Things Getting Too Obnoxious

[Eecka]

You make the bosses harder, not the classes. Making the classes harder is just bad design in my book. Bad enough we have to fight the boss and our own latency, now we're being forced to fight with the class design too? I'm sorry but that's not hard, that's frustrating.

No, not making the classes harder is bad design. RPG combat is always easy at lvl 1 and complex at level cap, because more abilities = more options = more chances to screw up.

My biggest complaint is animation locks. I get it, the animations in this game ARE gorgeous, without saying.

Say what now? DRG is like the only job that has any sort of real animation locks, and playing around the animations is both part of the gameplay, and incredibly easy.

[Allyrion]

I hate simple rotations.
Some complicated rotations can come off as clunky but that's an issue with implementation rather than just making the rotation more challenging.
Also, clunky is usually a matter of perception. Though I like SMN, I think the pet management is clunky, that's the only thing I can think of right now.
(Mudra too, but that's not an issue with the design of them as much as the lag delay)

Otherwise, I'm happy with it despite some things needing cleaning up.
Even though there are ways to do 'easy to play, hard to master', I still don't enjoy rotations with a simple base.
Particularly that design ends up being fight specific gimmicks to get out some extra.
That's good and all, and I like to have that too but that's not enough for me.

I like when I feel there's more to master on a base level.
I like working on making the most of my Job in general, rather than just figuring out some fight specific tricks based on the Job.

Fight design is important, of course.
But a fight could be a dummy, and I'd be okay because the rotations are engaging.
Fights can hard too and then you have even more to work on.

Not saying the OP's opinion isn't valid, just mine is the opposite.
If they didn't continue making the classes more complicated and engaging in a fight, or worse made them simpler, then I'd wouldn't be as interested this game.

I'm happy with their direction, but the only issue I can see is button bloat.
I don't mind how it is now and I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to that, yet there are ways to reduce button bloat while not reducing increasing skills and such.
NIN is a great example of that. Mudra lag aside, the mudra provide multiple abilities with 7 abilities with only 3 buttons.
It could provide even more if they allowed combinations with like Chi-Chi (duplicate Mudras).

So yea, I'm just saying I'm glad Jobs take some work to master even on a general level.
It's not about feeling better about myself at the end, it's on just the idea it takes some training to master your Job.
I like that as the jobs expand, the player has to get better along with the character who's mastering the new skills.

[Snowaeth]

I think the main issues is homogenization.
There are people that like hard/easy rotations/classes.
There are people that like lots of class variety and those that rather have everything tightly balanced even at the cost of variety.

SE picked one direction for everything, rather than going for variety which would allow every type of player to enjoy the game.
They made all the classes very comparable to each other and almost all of them gained mechanics to make them harder to play just for the sake of making them harder to play rather than improving on the jobs core.

[Drtoxicmedica]

Honostly if they made the classes just as easy as pre 3.0 I would have quit playing. The dps checks are really not bad if you even use half of your new tool kit. Can't tell you how many blm's I see never use leylines or enochian or dry who hardly touch blood of the dragon...
Only thing I see is people trying to play this like 2.0 when it's not. Fight require more on the spot decisions for all classes which makes the fights harder. Makes each fight a whole new monster to tackle and learn other then what mechanic has you going where...

[pandabearcat]

Say what now? DRG is like the only job that has any sort of real animation locks, and playing around the animations is both part of the gameplay, and incredibly easy.

Its incredibly obnoxious to have to space out your cooldowns for no reason.

Every class has to "try to fit 2 ogcd into one gcd" so every class deals with animation locks.

It is a clunky feeling to have to wait for the animation. I want the game to work as fast as I push buttons, simple as that. Aka, how it works in every other game.

This has nothing to do with "ease". This isn't really about how hard a class is to play or not. This is about it simply not being fun for some people, because of the decisions made regarding how fitting these abilities in works.

Also: the macro system in this game is extremely primitive and incredibly terrible.

[FoxyAreku]

Raiding might not be for you. Maybe sitting in your FC's front yard hitting a target dummy would be more to your liking.

If there wasn't stuff to interrupt your rotation in fights then what would even be the difficult part of it?

[RapBreon]

You make the bosses harder, not the classes. Making the classes harder is just bad design in my book. Bad enough we have to fight the boss and our own latency, now we're being forced to fight with the class design too? I'm sorry but that's not hard, that's frustrating.

And meanwhile everyone is complaining about the trainwreck parties and the 'bad' dps, so the small % of super elite players with the twitch skills and perfect memory can be acknowledged as superior? I agree with Linadae, that's bad design. The average player (who's actually trying) should be able to hit 85% without hours of research and practice and memorization just to play a game. The players who have that extra skill or effort, still show, but no one has a miserable time of it.

Aside from party perspective, it's also a matter of not always wanting to be 'challenged' every minute of game play. Put the challenge in the content, not the class, then the player gets to decide when and how much they want to be challenged, not have it forced down their throat permanently.

The problem for me is; unless it's cutting edge progression, I'm now super bored, because my class is boring. This is essentially what it was like in WoW. Bosses were great, but class design was meh. So if I wasn't doing prog, I could mindlessly do my simple rotation and just literally talk useless words over TS to entertain myself until it was time for the good stuff. So it's the inverse of your problem really. I deserve to be having fun too no?

It seems to be a choice about which direction Square wants to take the game. Cater to the more 'dedicated(?)' player-base or the more 'casual' one. Neither good nor bad design, merely a targeting of demographic as the solution to both our problems are mutually exclusive.

Additionally, 'average' players already do about the number you quoted (85%?). Hell if a DRG really wanted, they could do the 2.0 rotation to about a 70-80% effectiveness of a 3.0 DRG. So you still have that option to 'relax' without simplifying the class and gating the fun behind static runs.

Just my 2cents.

[fm_fenrir]

Additionally, 'average' players already do about the number you quoted (85%?). Hell if a DRG really wanted they could do the 2.0 rotation to about a 70-80% effectiveness of a 3.0 DRG.

In fairness, if you're too zealous with your Geirskogul usage, you're kind of stuck with 2.0 DRG for a good bit of each fight.

[Odowla]

If there wasn't stuff to interrupt your rotation in fights then what would even be the difficult part of it?

This pretty much.. I could level any job to 60 right now and do probably 95% of optimal DPS on a dummy... but i gurantee you I wont get anywhere near that in an actual fight without knowing the nuances of the rotation or the class specific tips, etc.

[Eecka]

Its incredibly obnoxious to have to space out your cooldowns for no reason.

Every class has to "try to fit 2 ogcd into one gcd" so every class deals with animation locks.

It is a clunky feeling to have to wait for the animation. I want the game to work as fast as I push buttons, simple as that. Aka, how it works in every other game.

Ahhh right that's what you meant. I thought you meant the real "you can't do anything, watch this animation" drg jump lock. Yeah I agree on that part gameplay wise, not sure if it would have any balance issues, but I definitely disliked the clunky feel at first. I've gotten used to it by now and can work around it, but wouldn't mind instants being instants either :P