Evolved mode has zero failure states

[Valence]

The main issue with the four evolved jobs that we have been shown, is that the execution of those job toolkits has very little way for actual failure.

BRD can just play its songs in whatever order without any constraint or consideration, it doesn't matter.
WHM can spam heals, it doesn't matter because it will be refunded on sanctuary damage.

DRG has some positional considerations, which is better, but far from enough.

The main issue people have with this is that it dramatically removes skill expression, which has been a recurring issue in job design since SHB at the very least.

We know that CBU3's design philosophy seems to be that everything should be about encounters, but I seriously question the idea that jobs should only have cosmetic identity. If evolved is just about bringing back identity through cosmetics, then you'd better be spending your precious devs resources elsewhere because it won't be well received.

As someone that wants to believe in the game evolving, I do hope that what we were shown last fanfest is going to be seriously reworked so that players can actually have engaging and unique job gameplay.

[Jeeqbit]

Perhaps it's harder to mess up their core rotation, but in its place it seems they are adding things that would pertain mainly to high end content like a DRG taking a tank tower and timing the jump well for snapshot, Paladins countering, etc.

[Reimmi]

Perhaps it's harder to mess up their core rotation, but in its place it seems they are adding things that would pertain mainly to high end content like a DRG taking a tank tower and timing the jump well for snapshot, Paladins countering, etc.

For the record, the paladin thing is incredibly generous if it's same as live shelltron
it lasts 4/8 seconds, it'll be almost impossible to miss the counter, even the "harder" one since no tank buster takes longer than 4 seconds these days

[Heroman3003]

The songs changes will apply to Reborn BRD too because the DPS-affecting elements will be gone anyway. So that part isn't really a Reborn thing, that's just part of them axing all the party DPS buffs.

[ForsakenRoe]

Perhaps it's harder to mess up their core rotation, but in its place it seems they are adding things that would pertain mainly to high end content like a DRG taking a tank tower and timing the jump well for snapshot, Paladins countering, etc.

That kinda sounds like a recipe for disaster when it comes to PF. Like, yeh in a static group, you could decide that 'DRG takes this tower with Sky High instead of the PLD', but PF can't really plan around that because A: no guarantee of having a DRG and B: no guarantee that the DRG will actually use Sky High for that purpose, instead of just blasting it on CD

There's a fight in WOW currently where you have to take stack markers, and they drop a puddle so you want them out of the way of everything. Sometimes, you have the stack marker appear on a Paladin, or Hunter, who can take it solo with their cooldowns, and they'll run out into the middle of nowhere to do so, but because there's no time for communication about 'I'm taking this one solo' before it resolves, a couple of other players will run after it, and the stack gets completed with only 2-3 people in, which isn't enough to split the damage enough and it results in deaths that didn't need to occur, and wouldn't have occured if the player had just played 'as if they don't have the tools to 'solo' the mechanic'

In FF terms, I expect there will be at least some cases in PF, of Tanks saying 'I thought the DRG was going to take it with Sky High' and the DRG saying 'Why would I take a Tank Tower???', it's even possible that certain strats (that might catch on in PF) 'require' a DRG, so that you can Sky High something, which would result in PFs locking slots. As if 'we need DRG for Piercing debuff', or 'we need AST so they can force-feed me single-target cards to pad my parse' wasn't bad enough back in SB, this threatens to result in similar behaviour from PF (depending on which strategy catches on). The alternative is that a strat for the fight catches on that is Job-agnostic, doesn't rely on any of these special interactions, and then the special interactions never get to be used for anything cool, and are instead just used for damage. IE Sky High just becomes 'big damage move with a long wind up' instead of 'that, but it also lets you do literal Tank mechanics in place of a Tank, because of the 90% DR'

PLD countering is also not going to be a massive gamechanger I think, as we already have two examples of such gameplay in the game (or previously in the game and then removed). First one was Shield Swipe on PLD, after a block you could counterattack with an OGCD. How do you guarantee a block? With Sheltron. Sounds familiar. At least with this new one, there's a bonus for more exact timing (though 'exact' will likely be the 4s window that Sheltron currently has on its bonus effect). The other example, is DRK's TBN. Use TBN, you have 7s to get it broken, if you do, you get a free Edge of Shadow. Again, that's an OGCD and the demo was a GCD, but IDK if that distinction will be enough to make it feel different from 'what we already have'

[Jeeqbit]

That kinda sounds like a recipe for disaster when it comes to PF. Like, yeh in a static group, you could decide that 'DRG takes this tower with Sky High instead of the PLD', but PF can't really plan around

I do expect it mostly in statics for sure, but there may be cases of coordination in PF. When people didn't use DD strat in P1S, I was able to discuss who was going to flex with me and most of the time it worked pretty well, and a similar discussion could be had for something like a DRG doing that especially if, say, it helped their uptime or made a mechanic easier. There were times where we coordinated all that and then the person simply didn't do what we agreed though, so there will be that as well probably.

Hunter, who can take it solo with their cooldowns, and they'll run out into the middle of nowhere to do so, but because there's no time for communication about 'I'm taking this one solo' before it resolves, a couple of other players will run after it, and the stack gets completed with only 2-3 people in, which isn't enough to split the damage

That's another possible use case if a DRG gets a stack on them, but I've actually seen this example in Recollection Extreme. Sometimes there was a DRK that would get the multi-stack and they'd run away and invuln it, but of course we were all used to stacking so sometimes people would follow.

PLD countering is also not going to be a massive gamechanger I think

Probably not. They said it would be better if used at the end of the cast but if there is 4 seconds then I don't see how that's true. They rigged the cast to be longer than almost any real cast in the game is. If it isn't changed before release, it'll just be a new player trap where they press it well in advance.

But that's also just Paladin and we don't know if others' will be equally as oversold or not. All I know is it seems like the focus is making it difficult to mess up for regular players or as a general rotation, but to allow some sort of interesting use cases in High-End content that, themselves, have the potential to be done wrong. Not that I think an even average raider would get these sort of things wrong much.

[Bru_Tus]

That kinda sounds like a recipe for disaster when it comes to PF. Like, yeh in a static group, you could decide that 'DRG takes this tower with Sky High instead of the PLD', but PF can't really plan around that because A: no guarantee of having a DRG and B: no guarantee that the DRG will actually use Sky High for that purpose, instead of just blasting it on CD

There's a fight in WOW currently where you have to take stack markers, and they drop a puddle so you want them out of the way of everything. Sometimes, you have the stack marker appear on a Paladin, or Hunter, who can take it solo with their cooldowns, and they'll run out into the middle of nowhere to do so, but because there's no time for communication about 'I'm taking this one solo' before it resolves, a couple of other players will run after it, and the stack gets completed with only 2-3 people in, which isn't enough to split the damage enough and it results in deaths that didn't need to occur, and wouldn't have occured if the player had just played 'as if they don't have the tools to 'solo' the mechanic'

In FF terms, I expect there will be at least some cases in PF, of Tanks saying 'I thought the DRG was going to take it with Sky High' and the DRG saying 'Why would I take a Tank Tower???', it's even possible that certain strats (that might catch on in PF) 'require' a DRG, so that you can Sky High something, which would result in PFs locking slots. As if 'we need DRG for Piercing debuff', or 'we need AST so they can force-feed me single-target cards to pad my parse' wasn't bad enough back in SB, this threatens to result in similar behaviour from PF (depending on which strategy catches on). The alternative is that a strat for the fight catches on that is Job-agnostic, doesn't rely on any of these special interactions, and then the special interactions never get to be used for anything cool, and are instead just used for damage. IE Sky High just becomes 'big damage move with a long wind up' instead of 'that, but it also lets you do literal Tank mechanics in place of a Tank, because of the 90% DR'

PLD countering is also not going to be a massive gamechanger I think, as we already have two examples of such gameplay in the game (or previously in the game and then removed). First one was Shield Swipe on PLD, after a block you could counterattack with an OGCD. How do you guarantee a block? With Sheltron. Sounds familiar. At least with this new one, there's a bonus for more exact timing (though 'exact' will likely be the 4s window that Sheltron currently has on its bonus effect). The other example, is DRK's TBN. Use TBN, you have 7s to get it broken, if you do, you get a free Edge of Shadow. Again, that's an OGCD and the demo was a GCD, but IDK if that distinction will be enough to make it feel different from 'what we already have'

Oh no, people need to communicate or they wipe

GOOD

THE ENTIRE RAID DESIGN IN 2026 IS 8 INDIVIDUALS NEVER TALKING TO EACH OTHER AND DOING THEIR MECHANICS PRESCRIBED BY WTFDIG

If these people who never want to communicate get filtered out of PF and never raid again

GOOD GOOD GOOD

[Mesarthim]

I have the same feeling I've had all of Dawntrail, apathy. Can't be any worse than the 2 minute meta so sure why not.

[Jeeqbit]

LAST THING ANYONE NEEDS TO TALK ABOUT BEFORE 8.0 IS COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW JOBS WILL BE FILTERED OR EVERYONE WANTING A DRAGOON

Is true. "Oh my job can't do this, but they can" is what contributed to us getting here. Plus locking jobs out is something most people don't even do; a lot of people can't even set an item level so they get undergeared players. Especially in the NA region where many people aren't as sharp about the details in my experience.

WHERE FILTERING EVEN APPEARS AT ALL CAN FLEX MULTIPLE JOBS

There's also this. With us having role categories now compared to ARR ie. MNK/SAM, RPR/DRG, NIN/VPR, BRD/MCH/DNC, and playing multiple jobs being really common now to shake things up, there's the opportunity to just design it with the idea of playing a role category instead at least. Especially with the ability to reflect gear which is likely part of the design.

One thing I have thought of as well, is that if it reflects gear, it shouldn't have a reason to count it if the other job has the same item level gear piece in a slot. So you'd progressively be able to get the gear to be melded on alt jobs.

[Bru_Tus]

Is true. "Oh my job can't do this, but they can" is what contributed to us getting here. Plus locking jobs out is something most people don't even do; a lot of people can't even set an item level so they get undergeared players. Especially in the NA region where many people aren't as sharp about the details in my experience.
There's also this. With us having role categories now compared to ARR ie. MNK/SAM, RPR/DRG, NIN/VPR, BRD/MCH/DNC, and playing multiple jobs being really common now to shake things up, there's the opportunity to just design it with the idea of playing a role category instead at least. Especially with the ability to reflect gear which is likely part of the design.

One thing I have thought of as well, is that if it reflects gear, it shouldn't have a reason to count it if the other job has the same item level gear piece in a slot. So you'd progressively be able to get the gear to be melded on alt jobs.

I swear to god, if evolved mode ends up being neutered because players complain about balance en masse at the start of 8.0, I'm going to permanently assume this game's playerbase is literally too addled for the gameplay to ever become actually good.