Balance

[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.