Positive Evolved Feedback for Tamaki

[Rex707]

Howdy!

I'm not sure how much toxicity Tamaki and the dev team will deal with (I'm not even sure if this will reach them), so I wanted to give some positive news. I also don't know how well this will translate, but I hope the English to Japanese translation holds up.

I think the new Evolved Modes are great. Tamaki, you've done a fantastic job of simplifying the jobs down to some core mechanics, then branching off in unique ways. The jobs look and feel way more free and cool and I'm looking forwards to trying it out. It definitely fits a "vibe-based" gameplay of someone roleplaying as the job.

I do think that while this is a step in the right direction, it's not enough steps. This feels super good to play at level 50, but a lot happens between ARR and Evercold. Players get better in skill, and the game should reflect that. This feels really good for just hopping on after a long shift at work and vibing in some roulettes, but for the long-term players, there's a sense of satisfaction that comes with growing in skills and defeating a challenge. Right now, be it Reborn or Evolved, there just isn't a good challenge.

Now, you've done Ultimate raids, and you are a competitive gamer yourself. You know how to make things hard and you know the reward of triumph. You've got a brilliant mind, and I think that if you set your sights on using Evolved Mode as a foundation to build up complex and unique classes, you can do a fantastic job.

I would really like to see the classes pick up new advanced mechanics maybe every 20 levels, to reflect the growth in skill the player has undergone. Not difficulty by managing cooldowns, and not ease by combining things into one button. But genuinely unique mechanics that make each class special. I know that's a tall order for 21 jobs, but I think you can do it!

Regardless of what happens, I'm excited for Evercold and your Evolved Mode. I think it will be relaxing and a nice way to have fun while blowing off steam. It might be too late to make new skills now, so I'm okay with that. But I'd really like to see more unique and complex skills added in during 8.X, whether that's in Evolved Mode as unique classes or Reborn Mode as challenging mechanics. Either way, I'm sure you will succeed at everything you put your mind to!

がんばる!!!

[Carighan]

Yeah I also will say from what we've seen so far I'm super excited.

For two reasons:

First, I feel the current design is just a design dead-end. It uses too many buttons for nearly no gameplay depth, it does very little with all its buttons (most are just X potency with a different animation), it has virtually no variable elements (and no procs of meaningful impact, no variable resource costs, no variable resource income beyond Reaper and Dancer and players seem to hate those?! O.o). Even if all this new evolved mode does is cut 10-15 buttons, considering every job has like 10-15 buttons that do nothing another button doesn't already do or do better, there's at worst no loss. It can only get better, basically, not worse.

Second, and more importantly: I like the experimentation. MMORPGs need to keep changing, and with class-designs sweeping changes IMO work better than iterations (from 27 years of playing MMORPGs by now, started with M59). It allows you to experiment and figure out whether you are in a dead-end as I previously mentioned or not. You cannot know this if you just keep iterating. So long as every expansion does sweeping changes, there's always the option to just undo changes again and try something third entirely if a change turns out to be negative. But it's important that the experiments do happen in the first place.

[BabyYoda]

I genuinely believe that what Tamaki has done is remarkable. His work shows a refreshing and innovative mindset that is very important for the future of the game. In my opinion, his presence in this system is important in a similar way to how Yoshi-P’s presence is important for the overall vision of the game.

The reason I say this is because we have already seen his work in PvP. His serious attention to the PvP system helped bring it back to life. He took inspiration from elements found in other games, such as MOBAs and action PvP games, and adapted them into Final Fantasy XIV in a smart way.

That is not an easy thing to do, because FFXIV is fundamentally built around a GCD and tick-based system, where actions happen around every 2.5 to 3 seconds. This is very far from a true action game or a game that constantly demands instant, fast-paced decisions. Despite that, Tamaki managed to make PvP feel more active, responsive, and interesting.

Because of that, I trust his work and his direction. However, based on what we have seen so far, I still believe there is a lot of room for improvement.

PvP and PvE are completely different environments. What works well in PvP does not necessarily work the same way in PvE. For PvE, I hope Tamaki focuses much more on the RPG elements. PvE needs more complex skills, deeper mechanics, stronger job identity, and more customization or progression systems that fit the nature of the game.

I think Evolved Mode has a very strong foundation, and I am confident Tamaki can take it in the right direction. But for it to truly succeed in the long term, it needs to become more than just smoother gameplay or simplified buttons. It should make each job feel unique, expressive, and meaningful as an RPG job within Final Fantasy XIV.

[Carighan]

I think Evolved Mode has a very strong foundation, and I am confident Tamaki can take it in the right direction. But for it to truly succeed in the long term, it needs to become more than just smoother gameplay or simplified buttons. It should make each job feel unique, expressive, and meaningful as an RPG job within Final Fantasy XIV.

I mean lacking more than one character per archetype so far, we can't truly judge this yet. And I think they've done that intentionally as too many designs are probably not fully locked down yet.

But extrapolating from Dragoon now having three different positions vs Bard having leeway in support-centric song placement/staggering, I think they're trying to do that. I would assume that we'll e.g. see Sage always cause some smart-heal type group healing (smart heals aren't exactly a new concept) so they can merge the single target Kardia with the Philosophia group Kardia, which in turn makes their raw healing dependent a lot on damage, but also have a DoT and stuff. The more I think about it, the more the conceptual void of WHM feels intentional, because in turn this means the numbers on their nukes and heals can be massive. As they got nothing else. The purest pure healer outputting high numbers would give it a very solid identity, the OG Samurai of healers essentially.

[BabyYoda]

I mean lacking more than one character per archetype so far, we can't truly judge this yet. And I think they've done that intentionally as too many designs are probably not fully locked down yet.

But extrapolating from Dragoon now having three different positions vs Bard having leeway in support-centric song placement/staggering, I think they're trying to do that. I would assume that we'll e.g. see Sage always cause some smart-heal type group healing (smart heals aren't exactly a new concept) so they can merge the single target Kardia with the Philosophia group Kardia, which in turn makes their raw healing dependent a lot on damage, but also have a DoT and stuff. The more I think about it, the more the conceptual void of WHM feels intentional, because in turn this means the numbers on their nukes and heals can be massive. As they got nothing else. The purest pure healer outputting high numbers would give it a very solid identity, the OG Samurai of healers essentially.

That is a fair point. We have only seen a small sample of the Evolved designs, so I agree that we cannot fully judge every job yet.

For me, the White Mage reveal was more about judging the direction than judging the final design. I like the direction of Evolved Mode overall. Reducing unnecessary button bloat and making jobs cleaner is a good idea.

However, if you ask me whether I liked the White Mage design shown, my answer is no.

My issue is that White Mage is still a mage, and I think casting should be a major part of its identity. “Pure healer” should not automatically mean “simple healer” with very little interaction.

In my opinion, White Mage should be the heavy caster of healers. It can still have instant tools for movement, recovery, or emergencies, but its main gameplay should be built around hard casting powerful spells.

Basically, I see White Mage more as the Black Mage of healers: slower, more deliberate, but very powerful when played well.

I do not think high numbers alone are enough to create a strong identity. A job can be numerically powerful and still feel mechanically empty. Job identity should come from how the job plays, not only from how big its heals or damage numbers are.

So I support Evolved Mode as a direction, but I do not fully support the White Mage execution shown so far.

I think White Mage needs more healing depth, stronger cast-based decision-making, and a clearer gameplay identity. Simple and direct is fine. Empty is not.

[LathyrusLoon]

What I saw so far for the evolved system looks like it has a Lot of potential. I love the idea of each job feeling more unique. Actions changing affects based on your target sounds really neat.

[mallleable]

Been having fun speculating what the jobs we haven't seen could be like in Evercold. Really excited for the changes!

[Voidmage]

My issue is that White Mage is still a mage, and I think casting should be a major part of its identity. “Pure healer” should not automatically mean “simple healer” with very little interaction.

In my opinion, White Mage should be the heavy caster of healers. It can still have instant tools for movement, recovery, or emergencies, but its main gameplay should be built around hard casting powerful spells.

Basically, I see White Mage more as the Black Mage of healers: slower, more deliberate, but very powerful when played well.

This are exactly my thoughts of the shown WHM and what makes me kinda scared for the caster role.
It seems like casting will be finally completely sacrificed for more action packed combat when it was why I liked that role the most in the past.
If every job becomes quick, then we will only have another form of homogenization.

@Topic
That said, I am at a point now where I need to see more.
PLD counter was great and depending on how it's implemented, could make an interesting unique identity and skill to master.
DRG imo was the highlight and I like that positionals aren't just about damage but have more meaning.

Nevertheless I think they need to be really careful, not just the implementation but also how they react to feedback later down the line.
I do think they should try to balance as best as they can but I really don't want to see the whole thing be watered down later down the line just to fit into an Ultimate or Savage.
We might be almost there at the point of interesting jobs again and the last I want is to that thing be slowly changed back just because of only one side of content.

[Carighan]

I'd love a mage class that has huge numbers in return for very slow casts.

Like for a White Mage, maybe the main nuke and the main heals ought to be 3.5s casts. To make up for the fact that you cannot always freely do that, have a trait that automatically stacks a buff on you every 0.5s of not casting, up to 7 stacks, that increases damage or healing of the next successful cast by 10% each. So if you miss a whole cast, your next is 170% as strong as normal to partially refund the time lost.

I'd love the insane healing and damage numbers. And I love the feeling of a very slow cast bar. Could totally get behind that.

I just... as much as I'd like it, Black Mage changes indicate that's the opposite of where the game is headed, on account of wanting near-constant ballet in high-end fights.

Anyhow, sorry, back to the topic now. >.>

[Wildheaven182]

We know virtually nothing about it except the intent, so I can't justify going off and shooting glaze all over it.

One example given was shirk and provoke sharing a button that changes based on your target. Yes that is a good way to reduce button bloat without simplifying gameplay. Doing so with gcd rotation abilities is much more questionable though. We will see when we see.

I think we have seen excessive simplification of jobs so I am hesitant about this until they prove it on release.