Shadowbringers - How can we fix this?

[supergiz]

Some times you need to get your teeth kicked in... How else would we know that we need to improve on anything in life?

Thing is this is a videogame. I'm happy they dumbed it down and I'm sure these changes are going to bring in more players. For most people this isn't the only game they play and they have a life outside the game.

I'm also very pleased with the simplifying of bard. I'm enjoying content much more now that I'm actually looking at the battle and not staring at my UI the entire time waiting for straight shot proc to be up again.

[Xieldras]

Thing is this is a videogame. I'm happy they dumbed it down and I'm sure these changes are going to bring in more players. For most people this isn't the only game they play and they have a life outside the game.

I'm also very pleased with the simplifying of bard. I'm enjoying content much more now that I'm actually looking at the battle and not staring at my UI the entire time waiting for straight shot proc to be up again.

There is always a few proc tells, not only in the UI, but on your character's VFX as well. Off the top of my head: the buff bar, the obvious hotbar, the party list, a small audio cue and the VFX around your character when the proc is up. With the amount of tells available, you didn't have to laser focus the UI. If you did have to laser focus, then maybe rearranging your UI so it could be easier to see everything at a glance would've been better. A lot of classes in the game use procs and if you had trouble focusing on the fight because of that, sorry but that's on you, not the game.

Bard as well was a class where you did have to check your party's MP as well as checking the enmity and cast bars to give out appropriate buffs (in other words, you had to check the entire battle UI from time to time) and not a solely DPS-focused class.

As for the classic "People have a life outside the game" excuse to lobotomize every complex thing in the game, here's the thing : your personal schedule shouldn't affect how the game plays for everyone else. I work the classic 9-5, go out for drinks sometimes and still manage to find the time to play a MMO (you know, one of those games that require a lot of time sink) at least 4 hours a week. It's also rather ironic to say that when I can't leave the game for a few months without losing the ultra rare in-game resource that is...a house.

Dumbing down the game to attract more players is the wrong way to go. Without fun, complex and challenging content (including gameplay), new players might come in but veterans and existing players will leave and might not recommend the game to would-be players because of how bored they were. And when your friends or FC mates leave, a domino effect can occur.
Don't reward lazy play.

The best thing Square could've done here instead of simplifying everything was actually upgrade their in-game teaching system (Novice Battle Hall or something, I barely used it and there lies your problem) so that I'm not stuck in a lv70 dungeon with a BLM that spams Ice spells or a tank that can't keep aggro despite me using Tactician and panic Refresh (apologies to healers when that happens ; I've Bard tanked more than I should have in my FF14 career).

*Edit : You also have the actual skill's icon appear next to your character for a few seconds when the proc is up