to Future DRK Players

[Anahlise_Auhn_Giinslai]

I've been doing a lot of thinking, and I will be the first to admit, I'm not strong enough to continue the fight.

I'm not strong enough to continue fighting for a "better future", in a game in which the developers do not care about the opinions of players like me. I'm not strong enough to continue playing the current iterations of the jobs in a game that broke the jobs I loved the most. I'm not strong enough to continue supporting a game in which the developers do not use the money to hire more competent staff to help design the content which I subscribe to support.

Regardless, what I DO believe is important is to implore everyone who can continue to fight, to keep fighting for a better future. I know many of the new players nowadays are WoW players, and I too was once a WoW player. I know you guys are enjoying the game, because to you guys, Shadowbringers is your WoW Vanilla, just as A Realm Reborn was my Burning Crusade; however, without having a Heavensward/WoTLK to look forward to bringing something new to the table, what else lies in the future?
Just know that from the humble opinion of your average player, this xpac was the Cataclysm of the game, and Endwalker will be the MoP of the game. if any of you wish to continue the fight, be my guest.

only Unto death will we part, when our life is torn apart, then at the end of all days... Lest fate spare us, with a kinder gaze.

...I am not.. 100% certain yet, but I do feel similar... I already did abandon Dark Knight a few months ago, and my naïve hope had been that 6.0 would redeem the Dark Knight for me. But then the 66th Live Letter said that people like me are the sacrifice, and that what we think of as Dark Knight, will not be Dark Knight... Now, I plan to just wait for.. and see for myself, every tooltip of every action that Dark Knight will have in EndWalker, and only then decide if I will upgrade from my decision to abandon Dark Knight, to then complete abandon Dark Knight...

If I do complete abandon Dark Knight at the end, then I will return to this thread and post my own letter message to future Dark Knight players...

That aside...

If theres one thing that you future DRKs should fight for, its to bring back empowering decision making and a semblance of actual resource management for the job. It's not like its even that hard to do so anyway.

a few simple changes you can fight for:

• move Blood Weapon to the same level as Flood of Darkness so you can spend and earn mana at the same time
  
• move Stalkwart to lv 40 so you arent relying on spamming unleash in between mana dry spells
  
• make Abyss Drain a spender on par with Flood/edge to give some gameplay variety.
  hell even just giving it another charge if you're unable to balance the mana cost and potencies (cough cough Square Devs)
  
• allow Delirium to give you at least enough mana back for you so you can use a flood/edge/abyss, especially considering its now 3x BS/Quietus spam
  
• make Salted Earth generate up to 50 blood for an additional quietus/bloodspiller, as it stands the skill is so forgetful that even a "placed where you use it" buff won't make it better
  
• make Living Shadow either copy your rotation 1:1 or make it give you resource for every action it takes (its Abyssal Drain heals you, its BS/Quietus restore your mana)
  
• make TBN's "DARK ARTS" empower some abilities with a simple buff, to give you the choice of spending for DPS or to help against that tankbuster/raidwide during prog

For Blood Weapon... If even 6.0 fails to fix that half-broken action, then Dark Knights will need to continue to complain about Blood Weapon, until it finally receives some manner of fix. As for whether or not to make blood Weapon and Flood of Darkness unlock at the same level... It would be nice, in AoE situations, since the only MP under Lv35 is Syphon Strike, and you will not use that in AoE situations, unless you juggle single target with Flood of Darkness and pretend like Unleash does not exist; but other than that, Since Flood of Darkness unlocks at Lv30, and Blood Weapon straight after, at Lv35, it may or may not be fine as it is...

For Stalwart Soul, here is my own analysis of that: continue to complain about that its unlock level is Lv72, as this is terrible. When I look at our action list, I think that Stalwart Soul should drop from Lv72 to lv45, move Dark Mind from Lv45 to Lv52, and move Salted Earth from Lv52 to Lv72, but only in the case of if the level pattern absolute has to be upheld, to the detriment and non-convenience of the Dark Knight.

For Abyssal Drain, it needs to self-heal against a single target better, at the least.

For Delirium... I advise that Dark Knights continue to complain about it, as ShB Delirious Inner Release is the worst Delirium... To be honest, SB Delirium was the superior design concept, and ShB Delirious Inner Release way the inferior, but SB Delirium.. despite the good concept, had a bad implementation. It would restore MP and buff actions that restore MP, to restore more MP, but it was too strong... too much MP restoration, so it was often a partial waste. I think that EW Delirium should be SB Delirium, with the issue that SB delirium had fixed.

also, have a quote, as this was not a bad idea for Delirium...

Delirium allows for free Edge of Shadows/Flood of Shadows instead of Bloodspiller/Quietus. This would make make it less of an Inner Release, more of an actual Delirium that would fit DRK as the oGCD tank.

Last.. For Salted Earth, it just need to go back to what it used to be... higher damage and lower CD, since the ground-target issue is already to be dealt with, in EW.

[Sazuzaki]

I'm glad there are people who actually care about this job. I've mostly been seeing nothing but praise for it from the action trailer, but what is there to be excited for...

Really? I've seen an equal amount of very disappointed people as well

[TheRealQuah]

Square listen to the community as a whole and have a huge amount of internal engagement tools that gives them the feedback they need to balance jobs.

The 2 largest job related polls in ShB that the community did rated DRK as both the second favourite job (and favourite tank) and rated at a 7.7/10 for job satisfaction.

I'm so glad that SE doesn't listen to the insanity that is posted in these forums, if they did the game would be ruined.

[Sazuzaki]

Square listen to the community as a whole and have a huge amount of internal engagement tools that gives them the feedback they need to balance jobs.

The 2 largest job related polls in ShB that the community did rated DRK as both the second favourite job (and favourite tank) and rated at a 7.7/10 for job satisfaction.

I'm so glad that SE doesn't listen to the insanity that is posted in these forums, if they did the game would be ruined.

Not trying to attack you, but genuinely curious question. What do you like about current DRK? Not saying everyone should hate it, I just want to hear what other people who *might* enjoy the current iteration like about the job other than TBN, aesthetic, or oGCDs.

Also, could you send a link to those polls? I wanna see them for myself. Unless its this one https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...avorite_final/ then I wouldn't really call it a reliable source since only like 600 people voted on that. But I have been looking at some of the other posts and would raise this post again that another person sent with 1.3k votes showing the side of people who don't like DRK rn: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...est_poll_lets/

If anything, I've been seeing a lot more as of recent outside of the forums complain that DRK really just has none of the spark is had before. It's all mainly delirium complaints for it being a trash IR, and honestly if only that got reworked for an expansion, I really wouldn't mind and would return to DRK in a heartbeat. The reason people like DRK in itself is largely just job aesthetic and its incredible storyline. MP management right now is pretty solid, but we could use some more spenders rather than just FoS/TBN, so maybe that too. So in the end, the reason people like DRK probably isn't because of how the class plays, it's the jobs animations and just look in general just does a good job at making the player look and feel badass. Of couse Delirium being a huge turn off for a lot of people who love the job currently, but everything else isn't the worst.

As I stated before, 5.0 DRK is a good base idea, but needs more adjustments imo.

Edit: This too, on a separate subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...s_dark_knight/

[Shin96]

I'm so glad that SE doesn't listen to the insanity that is posted in these forums, if they did the game would be ruined.

I find it very interesting that everything that deviates from the "popular" opinion is called insanity. There are players with legitimate concerns over how this job was and will be designed in the near future. Just because there are people that enjoy 5.0 DRK doesn't mean it goes for everyone.

You want unfiltered insanity? Go to General Discussion. You will find plenty and more; at least this place is a safe haven in comparison.

[Tint]

I find it very interesting that everything that deviates from the "popular" opinion is called insanity. There are players with legitimate concerns over how this job was and will be designed in the near future. Just because there are people that enjoy 5.0 DRK doesn't mean it goes for everyone.

The insanity is the very loud minority which tries to ruin the job for the people who actually like to play it. Change this, change that, DRK rework there, here are my ideas for some new skills for DRK...

We had 3.0 DRK and people complained and they changed it. The people who complained likely never picked up DRK after the change and the people who liked 3.0 DRK were... not happy.

So we had 4.0 DRK and a new generation picked up the job and liked it. But the old 3.0 generation complained so hard that they changed the job again. The people who liked 4.0 DRK were not happy. And guess what? The people from 3.0 were not happy either.

So now we have 5.0 DRK and a new generation picked up the job and likes it. And the forum is full of people who cry "REWORK!"
All what will happen is that they will ruin the job again for the people who like the current design.


They really should stop with all the reworks and design the job for people who actually like to play it - which are a lot, I see many DRKs in the game.

[Axxion]

The insanity is the very loud minority which tries to ruin the job for the people who actually like to play it. Change this, change that, DRK rework there, here are my ideas for some new skills for DRK...

We had 3.0 DRK and people complained and they changed it. The people who complained likely never picked up DRK after the change and the people who liked 3.0 DRK were... not happy.

So we had 4.0 DRK and a new generation picked up the job and liked it. But the old 3.0 generation complained so hard that they changed the job again. The people who liked 4.0 DRK were not happy. And guess what? The people from 3.0 were not happy either.

So now we have 5.0 DRK and a new generation picked up the job and likes it. And the forum is full of people who cry "REWORK!"
All what will happen is that they will ruin the job again for the people who like the current design.


They really should stop with all the reworks and design the job for people who actually like to play it - which are a lot, I see many DRKs in the game.

Its funny you mentioned that. I remember when stormblood came out, many people picked it up in it because it was "easier" and they started to main it afterwards. Truth be told i never understood on how it was easier at the time.

[bundythenoob]

The insanity is the very loud minority which tries to ruin the job for the people who actually like to play it. Change this, change that, DRK rework there, here are my ideas for some new skills for DRK...

We had 3.0 DRK and people complained and they changed it. The people who complained likely never picked up DRK after the change and the people who liked 3.0 DRK were... not happy.

So we had 4.0 DRK and a new generation picked up the job and liked it. But the old 3.0 generation complained so hard that they changed the job again. The people who liked 4.0 DRK were not happy. And guess what? The people from 3.0 were not happy either.

So now we have 5.0 DRK and a new generation picked up the job and likes it. And the forum is full of people who cry "REWORK!"
All what will happen is that they will ruin the job again for the people who like the current design.


They really should stop with all the reworks and design the job for people who actually like to play it - which are a lot, I see many DRKs in the game.

this is the whole reason I've been fighting for the CURRENT DRK to change, NOT for the OLD DRK to come back. as much as I love the gameplay that we had prior to SHB, I understand that not everyone enjoyed said gameplay. I came to accept the direction that DRK was going, and I came to accept that some ideas were better off left in the past. yet what I could never for the life of me understand is why on earth none of our issues were addressed by the job devs?

I understand that there will be new players who like the current DRK shell, and I would rather Square's devs take the time to BUILD UP this version of DRK than create yet another unliked rework. I've been trying to push for some QOL changes for current DRK for what seems like forever now, and despite everything, the DPS ORIENTATED JOB DEVS showed that they would rather just not do anything to address the myriad of legitimate gameplay issues or job identity critiques. yet in all of their infinite widsom
rather than come to a compromise, by taking the older skill ideas and resource generation gameplay identity from the older versions and use it to empower the new DRK for the new generation

THEY DIDNT DO ANYTHING

AFTER SO MUCH FEEDBACK FROM SO MANY DRK PLAYERS FOR OVER THE LAST 3-5 YEARS

THEY

DIDNT

DO

ANYTHING




but I know for a fact that it was our fault for pushing DRK in a backwards direction, as opposed to helping the job move forward by imparting new players with the knowledge of the old skills and gameplay style, which is why I'm asking the new generation to try and get their job to once again be something that takes more than half a braincell to pick up and master, especially if these new players want to continue playing the game for the next couple of years