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

[Aravell]

I mean the whole "It WaS MaDE for ThE HaRDcoRe" discussion has been debunked since the beggining. Just look at Mr.Happy's interview with yoshi P and besides how depressing is as healer to hear what he says he never mentions the changes being made for the hardcore players but the new (and less skilled) ones.

Yoshi P: "Though hardcore players are the majority that are pushing back against the homogenisation, we have to also think about the people in the middle, who we call the intermediates."
The community: "tHe HaRdCoRe PlAyErS aSkEd FoR tHiS"

Idk man.

[ty_taurus]

If the goal is to foster an environment where both the hardcore and the “intermediates” can reliably eat harder content, then wouldn’t it make more sense to have savage fights allow intermediate players to make more mistakes rather than have them demand near-perfection, then just sanding away vigorously at every job’s gameplay to try and childproof them so that mistakes cannot be made?

[Aravell]

If the goal is to foster an environment where both the hardcore and the “intermediates” can reliably eat harder content, then wouldn’t it make more sense to have savage fights allow intermediate players to make more mistakes rather than have them demand near-perfection, then just sanding away vigorously at every job’s gameplay to try and childproof them so that mistakes cannot be made?

It's part of the reason why shifting all the complexity into the fights is an unsustainable design. Current savage demands that the entire party execute the fight perfectly or you die, that's likely to be way harder on the middle skill level playerbase than straightforward fights with complex job kits (especially since the players on the weaker side can be carried to a certain point when the fights aren't body checks on top of body checks).

This basically was proven by P10S. Look how many complained about P10S. It's not even a particularly hard fight, but it has way more body checks than a 2nd floor fight has any right to have, and that's a big problem.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

If the goal is to foster an environment where both the hardcore and the “intermediates” can reliably eat harder content, then wouldn’t it make more sense to have savage fights allow intermediate players to make more mistakes rather than have them demand near-perfection, then just sanding away vigorously at every job’s gameplay to try and childproof them so that mistakes cannot be made?

The way they adding so much body checks kinda makes me think that they have ran out of ways to counteract the amount of 'support/mitigation/recovery' options they've given us as a whole. As a last resort they turn to "You do it X way or you die Idc" which frankly feels really bad to have that agency taken away from players' hands.

[mallleable]

Could dual cast or some other mechanic like it work for WHM? Like, WHM gets dual cast, and it also gets chunky stone, and aero spells to use it on -- they could even give them cleave to be hotbar space efficient. Or casting Glare grants stacks of Tranquil Hearts or something which reduce the cast/recast time of specified spells like the previously mentioned aero, and stone spells as well as healing spells. I've mentioned this in an other 'boring healer DPS' thread, but I feel like if there were any jobs that WHM could take inspiration from to create a potential DPS rotation they would be either RDM or BLM.

[Heroman3003]

Then what’s the point of having the ability to swap between jobs when they all do the same thing, no job is allowed to have a niche, every job must be able to do everything equally competently, if anything that discourages interaction with other jobs because people know that either their job can already do everything or if it can’t that square will just buff it till it can and even if they swap they are still functionally playing the same class it’s just the other class might do 2% more damage

Square needs to respond to buffs and nerfs faster than they do but there is nothing inherently wrong with certain fights biasing certain classes when certain classes have particular niches and how they respond to different mechanics, because if your class is bad for turn 2 you can swap to another class for turn 2

for example what did SGE add for SCH mains, the classes are almost exactly the same; in that case the armoury system provided no benefit because in the pursuit of balance square just copy pasted SCH and made it a new class; especially since there is no fight where either offers a real niche over the other since they removed niche optimisation (like how SCH AST could ignore wall orbs in E10)

As people like to complain a lot "every job is just a reskin!". Yeah, yeah, thats the point of armory system, different jobs are very different aesthetically in visuals of how they play. Gameplay wise, every single one has been a rigid rotation since ARR, just that the rotations in question got more similar as expansions went on because main feedback was the desync between party buffs. Frankly, I may be the perfect audience in this regard, because, yeah, I am excited for Viper and Pictomancer not because I expect totally radically different gameplay, but because I love aesthetics of both jobs. Jobs within same role being too different to the point of reduced viability has proven itself to lead to proportionally louder and more frustrated community outcry than it does when they are too similar like now. So I don't expect much changes there.

[WaxSw]

Could dual cast or some other mechanic like it work for WHM? Like, WHM gets dual cast, and it also gets chunky stone, and aero spells to use it on -- they could even give them cleave to be hotbar space efficient. Or casting Glare grants stacks of Tranquil Hearts or something which reduce the cast/recast time of specified spells like the previously mentioned aero, and stone spells as well as healing spells. I've mentioned this in an other 'boring healer DPS' thread, but I feel like if there were any jobs that WHM could take inspiration from to create a potential DPS rotation they would be either RDM or BLM.

The main problem of dualcast is that it would compromise the times you heal as you woudn't want to spend the skipped cast on a heal with normal GCD but the tranquil hearts idea could work. I also personally think that Whm and all healers in general could take notes from how casters and other dps jobs are designed but in Whm's case I always thought of it as a job that could lean into being the BLM of healers in the sense of being very GCD reliant and with low apm

[DiaDeem]

[ForsakenRoe]

The main problem of dualcast is that it would compromise the times you heal as you woudn't want to spend the skipped cast on a heal with normal GCD but the tranquil hearts idea could work. I also personally think that Whm and all healers in general could take notes from how casters and other dps jobs are designed but in Whm's case I always thought of it as a job that could lean into being the BLM of healers in the sense of being very GCD reliant and with low apm

This is my take for WHM as well. I'm fine with it being the 'low OGCD count, big focus on healing via damage neutral GCDs' healer, as that can be a functional identity, but what it needs is simply more damage neutral GCDs to use, rather than adding more OGCD tools like Aquaveil/Lilybell/probably some traited upgrade to Asylum next expansion. Wouldn't it be interesting if 'optimization' for WHM was to have several damage neutral healing tools, and working around their refunds so that your healing rotation lines up in just the right way, that ALL of the 'refunds' (Misery as an example, but other tools would have their own refunds too), ALL land within raidbuffs, making WHM into the 'compile damage and blast in raidbuffs' healer? With a GCD focused gameplay style, it means that the overall APM can stay low, lending to the 'new player friendly' appeal, while also contributing to that appeal by having simple, easy-to-understand healing moves. Unlike it's competitor AST, where you have to either wait for HOTs or wait for Star to charge up, WHM is appealing because you can smash Rapture and the healing is sorted out in an instant burst. That simplicity is nice, but it also gets stale after a while, hence the 'damage refund compile/spend' gameplay would offer some extra depth to the class

The example I gave a while back (with Quake, Flood, Tornado) in... I don't remember if it was this thread or one of the others, meant that the suggested healing tool was damage neutral with one Glare cast. This means that, should a player go into raidbuffs without charges of Quake/Flood/Tornado, the total damage 'lost', across three GCDs (to actually spend those three skills) would be, not one Glare, but 'the difference between one Glare inside raidbuffs, and one Glare outside of raidbuffs', extremely forgiving for any player who doesn't care about doing the absolute toppest best damage, but still something for players to work around in their gameplay if they DO want to do the toppest best damage

[Aravell]

Jobs within same role being too different to the point of reduced viability has proven itself to lead to proportionally louder and more frustrated community outcry than it does when they are too similar like now. So I don't expect much changes there.

Kindly prove this claim by showing any form of discontent back in HW/SB that's louder than what we have now. The only loud discontent I remember from that era was that PLD was really quite bad in HW.