Thread: Very concerned about 4.0 gameplay having no strategy

*No --> Much reduced*

With the removal of all +% crit/damage skills (save for BFB on DRG(?)), I'm seriously worried that there's no longer going to be any real sense of strategy or macrorotation when DPSing. I would think that ideally, a given ability (that is to say oGCD, since GCD skills are "weaponskills" and "spells") should be balanced somewhere between being best used in pairing with another and best used on-CD. This balance, or spread of consideration, is what allows for any sense of strategy in an otherwise "hit all the things (between GCDs)" style of combat. Right now, CD sync and fight-based considerations to (no) movement, AoE, and vuln windows are the only things that keep XIV from being a lineup of abilities that one could inconsequentially run their finger over between GCDs until expended, simply scrolling back and forth to intercept whatever refreshes.

I like having to pay attention to the softer windows and (de)sync of synergetic abilities, and actually having to do some calculations in my head and consider what mechanics are coming up that may cause a delay in a usually paired ability. If that, honestly huge, portion of gameplay is removed, I don't think any amount of concentrated "identity" can save my interest in a given DPS job, and (while perhaps a stark minority), I don't think I'm alone in that.

Admittedly, our AoE abilities, and maybe even the bosses' vuln/devuln phases, at least will lend a fight-specific aspect to CD-holding, but I don't see why SE found would find it so crucial to try to remove this sort of gameplay rather than to simply offer better training in its gameplay. There's a massive difference between being a player being "casual" and utterly disinterested in combat or any learning involved therein, and the latter must not be treated as the baseline by which combat is designed. That the skill-gap forms among players who do want to learn, inversely, can be blamed at least as rightly on the game's ability to guide players (through tips, tasks, cumulative difficulty or an otherwise smooth learning curve, and so forth) as on the system itself. Kill the system to significantly shorten the difference between a player who enjoys learning the intricacies of combat and one who would rather treat it as either a persistent mystery or a dunghill, and you will alienate those you previously attracted.

Originally Posted by Zaresin

Wait to cry fowl til after we have the meal before us. Not during the appetizer

Let's say you go to a steakhouse. Your appetizer is vegan. You ask the cook if this is the general style of the restaurant's food, and he affirms.

Should you wait until the food is served, and cannot be freely remade or modified, before you voice any concern?

Historically, MMOs do not receive significant adjustment during expansions. If CD alignment and holding are gone at SB's launch, they will almost certainly stay absent. Sadly, it is unlikely that they would produce their "appetizer" while still allowing for any time to make use of any feedback given upon it, in part because they need all the time they can get and in another—because with as long a track record for misinterpretation and false ultimatums, its probably best to excuse themselves as having received no negative feedback, and therefore clearly following the playerbase's wishes. As such, it is probably already too LATE, but it is certainly not too EARLY to be giving feedback.