Bring Back Kaiten

[jonimated]

As a current Viper main I would like to formally apologize to all the Samurai, past and present.

When Kaiten was first removed I was firmly in the camp of "It's just a maintenance ability you use on the same thing every time. Just add the extra damage to the skills themselves and be done with it." I was completely oblivious with how the removal of what seemed like a simple maintenance mechanic could change the feel of a job so drastically.

I was wrong. With the removal of Noxious Gnash I have been humbled. I hope all the Samurai who want Kaiten back get it back. I hope all the players who have had a button or mechanic removed from their jobs under the guise of "button bloat" or "simplification" get back what they lost.

[Quor]

As a current Viper main I would like to formally apologize to all the Samurai, past and present.

When Kaiten was first removed I was firmly in the camp of "It's just a maintenance ability you use on the same thing every time. Just add the extra damage to the skills themselves and be done with it." I was completely oblivious with how the removal of what seemed like a simple maintenance mechanic could change the feel of a job so drastically.

I was wrong. With the removal of Noxious Gnash I have been humbled. I hope all the Samurai who want Kaiten back get it back. I hope all the players who have had a button or mechanic removed from their jobs under the guise of "button bloat" or "simplification" get back what they lost.

Appreciate it bro. It's sadly quite easy for many people to reduce things down to "it's just a button you press before another button" without realizing that EVERY button is just a button you press before another button. In order for skill expression to exist there has to be a fail state, and I feel for those VPR's that lost that little bit of optimization joy in their rotations. I imagine it's what I felt on SAM when I perfectly nailed my rotation such that I had three Sen going into buffs with Tsubame 2s from cooldown, firing off a Midare right as the buffs appeared on my bar and then following it up with a seamless Kaeshi, putting Tsubame back on cooldown without missing a beat, then hitting Meikyo into Gekko into Higanbana, refreshing the DoT right as it dropped off.

Lining Gnashing timings up in such a way that you could double Awaken without worrying about losing the debuff probably felt pretty damn similar. Just that raw satisfaction of knowing you timed it all perfectly and with all your ducks in a row you're about to drop the damage hammer in perfectly optimized fashion.

[RyuuZero]

with 7.05 they nerfed the Potencies of SAM to liberate Tsubamegaeshi from Meikyo Shisui which greatly enhanced the Feel of SAM's Gameplay.

Funnily enough, they could do this again! Nerf the Weaponskills once more and give agency to the Player to boost those nerfed Weaponskills with Kenki, how it used to be.

they just did it with Tsubamegaeshi, but I want that they also do it with Kenki itself, since that's how it used to be and what some people will bring back to Samurai.

I, for example rather sit on 20 Kenki to boost my next Weaponskill/Iaijutsu/Ogi (or Enpi, if I feel fancy) instead of sitting on 25 Kenki for Senei because it is ready in like 25 to 10 seconds.. and spend it on Shinten outside..

additionally, here is my Perfect-ish Samurai:

• Kaiten is back on lvl52 as first Kenki Skill with a 20 Kenki Cost and applies Direct Hit to the following Weaponskill and additionally gets The Tendo Trait at lvl100
• Meikyo Shisui stays how it is because enabling Iaijutsu that fast is strong enough
• Tsubamegaeshi will be rolled up with Iaijutsu, just how Ogi Namikiri and Kaeshi Namikiri currently works.
• Gyofu gets removed for a trait that removes the Kenki Cost of Gyoten and Yaten

this doesn't address everything but most stuff to make the SAM play even better.

[HikariKurosawa]

with 7.05 they nerfed the Potencies of SAM to liberate Tsubamegaeshi from Meikyo Shisui which greatly enhanced the Feel of SAM's Gameplay.

Funnily enough, they could do this again! Nerf the Weaponskills once more and give agency to the Player to boost those nerfed Weaponskills with Kenki, how it used to be.

they just did it with Tsubamegaeshi, but I want that they also do it with Kenki itself, since that's how it used to be and what some people will bring back to Samurai.

I, for example rather sit on 20 Kenki to boost my next Weaponskill/Iaijutsu/Ogi (or Enpi, if I feel fancy) instead of sitting on 25 Kenki for Senei because it is ready in like 25 to 10 seconds.. and spend it on Shinten outside..

Can you clarify how it increases player agency to have an ability that is only used to buff the potency of iaijutsu and something that must be used for every single iaijutsu? If you weren't using kaiten for all iaijutsu, you were being suboptimal. If you were using kaiten on any other weaponskill instead of just pressing shinten when you had kenki to spare, you were being suboptimal.

Kaiten was a zero agency ability, so I really want to know why you think it increased player agency in any meaningful way. It's just a different button to press that must be pressed before every iaijutsu usage. Were you just misusing kaiten? It was never a dps gain to use it for anything other than iaijutsu.

Since you suggested you would use kaiten on enpi, I am pretty sure you were just misusing kaiten.

[Unyqua]

Can you clarify how it increases player agency to have an ability that is only used to buff the potency of iaijutsu and something that must be used for every single iaijutsu? If you weren't using kaiten for all iaijutsu, you were being suboptimal. If you were using kaiten on any other weaponskill instead of just pressing shinten when you had kenki to spare, you were being suboptimal.

Kaiten was a zero agency ability, so I really want to know why you think it increased player agency in any meaningful way. It's just a different button to press that must be pressed before every iaijutsu usage. Were you just misusing kaiten? It was never a dps gain to use it for anything other than iaijutsu.

Since you suggested you would use kaiten on enpi, I am pretty sure you were just misusing kaiten.

Why are you even arguing with him. As i see it his issue is not the missing kaiten, but something more deeply rooted.
I doubt that the devs will even listen to him at all. ;D

[RyuuZero]

Why are you even arguing with him. As i see it his issue is not the missing kaiten, but something more deeply rooted.
I doubt that the devs will even listen to him at all. ;D

huh? It's not about me, but the aftereffects of the Kaiten Removal and how it makes Kenki feel useless
which Kaiten's Existence prevented. The Thing is Kenki isn't a Weaponskill boosting resource anymore, you just use it for Shinten effectively which is dull in comparison to the Kenki and Weaponskill Synergy that Kaiten enabled.

[RyuuZero]

Can you clarify how it increases player agency to have an ability that is only used to buff the potency of iaijutsu and something that must be used for every single iaijutsu? If you weren't using kaiten for all iaijutsu, you were being suboptimal. If you were using kaiten on any other weaponskill instead of just pressing shinten when you had kenki to spare, you were being suboptimal.

Yes! because you have to make sure to have enough Kenki to boost the necessary Skills to dish out serious damage.
20 Kenki for a Potency Boost instead of 25 Kenki for an Attack and It's not true, you also boosted Ogi with Kaiten. Kaiten enabled you to boost All Weaponskills

Kaiten was a zero agency ability, so I really want to know why you think it increased player agency in any meaningful way. It's just a different button to press that must be pressed before every iaijutsu usage. Were you just misusing kaiten? It was never a dps gain to use it for anything other than iaijutsu.

..and your takes (like that) on this forum are zero iq! but okay I'll explain how Kaiten gave the Player more agency: because they had to press a button to make their skills stronger not unlike Life Surge from Dragoon, with the difference that Kaiten had an entire resource to back it up, the Problem with Life Surge is that it just gives your next weaponskill a crit+life steal but no interaction with the Dragon Gauge. Kaiten on the otherhand introduced Kenki as a Weaponskill boosting resource and that aspect has been lost since 6.1, many Samurai critique that Kenki right now (as of Patch 7.05) still feels useless.

Since you suggested you would use kaiten on enpi, I am pretty sure you were just misusing kaiten.

I didn't suggested to use Kaiten on Enpi, I just aluded the Option, since a Kaiten Buffed Enpi is still stronger than a Normal Enpi!
Hell! You can have your Midare Setsugekka ready, see you don't have enough Kenki for Kaiten, throw 2 Enpi, have enough Kenki for Kaiten, use Kaiten, do Midare Setsugekka, GG!

[HikariKurosawa]

Iaijutsu, and ogi. So where is the player agency again? You use it for those abilities and if you don't you're misplaying, if you use them for anything else, you're misplaying.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you have player agency. You can also use life surge for true thrust on drg. Should you? Is this player agency?

You should never ever be in a position to have midare ready without having enough kenki for kaiten. This 2 enpi for kaiten example honestly makes me feel like you are trolling.

Even the idea of player agency in this game is silly. Rotations are set in stone entirely. Even on RNG based jobs, you don't have player agency. You either misplay or you press the right button in response to the rng condition.

You want player agency? You're playing the wrong game. Player agency will never be part of the discussion in ffxiv. Even when talking about non-standard BLM, it was just a more complicated form of optimal play. There's no player agency in playing less than optimal.

The amount of buzz words you're throwing around in bold text is pretty amusing though. GG!

[RyuuZero]

not necessarily, you see you have to make sure to have enough Kenki to use Kaiten on those big weaponskills. It's about utilizing Kenki's Synergy with Weaponskills to make the most out it. That Aspect has been removed in 6.1 and many want it back!
A current criticism about Samurai is that Kenki feels useless, I wonder why.. Funnily Enough with Tendo, you now can use Meikyo Shisui like Kaiten, but Kenki remains useless :/

Even the idea of player agency in this game is silly. Rotations are set in stone entirely. Even on RNG based jobs, you don't have player agency. You either misplay or you press the right button in response to the rng condition.

You want player agency? You're playing the wrong game. Player agency will never be part of the discussion in ffxiv. Even when talking about non-standard BLM, it was just a more complicated form of optimal play. There's no player agency in playing less than optimal.

okay.. that seems quite nihilistic.. like.. if there is no player agency.. where is the Gameplay then? If there is no Player Agency.. why even play the game? why not just write scripts and macros to enable auto-play? You seem against entire aspects of fun, if you ask me. But you seem busy yourself with stuff since you don't play DRG anymore

and regarding the 2 Enpi, that was meant as a fail safe not trolling, but I can see how your approach of playing video games sees everything remotely indiviual as an Insult.

In the End I want more out of Kenki but the Idea of Shinten.

[RyuuZero]

As a current Viper main I would like to formally apologize to all the Samurai, past and present.

When Kaiten was first removed I was firmly in the camp of "It's just a maintenance ability you use on the same thing every time. Just add the extra damage to the skills themselves and be done with it." I was completely oblivious with how the removal of what seemed like a simple maintenance mechanic could change the feel of a job so drastically.

I was wrong. With the removal of Noxious Gnash I have been humbled. I hope all the Samurai who want Kaiten back get it back. I hope all the players who have had a button or mechanic removed from their jobs under the guise of "button bloat" or "simplification" get back what they lost.

no hard feelings, man. even I lvled Viper to max and damn! my Viper Glamours are fire!