Are we expecting TO MUCH from 8.0?

[Voidmage]

The two minute meta is lazy and something I never understood, ESPECIALLY when it comes to high level play. High level players in almost every other game would be against the dumbing down of strategy and mechanics, but FFXIV 'high level' actually just involves people wanting to increase their damage without much thought put into it. Figure out how to optimally use buffs in this fight? Nah, just make it so we can blow everything on odd and even windows. It's actually insane to me the more I think about it.

Part of the community has become extremely allergic to everything that could upset raiding in any form I think.

Even simple job identity like DRG jumps are first and foremost looked at how they impact fights because you could potentially dodge attacks if you become invulnerable, which an MMO should actually embrace because it would open interestimg strategies and don't get me started of the idea of a melee healer being not usable.
Casters also nowadays have to fit into the fight design instead of...well, casting.
The 2 min meta is simply another result of that mentality.

Part of the fault is with the devs and part with the community but at the root of the problem is that somehow the "casual" MMO seems to more and more be designed around Savage upwards encounters, instead of looking at how that actually impacts the rest of the game.
Fights like M6S are really on the nose that the normal mode is just a thrown in afterthought compared to the Savage fight with cutting out even the add phase instead of having it in an easier way.
As long as that priority of the devs doesn't change or they at least start to give things like job design or normal modes the same love that they give the raids, we will never see a betterment because everything has to fit like a puzzle peace into the encounter design of the harder fights.

In my unimportant opinion, the team around Mr. Ozma has too much power and at least to me it seems that they don't have any love or interest in anything outside designing hard encounters.
And the job design team...either doesn't work or is the yes man to the encounter design team.
Would be nice if 8.0 actually proves me wrong...

Edit:
8.0 has to prove that the game can be fun outside hardmode encounters again (which are in a good spot right now imo).
If it repeats the mistakes of DT (1 year of basically nothing for nonraiders, boring jobs in majority of the content, content being copy pastes and OC-like, overtuned things like FT and Chaotic) then even a good story won't safe longterm reception.
At least I know that i won't accept another spit in my face like the BLM changes just so the fight design is fun in the hard modes.

[AlliciaCapulet]

Also, as a main heal since ARR, I still think that we had enough DPS job in the last expansions. We deserve, if it's 2 new job, to get a new healer. As tanks also deserve a new one.

They took their time and made us wait for way too long the last time, to give us what, sage? A heal that broke AST and SCH, by trying to divide the healer jobs as "shield heal" and "pure heal". The one that took the biggest hit was AST.

But since ShB, healing became more and more boring. Both in EW and DT, when I leveled my heals, I saw no difference at all in the game play. Each healer basicaly have 1 attack with a casting time, 1 instant attack with a cooldown (share the other attack), 1 dot, and 1 aoe. Then, they have a toolkit way too strong for the current level of challenge. You never have to uses that toolkit escept if you have very, very bad players with you, but then, you won't clear the fight if that's the case. When you look at the savage/ultimate fight, at some point, they all got cleared without any heal in the party - There is simply too much mitigation and regen for tanks and DPS.

As a main healer, I want my job to be fun, even when I solo things. Having no rotation and just spamming Broil (or the equivalent on other jobs) and putting a dot every 30 sec is boring. When I get in dungeons, trials or normal raids, I barely have to heal, and the DPS rotation is still boring.

They can do fun healer. HW was a good example where we probably had the best AST and SCH. SB wasn't that bad either.

As a main heal, I expect to have a new job, so we break that "2 pure heal / 2 shield heal" boring meta, that AST gains back it's identity as well for the other jobs, and that we get a decent DPS rotation as an addition to our healkit. I also hope that dungeons, trials, raids sees the amount of damage dealt increased by a lot (normal damage, not just raid wide attack or timed heal mecanics). I want to have to heal, to adjust my dps rotation to throw heal in it... Something fun like HW or SB was.

[RedLolly]

The pattern we've been getting means were most likely to get a new physical ranged (which we're due over any role because it's the only one with only 3 choices) and a new tank, just like Shadowbringers.

The 2-minute meta was because of everything being so out a line with buffs windows that it negatively impacted some jobs over others. Lining every job up to 2 minutes was to balance the playing field and allow a better variety of party comps.

Most of the job sameness we're dealing with is all in the name of job balance more than ease of use. And it's worked. Any proper party comp (2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 DPS) is viable in bleeding edge content, so it's perfectly reasonable to pick the jobs that appeal to you, personally, and just get good at it.



I think some of the different mentality might be because FFXIV is a Japanese game. Balance and fairness over giving gimmicks that can highlight certain jobs in certain scenarios, which is how I've been told WoW does it.

[Khryseis_Astra]

8.0 has to prove that the game can be fun outside hardmode encounters again (which are in a good spot right now imo).
If it repeats the mistakes of DT (1 year of basically nothing for nonraiders, boring jobs in majority of the content, content being copy pastes and OC-like, overtuned things like FT and Chaotic) then even a good story won't safe longterm reception.

Agreed. I think they really need to look at how they space out content, with an eye towards giving each of the different types of players something to do each patch. Especially if they’re going to keep these longer patch cycles.

OC somehow took the worst of Eureka and Bozja rather than the best… I was really looking forward to it, but what we got seems like a watered down version of it’s predecessors, with the only large scale duty at a level of difficulty not able to be easily cleared with randoms to make it repeatable for casuals, and no gimmick to make it easier over time (elemental gear, mettle, etc.) so the lack of a Normal mode was sorely felt.

Chaotic was a fun fight, but made it miserable were the wipe conditions… I’ve never seen so much toxicity in PF!

I didn’t totally hate the Dawntrail story, even though I had my issues with it. I get that they were looking to at least start off with something more light-hearted before they got the next story arc off the ground. But I want the next story to make me feel things. I want to feel like we’re leading up to another ShB/EW. I want it to be another epic story.

Other QoL improvements I’d like to see would be a glamour revamp… please let this “outfit” system be leading up to an Armoire catalog! I want to see the character creator beefed up with lots more options, since the “upgrade” destroyed two of my characters’ faces. I want to see some kind of instanced housing system, to supplement the limited supply of the ward system. And I want the seasonal events to be more like this Valentiones event, especially in terms of rewards. We got two outfits, lots of furniture and music rolls… maybe other events could have minions and mounts alongside the glams instead of furniture so it kinda alternates from event to event. But glam for every event should be standard. And no more undyeable gear. Anywhere. Everything new should come with both channels, and the old ones should be worked on over time to add them.

[Connor]

8.0 has to prove that the game can be fun outside hardmode encounters again (which are in a good spot right now imo).
If it repeats the mistakes of DT (1 year of basically nothing for nonraiders, boring jobs in majority of the content, content being copy pastes and OC-like, overtuned things like FT and Chaotic) then even a good story won't safe longterm reception.
At least I know that i won't accept another spit in my face like the BLM changes just so the fight design is fun in the hard modes.

I absolutely agree with this 100%, but it’s also literally the only thing I expect.

More sweeping changes to every job sanding down every last bit of their design until they’re all absolutely perfectly balanced for savage/ultimate raid design, more copy-paste content/concepts, more dull, derivative and extremely ‘safe’ storylines like Dawntrail, more dungeons that practically complete themselves because they need to be easily doable by trusts, more poor planning and development insight (looking at you OC ignoring literally every issue with exploration content before it).

Their absolute obsession with catering the game exclusively to two entirely separate player extremes (mega casuals and mega raiders) has basically pulled the game apart and made a game that literally doesn’t even know who it’s trying to appeal to anymore. I truly hope it’ll change, but based on their track record I can only see things getting worse tbh. The devs have shown time and again they simply don’t care about making a game that’s enjoyable, they just want to make a game that’s balanced. (and designed specifically around player retention but that’s a point for a different thread).

Additional edit: I’m aware I’m being overly negative but at the same time it’s just so hard to actually believe in the developers any more after so many disappointments.

[Kaurhz]

Their absolute obsession with catering the game exclusively to two entirely separate player extremes (mega casuals and mega raiders) has basically pulled the game apart and made a game that literally doesn’t even know who it’s trying to appeal to anymore. I truly hope it’ll change, but based on their track record I can only see things getting worse tbh. The devs have shown time and again they simply don’t care about making a game that’s enjoyable , they just want to make a game that’s balanced .

I don't think this will ever change.. As you say, they want to try and cater to completely opposing player extremes... Which is why we have such fundamentals shifts this late into the games history... and at some point I genuinely think it will happen again, whether sooner or later...

It's funny because they take these directions in fear or driving groups of players away... But ultimately it is this direction that is causing it... Not saying the game is dying.. But the ongoing trend is not exactly good.

[RedLolly]

I recall the "We need to stop catering towards the two extremes and try midcore content" is the new design direction as a a few interviews last year.

But so far it's only lead to failures like quantum. No one gave a damn about the scaling system, and everyone going for that final fight just slammed straight into the maxed out version.

Honestly, I don't think the devs have the right idea. They seem to be trying to make it easier for players in the casual end to move into savage content, because most of those savage raiders do also participate in casual content. So, their idea is, "Oh, they need something to level up into!" When the reality is us casuals just do not give a crap about the grind and culture of high end raiding at all and want that theme park feel. In short, if we want to do high end raiding, it's already completely possible to just start right now.

[Connor]

I don't think this will ever change.. As you say, they want to try and cater to completely opposing player extremes... Which is why we have such fundamentals shifts this late into the games history... and at some point I genuinely think it will happen again, whether sooner or later...

It's funny because they take these directions in fear or driving groups of players away... But ultimately it is this direction that is causing it... Not saying the game is dying.. But the ongoing trend is not exactly good.

Yeah, whether or not it’s ’dying’ it definitely feels like it’s affecting the long-term health of the game either way. To the point where everything is either ‘low effort conveyor belt content’ or ‘high effort body check heavy PF only content’ lol.

And yeah, there’s definitely a sense of irony to the fact that their desperation to cater to such extremes has resulted in them catering to neither of them properly.

It really does feel like ‘enjoyment’ isn’t high up on the dev’s list of priorities, compared to ‘balance’ ‘player retention’ ‘perpetuating subscription costs’ or whatever else lol.

I recall the "We need to stop catering towards the two extremes and try midcore content" is the new design direction as a a few interviews last year.

But so far it's only lead to failures like quantum. No one gave a damn about the scaling system, and everyone going for that final fight just slammed straight into the maxed out version.

Honestly, I don't think the devs have the right idea. They seem to be trying to make it easier for players in the casual end to move into savage content, because most of those savage raiders do also participate in casual content. So, their idea is, "Oh, they need something to level up into!" When the reality is us casuals just do not give a crap about the grind and culture of high end raiding at all and want that theme park feel. In short, if we want to do high end raiding, it's already completely possible to just start right now.

And Forked Tower lol. But yeah, it does seems strange how heavily they’re trying to push the ‘casual to savage’ pipeline’ when as far as I’m aware it’s not something people ever asked for, ‘I want it to be easier to go from casual to savage’. Even though in reality the difference between casual content and savage has done nothing but widen because of the relative ease of ‘non-savage’ compared to ‘savage’ content. It’s no wonder so many people have issues with raiding and PF when every piece of content below that teaches you ‘you can put it in very little effort and will be rewarded’, which inevitably bleeds into savage as people approach it with the same mindset

[Daralii]

Honestly, I don't think the devs have the right idea. They seem to be trying to make it easier for players in the casual end to move into savage content, because most of those savage raiders do also participate in casual content. So, their idea is, "Oh, they need something to level up into!" When the reality is us casuals just do not give a crap about the grind and culture of high end raiding at all and want that theme park feel. In short, if we want to do high end raiding, it's already completely possible to just start right now.

It's worth noting that Blizzard tried this "graduation" approach back in 2010, it completely failed, and it was the first noticeable and sustained decline WoW had. They did presentations about how it did not work and why. Why is CS3 going through the same motions and expecting a different outcome over a decade later?

[SekiaTa1ga]

The pattern we've been getting means were most likely to get a new physical ranged (which we're due over any role because it's the only one with only 3 choices) and a new tank, just like Shadowbringers.

The 2-minute meta was because of everything being so out a line with buffs windows that it negatively impacted some jobs over others. Lining every job up to 2 minutes was to balance the playing field and allow a better variety of party comps.

Most of the job sameness we're dealing with is all in the name of job balance more than ease of use. And it's worked. Any proper party comp (2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 DPS) is viable in bleeding edge content, so it's perfectly reasonable to pick the jobs that appeal to you, personally, and just get good at it.



I think some of the different mentality might be because FFXIV is a Japanese game. Balance and fairness over giving gimmicks that can highlight certain jobs in certain scenarios, which is how I've been told WoW does it.

It's kind of ironic though because outside of superficial aesthetics, a jobs appeal mostly comes down to how it plays (or you'd think.)

When they homogenize stuff to make it more balanced so it just comes down to appeal, doesn't that kind of defeat the point of balancing stuff in the first place? I mean theoretically they could balance it so much that the appeal of any job altogether is null because at that point, you might as well just have us all playing one of 3 jobs, DPS,Tank or Healer without any meaningful nuance between the jobs. Job identity and appeal of a job are intrinsically tied together.

I also don't buy the 'I'd rather have interesting fights' argument from some people. Job identity and interesting fights are not mutually exclusive.