Making jobs spam the same move more than once feels boring

[Bonbori]

I Broil don't Broil know Broil what Broil you Broil could Broil possibly Broil be Bio referring Broil to Broil.

[Shurrikhan]

With that said, completely changing the way a class plays the closer they get to the level cap is too far a swing in the opposite direction. Instead of making the class feel stale, it ends up being completely different from what you started out with. For some, that's fine, but it makes new player experiences even more difficult because you have to forget everything you spend 80 levels learning. There's a balance; abilities like Nascent Chaos, Blasting Zone, and Edge/Flood of Shadow have their place in giving the raw damage increases, but it also has to come with new, useful tools and toys to play with.

Any examples you can give of where changes were made on the right side of that line and where they were made on the wrong side?

For instance, I see Fire II's eventual complete obsoletion and Aspect Mastery (which invalidates the MP margins we'd been used to accounting for previously) as each belonging to the wrong side, even if I may prefer their resultant gameplay. That doesn't mean I find Flare spam to the exclusion of Fire II necessarily bad, to be clear. I just dislike how it amputates a previous understanding of how to optimize the job just for increased power elsewhere, especially since it didn't have to remove and resultantly simplify gameplay. It particularly annoys me when the one (e.g. Flare spam) completely replaces the other (at least situational Fire II), much like a direct upgrade, without doesn't go so far as to admit that the old gameplay is dead and gone.

On the other hand, Mirage Dive even just in terms of its potency (i.e. as a direct upgrade to Jump and Spineshatter Dive) seemed to draw a new theme for SB DRG -- deliberate macrorotational timing. If not for the 15 second window it granted us to bank for Blood for Blood, I likely would have thought it pure bloat, but that window brought DRG into a new perspective, a new or deepened theme of optimizations. Geirskogul-->Nostrond, especially before its simplification, likewise returned at least some usefulness to Blood of the Dragon and something to capstone rotation, rather than being just another (compound) CD to throw into the mix. Those each seemed well-designed upgrades; they ushered in a new stage of play for the job without invalidating (in 4.x Nostrond's case, specifically returning) previous means of optimization.

[KalinOrthos]

Any examples you can give of where changes were made on the right side of that line and where they were made on the wrong side?

For the wrong side, I have previously mentioned monk but I think it bears repeating. As it is right now, they have a very stale regular rotation that hasn't changed since ARR, but this expansion they got a few new toys that -should- have been neat to play around with in Anatman and SSS, as well as, finally, a fourth stack of GL. However, problems arose when they also took away monk's ability to generate those GL stacks quickly by removing SB Riddle of Wind, then making Anatman on the GCD in patch 5.1. Ultimately, while on paper they should have gotten some new tools to play with and a substantial damage increase in 4 GL stacks, most monks have ended up frustrated with not having a single change to their core rotation, a repurposed PB from quickly stacking GL to a DPS cooldown, and three new skills that see very limited use (Kamehameha only in AoE situations; Anatman for the opener, as Form Shift is the de-facto way to sustain GL stacks now; and SSS in the rare circumstances where you'll have to be away from the boss for a substantial amount of time); they lack any real, truly useful new skills when they reach 80.

Conversely, it's already been mentioned, but Samurai gets a lot of neat abilities that add on to the job without drastically changing how they play. Tsubami-gaeshi gives you even stronger burst, despite being restricted to only Kaeshi: Setsugekka, and Shoha rewards efficient Iaijutsu usage and adds onto Kaeshi's power, while enhanced Shinpu and Jinpu just give raw damage numbers and skill speed. The simplicity and flavor of the class isn't really broken but still offers a good skill ceiling for raiders to achieve, and while some will feel that the Setsugekka spam may be a bit overload, it still feels great to hit two massive hits that melts enemy HP, in the same, satisfying way it feels to turret Fire 4s as a black mage.

[Shurrikhan]

Sure, but feeling stale is subjective. I used to main SMN in late Heavensward and early Stormblood and I don't like it when they changed it a bit too much in Shadowbringers. Meanwhile, I was able to transition to RDM and loved that it didn't change much in Shadowbringers from the way it was in Stormblood, but still showed improvement. Other people might find RDM boring, and they're entitled to that opinion, but that's irrelevant to me and I hope RDM never strays too far from its current simplicity.

I used to prefer DRK as well before Shadowbringers. Warrior just became more interesting to me in Shadowbringers even though DRK got more changes, from what I can see anyway.

If enough people share that subjective feeling, however, does that still leave the sum of their opinions as inconsequential?

I may feel, for instance, that 1.x was better than Shadowbringers. Perhaps 1 other person in the world would agree with me while over a million would vehemently disagree, and for good reasons. But would both opinions be equally sound just because they're both subjective? Surely not.

In regards to Warrior, for example, the majority opinion (at least on across these official forums and virtually any and all unofficial areas of discussion) is that Warrior lost little capacity or optimized gameplay, but was nonetheless hollowed out by the Shadowbringers changes. If the devs were to create a poll, and a majority sided towards returning its lost complexity, or returning it by some other means, would they be obliged to ignore the majority just because (1) their opinions are individually subjective and therefore inconsequential (despite that the whole point is gameplay preference, which will always be subjective, yet consequential enough to determine whether someone cancels their subscription) and (2) someone may prefer the barebone gameplay (despite that, too, being subjective)?

The popularity of an opinion, and the number and frequency of other reasoned opinions that combine to form that opinion, matters. To deny all changes just because they're "subjective" is nothing more than saying "No, I got what I like right now, and no one's allowed to change it. Gameplay can't be augmented because I got the good dice roll this time and I'm not giving it up."

The best designs are going to be the ones that appeal to the greatest number of people. The more subjective opinions are appeased by the change and what changes must follow it is a good change objectively. Some designs are therefore, frankly, better than others. Skip the "it's subjective" dismissal and look instead at how an upgrade might follow general means of improvement (providing a welcoming skill floor, an encouraging skill curve, and a skill ceiling high enough to provoke you to continuously try to improve; reshaping the old only just enough to make the new cohesive; giving some fine eye-candy without breaking theme with what was there before or being overly gaudy; etc., etc.) as to appeal to the most people possible as deeply as possible, and alienate as few people as possible as little as possible. Those design additions, though subjectively received, can be made objectively better -- at least in as much as anything to do with perception can ever be objective.

[Selova]

I think this is less about skill spamming under time specific windows and more about jobs feeling the same, PLD, DRK and War effectively all play the same during their burst window and their entire burst window revolves around spamming the same skill over and over until the window closes. I think they need to focus more on giving jobs their own unique functionality rather than just giving every tank a fellcleave spam window.

[linay]

The best designs are going to be the ones that appeal to the greatest number of people.

I understand that, hence the casualization issue that some people are having now with some MMOs. But that's also why we express our different opinions in forums and other places, so that people don't assume that we all think a certain way. It's up to SE to whom and how they will cater FFXIV.

With regard to the topic of this thread, it is my perspective that, at least for WAR, RDM, and I would say SAM, the changes have been good overall, including any multiple usage of abilities (especially since SAM and WAR and RDM have different usage of those repeat abilities).

[Shurrikhan]

I understand that, hence the casualization issue that some people are having now with some MMOs. But that's also why we express our different opinions in forums and other places, so that people don't assume that we all think a certain way. It's up to SE to whom and how they will cater FFXIV.

With regard to the topic of this thread, it is my perspective that, at least for WAR, RDM, and I would say SAM, the changes have been good overall, including any multiple usage of abilities (especially since SAM and WAR and RDM have different usage of those repeat abilities).

That's fair. My own view of the skills added to, say, WAR and RDM is simply that they're at the stage of "Okay, that's a good start. Now what more can we do to make that as good a design as it ought be?" It's not that they're bad, per se, but rather there's just so much obviously more that could be done to appeal to players who want to see that extra fathom of depth without alienating anyone.

Easiest example: If WAR's buffs could have occurred without simplifying Inner Release, ideally while giving it a bit more snap readiness (e.g. by added gauge generation, as well) so it didn't feel so sluggish in dungeons, that would have allowed both more casual players what they were looking for (a less restricted skill) while allowing more serious players to continuing enjoying the depth they were already seeing from Inner Release. An entire side was sacrificed for the benefit of other when no such sacrifice had to be made. Meeting both desires while sacrificing no significant part of either would have been objectively better design that having to take the compromise (which was later met negatively).

In a similar way, I'd have liked to see RDM's toolkit allow for something new, rather than just a second Flare/Holy step, that would similarly allow for more frequent melee casts, so that it could appeal to both those who enjoy its apparent simplicity and its underlying complexities seen by more serious players of the job. It doesn't have to be either or, nor does one have to simply default to directly appeasing neither side when they have some apparent conflict (opting instead to just add a shiny new high-potency button). More often the two desires together actually make for a smarter design, the casual end drawing design away from unnecessary convolution and the more invested end drawing design towards greater depth per mechanic, giving you a more efficient and effective design between the two.

[KalinOrthos]

I understand that, hence the casualization issue that some people are having now with some MMOs. But that's also why we express our different opinions in forums and other places, so that people don't assume that we all think a certain way. It's up to SE to whom and how they will cater FFXIV.

With regard to the topic of this thread, it is my perspective that, at least for WAR, RDM, and I would say SAM, the changes have been good overall, including any multiple usage of abilities (especially since SAM and WAR and RDM have different usage of those repeat abilities).

Again, I feel you're continuously missing the point here, especially when you're responding to a single line of the entire post that is filled with reasonable arguments. On top of that, you're comparing Warrior to Samurai and Red Mage. The latter two got additions to their damage toolkits, more buttons to use, and, in RDM's case, mobility options, when, again, and I need you to understand, Warrior gets nothing but a damage steroid. The comparison is a false equivalence, and you ignoring majority opinion that there might be a problem because "well I like this thing" is rather narrow-minded.

Regarding red mage, though they have additional tools in their kit, I agree with Shurrikhan that more could have and probably should have been done. While it's a very simple class to get into, it's also a very easy class to master compared to the other jobs, and adding complexity could give the job more depth and engagement, but instead we get another step at the end of the melee phase. Having Reprise available as a ranged mobility option does help RDM compete with SMN's mobility, but I don't think it's enough, especially when Moulinet is better in some situations.

[dinnertime]

I only feel this way about healers. Playing healer is so monotonous that I just shut off my brain just playing one, but less so for AST because I weave cards in-between casts. Healer design is more dull and boring than ever for the sake of "balance" which didn't really solve anything.

[linay]

Again, I feel you're continuously missing the point here, especially when you're responding to a single line of the entire post that is filled with reasonable arguments. On top of that, you're comparing Warrior to Samurai and Red Mage. The latter two got additions to their damage toolkits, more buttons to use, and, in RDM's case, mobility options, when, again, and I need you to understand, Warrior gets nothing but a damage steroid. The comparison is a false equivalence, and you ignoring majority opinion that there might be a problem because "well I like this thing" is rather narrow-minded.

Well, I already like how Warrior works in Stormblood, and I like it better how it works in Shadowbringers, especially with the tank change. That tank change is not just a damage steroid. You say Warrior gets nothing while I say Warrior gets quality of life change.

And what does being narrowminded have to do with this? This thread is about an opinion that certain trends is boring. I simply have my own opinion that allows me to enjoy certain jobs with those trends.