New Missaphenchair video makes great point about the direction of job design

[Amh_Wilzuun]

Here is the link: https://youtu.be/1d_fMH9Lwvs

I think he makes a lot of compelling points that the devs and certain players should hear. Here are some abbreviated highlights from the video I want to emphasize here.

- “FFXIV is in a good state currently and I love the game, but these job design decisions make it harder for me to love it. The current direction of recent changes should not be continued before it hurts the game later”

The people criticizing job changes don’t hate the game and want it to fail. They are the most dedicated players and it’s important not to leave them in the dust. I agree that the game is in a good place now which we why we want the game we love to continue to be good and will call out bad decisions when they occur.

“Who are these changes for?”

Here he hits on things like the tenka goken change. That question is something us SAM players have been asking. Like who asked for kaiten to be removed? As he points out, people who just don’t learn the jobs are gonna push the buttons they want anyway and normal content is easy enough for them to do that. And hardcore players obviously don’t want nuance taken out of a job. The tenka change specifically is puzzling. Why does reaper, who was added this expansion, get to retain the flow of circle aoes in a pack and then moving out of the pack for powerful conal AOES? Why was samurai singled out? This also transitions us into another point.

It’s okay that some jobs aren’t for everyone

He questions why warrior had to lose its conal AOE, that a lot of warrior players enjoyed, even though there are three other tanks to choose from without cones. If jobs have nuance and different designs then some mechanics on jobs might be harder to perform than on other jobs. Taking out nuance like this leads to homogenization. He also talks about people who complain about gunbreaker being too busy: “why are you playing gunbreaker then? Just play warrior or paladin. Being busy is the job’s identity”. Basically changes that take away from a job’s identity should be discouraged. EW GNB is a good example of a job that retained its identity and got new tools like new cartridge spenders that expanded what people liked about the job even though it’s not a perfect job (I do think that continuation being ranged makes sense for moving the boss). He also says that they should add to job mechanics rather than subtracting. 6.1 Sam is an example of the latter.

Lower the skill floor shouldn’t come with lowering the skill ceiling too.

You can have both a low skill floor and a high ceiling but not if you make changes than remove nuance from jobs. He makes a point that I’m sure resonates with long time players about learning a job’s mechanics and then feeling like the time is wasted when the nuance is taken away in a patch or expac. Sometimes things do have to removed for future additions but don’t punish dedicated players needlessly.