Evolved Skills Feedback

[WaxSw]

WoW has more skill complexity because the fights overall are a LOT less demanding in terms of mechanics, whereas FF14 went in the opposite direction with simpler jobs but a LOT more challenging fight designs, where the team and synchronized performance are the core of it. In WoW, you can have somebody solo carry you; in FF14, there is no such thing. In FF14, everyone has to pull their weight, whereas in WoW, some ppl do stuff that most team members aren't even aware of.

WoW fight are not that less demanging to justify the gap in depth across games, especially when we consider that in the most movement intensive mechanics of XIV, the bosses cannot be harmed. XIV also needs to guarantee that more relaxed fight remain entertaining with their job design considering its focus on casual content and msq, something that a job design with shallow interactions and lower button count does not do

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I kinda glazed thru the MT/OT part, but didn’t they tried this dichotomy sometime in late StB but scrapped that at ShB launch because they forgot there’s a tank swap, which means every tanks has to be able to hold on their own to a certain degree?

I wonder what prompts them to revisit the idea once more. This better be good than “haha tank shrug all just press cd and forget other role exist lol”.

That being said, the top copium I huffed right now is hoping for a more chaotic, less formulaic approach to encounter design than today’s “stand here or die”, if they really want to keep this “phys range but with heal”-model on WHM… and in extension other healers too.

It’s not much. Please make me actually consider what button I’m pressing than conducting the dance recital with a plain metronome.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

I did find it hilarious that rather than removing positional they've now made it side specific in the case of DRG and presumably some of the other melee dps. I was hoping for complexity in evolved mode but idk that that's what I was hoping for. My main hope is they can achieve the simple rotation with complexity coming from adapting said rotation to suit the situation, which is very much how BLM atm feels and I enjoy that a lot. Being simple to grasp and complex to master would be great, but it might take a couple iterations for them to get there.

Also one guy doing all the work is impressive and kudos to him, but also a bit worrisome in terms of how much man power SE has been putting behind the game as of late also. Let's hope that comment from the CEO about supporting ffxiv better for future rings true and we see major patches have shorter gaps between them again.

[JenSha]

I can safely say I play WoW for housing and collecting decor (furnishings), but the combat makes me fall asleep.

It's not about complexity, it's about preference. Everyone is different and I enjoy pressing many buttons in XIV, I just find it more fun. If people want to press less buttons, that's okay, but I want to keep my 25-ish buttons forever, because that's what I prefer! Just like now, we have the option to merge some buttons in XIV and I never do that. But the fact that the new jobs won't even get the current combat system AS AN OPTION is sad and it's a clear sign that they will eventually force the "evolved mode" on everyone, and that's not okay!

^ 100% this. As long as it's optional I don't care, both combat types should be available for all jobs. I want to keep my buttons.

[WaxSw]

We don't know how gearing changes yet though or if it will.

I think being too pessimistic is as wrong as being too hyped for this.
Things like the PLD counter, the DRG high jump or the BRD jumps are imo good changes while the WHM changes are definitely simplifications (they said it themselves).

We really need more information for the other jobs first before we can truly say anything and in the end everyone has their own job they look carefully at.

Less jobs really doesn't mean less complexity (PVP BLM is honestly way more complex than it's over counterpart) but they really need to be careful or we might end up with another SMN situation for the other jobs.
Especially the casters really worry me after the WHM show.

OFC I want to remain calm and see how they evolve the system but I think rn its the time to voice the concerns before its too late for them to do anything. PLD has the counter but that is not new in the game and the overall rotation seems simpler, DRG has quite a nice utility baked in but its also a job that seems to have very few things to manage (the 10s combo and stardiver and only needs to do positionals right 50% of the time), BRD jumps are cool but the job seems to flow like SMN and we know how that job is not precisely the pinnacle of good design and well that iteration of WHM may be one of the worst we have seen in the game's history.

Things are subjected to change but I think we need to be vocal about what we want to be seen changed, what we want to stay and the overall direction of these changes

[Miradelle]

I can safely say you don't play wow if you think that way.
Wow has about the same amount of rotational buttons as the evolved jobs but way more complexity than dawntrail classes.

Button count =/= complexity

This is absolutely not true, as someone who plays WoW, as well. For example, the entire difficulty of shadow priest comes from maintaining a 6 second DoT (PW: Madness) to get full benefit of your mastery, but you have virtually infinite insanity and tentacle slams to keep it up. Applying dots is brainless with tentacle slam, just mindblast on CD, press your 2 mins and 1 mins on CD (we dont btw have that anymore in evolved mode, so even WoW has burst windows). Also, WoW players aren't exactly super happy with it right now, particularly at the higher end. Don't also get me started on frost mage ...

However, even WoW is going to require more thinking than devolved mode, because during your 2 mins you are incentivized to pump your tentacle slams, your PW:Madness all into the target(s) to maximize their value. With the removal of personal/party buffs, you don't even need to maximize those windows like in WoW, so evolved is looking to be an even more dumbed down style than WoW's current class state. There's still hope that SQE adds something in the 9 months that makes devolved into an evolved system, but I'm not super optimistic about that.

Current FFXIV 2 mins are more complicated than WoW classes, because you need to pool resource (where as in WoW its given to you for free when you press your 2 mins), you need to not drift your CDs so that they fit into the window, which FF is a lot more strict about than WoW with its lack of party buffs minus power infusion. There's more different oGCDs and abilities in general to get off during 2 mins, instead of just spamming the same 2-3 buttons which allows you to focus your full attention to the boss instead. The nature of the weaving system being limited to two oGCDs each GCD introduces also more stress than the nature of oGCDs in WoW that you can literally shoot off all at once if you want; for example, during the 2 mins on M12S p1 at the end of the fight, AST will have to setup their mit/healing CDs before 2 mins, or resort to GCD healing, because of the amount of oGCDs they have to throw out during 2 mins while everyone is taking a raidwide into spreads/stacks, while moving and processing mechanics that are way more complex than WoW mechanics.

There's a reason people struggled with Tyrant enrage, weeks into the raid tier, and it's because people are horrible at doing damage with the current jobs (ESPECIALLY HEALERS, APPARENTLY, WHICH IS REALLY FUNNY BTW)

The idea that WoW rotations are more difficult than FFXIV in its current state in a raiding environment is laughable. It was maybe true before the War Within, but with the lobotomization of the classes in WoW, it is no longer the case.

[Kirutsuki]

For raid buffs, they'll probably become personal buffs somehow. Like, Brotherhood will probably still get you Chakras from others, but maybe not give the damage boost to the team.

Honestly for the best, if there's one thing I dislike with monk is timing riddle of fire, brotherhood and riddle of wind accordingly, it's such a hassle and easy to lose track of if raid mechanic is coming up.
However that's going to change I'm all for it.

[Kohashi]

WoW fight are not that less demanging to justify the gap in depth across games, especially when we consider that in the most movement intensive mechanics of XIV, the bosses cannot be harmed. XIV also needs to guarantee that more relaxed fight remain entertaining with their job design considering its focus on casual content and msq, something that a job design with shallow interactions and lower button count does not do

The fights in WoW are demanding but in a different way from FF14.
Also, Pandemonium entered the chat... You were saying about bosses not being targetable when a lot of mechanics were happening? People cried about that shit too..lol. In every single turn in pandemonium, you had multiple mechanics you had to do/solve while still in the burst phase.

As for lower button count, I very highly disagree. I played games that didn't have 4 bars of spells and did complexity extremely well. Blade and Soul is one of them because you had to pick the combo spell and react appropriately. To me, it simply says that SE will move forward towards a more action-focused combat system, which they have been doing for most of their newer games.

[Voidmage]

Also one guy doing all the work is impressive and kudos to him, but also a bit worrisome in terms of how much man power SE has been putting behind the game as of late also. Let's hope that comment from the CEO about supporting ffxiv better for future rings true and we see major patches have shorter gaps between them again.

I think at least in this case it's less about manpower and more about consistency.
It's the guy who made the PVP system which got good feedback and Yoshida did say in the past that a good number of problems came from communication issues.
I guess the reason is more so that one guy who is good as his job can go all out without someone else ruining it.

OFC I want to remain calm and see how they evolve the system but I think rn its the time to voice the concerns before its too late for them to do anything. PLD has the counter but that is not new in the game and the overall rotation seems simpler, DRG has quite a nice utility baked in but its also a job that seems to have very few things to manage (the 10s combo and stardiver and only needs to do positionals right 50% of the time), BRD jumps are cool but the job seems to flow like SMN and we know how that job is not precisely the pinnacle of good design and well that iteration of WHM may be one of the worst we have seen in the game's history.

Things are subjected to change but I think we need to be vocal about what we want to be seen changed, what we want to stay and the overall direction of these changes

I don't disagree.
I just think it's important to try to see the positive and negative, this giving true feedback and this forum (and reddit for the other side) is way too quick to always go fully into the negative side.
I also have lots of worries, especially the repeating comments from them to "make it easier for new players" and such but I also do genuinely think something like the PLD counter or the DRG high jump are exactly what the jobs needed to a degree.

[WaxSw]

The fights in WoW are demanding but in a different way from FF14.
Also, Pandemonium entered the chat... You were saying about bosses not being targetable when a lot of mechanics were happening? People cried about that shit too..lol. In every single turn in pandemonium, you had multiple mechanics you had to do/solve while still in the burst phase.

As for lower button count, I very highly disagree. I played games that didn't have 4 bars of spells and did complexity extremely well. Blade and Soul is one of them because you had to pick the combo spell and react appropriately.

Pandemonium is not precisely the good example youi think it is. Nothing there justified things like the oversimplified healer kits and the people who cried were a minority at best, people did mechanics just fine like in every other tier before and after it. if harder fights like DSR already received complaints because the kits were bland what makes you think an entire tier easier than that justifies things like the WHM changes?

XIV is not other games, XIV is XIV and if you want to reduce the button count you need to compensate with interactions elsewhere and they dont seem to be doing that, it seems like another batch of oversimplification.

To me, it simply says that SE will move forward towards a more action-focused combat system, which they have been doing for most of their newer games

Guess what those other games dont have? A precarious online structure with outdated netcode and very low refresh rate, XIV may want to be faster but its structure wont ever be the one of an action game and with already 5 expansions is already too late to make the shift smoothly