If you continue to dumb down the game, you will lose half your player base

[DBriggs304]

Like WoW, there is a minority of a minority here on the forums that believes it's their way or the highway. Unlike WoW, SE isn't caving into those ridiculous demands. Here's what was done at the behest of the forum goers in WoW that has completely tanked the game:

• Flying was removed from relevant endgame areas.
• Rewards for max-level Normal and Heroic Dungeons were nerfed to the point where they're not even as good as the MSQ-equivalent rewards.
• Leveling was reduced from a multi-month joyride for the average player to a 26-hour borefest.
• The currency vendors were removed for everyone except Mythic players.
• The endgame dungeons that drop relevant gear are no longer available via the dungeon finder (WoW's version of the Roulette)
• Crafting is completely worthless for anyone who is not willing to play the game 24/7 in the first few weeks of a given content drop.

Sorry, but revamping the talent system to make it easier to balance classes doesn't even make the list of my grievances against that game. FFXIV has always worked the same way in that regard, too. When you play a job, you play that job with the skills you're given. Am I sad that instead of worrying bout 18 buttons on my Samurai I now only have 17? Not really. I'm more bummed about the cool animation going away, but it doesn't completely destroy the class the way so many seem be suggesting.

Pretty much this.
Same Avatars
Same Complaints.
Different day.

[Naoki34]

Hi, I just wanted to say that I think the 6.1 content is cool, and I only do PvE, Kiss !

[Fenril7]

So very disappointed with the PvP changes. And here I was actually going to do more PvP, much to my surprise when I went into the BG and saw ALL MY SPELLS GONE and replaced with about 8-9 spells.

Who’s bright idea was that? They should be fired!

[AziraSyuren]

I do think it's a step up from just about every trial since SoS EX in terms of difficulty. What that means is up to you, but it's hard to deny that it's comparatively more difficult.

And besides, fight difficulty has never really been a problem and they're definitely not getting easier over time. They've remained mostly consistent across their difficulty levels with some outliers here and there.

[Droxybrobotnik]

I feel we have easy and hard classes already. For instance, summoner, which I main, is easy rotation wise, which lets me focus on learning mechanics more, while monk is so non-combo spam-ish that even the combo addon built to emulate pvp skill structure can't do anything for it. And then there is samurai, that has to juggle buffs, dots, resources, positionals, and situational attacks. Overcomplication is just as bad as oversimplification, and I think they are trying to find a good in-between, but here is a good stopping point. Now start adding new skills or buffing/reworking those there are without making it simpler.

[Broken_Wind]

I feel we have easy and hard classes already. For instance, summoner, which I main, is easy rotation wise, which lets me focus on learning mechanics more, while monk is so non-combo spam-ish that even the combo addon built to emulate pvp skill structure can't do anything for it. And then there is samurai, that has to juggle buffs, dots, resources, positionals, and situational attacks. Overcomplication is just as bad as oversimplification, and I think they are trying to find a good in-between, but here is a good stopping point. Now start adding new skills or buffing/reworking those there are without making it simpler.

My issue, is that in ShB SMN was complex, and Monk was fluid and straightforward
Then in EW, SMN was completely reworked and MNK was completely worked. One became easier and had better class identity, the other had unnecessary complexity added, using something similar to a concept another class's core mechanic. It went from smooth to janky.

So as a whole we are left with one simple class, one less simple, but in reversed positions with two classes having their feel changed completely. if it was just simplification or giving better class identity then why was monk changed? Because it did neither for Monk.


And the choices they are making: removing Kaiten, nerfing overpower for no reason at all. These don't make sense.


'dumbing down' isnt an issue. Not everything is being made easier or less complex. But the changes being made often leave people scratching their heads

[Elesh]

Yoshi P said in a video that FFXIV wouldn't exist were it not for WoW. The game was a major inspirational source for this game. My question really is: Is the dev team willing to learn from the mistakes Blizzard made?

Blizzard literally went on a raging simplification spree. Notably pruning and removing tons of abilities from each class and specializations in the name of "accessibility". Shortly after the game went downhill big time. Skill expression is today completely gone in WoW. Every class plays braindead 1-2-3 button smashing that literally dulls your brain as you play.

I truly do not understand why the developers want to do the same thing to FFXIV. Heck, Blizzard even recently stated that pruning was a mistake. They're now trying to "undo" the damage, but that's likely going to take multiple expansions of work. Why on earth would you want to repeat this same mistake in FFXIV?

Having easy jobs is perfectly fine, but there needs to be jobs that offer also medium difficulty and high difficulty. Pruning and dumbing down existing jobs is not in any way acceptable, and is an insult to players who main those jobs. If you want to make something simple, then you need to create new jobs that are simple from the beginning - period. People are invested in their jobs and you're actively disrespecting their affection by making changes none of them asked for.

By all means, continue to remove abilities and make the game play itself. You will not gain more subs; but you will lose half your player base from your arrogance.

Not to be too dismissive... but could you please state your specific grievances? A generic comment like this doesn't really help the dev team know what you're actually upset about.

I don't get this, people want to have more damage skills when your focus is healing? Then playing anything but healer should be better imo.

The issue is that FFXIV is designed around the idea of healers spending time DPSing. If that is going to be the case, then the act of dpsing as a healer should still be at least somewhat interesting.

If they wish to redesign FFXIV around the idea of healers NOT spending time DPSing, that's fine. Most healers would probably be okay with that. But it would mean a fundamental rebalancing of nearly every encounter in the game as well as a re-design of mana efficiency, gearsets, healing efficiency, etc... and that seems like a much bigger ask than simply asking 'hey if we're gonna DPS can you make it a bit more interesting please?'.

[Ronduwil]

The issue is that FFXIV is designed around the idea of healers spending time DPSing.

Yeah, I don't think it was designed around that. Rather, it's an expectation that's taken root in the modern MMO community for some reason. I get that a lot of healers are complaining that they have nothing to do, but these same people are likely raiding high end content with static groups of very competent players. Naturally, you're not going to have to heal very much in those scenarios. If you want to spend your time healing as a healer, then you need to run with random sprouts who constantly stand in stuff and collect vuln stacks. I can tell you that this makes for a much more engaging healing experience that doesn't even treat DPS as anything but filler. That's what the game is really designed around, but the high end community doesn't like to hear that. They want to run with the best of the best and then complain that the best of the best are too easily healed.

[Elesh]

Yeah, I don't think it was designed around that. Rather, it's an expectation that's taken root in the modern MMO community for some reason. I get that a lot of healers are complaining that they have nothing to do, but these same people are likely raiding high end content with static groups of very competent players. Naturally, you're not going to have to heal very much in those scenarios. If you want to spend your time healing as a healer, then you need to run with random sprouts who constantly stand in stuff and collect vuln stacks. I can tell you that this makes for a much more engaging healing experience that doesn't even treat DPS as anything but filler. That's what the game is really designed around, but the high end community doesn't like to hear that. They want to run with the best of the best and then complain that the best of the best are too easily healed.

It may not have been ORIGINALLY designed around that. But it IS balanced around the asusmption of that.

Enrage timers are balanced around healer dps. Try clearing any extreme trial or savage on launch with two 0 dps healers and tell me again that content is not CURRENTLY designed around healers dpsing.

[RitsukoSonoda]

It may not have been ORIGINALLY designed around that. But it IS balanced around the asusmption of that.

Enrage timers are balanced around healer dps. Try clearing any extreme trial or savage on launch with two 0 dps healers and tell me again that content is not CURRENTLY designed around healers dpsing.

I've been there and done that. Failed enrage timers are generally caused by low dps output to begin with being paired with DPS players also dying to mechanics making that low output even lower. Having healers DPS just provides a small amount of wiggle room for the DPS to players to be lackluster provided the healer isn't ignoring healing duties to focus on their dps parse. Something that would happen far more often if they added more to healer job dps kits. This I feel is caused by NA culture trying to turn as many things as possible into a speed run.

As the guy you replied to said. One of the issue's I see frequently is healers only wanting to play with pro level players because randoms are too much work when they eat mechanics and need additional heals then when they get their party of pro players who only take damage from unavoidable roomwide AoE's they complain about being bored because they're only using 2-3 spells.