Thread: 6.1 and the frustration with job changes or: how I started worrying about XIV patches

Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse

I don't want to minimize the removal of Kaiten, but it's not just that. The guaranteed crits and flattening of the DPS range are also terrible. There is virtually no more job fantasy expression in SAM. It has been thoroughly gutted in the same vein as AST, in a way that deprives it of almost any core job identity (you could argue the same for MCH and DRK, but I think those at least what was lost was supplanted with alternative job identities). The whole point of both AST and SAM, more than most other jobs, was variability, and now they just feel like high APM with none of the fun slot machine payoff.

The way this is going, I foresee procs getting slowly removed as well. Verfire/Verstone are bloating my hotbars and don't pop when I need them so they should just be autocombos off Verthunder/Veraero. It's so simple it's beautiful, no more thinking needed.

I know I keep saying that this is to be anticipated because FFXIV is very much riding the wave of casual-friendly gameplay. But it's still extremely disappointing to watch because the expansion job designs have been outstanding compared to the base game jobs. In the same vein that WHM, BLM, WAR, PLD, BRD, DRG, (and now SMN) are all very classic, easy to understand concepts for newbs, DRK, AST, MCH, RDM, SAM, GNB, SGE all have so much potential as more complex jobs for players who like a bit of challenge. And it is continually being stripped away in favor of a mentality that *every* job should be baby's first PS4 crossbar, and on several levels I think that is bad design that will come back to haunt the devs. We need some big brain jobs and BLM does not cut it.

Kaiten is far from the only issue SAM is facing, but I was addressing the notion of varying playstyles obfuscating player opinions. Kaiten is a massive point of consensus among SAM mains and in the community as a whole, so to say, "They shouldn't ask SAM mains for feedback since some play 'Slow SAM' some play 'Fast SAM'," doesn't add up.

On to your points, I agree and even made my own thread regarding these issues last week. It may seem like a good direction to take, but do they realize all they're sacrificing in the process? Identity, lore, rotations that flow while engaging the player: is it all worth discarding just to be more "casual-friendly"?