Thread: 6.1 SAM Kaiten Removal

SAM has been my main since I started plying FFXIV.
The random removal of Kaiten has completely changed the flow of the job and it’s just not fun to play anymore :/ Bring it back please thanks o/

+1 the message

how many posts will it take to garner a response from SE?? Absolutely ridiculous that all I hear is crickets on their end when theres been this big of an uproar. Housing is more important than anything else in SE world

Originally Posted by WorldPeacElbow

how many posts will it take to garner a response from SE?? Absolutely ridiculous that all I hear is crickets on their end when theres been this big of an uproar. Housing is more important than anything else in SE world

Its a foolish wish, but maybe the team in charge of SAM realized the dumpster fire they created via the overwhelming backlash and are in such desperate crunch mode to resolve the problem, no one simply has time to respond...


But that is likely foolish dreaming, and far more likely (like every MMO dev I have experienced) they made a self serving change entirely at the cost to the player base (regardless if they understood it or not) and are now hiding in a bunker, hoping enough time and silence will kill the soul of the SAM player base and the noise will simply die down at a later date. After all, the change in the first place shows they arn't really beholden or care in the slightest as to the thoughts of the player base.

Clearly they are designing for SquareEnix at this point and not for the actual players. (Certainly at least the impression I get when game design is focused on making it easier to design the game, rather then what the players actually find fun. SE found them selves up against a design concept wall, that they created... And rather then come up with a potentially difficult solution that fixed their issues while keeping the class what players enjoyed and recognized, they took a wrecking ball to the class to build it back up from 'simple', all while destroying any current enjoyment that could be had.

It was a cheap, easy, no thought solution SE ran with, that carried with it a incredibly horrible detriment with it.


Not only did I enjoy, like, and now currently miss the old play style of SAM, but I have no interest in waiting to see what SE dictates my new play style will be (without any kind of ETA I might add)....

Originally Posted by FrogBiscuit

Its a foolish wish, but maybe the team in charge of SAM realized the dumpster fire they created via the overwhelming backlash and are in such desperate crunch mode to resolve the problem, no one simply has time to respond...


But that is likely foolish dreaming, and far more likely (like every MMO dev I have experienced) they made a self serving change entirely at the cost to the player base (regardless if they understood it or not) and are now hiding in a bunker, hoping enough time and silence will kill the soul of the SAM player base and the noise will simply die down at a later date. After all, the change in the first place shows they arn't really beholden or care in the slightest as to the thoughts of the player base.

Clearly they are designing for SquareEnix at this point and not for the actual players. (Certainly at least the impression I get when game design is focused on making it easier to design the game, rather then what the players actually find fun. SE found them selves up against a design concept wall, that they created... And rather then come up with a potentially difficult solution that fixed their issues while keeping the class what players enjoyed and recognized, they took a wrecking ball to the class to build it back up from 'simple', all while destroying any current enjoyment that could be had.

It was a cheap, easy, no thought solution SE ran with, that carried with it a incredibly horrible detriment with it.


Not only did I enjoy, like, and now currently miss the old play style of SAM, but I have no interest in waiting to see what SE dictates my new play style will be (without any kind of ETA I might add)....

Well if this is truly their plan I really dont think it will go over well. Forums are about to get toxic

Originally Posted by FrogBiscuit

Its a foolish wish, but maybe the team in charge of SAM realized the dumpster fire they created via the overwhelming backlash and are in such desperate crunch mode to resolve the problem, no one simply has time to respond...


But that is likely foolish dreaming, and far more likely (like every MMO dev I have experienced) they made a self serving change entirely at the cost to the player base (regardless if they understood it or not) and are now hiding in a bunker, hoping enough time and silence will kill the soul of the SAM player base and the noise will simply die down at a later date. After all, the change in the first place shows they arn't really beholden or care in the slightest as to the thoughts of the player base.

Clearly they are designing for SquareEnix at this point and not for the actual players. (Certainly at least the impression I get when game design is focused on making it easier to design the game, rather then what the players actually find fun. SE found them selves up against a design concept wall, that they created... And rather then come up with a potentially difficult solution that fixed their issues while keeping the class what players enjoyed and recognized, they took a wrecking ball to the class to build it back up from 'simple', all while destroying any current enjoyment that could be had.

It was a cheap, easy, no thought solution SE ran with, that carried with it a incredibly horrible detriment with it.


Not only did I enjoy, like, and now currently miss the old play style of SAM, but I have no interest in waiting to see what SE dictates my new play style will be (without any kind of ETA I might add)....

How does the change benefit them in any way though? If they have "internal issues," what would those be and how do the changes help? Their stated aim was to make the rotation less "busy" with how many actions are required, because they believe that less busy = more fun for a majority of players.

It's in SE's best interest to keep classes fun for players so they will keep up their subs because they're having fun playing the game. With the recent changes, I find SAM a lot less fun and am now trying out new jobs in hopes I find one I enjoy as much. If I don't, then who knows, I may not be compelled to play anymore. This is exactly the kind of situation they should be have every reason to avoid. Make no mistake, they made this change because they think more people will like it than not, and it will have a net result of more + longer term subscriptions to the game. We have to show them they're wrong. And if they don't listen now, they'll figure it out eventually when they lose those players.

Originally Posted by beatts

Their stated aim was to make the rotation less "busy" with how many actions are required, because they believe that less busy = more fun for a majority of players.

This is what scares me - the thing I like(d) about samurai was how busy it was and the fact that the gameplay was resource-based instead of cooldown-based. Losing Seigan diminished that appeal, and losing Kaiten basically destroys it. Monotonous, mindless Shinten spam doesn't cut it.

If their goal is specifically to remove what I like, that's beyond concerning.

Originally Posted by beatts

How does the change benefit them in any way though? If they have "internal issues," what would those be and how do the changes help? Their stated aim was to make the rotation less "busy" with how many actions are required, because they believe that less busy = more fun for a majority of players.

It's in SE's best interest to keep classes fun for players so they will keep up their subs because they're having fun playing the game. With the recent changes, I find SAM a lot less fun and am now trying out new jobs in hopes I find one I enjoy as much. If I don't, then who knows, I may not be compelled to play anymore. This is exactly the kind of situation they should be have every reason to avoid. Make no mistake, they made this change because they think more people will like it than not, and it will have a net result of more + longer term subscriptions to the game. We have to show them they're wrong. And if they don't listen now, they'll figure it out eventually when they lose those players.

I wasn't meaning to state that it did actually benefit them. Simply that that was their pursuit.
I agree with you entirely.

The reasons I have seen given so far (straight from SE or rumor) have been:
- To decrease button bloat
--: Most obscure, illogical, and inefficient way to approach stated issue. As many players have posted, there are numerous ideas that would have decreased button bloat without removing a ability, let alone a key ability that was core to the class. (And I'd argue button bloat wasn't an issue for SAM. I play on controller and have never had an issue, and compared to other classes I play, it wasn't like SAM had a crazy amount of buttons.)

- To decrease action bloat
--: Entirely incomprehensible change if that was actually the excuse. We have the same amount of actions... We have just exchanged kaiten with shinten, spam a single move far more, removed the purpose of the kenki gauge, all combined with being stuck with a far more jarring animation with shinten then kaiten which was a very smooth animation that naturally led into our finishers, not to mention a complete loss of building up to and powering up our finisher for big hits. If this truly was their excuse, it entirely missed the issue they claimed, all while making virtually every aspect of the class worse.

- To homogenize the damage of SAM, so the class wasn't dependent on highly variable finish move Crits, which was inconsistent
--: Most legitimate excuse so far, but I struggle to believe that the best choice was to gut the class of its soul, rather then work around the identity of the class and simply focus on resolving the inconsistency. I'll fully admit to not having a great solution for this specific claim of the class but maybe the auto crits are kind of in the right direction? I would have much rather them lower the potency of kaiten and simply made that button guarantee the auto-crit instead of what we have. I'm sure there are more creative solutions out there and I am not sure the right path to take with this one... However, the two things that killed the job for me and were directly representative of why I played SAM:
1. The feeling of building up to satisfying finishers while weaving in GDCs that flowed smoothly from one move to another (with the exception of shinten) and 2. those very finishers that popped off big numbers. (I fully understand that the variance in finisher damage was part of the excitement and specified problem. But there is a reason why people pick classes like SAM and BLM. Many people find the high risk, high reward glass cannon play style a lot of fun. It wouldn't be such a big issue if SE didn't give us the play style for years only to rip it from us now. I'd argue that it very unwise and entirely uncaring of the player base to remove a specific game style after it had already been established(not only in FFXIV itself, but as a common play style across many games). If this was actually the problem they presented, it is in direct conflict with the game design of the class in the first place. This is what I meant by them designing themselves into a corner and then making a class destroying change at the cost of the player base. Rather then a fix a problem with a solution that was in the theme of SAM, they effectively changed the theme of SAM.

- Kaiten was a move SE was having a more and more difficult time designing around.
--: For this, unfortunately we dont have enough details of 'why' this was the case to really come up with a alternate solution. Its still fairly hard to believe as the options they could have pursued are endless. Kaiten already was restricted to what moves it effected. And if the problem was the pure 50% potency increase, that could have changed. The main thing about Kaiten that was important was the fact it was a augmentation to our normal finishers, helped the feeling of building up to a powerful attack. Thats all SE needed to retain. They just needed to keep the feeling of build up to a satisfying finisher for doing your rotation right, the augment button of kaiten as its a physical adjustment requiring actual thought (read engages the player) and the powerful end attack which was the entire enjoyment of the SAM class in the first place.

+1

PLEASE REVERT.