parse obsession needs to end, because it's costing us actual creativity within the job kits

I personally agree with seeking to make a job's skill ceiling higher while keeping its skill floor low enough for those who only care to play it on a surface (or simpler) level. In this situation, all you'd be losing on is a bit of damage. You don't have to perform at the top 1% of your chosen job, I sure as hell don't. I just do enough to ensure I'm contributing to the damage in what way I can and making sure I don't mess up my mechanics. If you don't play anything above and EX, you really don't have to worry about most things.

Exactly this. But to add to this, there's ways to balance potencies, such that if you do play 'not at the top 1%', you don't get penalized as much as the current game penalizes you. As an example, if I ignore my DOT on SCH currently, I lose 1920p per 2min (losing 3200 from not using the DOTs, but adding 1280p back from using Broils in there place). With the above example numbers, ignoring DOTs entirely and using Broil in their place would lose the player 470p per 2min, and that's with 3 DOTs instead of just the 1 DOT we now have.

Despite all the fighting over a direction for MCH to go in, I think most people can agree on a few things:

- The ammo system can be interesting and should return in some form
- Flamethrower is useless and needs to be reworked
- MCH is not fulfilling the job fantasy of selfish DPS (especially seeing as they're not a viable dance partner)

All these are easily actionable things if the dev team could just actually fix on a clear vision for MCH, because right now MCH is just languishing as a half single target/half AoE bloat job (and parts of their AoE isn't even a gain until like 7 mobs).

I expect that PRanged will get a new member in 8.0, and that it will be a Selfish style one, akin to MCH. At which point, MCH either gets properly looked at so that Selfish PRanged actually functions as a concept (so that the new Job isn't DOA), or MCH gets ignored, the new Job is great, and MCH is simply left to rot as 'new Job but worse in every way'. We saw it with PCT vs BLM/SMN/RDM in the first tier and Ultimate, we saw it with NIN vs VPR on the M6S adds, I expect we'll see it again in 8.0 too

Personally, what I would want for MCH, would be to change the Hypercharge window from Heat Blast x 5, to Heat Blast, Heated Slug, Heated Split, Heated Clean, [big finisher, maybe with a cast time]. I don't like the constant flips, I preferred the more subdued shots of the non-heated actions, but I don't want to remove the flips entirely because I know some players like them. So, having them as the burst window, by reducing how often we're seeing them, making them feel more special, and also giving them a big boost in damage to further enhance their cool-ness factor. Also, it'd allow Heat Blast to be the button that triggers the Hypercharge window (by making it cost 50 gauge), allowing us to remove Hypercharge as a button

Flamethrower, I've listed what I'd do to that previously, but as a refresher, make it a real OGCD, make it deal a burst of upfront damage of 150p, make it do triple that upfront damage if the enemy suffers from Bioblaster (resulting in 450p+300p). This means we'd swap one non-Reassembled Drill in the 60s burst to a Bio+FT combo, even in SingleTarget, and it'd help MCH's AOE a bit too. Also, why does FT tick once per second, when other DOTs tick once per 3 seconds? Can we get that on other stuff too? Like, imagine that Medica2 healed 50p each second, rather than 150p each 3s, it'd feel way better despite being the same overall healing

As long as Raidbuffs are multiplicative, and as long as SE has this random 'you do less damage because ranged' mentality, I don't think MCH's going to be able to fulfill the Selfish-DPS image. They buff and buff the potency of the tools, or Heat Blast, and it's never enough, because Raidbuff scaling is exponential.

[Xieldras]

Part of me wonders if the technical debt from this game's engine simply means we can't have the complexity in jobs we wish there was.

We already know money isn't going back into this game as much as it should be, and that the Dev team is possibly a skeleton crew at this rate with the hiring being limited and too many being moved to FF16 (and possibly other projects). Stuff like the graphical limit on a boss' health bar means DoTs had to be trimmed, so we cannot get a dedicated DoT class. And things need to be easy to adjust, hence the buffs being very stuck to "gives % amount of this stat" (I'm still kinda salty about Refresh and dare I say OG Tactician).

Since I don't play the higher tiers of content, my only arguments pretty much boil down to "Does it feel fun to play?" and that is highly subjective. So perhaps the best course of action would be to separate classes by playstyles instead of pure numbers. But it's also why I appreciate others in this thread giving the info I'm missing.

I expect that PRanged will get a new member in 8.0, and that it will be a Selfish style one, akin to MCH. At which point, MCH either gets properly looked at so that Selfish PRanged actually functions as a concept (so that the new Job isn't DOA), or MCH gets ignored, the new Job is great, and MCH is simply left to rot as 'new Job but worse in every way'. We saw it with PCT vs BLM/SMN/RDM in the first tier and Ultimate, we saw it with NIN vs VPR on the M6S adds, I expect we'll see it again in 8.0 too.

I fully expect 8.0 to split Bard between Bow Singer and Ranger, and our DoTs are for certain on the chopping block considering they're not linked to the complete kit anymore. How will they change the job to compensate? Who knows.

[Aravell]

I fully expect 8.0 to split Bard between Bow Singer and Ranger, and our DoTs are for certain on the chopping block considering they're not linked to the complete kit anymore. How will they change the job to compensate? Who knows.

I'm just fully expecting Iron Jaws to slip through their radar if they remove DoTs and it just does nothing.

Like how AST in ShB/EW still had Undraw despite you never wanting to delete a card.