Do the dev's actually play this game?

[Fendred]

Yeah lost 5 Million users from autumn to summer (expansion release 12 mio and may 7,1) is really something to look at ;D

Considering FFXIV:ARR's end game is a slight variant of World of Warcraft's (and I'd know, I played both games), that should be somewhat concerning.

[Belhi]

Playing a tank is not the same as playing a healer. Playing Monk is not the same as playing Black Mage. I ask this because having a diverse point of view is important, especially when tanks and healers are often lynchpins of good groups.

If you want another specific example, the aforementioned Monk still has obvious issues with greased lightning, and prolonged phase shifts such as Living Liquid in A3. The phase transitions are so long, that it is quite easy to drop greased lightning, and they are designed around a ramp up to 3 stacks. Just the extra ~2sec of cast delay in it being applied at the start instead of the end of the animation alone makes a huge QoL difference in the class. This is something you wouldn't know unless you play or work with players who play monk often.

The bigger point of the OP was also that Dev experience is also not the end all, player feedback is really important.

They do respond to player feedback quite often. The WM/Gauss thing is a perfect example and acted upon quite quickly. The Dragoon positional tweeks too. As for the MNK, didn't the whole new meditation thing resolve much of the issues with phase transitions and GL? I haven't levelled my MNK to 60 yet so I don't know the mechanic.

As for the design thing, its likely a number of the devs do play support roles. More than that, any class will go through a lot of peer review by devs and rigorous testing by the QA constantly provide feedback. All the class changes have probably gone through many iterations before going live. Player feedback is valuable but often one set of feedback will contradict another and in some cases its an issue of people still adapting to new systems and encounters.

WoW is a really bad example. Hell we even had one of their devs say recently in an interview that it was a particular specs turn to be underpowered. There balance has often been a mess, let alone most of their class design.

[Aegrus]

WoW is a really bad example. Hell we even had one of their devs say recently in an interview that it was a particular specs turn to be underpowered. There balance has often been a mess, let alone most of their class design.

I'm turned off of WoW. But if they do anything right, they balance out all their classes. Keep in mind this "under-performance"is usually a 5% difference in damage. That is a pretty tight margin. If you want to see imbalance on the extreme side, look at ffxi, aion, EQ, even newer games.

Balance is always a struggle in an mmo, but to think that you can do it inhouse, and force a live server to function as your initial open beta for every major patch is very shortsighted, and turns off alot of players. Hotfixes are one thing, implementing new zones, content, and game systems are a huge undertaking to troubleshoot and test. Unloading those on a live server constantly is not a good or efficient system as you open up the possibilities of rollbacks, or game breaking bugs that cannot be contained. At the very least, you leave certain classes sitting out content due to unforeseen shortcomings.

I'm just going to make a short snipe at this point.

The developers have better track of this game than you do. People who are saying that Bard and MCH under-preform are not paying attention to the 'Top FCs' who were actually outputting good damage with them. At 60, MCH and BRD's rotation and strenght were not lacking, as they were pulling as high as 800-900 parses on Ravana Ex when utilized right.

This is also the same damage that a WAR dps could output, roughly 85% of what other dps classes were outputting (1k~1.1k). This was acknowledged by the drastic buff to Wanderer's Minuet

[Hyrist]

This is also the same damage that a WAR dps could output, roughly 85% of what other dps classes were outputting (1k~1.1k). This was acknowledged by the drastic buff to Wanderer's Minuet

You're really not paying attention, you're just parroting what you've heard without investigating the full picture. Warriors were outputting those numbers in optimum conditions wearing full DPS gear with little to no heavy tanking obligations.

The damage numbers, globally in Alex Savage right now, are lower across the board - which puts greater emphasis on the fight utility each individual class brings to the table. Warriors will always spike high on damage (which is the parse you're referencing.) that's not at all different than what the top Warriors were doing before Heavensward.

Additionally "Massive Buff" is incredibly inaccurate. Bard and Machinist took significant hits on their spike points in trade for distributing their damage out more over all, because weaving turned out to be too clunky of a thing for most. (Even though it followed similar ideas of Tornado Kick, Chakra, and Blood of the Dragon.) It basically worked in the opposite manner to the Melee Classes, they prepared to launch their spike damage skills as the invulnerability phases ENDED (Preloading GB and WM before the enemy became targetable again.) But this method just turned out to be highly specific to endgame and neglected more casual play - THAT'S what netted the change. Not overall damage performance. The Devs confirmed that their own parses were showing Ranged DPS damage on par with where they wanted them to be before the changes. It's simply easier to reach those numbers now.

[Assirra]

I'm turned off of WoW. But if they do anything right, they balance out all their classes. Keep in mind this "under-performance"is usually a 5% difference in damage. That is a pretty tight margin. If you want to see imbalance on the extreme side, look at ffxi, aion, EQ, even newer games.

What in the world are you talking about?
Did you have a different version of WoW then the rest of the world or something?
Wow class balance is absolutely horrible, just look how many guilds stack x to be better. 8 balance druids in a group of 20 not enough to show something is horrible broken in a game that balances their classes?
Or what about the fact that Blizzard openly declared they will make demonology warlock useless next patch cause it was used so much in the expansion?


Very balanced...

And lets not even go into pvp balance, then its even more broken.

[Dervy]

Yes.

Voice Actor for Thrancred is playing Hardcore and currently stuck on the DPS check for A3 is.

https://mobile.twitter.com/nakamuraF...91209949605888

[Krylo]

If you want another specific example, the aforementioned Monk still has obvious issues with greased lightning, and prolonged phase shifts such as Living Liquid in A3. The phase transitions are so long, that it is quite easy to drop greased lightning

If you're on opo-opo when the transition starts, form shift to Couerl and you'll be fine. If you're on Couerl or Raptor, drop a tornado kick just before, then form shift. You can also use the transitions to meditate your chakra back up to perform multiple Forbidden Chakras during the fight.

Untargetable phases aren't really a huge issue for monks anymore, so long as you can see them coming and don't have to do anything else during them that prevents meditation/form shift (glaring at YOU second boss of Neverreap making me lug totems around).

[Kiara1]

Yes even Yoshida him self a director playing his own game.

And if you have something that can help game use support section!

I wonder if his name is something like XxCloudxXSephirothxxxxx
and he's all like trolling in WoD, removing markers on last boss etc

[Sakei]

Yes even Yoshida him self a director playing his own game.

And if you have something that can help game use support section!

Anybody know what their mains are? I'm just curious as to who I need to butter up. :P

[TinyMonster]

Anybody know what their mains are? I'm just curious as to who I need to butter up. :P

I know Yoshi-P is a BLM and the translator director team (Howecer way you spell it.. English is not my main language) is a WHM.. Don't know what the others are playing though