Balance

[Kniteroad]

Pretty much this. And people wonder why so many jobs play the same yet when one deviates it's back to complaining. I hope we get PvP-esque abilities in PvE. We don't need more [increase DPS by x%].

Jobs play the same because SE took the cheap way out by reducing the skill ceiling of each job thus reducing the variance in numbers and adjusting potency based on a more normally distributed range for each job. With the arguable exception of a few, each job has an easy rotation now and no matter how much effort you put into mastering a job, you are limited in what you're capable of. That's why the game feels crappy to play sometimes.

The best example was tanking in HW and balancing aggro vs dps. Could you sit in tank stance the whole fight and clear it? totally! Could you also work toward maintaining aggro with tanking stance off thus doing more dps and having faster clear? hell yes!!

[Payadopa]

Jobs play the same because SE took the cheap way out by reducing the skill ceiling of each job thus reducing the variance in numbers and adjusting potency based on a more normally distributed range for each job. With the arguable exception of a few, each job has an easy rotation now and no matter how much effort you put into mastering a job, you are limited in what you're capable of. That's why the game feels crappy to play sometimes.

The best example was tanking in HW and balancing aggro vs dps. Could you sit in tank stance the whole fight and clear it? totally! Could you also work toward maintaining aggro with tanking stance off thus doing more dps and having faster clear? hell yes!!

Yes and no. The skill floor got lowered, sure. But a lot of abilities were deemed superfluous by the very vocal minority. If it doesn't increase my DPS it might as well not exist kinda tone. Both are a reality.

[strangethings]

Reaper was never stronger than monk, yet in the patch that brought others up, Monk got buffed and reaper didn't.

Balance. Doesn’t. Matter. Every job is viable. People whining about job balance (which literally doesn’t matter in everything except week 1 ultimate prog) is how we got to this abysmal state of job design with every job being identical give or take two or three abilities.

How is week 1 ultimate prog different from week 2, 3, 4, 5, ...? The check is the same as the gear isn't changing

[darkdyllon]

Reaper was never stronger than monk, yet in the patch that brought others up, Monk got buffed and reaper didn't.



How is week 1 ultimate prog different from week 2, 3, 4, 5, ...? The check is the same as the gear isn't changing

You are correct, it doesn't matter because you're automatically synced to ilvl 605 (or lower in this case since nobody can hit 605 yet)
the only time an ultimate might become easier or harder is when a new expansion comes out and changes the jobs at those levels, like Reaper gets nuked for UWU.

[Lyth]

In its first few expansions, this game was very hands-off with its balance adjustments. If your job was underpowered or overpowered after the first bit of balance adjustments, it usually stayed that way for the remainder of the expansion. I like the fact that there's a more active approach being used this expansion. The dps values are fairly close within roles, and you're better off just picking the aesthetic that you like rather than constantly swapping to whatever the flavor of the month is.

One thing that I would like to see SE do better is to be able to just openly come out and nerf a job when it's too powerful and stick by that decision. You can't maintain balance through buffs alone, and most people have figured out that stealth nerfs still happen, especially during expansion transitions where they're easily missed. You're not going to please everyone, and the longer a job sits at the top, the bigger the backlash when it finally gets brought back into line with the others.

And that's really the main reason why you need to have a dynamic balance. We've seen some jobs sit as the 'top dps' for multiple expansions before, to the point where it becomes a 'job identity'. People come up with all kinds of reasons why this status quo must be preserved, be it 'job complexity' (players are never a good judge of this, and were this really true you'd see a large difference when you compare the dps variances within each job), prior history, or divine right. Players will always campaign to secure an advantage for the job that they play. If the balance keeps shifting and the differences are minor, people will give up on trying to win on the forums and go back to trying to win in the game.

[darkdyllon]

In its first few expansions, this game was very hands-off with its balance adjustments. If your job was underpowered or overpowered after the first bit of balance adjustments, it usually stayed that way for the remainder of the expansion. I like the fact that there's a more active approach being used this expansion. The dps values are fairly close within roles, and you're better off just picking the aesthetic that you like rather than constantly swapping to whatever the flavor of the month is.

One thing that I would like to see SE do better is to be able to just openly come out and nerf a job when it's too powerful and stick by that decision. You can't maintain balance through buffs alone, and most people have figured out that stealth nerfs still happen, especially during expansion transitions where they're easily missed. You're not going to please everyone, and the longer a job sits at the top, the bigger the backlash when it finally gets brought back into line with the others.

And that's really the main reason why you need to have a dynamic balance. We've seen some jobs sit as the 'top dps' for multiple expansions before, to the point where it becomes a 'job identity'. People come up with all kinds of reasons why this status quo must be preserved, be it 'job complexity' (players are never a good judge of this, and were this really true you'd see a large difference when you compare the dps variances within each job), prior history, or divine right. Players will always campaign to secure an advantage for the job that they play. If the balance keeps shifting and the differences are minor, people will give up on trying to win on the forums and go back to trying to win in the game.

it's also more the lack of communication.
nerfs and buffs are often NOT what the job really needs, the community sees this and adresses it, but the devs turn a blind eye to it and be like "HaVe An PoTeNcY bUfF" (was harder to type that than was neccesary)
like with SAM, the main complaint was "Kenki feels unneccesary now that Kaiten is gone since it becomes an Shinten spam" with ways to adress the issues Yoshi has conveyed.
what is their solution? have some potency buffs on all the areas that don't need it.

Same with MCH, it's been in an rough spot for a while, it being an selfish DPS (aka not bring anything BUT damage) while doing the literal lowest DPS out of al DPS jobs.
people have adressed already on the forums (even a post that goes in depth) so they could draw on that for inspiration.
What do MCH get in 6.11? "wildfire potency increase by 20 per weaponskill used" ... not the issue.

[Lyth]

...

The 'community' is not a homogenous entity. You have various groups campaigning to have their interests promoted. Often, those interests are at odds with each other. The loudest voices come from the jobs with the biggest backing, usually because they've been overpowered for a while and many people have swapped over. You will, of course, see players throw out an honorable mention to jobs that have been at the bottom for a few expansions in a row, simply because they are no threat and it makes their demands appear fair-minded. But most people are primarily motivated by preserving their own self-interests. I think that the less the devs engage with that sort of politics, the better. If the numbers show that a job is dominating, both in terms of usage and dps output, just openly nerf it. It is what it is. What I dislike is this back and forth where they try to nerf something and then backpedal a bit to mollify the inevitable backlash. This process repeats itself over the course of an expansion until they can finally go all in during an expansion transition. We've seen this so many times before.

I would like to see more dev perspectives on job design direction, since they clearly have opinions of their own. The live letter format is outdated for a game of this scope. They really need to break it down into shorter, more focused, and more frequent segments so that you don't have to wade through four hours of material to get to what you want.

[D6Damager]

I feel like people are trying to conflate 'viable' with 'desirable'. It doesn't work that way in-game. There are many statics looking to min-max their roster with an easily noticeable meta in jobs (fflogs).

[CelestiCer]

I only play SAM, and I hate the direction of SAM so far. I loved 6.08 SAM, it was the pinnacle of SAM enjoyment in my opinion as of me starting at SHB Lv80 SAM level cap.

Yet I read all these other posts... on how players used to enjoy a previous version of their job and I start to wonder if the posts are correct that " *Sam is just the next on the chopping block* " and I wonder, how many jobs have actually gone through this? or are all these posts a minority? well they are, we all are. Because the rest are not posting on the forums the majority are playing the game... I don't know... I genuinely don't know...

But if is true? that Balancing of the game is going towards simplicity? I hate it. Why balance for one part of the audience when both can be done? In my honest opinion?

Balance should be based off of the hardest content, period.

Okey but Why? Because if Balance is based on the highest difficulty? any other content is easier to balance. Rather it's Movement / Healing output / Mitigation / Damage output / Skill rotations / APM / Button Bloat / Action Bloat / Job synergy etc etc, it is balanced from the top? it creates a foundation to balance everything else.

If its enough and balanced to do the highest content?
it is enough to do any other content

Cause then, DPS checks on Savage shouldn't be as difficult as Ultimate. The skillceiling requirement is lowered slightly, and further lowered on Extreme's and a cakewalk on MSQ. Do players need to know their rotations in Fates and Hunts and other less hardcore content? no they don't need to learn anything. But players who want to for raiding get to keep Skill-Expression.

Friendly entry level Skill-Floor? but a high Skill-Ceiling for players who want Skill-Expression and Competitiveness <- and I cannot see a reason why Balancing can't go both ways.

Cause tilting balance one direction? sounds to me quite literally the opposite definition of Balance

[Zarkovitch]

Balance is a thing who is somewhat complicated to do well. There hit and misses with it. Like exemple mch case. There alot main MCH wanted to have the stack system on hypercharge and wildfire (Idr if wildfire needs one), however MCH only get dmg (which is good but same time the problem is still there for high ping player mch). In my personal opinion gameplay is more important to change than dmg because dmg can be change on other patch. While issues with gameplay sucks and you get salty why or how my job is frustrated to play.