SAM players are quitting

[Kabooa]

Tldr; if their intention was to dig themselves out of the Kaiten / Tsubame Gaeshi loop, they should've done it in a new expansion, and not shoehorned right before new raid content.

We can guess for their motives - I certainly wouldn't put my realization in line with them. They design the game for a player that differs greatly from me.

There's a good post in another thread regarding potential motives, if you're interested you can check their thoughts here.

And frankly regarding the timing, it is probably something that they could have waited until the next expansion to address fully and completely. It's not like they haven't left other things to sit around until a similar if not greater amount of time has passed.

[cjbeagle]

snip

Thanks for humoring me on kit preference - it's good to hear that it varies, but it's also interesting to hear that bard is among your selection - it's one of the jobs I haven't maxed out yet, so that piques my interest.

As for kenki and how you're taught to use it, its priority hierarchy, etc., I have nothing to argue against in how you portrayed the onboarding as a samurai levels, and I think your depiction is a credit to the devs.

I think it'd actually be quite difficult to bottom out on Kenki that you can't use Kaiten and thus create meaningful management. It's a scenario that would take some active effort to do so, but I'll also admit that perhaps I think too highly of players in the game.

I don't mean to disparage players, but I think you might indeed be giving too much credit - there are plenty of people who will smash Shinten the moment they see it light up literally because it lit up. A dps OCGD is available? Using it. We've covered the idea that Kaiten is a non-choice, as is when to use it, but it's worth noting that there's another non-choice that players need to pass before Kaiten's is even presented, which is the non-choice to NOT use Shinten when you're about to reach your desired sen status. Players who are used to pooling resources will have no problem with this, but for those who aren't, this is a new point of mastery akin to checking your shots in an FPS that has killable friendly units. A lot of players already have experience with that and it won't slow them down for a moment, but for some players, it'll be something they haven't dealt with before. Just because it's trivial to most of us doesn't mean it can be ignored - it just means it's a point of mastery that we've already conquered. That said, even for players who this comes naturally to, kenki "management", while trivial, still required you to pay attention to the relationship between your sen and your kenki - without Kaiten there's no reason to - you can literally ignore your kenki and just hit Shinten whenever you fancy, the only exception being to pool in preparation for a burst window, and even that basically doesn't matter - an extra Shinten or two benefiting from burst window buffs is hardly noteworthy, and since Ikishoten and Senei have the same cooldown, an extra Shinten or two benefiting from buffs is all the pooling does amount to.

As for the priority hierarchy - it was simple, but it existed, and now it doesn't. It provided a non-choice on a regular basis throughout the samurai's rotation - with Kaiten removed, the non-choices are removed as well. We agree that these were non-choices, but I think it's important to acknowledge that non-choice is still better than literally no choice. Picking between A and B constantly when you know the right answer is still much more engaging than just mashing A because it's the only button you have. Also, I would argue that it's also only a non-choice once the right and wrong picks are known - until then it's a meaningful choice that serves as a point of mastery. Sure, there's still a right and wrong answer, but if you don't know which is which, it puts the onus on the player to figure that out. Some players will just read the toolips and solve it that way - others seem completely unwilling to read tooltips and will figure it out through experimentation - others...won't figure it out...ever, or if they do, actively ignore what they know. Regardless, point being that options are better than no options even if there isn't a meaningful choice involved.

I like the all-"C" analogy, but you still reference it in terms of the priority hierarchy, but that hierarchy no longer exists - C is the only option - it isn't the right answer, it's the only answer, and there's no longer a question being asked of you. The test is blank and you're just selecting C all the way down because A, B and D aren't even there. Again, non-choices are still much better than literally no choices, not only for engagement, but for variety sake as well.

Since you're keen to chat nuance, I'd like to bring up cadence. One of the "feel" points that Kaiten provided was a guaranteed non-damaging OGCD prior to a hardcast. I imagine this active downbeat was an intentional part of the original design and I'd argue that Iaijutsu is diminished without it. Samurai's tempo is one of the things that made it unique - tons of kits have tons of OGCDs, but most of them aren't actually part of the rotation - they're just extra things to do while also doing your rotation, but with samurai, Kaiten was actually part of the rotation, and without it, it's just like the other jobs in that regard.

If working on a 10 scale, I'd put Kaiten at something like a 3. I find it interesting that we have such drastically different evaluations of its importance despite the fact that we seem to agree on all the fundamentals. I suspect that the reason is that you're extremely adept at the game and are presumably playing with others who are as well. I, on the other hand, am relatively new to the game, and primarily play with people who are even newer than I am, and who aren't exactly adept. Some of the things that you see as trivial and complete non-issues are the same things I'm having to actively coach people on.

Agreements and disagreements aside, thank you for your response - it's nice to see someone engage in good-faith debate.

[Kabooa]

Agreements and disagreements aside, thank you for your response - it's nice to see someone engage in good faith debate.

Likewise. For what little it's worth, I am rooting for the lot of ya.

Just forgive the little jabs here and there - they aren't personal, I assure you.

[FrogBiscuit]

I don't even feel like I need to explain this... I genuinely believe I don't, not with you... but with plenty apparently I do... cause the only meme argument point they have is to invalidate all of these experiences that has become muscle memory for plenty of us into just " It's a button you press everytime "

I admit I am losing steam on this part. The obtuse, overly simplistic arguments that all effectively boil down to 'It wasn't that important and you were just going to press the button regardless, why do you need it, why do you care?', have been repeated ad nauseam and despite seemingly being ignored every single time, responded to in detail (to a point that begs the simple nature of the situation) over and over.

The argument always stems from some perspective of play style perfection (entirely unrealistic) and like the little variance between the classes is already gone (simply not true and homogenization is something every player should be against) so effectively any complaint against this design direction is dismissed by the fly by elitists as: 'give it up, you already lost'.



Considering the entire topic, in every 6.1 SAM thread is specifically in reference to the subjective feel of how the class played... Its really pretty uninspired how many introverts need to convince others that their opinion about how they feel about a game they play is 'wrong'. Not to even mention the overwhelming number of SAM players that actually share this same subjective negative feeling/opinion about the 6.1 change. Seems overly silly and childish that these select few handful of contrarians have a driving need to prove the vast majority of the SAM player base incorrect in how they feel about the class they play.

At this point, I am fine with them being settled in their overly simple perspective of the game and their confusion as to why some players might actually voice their opinions.

I'll take the topic bump and will continue to discuss it with those who are actually aware of the class situation and actually have purpose here, rather then those simply interjecting themselves desperately just trying to draw attention to themselves by talking down to others about a subject they have little investment in in the first place.


Maybe they'll just get bored eventually and go harass other people... Or maybe with enough time, it'll finally dawn on them that no one really has any ground to tell another person how 'someone feels about a class's game design' is wrong, isn't the part of the topic that is up for debate or even can be debated in the first place. Its a subjectively situational impression every individual person has and its mind boggling there are people still thoughtless enough to think that a personal perspective can be disqualified and be labeled as 'wrong'.

Maybe wishful thinking... I know. But oh well... Hey, SAM threads are still active and its not like the opposition has stated anything of merit (considering they are comically arguing against others peoples personal enjoyment of something).

[Fable_Frost]

Oh no, not at all, nerfed or cheated, I continue to main SAM.

And, I don't spend my time complaining that the devs did this or that, I adapt. Since when is it a convention to complain about the slightest change?

I'm a kendoka IRL, I'm not going to change my martial arts because it's getting lame.

No one cares if you're a Kendoka IRL. Looking at your post history, you're just an infuriating individual that contributes literally nothing of any value on these forums.

[xAFROx]

snip

^ This is about what i feel here.

That's the thing, though. Isn't it? We've already discussed the objective points as soon as the announcement was made, and bolstered further once they dropped.

The solutions have already been suggested, we just want something done or said by the developers, some form of acknowledgement so we can move on.

The subjective is all that's left because at the end of the day, while the rotation and the gameplay may be a tight-knit script to follow and rehearse(for the high end) so that there are no mistakes, the game is slowly taking away the ability to make mistakes as we play. By that logic, there's little left to learn or improve and all we're left with is how we personally view what we do.

I dislike the changes. The job feels slow because my brain and my body both know something is missing. The job feels weak even though it isn't because the only part we ever pay attention to damage wise, console or pc, parser or not, were typically the iaijutsu skills. Because those had build-up and you watch as it hits and get the big number.

Now if you look at that like normal, it looks... like any other hit from the combo. Because everything was flattened to be about equal.

People keep trying to assert a specific viewpoint on a subjective matter by citing just the objectivity of the situation and that isn't very fair to do. By disregarding what folks have been saying is what's causing everybody to get up in arms and start a witch hunt on anybody that so much as breathes a different opinion.

Yes, SAM is still strong. Yes, SAM is still viable. Yes, SAM still has the bare minimum it needs to thrive.

We aren't arguing that point anymore. We're trying to explain why we're dissatisfied in our core. The tenka goken change not only feels weak in comparison to the other iai, but seems weaker than the combo, which is objectively, a bad call. It's also a very short range circle that requires standing inside cleaves and enemy AoEs to use to the fullest now, which is just bad design objectively.

Kaiten is a contentious topic. Is it always used? Yes. Does it need to be used? Not necessarily, but it should. The fact that it was removed is culmination of all the objective issues created by trying to compensate it, while also being highly regarded at a subjective level.

If folks really don't care about flavor and job fantasy, then the game wouldn't have any flair or flash. It'd just be 1 button spam for everything to keep balanced so long as the numbers are adjusted. That's not a game at that point. It's not engaging and it's not entertaining.

We just want our fun back. We passed the bargaining phase and are somewhere in the other stages of grief. Some are angry. Some are sad.

Stop trying to suppress and incite the new forum posters. They only came here to do what the devs said in the announcement. Myself included.

Is that not okay?

[Alex1337]

Nail on head.

[Acece]

I do think that kenki management was absolutely killed in endwalker with the removal of kenki positionals, moving Ikishoten to 2 min instead of a min, removing third eye procs, removing 60 sec and 90 sec buffs to dump kenki Into, and finally the removal of kaiten. Now that I listed it all off they really destroyed what made kenki something you manage into the shiten gauge.

[AziraSyuren]

I don't think that the removal of Kaiten on its own was even that big of a deal. The reshuffling of potencies along with it, however, was an unprecedented blow to job fantasy that had frankly never happened in the span of a single patch- or even whole expansion (as in, x.0 to x.55) - before.

It's no wonder it generated so much feedback. It's actually one of the biggest job fuckups they've ever done.

[RArchet]

I don't think choice is really even the concern here - if it was just a bar that filled up and automatically buffed your next weaponskill, sure, you lose "choice", but more importantly, you lose control.

Kaiten was basically a non-choice if playing right, but that just means it was part of the rotation, and since it had a kenki cost, that made kenki relevant to the rotation - taking away control is arguably just as bad as taking away choice.

I was going to make a comparison to MCH if Reassemble just procced randomly instead of having control over it, but SAM would actually be way worse than that since the timing is dependent on sen, which you can't even build without using weaponskills. At least with MCH you could just wait for Drill to come off cooldown maybe - on SAM you'd just end up buffing Hakaze or something if you didn't already have 3 sen, or maybe if you did have 3 sen but the gauge wasn't quite full, it'd be worth it to literally just stand there not using any weaponskills so you can use it on Iaijutsu. Much rather just have Kaiten back, especially since button bloat was apparently a mistranslation for action bloat, which is to say APM, which removing Kaiten had basically no impact on.

I feel a better comparison between SAM and NIN would be if Drill, Saw, and Anchor all were automatic crits, received massive potency cuts, with all that potency put on something like Gauss Shot or their 123 combo in an approximation of how many times they would be used between each of the three aforementioned abilities.