Dark Knight Megathread

[OdinelStarrei]

I need to say something, because this happened on Saturday, and I'm so frustrated by it I need to vent somewhere where people will understand. Spoilers for P3S, if you care about that sort of thing.

My team, bless their hearts, decided that it would be for the best to Blind Prog the tier. We want to prepare for doing Dragonsong War Ultimate, and since we've killed ultimates already, the next step is solving mechanics with zero guides, handcrafted timelines instead of one pulled from the internet, our own toolboxes, etc etc. Make our brains larger, and more wrinkled, so to speak. So please don't spoil P4S for me, I'm still unaware of the entire fight. We've had a blast so far, and we were making really great progress DESPITE the various server issues causing people to be up to an hour late each night. After 3 3-hour sessions, we were on P3S, post adds, Fountain of Fire on Friday.

We managed to collect enough footage to brainstorm a GREAT strategy to solve it, one that after I kill the fight, I would love to look to how it compares to the Week 1 and general PF strats, it heavily was of my design, my raidlead made my idea come to life in a toolbox and was quite inspired. I went back into T12 for determine how the birds might best dash, and for more information about the Fountain of Fires themselves. We called it on Friday night, added a Raid day for Saturday to test our strat, when I was asked to switch off DRK.

There was a problem, we were missing critical amounts of information. Specifically, we didn't know 1. Can the same person grab multiple bird AoEs? and 2. How many bird aoes are there? (We thought it was 8, we now know it is 6.) We did know about Fountain of Fires significantly, and aggressively bolstering healing and shielding output. The issue is that in order to make the mechanic easier, IF one person could grab multiple AoEs, we were going to have the tanks take all of the birds. They eat the first AoE and the first dash normally, and then invuln the next three, staying in the middle, pointing the birds out, and keeping Phoinix still, meaning much less movement across the team, and lessening the thoughts required across the team. "Let the tanks handle it, just like how we're doing Intemperance in P1S." I said.

The issue with this? Because we were planting Seraph in the center of the arena, and the AST was using Neutral Sect, there was a LEGITIMATE concern that while the PLD would be fine doing this with Hallowed Ground, I would actually die in my invuln using this strat because my Walking Dead would be cleansed by SERAPH using +400% or whatever boosted Consolations/Embraces in the center of the arena in between the dashes. I would be healed to full HP accidentally, Walking Dead would fall off, and I would be killed by the following dash. My invuln was actively UNDERMINING my OWN strategy.

So they asked me to GNB for the night as we refined the strat and tried to get more footage. The benefits of being an omnitank. I agreed for the sake of prog, because they were RIGHT. Eventually, we found out there were only six dashes, and one person cannot get multiple birds. So we threw the invuln start in the bin and DRK is back on the menu, but it's the principle of the matter that makes me so frustrated. My team, great players in their own right, a lot of them I killed TEA with, asked me to switch off the job they know I knew like the back of my hand because of this ability, and I could not blame them. How do you think that made me feel, after all we've been through on this forum? After all the complaints? After I PROVED to many randoms, my FC, my friend group, that all DRK needs is a competent player and a competent team behind them, and we're just as good as every other tank, if not better? I'm even leveling SGE right now (SCH is done) and helping leveling DRKs understand how to mitigate differently to try and stop this "DRK is bad" narrative. And now, I swapped off for a night like how many people swapped off permanently. "I'm sorry Odin, but can you please switch to GNB for tonight so we can test this."

God. Just...why?

Here is our official answer:

・作っている方もいるので罵詈雑言だけは止めていただきたい
→ちょっと言葉が強すぎるところがある、スタッフが凹んでしまうのでエンターを押す前に考えてほしい
Staff members DO READ the official forums of all language. Please exercise moderation and be civil when providing feedback.
-> There are several posts where people were indeed providing feedback with strong language. This will discourage the staff members so please be polite and always double check and think through before pressing enter.

Considering how active we have been in the forum and the overall reactions about DRK status compared to other jobs/stuff of the game in the last years this basically could be in great part aimed to us, in other words it's probable the current sad state of DRK gameplay experience could be like that bcs we have been so rude they choose to don't adress anything and keep the line bcs of it, independent of how much that could feed back the frustration and rudeness against them.
Idk what to think to be honest, i understand they posture but at the same time i don't find it to be a proper solution either if that is actually the reason DRK gameplay is so horrible right now, it could have been fixed if they have posted in our threads telling us our feedback is being to rude and they would ignore it bcs of it way more sooner, not only we would see them interacting with us and we see they read us and correct our manners way more early they could have prevented the current levels of animosity against them.

Whoever is reading this at Square Enix, If you know, you need to say something. You need to say something. We need to hear something. I cannot defend this. Even in THIS "interview", still not even a word about DRK. What about Blood Weapon? You said you haven't heard the feedback, but I KNOW YOU HAVE! What about Spells not working with Skill Speed and Living Dead? What about literally everything we and the people who are forced to deal with us are saying all over the internet, not just on the OF? We haven't had a non-expansion patch note of any significance since 4.3 when you successfully fixed SB DRK for a lot of people. It's been total silence ever since. Where are the answers to our questions and pleas? We're hated by the community at large, both on the hardcore side and the casual side, because you refuse to talk to the DRK players. I have players asking me if they are ALLOWED to play DRK. I have players thinking they are BURDENS on their teams because they want to play DRK. This is an incredibly toxic environment. We've given you all the feedback we can, and it all has fallen on deaf ears. So we yell louder, and louder, and then start saying things that we probably shouldn't but I will tell you right now, the things I say on this forum are a lot more tame than the absolute vitriol I spew out whenever I am unfairly undone by Walking Dead in situations like the one I detailed above.

I am beside myself right now, I was prepared to wait until 6.1, we're getting a 6.08, a rare occurrence, and still I can't trust we're going to see a single thing fixed, a single QoL implemented, a single complaint addressed. I feel like I'm being punished for playing the job. I feel like I'm being ignored, because I'm playing the job I am.

It is not fun to be a Dark Knight main.

[Anhra]

At this point, it would be best to simply stop playing DRK entirely.

Monk was in a similar situation in the middle of ShB which resulted into literally noone playing it, simply because all the other dps jobs were more fun and better in every regard, which resulted into Squeenix making a "halfway rework of the Job" mid expansion, and finishing the rest of the job with 6.0, resulting into the Monk we have today.

[Beddict]

Whoever is reading this at Square Enix, If you know, you need to say something. You need to say something. We need to hear something.

This is what needs to happen, but we only ever get small snippets from Yoshi-P himself and he never goes into great detail about stuff. I would kill to see a blog post from the dev team that went over:

• What they believe a Job's identity is
• What's holding a Job back from fulfilling that identity
• What plans they have to fulfill that identity
• Actual acknowledgement of feedback from the Official Forums

Because right now they aren't giving us shit. I honestly think players are in the dark when it comes to all Jobs. The dev team just doesn't talk about their vision for Jobs, and it feels like the majority of the information we get comes from Yoshi-P during the pre-expac Media Tour. Looking specifically at DRK, they radically reworked it over multiple expacs and I honestly can't remember them actually explaining their thought process on stuff like the removal of Darkside and Dark Arts. I can't remember them explaining why they turned Delirium into an Inner Release clone. I can't remember them acknowledging six years of complaints on Living Dead. I sure as shit remember Yoshi-P saying his team hasn't heard complaints about Blood Weapon while simultaneously saying his team reads the Forums and that feels like a massive lie.

If he wants to say his team reads the Forums and takes feedback seriously then maybe they should actually give us some acknowledgement. Maybe they should communicate. Because right now the general consensus from the Tank and Healer side of the Forums is "stop ignoring us". Is it any wonder the playerbase is so damn annoyed and the feedback is getting increasingly more negative?



Give us that clarity you once talked about, Yoshi-P. Tell us what your vision is, actually listen and acknowledge what we're saying, and open a dialogue with us.

[Kalaam]

Maybe we should post those old pictures over and over as a reminder. Either here or on social medias

[WhyAmIHere]

Maybe we should post those old pictures over and over as a reminder. Either here or on social medias

No. That message delivery method would only come off as antagonistic, and as we've seen from that interview, the dev team isn't interested in being antagonized.

[Kalaam]

Maybe. Wouldn't be worse than insults though, plus this is just reminding them of their own promises.

[Lyth]

Any time I've seen a gaming company be anything less than grateful for receiving feedback and humble about their achievements, it usually starts trending downhill fairly soon after. A lot of it comes down to pride, the belief that you know what's best of players, and a sense that the competition is inferior. I hope that they can stay grounded and remember their roots. They don't have to keep apologizing for 1.0, but if it helps them remember, perhaps it's not a bad ritual.

[Kalaam]

I think so too, that's why I sometime say it feels like they are resting on their laurels. growing complacement, in a way.
They did achieve a lot, but in getting too comfortable with success, they should remember what happened to their biggest competitor...

[Satarn]

They don't have to keep apologizing for 1.0, but if it helps them remember, perhaps it's not a bad ritual.

The problem with "remembering 1.0" is that I don't think that's what anyone actually remembers. Look at any article covering FFXIV, look at many forum posts referring to the past - it's never "oh man, 1.0 was crap, they better not repeat that mentality again". It's always "oh man, the way Yoshi P and the team saved FFXIV with ARR was so epic! what an amazing guy! he cares so much! the dev team is so much better than in other mmos!". People don't remember 1.0 as a cautionary tale, they just remember ARR as SE's greatest epic - and that is what they keep reminding the devs about.

I'm honestly pretty sick of it. ARR was 9 years ago and sure, it was a great rebirth, but that doesn't excuse mistakes done afterwards and certainly does not mean the devs are infallible or any less prone to regular corporate apathy than their competitors. They should be judged for what they do now - good and bad - not for something they did nearly a decade ago.

[Kalaam]

Yeah that's the laurel thing alright