Players enjoying the current iteration of Job is "troublesome"

[whitemoonflower]

More is not always better, and making deletion changes now when the "future that may or may not be overly complicated" is still far away is a flimsy argument.

And personally, to disregard the feelings and feedbacks of the players who loved the job for so long, does not sit well with me.

I have some more technical arguments I can make regarding why the removal of kaiten undesired, but I'm too emotionally charged at the moment to voice them properly.

So many threads were made opposing the SAM changes. Even I made one. To see such unwanted changes excused away only adds insult to injury, yet it’s something tanks and healers have been enduring for years now.

Third Eye should be tossed into the dumpster, not Kaiten.

Third Eye was actually enjoyable before they removed Hissatsu: Seigan and Merciful Eyes. Countering with Seigan was one of my favorite aspects of SAM, and Merciful Eyes could’ve been given a potency increase or made into a low-potency group heal, but that was all disregarded as “button bloat”.

[MagicalChase]

And personally, to disregard the feelings and feedbacks of the players who loved the job for so long, does not sit well with me.

Yeah welcome to my life as summoner. We summoners were niche, and I figured they understood that the job was fullfilling a niche. But it seems like we were outnumbered by people who didn't even play the job and that's who Yoshi-P caters to. They're making these changes based entirely on how to attract as many people to play that job.

[Jeeqbit]

If we go by the credits, there are only 3 individuals named for the battle system designer section.
Three.

Expansions release every 2 years (730 days). If you spent 730 days designing 3 new actions for a single job you would be bored for most of those days, so it makes a lot of sense for them to focus on multiple.

[Xenon_S]

Expansions release every 2 years (730 days). If you spent 730 days designing 3 new actions for a single job you would be bored for most of those days, so it makes a lot of sense for them to focus on multiple.

Go read Enhanced Unmend and tell me that they "focused" on multiple.

[aveyond-dreams]

Yoshi honestly needs to take a good hard look at what his dev team is doing. How can they begin to remove abilities mid-expansion and not expect people to be upset? This whole SAM thing is beyond ridiculous because no one has been asking for the changes they are implementing - and they came more or less out of nowhere. It's completely nonsensical! Never mind SMN who got their entire class basically deleted and reduced to a job that can be played with a one button macro.

Healer and tanks already play almost identically and people have been complaining about this for ages. Now they're doing the same to DPS and they don't understand why there's a backlash?! There is no way these people play their own game. No way.

Samurai needs some abilities purged but the fun power up button was absolutely the wrong one to get rid of. The class is unrecognizable compared to what I enjoyed of it back in Stormblood, and at present I have very little reason to touch or level it.

Yeah welcome to my life as summoner. We summoners were niche, and I figured they understood that the job was fullfilling a niche. But it seems like we were outnumbered by people who didn't even play the job and that's who Yoshi-P caters to. They're making these changes based entirely on how to attract as many people to play that job.

Old Summoner was a disaster with a reputation that was beyond saving. Glitches, bloat, and all. I wanted to like that class, but it was too far removed from what actual Final Fantasy summoners are. My final straw with that job was last expansion where I was ready to give up on it for good, only to be surprised by the 6.0 version I came to love. While the new version could use some more summons at least the class finally has a focus. Finally, as an FFXI SMN I have my job back in FFXIV.

The situation for healers is inexcusable but the 5.0 Tank changes (aside from Dark Knight) made running as tank far less of a headache than it used to be in the past. Good riddance to tank stance dancing and the abomination that was Flash. Enmity mechanics prior to Shadowbringers were a nuisance, if I'm a Black or Red Mage why on earth should Paladins be yelling at me to help them manage their aggro?

Overall I think a lot of this doom and gloom is overblown though this mess with Samurai shows that somewhere there was a massive communication error. That, and the inexplicable Hrothgar situation which is universally agreed to be unacceptable after 3 years of 0 progress.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Yeah welcome to my life as summoner. We summoners were niche, and I figured they understood that the job was fullfilling a niche. But it seems like we were outnumbered by people who didn't even play the job and that's who Yoshi-P caters to. They're making these changes based entirely on how to attract as many people to play that job.

You know what they should do? Make Arcanist the old Summoner playstyle, with pets, dots and carbuncles and all. While I realize a lot of people enjoyed old summoner better...I didnt. Im a huge FF nerd and I was pretty disappointed that FFXIV's take of Summoner was kinda lackluster; where's the big summons? My Shivas, my Ramuhs, my Alexanders? The heck are these small tiny, watered down egi forms of these beasts!? New Summoner is a step in the right direction for what an ACTUAL FF Summoner is supposed to do. Still the base reworked class is way too simple for sure. But anyway I also feel like its unfair to outright remove a whole job playstyle that many players grew accustomed to over the years. Which is why I believe they should just make the base class Arcanist be a full job that plays like the original Summoner. Just my opinion.

[Kyrj]

Getting some mad WoW flashbacks now. Won't be long until we're all the same and then soon after that they'll be scrambling to make us all unique again.

[StriderShinryu]

I can't speak to the SAM changes as I'm honestly pretty puzzled by exactly what they were trying to accomplish with that.

I do understand the basic premise of what he's saying though. There's a point at which they can't just keep adding more skills and more buttons or we end up with Monk style situations where the job is basically complete and then ends up with 20 levels worth of near useless or overly situational buttons. But of course everyone is waiting for that next pre-expansion job trailer to show off the Next Big Thing for their job anyway. Anyone remember Scholar getting laughed out of the room pre-EW because of how underwhelming it looked (even though most people like Expedient and are now sad it's getting nerfed)? And he's not wrong in saying that people get so hung up on "Their Job" that they'll complain about any little change even if it's an obvious improvement.

I'm not saying they make all the right decisions all the time, but the more jobs they add and the more skills those jobs have the more difficult it's going to be to make the "right" decisions or to even determine what the "right" decisions are. It's pretty easy to see why he feels backed into a corner and is nervous about making (and not making) changes.

[Gemina]

About a week ago I was only joking when I said that if a job plays as well as SAM did prior to EW, the next step after that is to tear it down. It would appear that all jobs can essentially be looked at like a house of cards, or a game of Jenga based on these comments from Yoshi.

It is perfectly understandable if Yoshi and co. feel a certain pressure every expansion to add something new and exhilarating to all the jobs. It is also understandable if they get stumped trying to not only come up with, but also implement new ideas into an existing system while simultaneously working on improving elements currently in play. They're not going to hit the mark on all the jobs. I think adaptation is a favorable skill to have in order to continue to enjoy FFXIV as changes come.

However, I feel it is a rather simple concept to not fix what isn't broken, and building on top of what is already working can lead to it collapsing under its own weight if you are not careful. When you make unfavorable decisions and changes, and the feedback you provide is even more questionable, it feels the exact opposite of being transparent with your playerbase. I believe a lot of animosity towards the dev team is created like this.

An issue with something like the removal of Kaiten is it is mentioned to the playerbase far too late for them to do anything about it. It is force feed, and we have to just eat it whether we like it or not. It makes the pleas from the playerbase to reconsider the change null and void. There is no such discussion from dev to playerbase concerning impactful changes. I can understand additions such as a new skill or trait coming in a future expansion needs to be kept hush-hush, but I am talking about changes to existing skills and systems.

If there is anything I can suggest for the dev team it would be to stop force feeding the playerbase. It's a big reason why the feedback given is made to feel like it doesn't even go in one ear to go out the other.

[anhaato]

Dear god there’s no way he actually said that and meant it. “We can’t have people enjoying their jobs because they’ll get upset when we arbitrarily change it.” Pretty much told us it’s OUR fault for not liking their bullshit and wishing they could keep one job the same if it ain’t broke.