The Problem with the "Buff Everyone Up to Reaper" Approach

[ZJyn]

I don't think it's a controversy to say that Reaper was more than a little overtuned at the launch of Endwalker, and really. Putting aside the details of the numbers, FF Logs, parsers, blah blah blah... that's not important.

What's important is what Square decided to do, and continued to try to do, to fix this problem.

Patch after patch after patch after patch, we've seen jobs have their potencies increased, some of which have been astronomically powerful buffs to standard rotations, skill floors, etc. It's happened now at least four times, and while i'm sure nobody was complaining to see their jobs fare better in the overall "Meta" (putting aside conversations about how every job is able to complete content, which is true), it had a consequence that I think is more than a little damaging to the game.

... Has anybody else noticed how short encounters are now?

And it makes sense. Numbers go up, overall job potencies are increased across the board to the tune of hundreds if not thousands combined if we're looking at alliance raids, and the end result seems to be that every encounter i've run, be it current or old, has had its run-time slashed by a fairly considerable margin.

Look... constructive feedback here... I understand why they did it this way. They wanted to try to silence the folks who might cry foul that they bought the expansion for the shiny new job only to have it nerfed, but the end result means encounters that don't feel as good to play. They should have made the hard call to dial back on Reaper's numbers, and then done minor adjustments to other jobs to make them feel better.

Because right now, unless they go in and do an across the board uplift of mob HP, the impact feels very, very noticeable, and quite frankly feels more difficult to fix than if they had just done the slight needed nerfs to begin with.

Not a good direction, guys, sad to say. Nor does it feel as good to play.

[Skiros]

Thordan Normal being a pushover that lasts for less than 1.5 minutes WHILE SYNCED says it all really.

[Doc_Seraph]

Kupo, do you really want old raids to take forever? kupo <3

[LisSquid]

Time Borrowed did not need to be nerfed, and I will die on this hill forever. It went from group support to just a meh personal.

Ranting about our utility aside- The new Alliance Raid has melted so fast I was surprised there were mechanics I didn't even get to see on day 1. We're all way too powerful for new content, and that's not even just people in BiS. It just feels sloppier somehow.

[Doc_Seraph]

Kupo, if I was to take a guess at the elemental root of it all I would say the powers realize that as time moves on we are so used to quick dopamine hits (phone, fast games etc..) that anything that is drawn out may become boring (books, work, long repetitive fights) or 'not worth doing' etc..

Wrong or right? Kupo who knows but I do believe its just a side product of society. Dopaminergic builds you could say kupo <3

[FoxyAreku]

People overreacting to nerfs in games has always kinda bothered me. It's obviously easier to nerf the 1 problem then buff the 10+ things that aren't a problem to match that 1 problem, seems obvious to take that approach. Just don't overnerf it, keep it viable.

[angienessyo]

With how many dps checks there are in the new Ultimate and how tight they are and how a single death/damage down=a wipe is, it's good our damage is where it's at.

For the newest alliance raid, you need to look at the ilevel required to run it, 565. We're still at the point in the cycle where people that are BiS or are close to BiS are still running it to gear alt jobs/finish getting BiS. Also a lot of people going in there even if they aren't BiS, are probably rolling up with a weapon from the new EX, which is 595. Also even casual players will likely have the crafted set which is 580. I don't think the bosses melting has much to do with our job potencies, and it has everything to do with people having an ilevel far above the minimum. It's going to take muuuuuuch longer when geared people aren't doing it anymore. I remember in Shb you could tear through the Nier raids pretty quickly until they stopped being relevant. I was in quite a few super long Copied Factory runs at the end of Shb.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Thordan Normal being a pushover that lasts for less than 1.5 minutes WHILE SYNCED says it all really.

Thordan Normal has been a pushover since Heavensward when it was current, so that really says absolutely nothing.

[Kuroka]

Time Borrowed did not need to be nerfed, and I will die on this hill forever. It went from group support to just a meh personal.

Ranting about our utility aside- The new Alliance Raid has melted so fast I was surprised there were mechanics I didn't even get to see on day 1. We're all way too powerful for new content, and that's not even just people in BiS. It just feels sloppier somehow.

Thats because most were 580-590 in a raid tuned for 565 lol

[Kranel_San]

I don't think it's a controversy to say that Reaper was more than a little overtuned at the launch of Endwalker, and really. Putting aside the details of the numbers, FF Logs, parsers, blah blah blah... that's not important.

What's important is what Square decided to do, and continued to try to do, to fix this problem.

Patch after patch after patch after patch, we've seen jobs have their potencies increased, some of which have been astronomically powerful buffs to standard rotations, skill floors, etc. It's happened now at least four times, and while i'm sure nobody was complaining to see their jobs fare better in the overall "Meta" (putting aside conversations about how every job is able to complete content, which is true), it had a consequence that I think is more than a little damaging to the game.

... Has anybody else noticed how short encounters are now?

And it makes sense. Numbers go up, overall job potencies are increased across the board to the tune of hundreds if not thousands combined if we're looking at alliance raids, and the end result seems to be that every encounter i've run, be it current or old, has had its run-time slashed by a fairly considerable margin.

Look... constructive feedback here... I understand why they did it this way. They wanted to try to silence the folks who might cry foul that they bought the expansion for the shiny new job only to have it nerfed, but the end result means encounters that don't feel as good to play. They should have made the hard call to dial back on Reaper's numbers, and then done minor adjustments to other jobs to make them feel better.

Because right now, unless they go in and do an across the board uplift of mob HP, the impact feels very, very noticeable, and quite frankly feels more difficult to fix than if they had just done the slight needed nerfs to begin with.

Not a good direction, guys, sad to say. Nor does it feel as good to play.

Most of the short encounters we have today are old content that was designed with fewer available jobs, different mindsets of players and devs, different iterations of jobs, potential limitations of hardware by then, etc.
However, these are going to get revisited again. ARR MSQ dungeons are an example of content that got reworked by devs to stand out to current standards, and I'm really impressed with the reworks, and looking forward to what they might do in the future. Thordan normal difficulty is the first encounter that comes to my mind which needs a rework to reflect the importance, stakes, and the power of the final boss of an expansion similar to how Gaius three encounters (From the elevator to defeating the Ultima weapon) got a rework to the point he's way more difficult and survives a decent amount of time in comparison to Thordan who would die in less than one minute if not for the mechanics that protects him.