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

[MariaArvana]

It's just how online games are. As the game ages, certain systems become obsolete or new systems are designed to streamline them, or some systems were obsolete from day 1 and basically serve no purpose, so the devs take time to remove them, tune them better, or replace them with more engaging systems. As an example:

* assignment of attribute point while leveling up
* using ice,fire, etc. ward potions to increase resistence during normal game play
* cross class skills, a motivation to level on multiple crafting classes
* druid protess command
* command from archer were removed to make bard stronger

-Assignment points was an illusionary choice and served little purpose. DPS & healers put them into their main stat that's used for damage without looking back, it made SMN/SCH harder to play optimally if you liked to play both since you'd have to constantly shift the points back and forth. Tanks were the only arguable case that it could benefit, since their VIT didn't boost their attack (At least until Midas/Creator)

-Outside of boss-specific mechanics where the game gives you buffs to survive anyway (Scylla), the ward potions were effectively useless. The damage reduction they gave was so miniscule due to how elemental resistance are programmed that popping a damage potion to kill the enemy faster gave you more damage mitigation.

-While interesting in theory, it was again an illusionary choice and a forced system. No tank worth their salt is not going to level GLD to 22 for provoke. No healer worth their salt was not going to level CNJ to get protect. The worst of all was Blood for Blood behind 34 LNC, or quelling strikes behind 34 (38?) ARC. Extremely powerful tools that literally made you weaker for not getting them, or worse, literally incapable of doing certain fights (Any fight with a tank swap in provoke's case.) Now every job has all the tools it needs to function correctly without playing 2-3 other jobs that the person may not have even the slightest desire to play.

-CNJ protect was bad game design. Only WHM's protect gave magic defense till they changed it, meaning in high-end fights your whole party was taking way more magic damage for literally no reason other than 'well, you didn't bring a WHM'! It's the same logic that made WAR unstoppable throughout HW due to it being the only tank giving slash resist, along with a permanent 10% damage down on Storm's Path. besides that, protect was a kinda useless skill. There's literally no reason you'd ever not use it, the buff lasted 30mins so its not like you had to do any timing, fights were designed with it in mind, so it was more of a punishment for not having it then a benefit for having it.

-Not sure which command you were talking about on ARC, so I won't comment.

The point is, a lot of the things they trim or change are useless, obsolete, or worse, actively harmed the game's balance. It'll be the same case with the main story. There are a TON of useless quests in the ARR MSQ that could be trimmed and literally nothing would be lost from the story, they're simply quests for the sake of padding out the story, without contributing anything. Like, 90% of the Titan questline can be cut out and nothing would change to impact the overall story due to how pointless it was. (A whole bunch of fetchquests without meaningful character development that could have been summarized with, 'let's have a party!' then next quest the party starts, put all exposition about the band of heroes here, done. 10-15 quests + a dungeon summarized in 1/100th of the time.)

The MSQ is especially egregious and needing a trim-down because a lot of players just get stuck through the horrible, long drawn out slog that is ARR and quit the game before they ever see the actual good story.