SAM players are quitting

[Ruminous]

But what do I know? I'm not a game designer.

Neither is the dev who thought of the samurai changes.

[Stasya]

Neither is the dev who thought of the samurai changes.

Obviously he is. It's just his level of competency should be managing ff14 web store and not touching ff14 ever again.

[Foraet]

Neither is the dev who thought of the samurai changes.

Do you mean a team of designers that probably discussed this ad nauseam before it was sent to multiple leads who inevitably rejected it a few times until it finally got approval only to be kicked back multiple times by QA until finally getting pushed to release? Only to be torn apart by thousands up thousands of hardcore users using the software in every way possible way? With complaints about ANY change or lack of change regardless of what you do.

I mean that's software development for you, but I'm always amused by this picture that there's one guy that's randomly coding stuff.

[Eorzean_username]

Do you mean a team of designers that probably discussed this ad nauseam before it was sent to multiple leads who inevitably rejected it a few times until it finally got approval only to be kicked back multiple times by QA until finally getting pushed to release? Only to be torn apart by thousands up thousands of hardcore users using the software in every way possible way? With complaints about ANY change or lack of change regardless of what you do.

I mean that's software development for you, but I'm always amused by this picture that there's one guy that's randomly coding stuff.

It depends on how you interpret some of Director Yoshida's statements.

For example, from the 6.10 Patch Notes Reading Livestream (unofficial translation, Iluna Minori, FFXIV Reddit Discord):

Naoki Yoshida:

担当者の説明を求めるというコメントも結構あるんですけど、担当者が出てきて言うったとしても僕と同じことを言うだけです。ちなみに、僕担当者と議論した上で、リスクも全部話して、それでもプレイヤー皆さんの将来のために変えたほうがいいよなというふうに僕自身が判断してサインが出していくんので、これは僕の責任なので…多分何を話しをしたとしても納得するかしないかという言論しかならないと思うんですよね…

I saw comments asking for the person responsible to come out and explain themselves, but even if they come out I doubt that they will say anything different than what I did. By the way, the adjustments you see here are the result of me debating with the person who worked on it, along with discussing the risks it come with, and in the end, decided and then signed on it after knowing and acknowledging that performing such changes are for the sake of the playerbase. So this is definitely my responsibility...so probably no matter how much I say here it will just be some speech where people either be convinced or not so...

You have to be very careful when translating from languages like JP that have very different grammars, structures, pronouns, etc. than English. Sometimes using singular pronouns is just a necessary approximation, guess, or interpretation for something that's left more contextual or ambiguous in the actual JP statement.

But at least on the surface, it sounds like there are cases where a Job's changes are handled by one individual at a time.

[cjbeagle]

Do you mean a team of designers that probably discussed this ad nauseam before it was sent to multiple leads who inevitably rejected it a few times until it finally got approval only to be kicked back multiple times by QA until finally getting pushed to release? Only to be torn apart by thousands up thousands of hardcore users using the software in every way possible way? With complaints about ANY change or lack of change regardless of what you do.

I mean that's software development for you, but I'm always amused by this picture that there's one guy that's randomly coding stuff.

It actually wouldn't surprise me at all if each of the job kits were owned by a single designer - it wouldn't even surprise me if that single designer owned more than 1 job's kit design.

It also wouldn't surprise me if it didn't get "kicked back multiple times by QA" - I've never heard of a QA team that had the power to veto design decisions they don't like.

It's completely conceivable that a single person thought this was a good idea and Yoshida, reluctantly or not, went along with it despite playtesting [hopefully] including negative feedback.

Every one of their excuses for why they removed Kaiten falls apart under the slightest scrutiny - my bet is that it was done specifically to dumb-down the job, and if so, mission accomplished, working as intended.

[Ruminous]

It goes without saying that I don't think they have a proper QA team for changes like these, and the person(people) in charge of the changes spit it out and let the playerbase test their changes out. Or if they do have a QA team, it spends its time on content, IE: dragonsong war, the new dungeon, and anything coming up in 6.2.

Negative feedback/player feedback is better than incurring the cost of spending money to get more people to test your stuff, if you can avoid it. And these changes aren't quite "major" additions to the game, despite how awful and ill thought out they are.

[Quor]

Do you mean a team of designers that probably discussed this ad nauseam before it was sent to multiple leads who inevitably rejected it a few times until it finally got approval only to be kicked back multiple times by QA until finally getting pushed to release? Only to be torn apart by thousands up thousands of hardcore users using the software in every way possible way? With complaints about ANY change or lack of change regardless of what you do.

I mean that's software development for you, but I'm always amused by this picture that there's one guy that's randomly coding stuff.

If you look at the credits of Endwalker, there are four people (iirc) that are credited with "job design," which is a team unto itself. That means 4-5 jobs per person. Supposedly they would work in collaboration on at least some things but it wouldn't be unusual at all for one person to be completely responsible for one or more entire jobs. We know for sure that the initial creation of DRG in 1.0 was as a result of the efforts of a single programmer so there's precedent for this kind of thing.

[Martynek]

Not sure what they would have dropped instead.

Shoha II (Upgrade Shoha to Shoha II at the relevant level, make it a single target ability with aoe falloff like Paladin's Expiacion)
Hissatsu: Guren (Give Senei aoe falloff, same concept)
Tsubame-gaeshi's keybind (Iaijutsu automatically changes to Tsubame-Gaeshi when it would be possible to cast a Kaeshi Iaijutsu)
Ogi Namikiri's keybind (Ikishoten changes to Ogi Namikiri/Kaeshi: Namikiri after use, as appropriate)

And that's just stuff that could be harmlessly and effortlessly cut.

[xAFROx]

Gotta drop some abilities when you add some new ones in. I don't think dropping a potency modifier is a bad choice. I mean, it's kind of fun but certainly not very high on my list of interesting rotation mechanics. Not sure what they would have dropped instead. Maybe Ikishoten; never really found gauge shortcuts all that compelling. Or maybe Meikyo Shisui, it circumvents Sen Gauge building and I'm not a huge fan of anything that ignores the core of a job's identity. But they had to drop something, SAM is pushing three full bars.

But what do I know? I'm not a game designer.

They could've done literally anything to cut down on space without removing any of our existing kit. Look at all the feedback that came in before and after patch 6.1 dropped.

Senei and guren could be either combined or be made to transform Shinten and Kyuten under a certain status like WAR with Infuriate.

Shoha 1 and 2 could be combined or transform the Meditate button based on Meditation stacks, or they could transform Shinten/Kyuten when meditation is full.

Ogi and Kaeshi Namikiri should have been on Ikishoten from the start.

Tsubame doesn't need to be a button all to itself, Ogi Namikiri proves that and several other abilities in pve and pvp prove that a cooldown will still tick even with a secondary ability to proc on the same button when it transforms.

With so much space that could be made, your saying that the amount of space being taken on the hotbars is literally long debunked already.

Kaiten wasn't removed for hotbar space. It was done specifically to flatten the burst damage of SAM..... you know, that one thing that SAM has always been, a burst damage type. Unlike MNK which was always more of the steady stream of damage that builds up over the course of the fight due to the speed of it all.

But yes, the fact that NIN and PLD exist in the game and are already needing 3 bars since ShB being given more stuff is a sign that a different job needed trimming, naturally, who are we to think logically of what they could do with these?

[RyuuZero]

Shoha II (Upgrade Shoha to Shoha II at the relevant level, make it a single target ability with aoe falloff like Paladin's Expiacion)
Hissatsu: Guren (Give Senei aoe falloff, same concept)
Tsubame-gaeshi's keybind (Iaijutsu automatically changes to Tsubame-Gaeshi when it would be possible to cast a Kaeshi Iaijutsu)
Ogi Namikiri's keybind (Ikishoten changes to Ogi Namikiri/Kaeshi: Namikiri after use, as appropriate)

And that's just stuff that could be harmlessly and effortlessly cut.

I think I'm going to explode
Shoha II is your AoE Option, that you use in AoE Situations, Shoha do you use in Single Target Situations! the PLD Skill change is something that I would explain with Tank Gameplay dumbing down even further because no one cares and the new skill looks flashy or Tank do not have to think about AoE and Single Target Situation, just get the Enmity!
same with Senei and Guren, Senei is for Single Target, Guren is for AoE.. my only idea for Skills like that to change would be to drop resource requirement for longer cool down skills, like Senei, Guren, Bunshin, ect. since those Skills can be used once ever 2minutes anyway.
Your Tsubamegaeshi Idea is something I can see, though there they should change it that Kaeshi Higanbana works alongside Higanbana and potency adjustments
and about Ogi Namikiri, I wrote a Macro that does just that and works just fine:

/macroicon "Ikishoten"
/ac "Ikishoten"
/ac "Ogi Namikiri"

just copy&paste this into your macros, and press the button 3times in combat, gg.. and please before you come at me with "but it's a Macro, I do not want this", fine but seriously try that macro first before judging^^
I assume we get a Single Target Ogi with lvl92, in 7.0 anyway because Ogi Namikiri is AoE

There is alot of disagreement among us Samurai, but in One Thing, we must be clear, they have to Bring Back Kaiten!