Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Aravell]

But yeah- it's interesting when people say "well what do you mean when you say the game lacks job identity" or "what are your solutions" when the game's foundation has examples of it even if they weren't perfectly balanced or optimal. It's obvious that this scale of Job vs Encounter engagement has always existed and has simply tipped nearly all the way in the Encounter direction for too many jobs. When people say there are no new solutions-- There's a thread about new job abilities up right now. And I see players talk about their job rotations literally all of the time. The desire is there, the question imo is whether the devs will ever have the audacity to step on minmaxer toes again. Because that's what I think about when I read that thread-- "This sounds cool but the base of the game doesn't want jobs to be cool".

As a former min-maxer, I quit min-maxing after ShB, EW just made everything worse. What's the point of trying so hard to optimise when the guy spamming Dragon Kick isn't far behind you? Why try so hard to align everything when the other guy can do just as well with Yukikaze spam? No one who enjoys min-maxing wants low skill ceilings and easy jobs with automatically aligning buffs. Most of the fun of min-maxing comes from playing around the content using your experience and skill on the job, it's not fun when the job basically plays itself and alignment is never an issue because everyone delays buffs together if the fight requires it.

I said before in a different thread, but I'm fairly sure that these changes only benefit the people who want to min-max but aren't good enough or don't want to try as hard. People who want all the rewards without putting in as much effort, they like simplified rotations, they like having all their buffs align without thought.

[ty_taurus]

As a former min-maxer, I quit min-maxing after ShB, EW just made everything worse. What's the point of trying so hard to optimise when the guy spamming Dragon Kick isn't far behind you? Why try so hard to align everything when the other guy can do just as well with Yukikaze spam? No one who enjoys min-maxing wants low skill ceilings and easy jobs with automatically aligning buffs. Most of the fun of min-maxing comes from playing around the content using your experience and skill on the job, it's not fun when the job basically plays itself and alignment is never an issue because everyone delays buffs together if the fight requires it.

I said before in a different thread, but I'm fairly sure that these changes only benefit the people who want to min-max but aren't good enough or don't want to try as hard. People who want all the rewards without putting in as much effort, they like simplified rotations, they like having all their buffs align without thought.

Personally I'm fine with "meme" rotations being viable. Maybe there's a more involved discussion that could be had about the actual balance of those builds and try and set what the ideal performance of those alternate rotations looks like, but honestly, FFXIV could really benefit from more variety in rotations that a single job can perform, and I'd toss that suggestion into the ring for more justification to restore complexity to many jobs. I'd much rather one job have multiple routes rather than each job being one specific route with no flexibility for anything else. If one job has a more challenging rotation, but there's an easier 'shortcut' rotation within that job's arsenal that's also viable for players who aren't interested in job complexity, then we could theoretically have a healthy environment for both parties. No more playing tug of war with the baby, we could actually share custody in a healthy way.

[Supersnow845]

Min-maxing lost its appeal to me when maxing with bad crit RNG started leading to a lower result than minning with good crit RNG

The best example I can think of is modern SCH, sure I could do the 6 energy drain opener and the 9 energy drain burst, Is barely worth it when my crit luck on broils is worse than someone who cast succor 15 times in the fight

[Aravell]

Personally I'm fine with "meme" rotations being viable. Maybe there's a more involved discussion that could be had about the actual balance of those builds and try and set what the ideal performance of those alternate rotations looks like, but honestly, FFXIV could really benefit from more variety in rotations that a single job can perform, and I'd toss that suggestion into the ring for more justification to restore complexity to many jobs. I'd much rather one job have multiple routes rather than each job being one specific route with no flexibility for anything else. If one job has a more challenging rotation, but there's an easier 'shortcut' rotation within that job's arsenal that's also viable for players who aren't interested in job complexity, then we could theoretically have a healthy environment for both parties. No more playing tug of war with the baby, we could actually share custody in a healthy way.

Viable, sure. But stuff like the Dragon Kick spam rotation, Yukikaze rotation and Infinite Paradox rotation shouldn't be able to compete with playing optimally. I'm not opposed to these ways of playing existing, but I am opposed to them being as good as people who optimise their job to the highest level. Having meme rotations performing just as well as proper spreadsheet rotations just makes min-maxing pointless.

[ty_taurus]

Viable, sure. But stuff like the Dragon Kick spam rotation, Yukikaze rotation and Infinite Paradox rotation shouldn't be able to compete with playing optimally. I'm not opposed to these ways of playing existing, but I am opposed to them being as good as people who optimise their job to the highest level. Having meme rotations performing just as well as proper spreadsheet rotations just makes min-maxing pointless.

I would say more specifically that their relative output in contrast to the "proper" rotation should factor in the ease of execution. Difficulty is an aspect of balance that I think gets overlooked too much in XIV generally speaking. In other words, for someone who may have a hard time focusing on their rotation, Dragon Kick should perhaps be the stronger choice for that player, but for the player who can execute the "proper" rotation consistently, they will perform more effectively than the Dragon Kick combo allows. And again, we could talk more about the actual difference in Monk's damage rotation to suggest how those might be better balanced. A big part of it would be that SE would need to acknowledge that Dragon Kick combo is a thing, and start factoring in that rotation when considering how to balance it. It would also help if they perhaps listed "offical" rotations, like a "recommended rotation" tab somewhere that could lead less experienced players to understand both options.

[Colt47]

Not only did it not work out well, but they've already hit the "ceiling" with TOP I believe. Basically every mechanic (aside from tank busters) is built where any person can get any responsibility, making it as complex as possible regardless of role in the party. They lean on the randomness of the mechanic's difficulty instead of leaning on the role/class difficulty (because they've watered down class design D: )

I am not running savage after this tier unless I see them change course, especially after seeing them not only make savage criterion basically the same thing, but even worse than the normal savage raiding. The reason I hate savage right now is that it is an insufferable wall due to reasons beyond the individual players control. It also made the entire issue worse with needing to have completed the tier sooner in the cycle than later, because with checks being so demanding, the execution level has to be damn good. And since there is no way to lock someone out of a p2 run if they haven't cleared p1, this body check hell walls people who should be practicing later mechanics on the same crap they already cleared.

[Turtledeluxe]

As a former min-maxer, I quit min-maxing after ShB, EW just made everything worse. What's the point of trying so hard to optimise when the guy spamming Dragon Kick isn't far behind you? Why try so hard to align everything when the other guy can do just as well with Yukikaze spam? No one who enjoys min-maxing wants low skill ceilings and easy jobs with automatically aligning buffs. Most of the fun of min-maxing comes from playing around the content using your experience and skill on the job, it's not fun when the job basically plays itself and alignment is never an issue because everyone delays buffs together if the fight requires it.

I said before in a different thread, but I'm fairly sure that these changes only benefit the people who want to min-max but aren't good enough or don't want to try as hard. People who want all the rewards without putting in as much effort, they like simplified rotations, they like having all their buffs align without thought.

I guess we may need a new term for it because I understand where you're coming from in terms of people who genuinely have a passion for optimizing when presented with a set of challenges or options. Imo that is not the same as the commonly used phrase now, at least for me, as I moreso think about people whose feedback gave us things like the two minute meta in the first place, because it's theoretically ideal for maximum output. It refers to people who crave balance because x job wasn't preferred for raiding 7 years ago. Lots of feedback aimed at "balance" and equalization have, imo, led us to this place we are now in terms of encounter and Job design, where devs are quite allergic to creativity or risk.

[Turtledeluxe]

This gets brought up every time and I have to ask, why would more job complexity step on min-max player's toes? I have only dabbled in optimization when I had fun playing my job but that was the biggest enjoyment I got out of it, optimizing my job gameplay for a given fight because it wasn't on auto pilot. I would assume someone who wants to min-max would like more complexity in their gameplay to actually min-max.

What is optimization now? When to delay the party's 2 minute window because there's downtime soon? Banking your free Edge of Shadow for the next 2-min window? Please, wake me up when there's actually anything interesting to min-max.

The only time I remember optimization actually having any real impact on my gameplay in Endwalker was in P3S as GnB (I assume other jobs with cleave could do the same) and only because I had to slightly adjust my rotation to pad my DPS on the Darkened Fire adds with Double Down.

Yes but as I said in my previous post-- who are the people calling out for the changes to the jobs and the two minute meta? These are not people who want the game to be more fun-- they want job viability to an extreme degree and easy access to optimal damage output. This is the number one reaction anyone gives when people talk about jobs having more unique identity-- "well in 2.0 no one wanted warrior" etc. Obviously every game needs balance, but I'd argue XIV will not tolerate an ounce of risk out of fear of the 2.0 era or whatever.

And every time they cave to player demands "no one wants my job bc they don't have x", homogeny grows. This is what I said earlier-- original feedback isn't likely when players typically only think of rotations or dps in relation to other jobs that they perceive to be outpacing them.

And what do I mean when I say original feedback? I mean player ideas for rotations or deepening their role in the encounter. Those ideas go largely ignored in favor of steamrolling the jobs.

I live in constant fear that one day they're going to give BLM res or self healing. Pls don't.

[Aravell]

I guess we may need a new term for it because I understand where you're coming from in terms of people who genuinely have a passion for optimizing when presented with a set of challenges or options. Imo that is not the same as the commonly used phrase now, at least for me, as I moreso think about people whose feedback gave us things like the two minute meta in the first place, because it's theoretically ideal for maximum output. It refers to people who crave balance because x job wasn't preferred for raiding 7 years ago. Lots of feedback aimed at "balance" and equalization have, imo, led us to this place we are now in terms of encounter and Job design, where devs are quite allergic to creativity or risk.

We do have a term for these people, meta slaves. Fun is not their primary concern, they only care about rewards, the easier they get their rewards, the happier they are (whatever rewards they're looking for, could be easier clears of content, getting good logs easier, etc.). It's these people who lock jobs out of their PF for a 100-200 dps difference. If another job has an edge over theirs, they will ask for their job to get the same tool without a care that this causes homogenisation. These are the type of people that the dev team shouldn't listen to, they'd suck any fun out of the game if it meant they get their reward easier.

[Saraide]

From what I heard from the BLM mentors the paradox rotation is harder than more standard rotations while providing less damage overall and I think the dragon kick rotation is also pretty hard to do correctly. If you actually just spam dragon kick your dps output is going to be bad. These meme rotations are not a problem.