Anyone else having problem with big changes (job system/main story)

[Virtualwarp]

What


/10char

I guess it was translated wrong, it was the `protect`-command and was removed in 5.0 according to https://novacrystallis.com/2019/05/f...er-51-summary/ among other changes.

[Virtualwarp]

First of all thank you for so many feedback and the good answers giving me some background why the change were made. Look's like it's more me who dislikes to many changes after a games was released.

The thing is that they might be more removed from the story than expected and I rather would have a choice whether I want to follow the original game I bought with the old commands or take some short cuts. On the other hand I completely understand the problem with offering choices and keeping the old stuff. Maintainence can be come a nightmare for developers and the majority income probably results from new players.

As for the commands honestly saying I found the changes in the past not very consistent and especially in area of crafting with some of the new command it's less obvious to me what the out come will be. Here I have the impression they did changes just to make things less deterministic as an anti-bots protection. That said the macros for crafting are now more or less worth less.

But I am pretty sure as I read from the feedback that they solved some real issues. Actually with all these changes I never faced a situation where I had to say "good they changed the old stuff" which is probably why I am unable to understand some of the changes. I am getting old

[Barraind]

The point is, a lot of the things they trim or change are useless, obsolete, or worse, actively harmed the game's balance

Pretty much this.

Cross-class skills in 14 isnt like a secondary job in 11, or Guild Wars, or other subclass systems, where theres a major gameplay difference in using one class vs another.

You absolutely had to get 4-5 specific skills to be able to do higher end content, so it was largely moot. And that one or maybe two flex spots werent even flex. Paladin without a white mage healer? Guess I have stoneskin and maybe protect duties!

Was it nice to have an extra dot available for caster classes early on before you actually got buttons unlocked? Yes. Was it good class design that you had to crossclass an extra dot on caster classes (especially healers) to actually have okay combat? No.

Is that STILL an issue in low levels? Absolutely.


MSQ changes had to happen. Look at census data if you dont trust people saying "most everyone I know says the early msq grind is the worst thing ever", and realize how few accounts make it through that. Even following ShB's launch, whennwe had the highest concurrent user logins ever, active users (which at the time wasnt counting ShB achievements) had almost no increase.

People literally get into the end of ARR's msq, realize they're not even close to being out of ARR and either buy a skip or end up playing a game that just says "have fun exploring and do whatever you want to do without massive content gating".

[Jandor]

The arguments against the old cross-class feel more like an issue with the implementation than the concept. Yeah having to get to 34 or whatever (especially when the cap was 50) for an absolutely vital skill was stupid, but I still feel like the core idea was sound.

I also miss protect, and the old stoneskin II. It didn't take long, and as weird as it might sound, I feel things like a tiny bit of pre-fight buffing help immersion.

The ARR trim is totally fine though. It was fun at the time, but looking back a lot of it is definitely side-quest material.

[Yani-Madara]

I wish classes/jobs could be customized. Even if there were only 2 versions of each class. (Like an easy and hard mode)

Why? There are people who hate drastic job changes. Like Bard, Scholar, Monk, Nin and Astro (for example.)

Something like that would help mitigate angering the veterans. Job changes forced me to quit my main and I know I'm not the only one. I would like my old job back even if it did less damage than the easy mode.

[LaylaTsarra]

Redoing ARR is long overdue and should make it a lot easier for new players to progress through the story. This is not a negative but a big plus the dev team. Of course we need to see when it releases. Flying should also be a big plus in my opinion in ARR zones for new players when they unlock it.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The problem with having two versions of a job is that either they end up doing different amounts of damage (in which case, anyone bringing the other version is going to catch hell for it), or they do the same for differing amounts of effort (in which case, why use the harder one at all?). It's kind of a false choice.

[StriderShinryu]

The arguments against the old cross-class feel more like an issue with the implementation than the concept. Yeah having to get to 34 or whatever (especially when the cap was 50) for an absolutely vital skill was stupid, but I still feel like the core idea was sound.

This is pretty much my take as well. I really liked the idea and appreciated that, to some extent, it did offer some customization. Especially now in the very streamlined and homogenized existence of a lot of the classes we could really use a little more customization. But it was definitely clunky and annoying the way it was handled. Plus, the bigger issue long term is just that there were obviously required "choices" anyway so you didn't end up with much legitimate customization anyway.

[Melphina_Dragonfyre]

ARR MSQ rework is one of the biggest quality of life improvements I've seen in a while. I'm sure everyone remembers how fetch quest heavy it was. I still tear my hair out at a certain quest line that goes like this; without posting any spoilers the summary is.

There's a major storyline battle ahead and you have to defeat a certain enemy in order to progress the story, but you can't reach that area without a specific item

NPC: Warrior of light, this is the item I need you to bring me back. Here's where you should look for it. Go fetch.

So you go on a series of quests that have additional side quests to them, essentially two or three SUB side quests just to complete the primary side quest only to finally get your item. And when you bring it back to the NPC you're greeted with this....

NPC: Oh I'm sorry, you brought me the wrong KIND of thing. It won't work. THIS is the right kind of thing. Go fetch it.... again!

So you go on ANOTHER series of fetch quests to acquire the thing you were supposed to get originally. Eventually you get it and bring it back to the NPC. Then you get THIS

NPC: Oh I'm sorry, you brought me the wrong kind of thing AGAIN! This one won't work either. Go fetch me the thing a third time


After that series of fetch quests I was absolutely livid with the amount of back and forth they put you through. Sure finally getting to the battlefield and defeating the enemy was a satisfying experience, and the cutscene that ensued was extremely enjoyable, but the amount of chores just getting to that point detracted from the enjoyment way too much. They could have completely omitted the fetch me this thing twice, but even if you had to fetch it twice it would have been so much better than forcing you to fetch it an additional third time. Making a player fetch the same thing three times in a row is just throwing filler content to take up time. HINT: Filler content isn't actual content. Fetching 100 McGuffins versus 1,000 McGuffins versus 10,000 or even 50,000 McGuffins is still the same content. It's just prolonging the duration.

I can't wait for 5.3. I'm actually looking forward to starting a brand new character to play from scratch because I burned out on the game two years ago. I never finished stormblood's storyline and so much has changed that I'd rather just start off fresh from the beginning. All of my equipment is going to be replaced in a flash anyway and the leveling up isn't that big of a deal. But I'm waiting for 5.3 to do it specifically because of the cleanup in the ARR quest line.

[Skogli]

When someone start a reply with "thats just how it is" I immediatly just dismiss it.