Was BLM not enough?

[Daralii]

Just remembered

If this RDM change was 'to alleviate issues where RDM could not do its burst in the 2min window'

SAM still has cast times to worry about, which might potentially get interrupted by having to move. RPR also has a cast time to consider, and I remember a RPR losing their mind in P12S during Superchain because they had to move during their burst and couldn't find the time to cast the Communio, even with as short a casttime as it has.

So, what's next, SAM and RPR lose their cast times, too, because 'too stressful'?

How much more Job 'flavour' has to be burned on the pyre of accessibility, to make the Encounter Design functional for all Jobs in a role? How about SE considers going back to Encounter Design that doesn't have such inflexibility in its resolution? BLM had like, negative mobility in HW, no Triplecast, no Paradox instantcast, no Despair, and losing Enochian was FAR easier to do by accident, and FAR more punishing back then compared to something like EW, or pre-7.2 DT. And yet, despite this lack of mobility, it waas able to clear something like A7S with the big rolling ball you had to dodge, or A9S where you have to move around the arena to dodge which platform is going to sink into the lava pool. So maybe SE should stop changing Jobs to suit Encounters, and start considering that their Encounters don't suit the Jobs?

The current approach means that they effectively only need to design 5 jobs (and even then there's a lot of overlap) to fight a single digit number of "real" fights every 9 months. If the goal is to set a game to coast into the abyss while you rake in microtransaction money from whales, this is the way to do it.

[ForteNightshade]

Japan side was very vocal against the BLM changes though, even more than we were.
The job change notes back then and the comment from YoshiP also outright said that the changes were because the devs themselves thought the BLM design would clash with the new fight design.

The japanese forum is partly responsible for the current healer design but definitely not for the BLM changes.
It is widely hated there and they are as ignored regarding that as we are.

Not vocal enough, evidently. Just hopping over to their forum and the last two pages alone have several highly liked posts praising the BLM changes. Yes, there are some who dislike them, but only one post has garnered any sort of traction.

The devs aren't pulling these changes out from thin air. People have requested them, albeit perhaps in a roundabout way. Summoner is probably the best example of that. People wanted change to make it play more like a Summoner and SE's response was to that... at a Fisher Price level

A lot more of the casual demographic doesn't want friction. They want to mindlessly press buttons and everything to work itself out.

BLM also might be more popular nowadays but at the cost of very unsatisfied old BLM mains.
Part of that is also simply because of it's damage to easy playstyle. When the former falls off it might have the same fate as SMN in loosing popularity fast.
Also in my personal opinion, purely chasing popularity at the cost of driving away old veterans and job mains is a very questionable strategy because word of mouth is also important and that is that the jobs in this game are in a very bad place.

Oh, you'll get no argument from me here. I hate how they've essentially pushed aside people who actively enjoy a given job in the pursuit of trying to make everyone enjoy it. Not only is that simply impossible, it completely dilute the creativity of each design for the same reason their obsession with simplification does.

Unfortunately, they're listen to what they seem to perceive is a huge majority of players unhappy with anything but easy play jobs. We'll see come 8.0 if that decision turns out to be very costly.

[Voidmage]

snip

Oh, don't get me wrong.
I know there exist people there who actually like those simplifications and like I said, the japanese side is at least partially responsible for things like Healers.
The BLM changes when they were implemented though resulted in a big outcry to the point they even made additional threads which they usually don't do and even made a thread to post the opinions from us.

What I am basically trying to say in bad english is that it was negative compared to how they usually write and only the 7.0 story and Forked Tower actually were comparable to that ( though I do admit I haven't looked into their forum for some time now).
The japanese forum is pretty much known over there as a positive echo chamber same as this one here is known as a negative one.
The other sides are more "flowery" in their word choices.
There is a reason why we actually got Ice Paradox back despite it not bringing anything to the design table. the outcry over there and here was simply too big.

The BLM changes though actually are first and foremost of the devs own decision for their fight design or I think a better way to phrase it would be, that they choose feedback that aligns with what they actually want themselves (which is pretty often the way of less work for themselves), no matter how many people ask for it or how many likes such a suggestion has. They basically did it and then hoped for the complaints to go away.
Sadly though the player numbers of the job rose at the cost of SMN.
People always think they listen to the japanese side but in truth, they simply listen to no one really if there isn't an extreme outcry that reaches the media on some way or impacts their earnings.

I have no real hope for 8.0 regarding BLM tbh.
What I do disagree though is to see the fault with the casuals alone because a very good number of job changes actively came from raiders and content creators. Maybe not regarding BLM but definitely in regards to the tanks for example.

[Jaltaer]

That's the crux of the issue. The structure that RDM is inserted in won't allow you to 'be creative/skillful' about melee uptime, as it would require that ranged player to be in a ranged spot at a certain time to check past a specific mechanic. I didn't do last Savage / EXs to know if this wall appears so much that becomes prohibitive for a player to achieve a RDM's maximum potential.

M7S was the big one - if you were a RDM in a ranged position then phase 2 and to a lesser extent phase 3 were nightmares. But, this was also alleviated by either having RDM as a fake melee, or having both healers take the tethers. However this also would require people to be flexible... and communicate... and that just doesn't fit with the current philosophy of "there is only One Correct Way to resolve this" for encounter design.


Also, was discussing the changes in a server I'm in and had another thought about something I commented about earlier in the thread - if the "suddenly you can melee from 25y away" buff was tied to the 3 stacks of Swordplay you get, that would actually have some room for skill expression since you'd have to figure out when the best moment to make use of those 3 hits would be. But as it is, "eh you just get free ranged melee attacks for 30s" is honestly a lazy decision. If they wanted to add a ranged option to the melee attacks, there were plenty of ways they could have done so without making the job feel dumbed down.

[ForsakenRoe]

Also, was discussing the changes in a server I'm in and had another thought about something I commented about earlier in the thread - if the "suddenly you can melee from 25y away" buff was tied to the 3 stacks of Swordplay you get, that would actually have some room for skill expression since you'd have to figure out when the best moment to make use of those 3 hits would be. But as it is, "eh you just get free ranged melee attacks for 30s" is honestly a lazy decision. If they wanted to add a ranged option to the melee attacks, there were plenty of ways they could have done so without making the job feel dumbed down.

Just thought: Couldn't they have made Enchanted Reprise also consume Swordplay stacks, grant Mana Stacks, and function as the 'Ranged option for when you're not able to be in Melee distance'? Then you'd be able to choose between 'I can make it to Melee range, I'll use the standard combo' and 'I cannot safely get to Melee distance, I'll eat a small potency loss to access the safety of staying at range but still being able to execute my burst'

Melee combo is 340, 380, 560, for a total of 1280p. 3 Enchanted Reprise uses (420p) would be 1260p. All it'd need is some effect wherein it is a 1.5s GCD like the regular combo, and there'd be almost no difference in power between the two combos for most players, but for the optimizers, that 20p would still be important. And, for those people who keep asking for the Melee combo's 123 to become a 111 to 'reduce button bloat', this would accomplish that too!


Enchanted Reprise:
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 420.
Balance Gauge Cost: 5 Black Mana
Balance Gauge Cost: 5 White Mana

Manafication Bonus Effect: Consumes a Swordplay stack if available.
Consumption of a Swordplay stack negates the Black/White Mana cost,
reduces the Recast time to 1.5s, and grants a Mana Stack.

Something like that

[Aidorouge]

How much more Job 'flavour' has to be burned on the pyre of accessibility, to make the Encounter Design functional for all Jobs in a role? How about SE considers going back to Encounter Design that doesn't have such inflexibility in its resolution? BLM had like, negative mobility in HW, no Triplecast, no Paradox instantcast, no Despair, and losing Enochian was FAR easier to do by accident, and FAR more punishing back then compared to something like EW, or pre-7.2 DT. And yet, despite this lack of mobility, it waas able to clear something like A7S with the big rolling ball you had to dodge, or A9S where you have to move around the arena to dodge which platform is going to sink into the lava pool. So maybe SE should stop changing Jobs to suit Encounters, and start considering that their Encounters don't suit the Jobs?

Even if Square-Enix wanted to go back and redo encounters, would players find that acceptable or just complain harder? Keep in mind this is the same community that howls in anguish every time they go back and change a dungeon to work with NPCs, and that's NORMAL content. I can't imagine the complete riots that would break out if Square-Enix dared to go back and alter high-end content to be "simplified" in exchange for making jobs complex again.

People apparently do not want a "easy/hard" mix (and certainly not "easy/easy"), they only want "hard/hard" regardless how much it would crater the playerbase.

And before someone starts crying out "BUT MY XYZ FAVORITE OLD EXPANSION WASN'T LIKE THAT, IT HAD PERFECT ENCOUNTER AND JOB DESIGN" you need to realize that if the game truly were so perfect back then, they would have changed NOTHING and we would still be playing with level 50, 60 or 70 kits and no new mechanics because they would have already achieved MMO nirvana or whatever. People can keep bringing up the "was falling asleep" quote from Yoshi-P about Endwalker, but clearly there were things he didn't like about ARR/HW/STB/SHB's fights and jobs too if he went through such great lengths to remove those elements with every patch.

I'm not rightly sure who they're trying to make the game for anymore if casuals and hardcores alike have nothing but complaints, and I don't really believe that "hard jobs/easy fights" will fix the issue so much as make the same people complain about something else.

And no, I don't have a solution because:

1. I'm not paid to fix the small indie dev's problems.
2. People would just endlessly argue that their solution is the "correct" one instead.

[ForsakenRoe]

Even if Square-Enix wanted to go back and redo encounters, would players find that acceptable or just complain harder? Keep in mind this is the same community that howls in anguish every time they go back and change a dungeon to work with NPCs, and that's NORMAL content. I can't imagine the complete riots that would break out if Square-Enix dared to go back and alter high-end content to be "simplified" in exchange for making jobs complex again.

People apparently do not want a "easy/hard" mix (and certainly not "easy/easy"), they only want "hard/hard" regardless how much it would crater the playerbase.

If simplifying an old dungeon so that Trusts can do them changes the dungeon's mechanics from 'easy' to 'even easier', then yeh, you're right in the second half. Because it goes from Easy Job/Easy Dungeon, to Easy Job/Easier Dungeon. The balance is already incredibly skewed, and so people fear the removal of what little 'interesting design' there is remaining. The old dungeon designs served as a sort of 'time capsule', of how things used to be

In other words, if we had more depth to the Job kit, the reduction of Encounter complexity in such a case (reworking old dungeon to allow Trusts to function within it) would not hit as hard

Consider a 1-10 scale for Job depth, and Encounter complexity, for a total of 20 points. We're at like a 2 for Jobs in some cases, and let's call it a 3 for Encounter complexity in the recent example of Aurum Vale. Reducing that to a 2 for the sake of the Trusts, is effectively taking that 5/20 score down to a 4/20, a 20% reduction in complexity. When the overall complexity is already so low, any small change feels like it has a massive impact. Now let's consider trying to be optimal as a SCH in a HW EX roulette, say, speedrunning Xelphatol for your Weekly Tomes. Juggling DOTs, placing Shadowflare in good positions to hit as many mobs as possible, combo'ing Faerie actions such as buffing Whispering Dawn with Rouse and Fey Illumination, etc. That, while optional (you could clear, albeit slower, by focusing on healing and not being a tryhard), would have been like... let's call it an 8, because Cleric Stance was kinda jank. In such a case, Xelphatol being a 3 still resulted in the potential for someone to enjoy 11/20 gameplay, by pushing their chosen Job to its limits. Someone who preferred to play more conservatively/more relaxed/didn't have the confidence/whatever reason, could instead play SCH at a 3/10 or so and enjoy a 6/20 experience, which is more their speed. And if Xelphatol had to be changed to fit Trusts at some point, and was reduced from a 3 to a 2, the 11/20 enjoyer would be knocked down to a 10/20, a reduction of 9ish% instead of the previous example's 20%.

Furthermore, the 6/20 player could think 'hmm, now that mechanics are simpler, I have more time to try and incorporate more optimizations into my gameplay', and push back from the 5/20 the changes left them at, up to a 6/20 again by leveraging more of the Job's depth

I'm not rightly sure who they're trying to make the game for anymore if casuals and hardcores alike have nothing but complaints, and I don't really believe that "hard jobs/easy fights" will fix the issue so much as make the same people complain about something else.

And no, I don't have a solution because:

1. I'm not paid to fix the small indie dev's problems.
2. People would just endlessly argue that their solution is the "correct" one instead.

Can't speak for everyone, nor for every role, but I can speak to what I'd like to see with Healers: A low skill floor, high skill ceiling, wherein each Healer has a certain baseline performance from pressing their filler spell, and optional optimizations on top for those who want to push their Job to the limit. For a SCH example, pressing Broil 48 times in a row as your 2min 'rotation' would be, by maths I've previously done, 97% of the damage output of optimally juggling the 3 DOTs I'd give the SCH (and 98% of the effectiveness of playing the current SCH 'optimally', which would be 44 Broils and 4 Bios). It would also, however, be much less mobile due to the cast times of using only Broil, so even someone who absolutely cannot stand DOTs at all, would probably still use them, if only as a mobility tool. But the point is, someone who doesn't want to press Shadowflare, or Miasma, would not need to. They could clear any content in the game, yes even an Ultimate, without pressing a single GCD DOT.

I do have a solution (for Healers), I am not paid to fix the multidollar company's problems either (but I've given my designs as 'feedback' of sorts, in the place they told me to, which is here), and I assume that someone would argue that my designs would not work for whatever reason, but I've yet to see someone come up with an actual reason they wouldn't work beyond 'I don't want to be forced to do all this extra gameplay', not realizing that the whole point of the designs is that you're not forced to do the extra gameplay. But you are right, I'll absolutely argue that my solution is the 'correct' one, because I don't see many other people bothering to come up with anything as a counterproposal. There seems to be a general apathy of 'well it's SE's call at the end of the day, and whatever they say goes', which is true to an extent, but I'm not a massive fan of the idea of 'just trust the devs that got the Healer role into this hole, to dig the Healer role out of the hole again' so I made my own wishlist. If people don't like what I ask for, that's up to them. Considering a lot of people ask for 'whatever SE has planned', it could be argued that I don't like what they're asking for either

But one thing I did ask for got added this patch, which can be seen in the above link, is in the WHM section: Plenary Indulgence granting a % Mitigation effect. In my version, it was 5% though. I won't be taking the credit because everyone and their mother has asked for WHM to have a crumb of Mitigation besides Temperance and 'Barrier but it's tied to Temperance'. Next up SE, please add Nocturnal Sect to AST again

[virianna]

However this also would require people to be flexible... and communicate... and that just doesn't fit with the current philosophy of "there is only One Correct Way to resolve this" for encounter design.

But it's not that - it's just a pf issue. I doubt in a static it is an issue to adjust. In PF yes bc Hector said that, Kobe said we have to do this, but i also partially understand. I wouldn't want to adjust and cause wipes bc muscle memory after weeks of prog and few clears kicks in and i forget i was supposed to adjust for a job that didn't play with before if it isn't necessary for other jobs. Not a reason to change a job i guess but still there is a reason for that mindset.

[Aidorouge]

If simplifying an old dungeon so that Trusts can do them changes the dungeon's mechanics from 'easy' to 'even easier', then yeh, you're right in the second half. Because it goes from Easy Job/Easy Dungeon, to Easy Job/Easier Dungeon. The balance is already incredibly skewed, and so people fear the removal of what little 'interesting design' there is remaining. The old dungeon designs served as a sort of 'time capsule', of how things used to be

I seriously doubt anyone misses having to stand in crystal light or magitek buttons for Dzemael Darkhold (if anything I had people exclaiming their relief that it wasn't necessary now). And while I haven't played the new Aurum Vale, most players went above and beyond to skip as much as possible in the first room anyway, which is hilarious given how many of those same people insist on full-pull rushrushrush gameplay and yet cower at a room full of mobs ready to be gathered up with no walls. (Conversely, some of those same people never cease to whine about Cutter's Cry NOT allowing them to skip 1/3 of the dungeon anymore.)

In that regards, it sounds less like people care about job complexity but run efficiency, and just ASSUME having more buttons to press will "make things go faster" in the normal content that most of them seem to loathe doing anyway. (Case in point, the constant demands to see Crystal Tower thrown out of alliance raid roulette.)

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

But those complaints asking for CT raid to be thrown out aren't asking for raids to be made more 'efficient'/faster? I'm failing to see why this deserves a mention. I personally want them out because they pop up way too much times in a space where there is little intrinsic gain to look forward. People become this overtly 'reward centric' because devs had been shaving away more and more of the intrinsic satisfaction in favor of shallow extrinsic rewards. No wonder they draw in people who 'hates' playing the game; it's just an 'obstacle' for them to get to the end goal.