Evolved mode has zero failure states

[Bru_Tus]

Why is the resident GIF shitposter getting into debates then deleting their posts lmao

[Bru_Tus]

I think the bigger question, is that if we had Shield Swipe originally without the split, and we have DRK's TBN now as a pseudo-parry system without the split... why do we even need the split in the first place? It seems like it's just going to result in a similar issue to the Pure/Barrier split, where one side doesn't really function together properly in cutting-edge content (IE trying to do Week1 as WHM AST), and the other either 'works just fine if you have a bit of coordination' or 'is actually arguably optimal' (IE, SCH SGE having way more mitigative potential than 1Pure/1Barrier). I would imagine that, since OT needs to be able to survive in what is 'current content' right now, it needs 'at least as much personal surviveability as it has currently'. In which case, you could probably bring two OTs, double up on the Party Mit they supposedly have a larger focus on in their kit, and make any Mit Checks easier on the team, and any 'personal mitigation' challenges the game throws at a 2OT comp, they can overcome with Invulns, and/or externals like Protraction, Aquaveil etc. to shore up their defenses if needed

To be honest I want an actual pure/barrier split, the thing is this game doesn't commit to either side. Either all healers are basically substitutable with each other (not true as you said with WHM+AST) or go all-in on the pure/barrier split and make it so that they have a meaningfully different gameplay style (not true either).

This game doesn't even give you a "tank fantasy", since 99% of your job is getting melee uptime (??????????????????????????????), with the MT/OT split it will literally still be the same thing, getting melee uptime. Oh no, I need to calculate exactly what skill speed to hit so I can disengage and plunge in without using a ranged GCD..... this is FF14 tanking in 2026. Healing is the same, but worse since there's nothing to think about anymore with your rotation. It's pretty much free in everything below Savage.

[Bru_Tus]

If its relative then why is this thread throwing it out to agree on? OP's idea of it could be literally anything and that is my point. Job design and casual encounters parameters are also based on subjective experience and preferences. One thing we can say is party/solo DPS ultimately isn't solely based on direct action potency, so I am not seeing your point about Sky High until later in the post. As far as casual content its like...we haven't even seen a new encounter yet and the standard is in the toilet right now with any party comp all blind at launch casual clears???

The points about the skill ceiling are backed by data but I disagree on the solution, that it doesn't matter whether you are talking about HW vs EW levels of skill expression or rotation design. Your position here is leaving space for any given person to say "think of the dots and transpose and how good we had it". If Evolved fails, the solution is not Reborn mode, its something else entirely, some other new idea, or HW level rework. You say you don't care but you should, especially if your position is that what you are currently being offered further erodes the space between an optimizer and a casual, or whatever you want to call them. Isn't that proof in itself that it can and will get worse in the absence of well formulated and organized consenus.

Forgot to mention also the point about Sky High being "all DRG has", or weaving loss being a concern..skill expression isn't gone its just changing. We need to also see a. Final versions b. Encounters and c. All the jobs. I feel like this is where all these topics end up. Educated guesses and historical precedents can only take us so far.

Well my personal position is that in casual content there should be giga-brained room for optimization on at least half of the jobs that give you at least 10% DPS advantage or 20% "QoL advantage" that no casual will ever achieve, and give you room for skill expression.

Back then there was stuff like quelling strikes, goad, refresh, on the simple end of things (and even then 80% of people don't even use them lmao). On the sweaty side there's stuff like pet-swapping to maximize damage on HW SMN between pulls, using manual Embrace to focus on tank to let HoTs naturally heal people up. But none of these are required for the clear, they all disappeared because people kept complaining -_-

[Valence]

I'm also willing to give them a chance considering how their goal is to evolve the game
even if things dont work out, at least it'll be different. Which is what i wanted after 6 years of shadowbringers in a row lol

I am definitely aligned with that statement.

[RaionKansen]

I am definitely aligned with that statement.

This is also pretty much how I feel.

Any change is better than more of the same and there's just not enough information currently for me to get worked up about anything. I'd rather just chill out, focus on the new ultimate coming up, and also try to get DSR and TEA done before 8.0.

I think more than anything Evolved mode is going to heavily rely on the encounter design for 8.0 also being "evolved". All things I have no control over. Just gonna have to hope and wait.

[Moqi]

Some of you are going to be in for a rude awakening when Evolved isn't that much different from regular combat. It's still the same game, with (hopefully) a more compact and less rigid rotation.

[Valence]

That is the case in MOBAs because you're fighting other human beings. There is no PvE boss design that could ever come close to emulating that. No matter how emergent the encounters end up being, nothing can make up for mindless job design.

Also, to use Dota 2 as an example since I unfortunately happen to have thousands of hours in it, all of those heroes have depth to them that require you to make various judgement calls during the match, and you can royally F yourself and/or your team over if you make the wrong choices. Even heroes with relatively simple kits still have to think about what items to make to counter the enemy heroes or prevent being countered like everyone else, and most of those items have active abilities tied to them as well. That depth is pretty much what people are asking for from evolved mode in this thread and elsewhere.

People often forget it but Dota 2 has an AI mode.
It won't provide the same kind of challenge or chaos than true humans, but it will provide enough rng to still engage with most of the system.
I've played against bots in that game and the characters and the battle system was as engaging as vs humans, minus the difficulty/challenge ofc.

It's never been a problem of fighting against humans or AIs.
It's been about encounters scripted to the core with zero variable beyond damage and healing.

[CidHeiral]

People often forget it but Dota 2 has an AI mode.
It won't provide the same kind of challenge or chaos than true humans, but it will provide enough rng to still engage with most of the system.
I've played against bots in that game and the characters and the battle system was as engaging as vs humans, minus the difficulty/challenge ofc.

It's never been a problem of fighting against humans or AIs.
It's been about encounters scripted to the core with zero variable beyond damage and healing.

The AI mode is a joke for anyone competent at the game, but I get where you're coming from. I have no issue with more randomness and variety in encounters. Whatever they do with encounters is irrelevant to my point anyway, which is that the jobs need depth as well. 8.0 could have the best MMO encounter design ever conceived and it still wouldn't make up for the jobs being mindless and boring.

[Turtledeluxe]

I have added superscript to the stuff that is basically the same. What we are left with for evolved BRD is pressing an oGCD before thrum and casting thrum. What we are missing is party coordination, DoT management, oGCD management, and prok management. I'll assume that party coordination of buffs is being made up for by improved encounter design. I'll also assume that the changed encounter design makes it so that casting thrum is a considerably higher commitment than it would be now. Using Hawk's eye correctly once per minute isn't as hard as managing both sidewinder and empyreal arrow, and either prok or DoT management is simply lost. Even with the most generous assumptions I can give, BRD is down by about two pieces of job difficulty that are simply not made up for anywhere, and for each assumption that doesn't pan out, they are down an additional one, up to four.

Right. I just don't think the answer is walking directly backward. I would rather them do something different with the songs than just say, bring back DoT and proc management as we know it today. Maybe its a hot take, but DoTs are not unique per job or mechanically interesting. Party play may be gone, but it's gone for all jobs across the board, so how is it a BRD rotational failure for the purposes of this discussion? I'm not sure I consider that a unique rotational failure in general even though it is tied to rotational error. I think even before we get to encounters, thinking about the average player or a new player, some reduction in friction with respect to procs/DoTs might actually make sense if someone does somehow struggle with the new decision making here. The passive timers and resource management feeling samey across jobs is a concern for me. I'm neither here nor there with something like Sidewinder, or weaving in general, until I see the encounter design and actually get to test the job out. I can see how this would be a concern for someone who is into current optimization and I guess all I can say is, Reborn mode will still be there and I highly doubt it will do significantly less damage, but who knows. Idk, I'm more concerned about the jobs feeling homogenous to play than mourning micro losses or redundant elements like DoTs.

[Starrya]

I'm more concerned about the jobs feeling homogenous to play than mourning micro losses or redundant elements like DoTs.

If using the correct songs at the correct time is valuable to do most of the time, that will be a great start. If you use a song you should have waited on, it will not be available when it is useful, and that will be akin to a rotational error, even if it doesn't impact damage directly. The more I look at what we have, the more I suspect that they will probably tier how important stuff like that is by difficulty. It won't matter in normal, but by ultimate, virtually every song will need to be used in the correct order at the correct time. Similarly, I expect that even though the 2 min buff window will be gone, we will start to see more mid-fight dps checks in higher difficulties. We will be free of the 2 min yolk, but in higher difficulties, those checks will still expect players to coordinate holding onto some of their higher damage options in order to burst through a short dps check.

That will likely make normal and old content even less engaging because jobs won't have a fidget spinner to optimize even if there is not much else to do, but it could easily be quite complex at higher difficulties, especially if each job has its own thing that is good in different ways on parts of the fight. If that kind of stuff all happens, and I hope it does, then we'll still be in a pretty good place overall. If that is the price we pay for a jumping pad to truly better battle content moving forward, then so be it. That said, while I personally like BRD's DoT in particular for its higher ceiling, it's not really about losing the DoT. It's about not seeing anything that replaces its removal in the job kit. The nightmare is that the jobs lose more stuff, feel more homogeneous, and aren't surrounded by well-crafted fights designed to put the changes to evolved jobs in the limelight. We obviously don't have all the information yet, but it is reasonable to be concerned that the two parts of it that we can see both appear to be headed in the nightmare direction.