"I don't want to think while I play, so no one should be allowed to."

[Shougun]

But that's exactly what's happening. Instead of just lowering the skill floor and making the jobs accessible, they gut the skill ceiling in half, remove core mechanics, homogenized everything, alienated the core players who loved and mastered the job and even in some cases, the role, effectively removing room for skill expression and removing content from the people who loved that, when you can still just press 1 2 3 and not hit positionals as monk to even complete casual content?

Why would you remove Aero 3, Misama 3, Bane, Shadowflare, Eye for an Eye, Palisade, Kaiten, Monk's Raptor Form positionals, and Bard song and DoT synergy?
What's the point of it when people who don't wanna engage in the system... can just choose not to when they are still in the game?
Why did they remove that aspect of the gameplay when it never even mattered for people who are perfectly content at the very low skill floor?
How did removing all of that affect John "1 2 3 no positionals lmao " Monk's playstyle? Was it worth removing a fundamental part of how a sizable population enjoy the job?

NO

Why can't the fact that the jobs are accessible AND have room for skill expression coexist?

This is not gonna happen anytime soon (or at least I hope so), but this is like them removing the options to remove echo and go into content minimum Ilvl and synced.

And even then, right now there are no options to experience pre-nerf Orbonne. There are no options to experience the old job design in old hard content.
Hell, even MINE doesn't even accurately scale properly. You're still powercrept to shit because of potency changes, so Coils and Midas are still easier than when they were back then, even post-nerf.

Even UCOB and UWU have laughable dps checks because of potency powercreep.

So why is maintaining an aspect(the skill ceiling) of the window where you experience the game's content(the jobs), that a sizable population loved (us) when it won't affect Sylphie "Cure 1 spam" if there was extra dps buttons or not?

Just to make sure, you're agreeing with me then? (My first sentence was literally saying that people are feeling like they're losing things they liked).

I mean your post, to me, initially reads like a disagreement in some ways, but maybe I'm just picking up on the negative energy because you're unhappy (not saying it as an insult, saying it as you don't like the direction some things are going). The content itself ended up seeming like we agreed.. /shrug?

Because as far as I can tell we agreed in a general sense. Perhaps not on point by point, but vaguely so lol. Like some of your points I've said.. hmm.. maybe you should add that back.. or try this concept, it wont add more buttons but will certainly add back some ability to fine tune play.. Etc.

I mean it's an MMO. Respectfully, I don't think the sole focus of an MMO is supposed to be solo content. I don't think an MMO should be forced to become single player.
Sure there should be some solo content, but the major draw of an MMO is to come in, make some friends, do dungeons, explore, do high end stuff, and generally just have fun, and honestly, that should be the main goal.

Solo'ing stuff is fun, but personally if I want to solo bosses, I'd play Monster Hunter. Demanding that solo content be the sole focus of an MMO is like demanding that League's focus should be the You + 4 AI vs 5 AI experience.

It's a lil nonsensical.

If anything, what's missing from the game is 4 man content that won't need people to read guides, and actually play on the fly. Something like Deep Dungeons, but more variety and you can put the gear that you bought with tomes or whatever into it.

Something like Mythic +.

And I reiterate, you don't need to engage with the content if you don't. That's fine. What's rough is that what little content that's actually being catered to the people who like that, is slowly being reduced.

Meh. . lol

I think there was a long misunderstood but ever and substantially growing group (since advent of mmos which were originally more hardcore, like the original Everquest) in the hyper to moderately casual group. Both in that originally the sphere was unwelcoming and uncompromising (try de-leveling at level 75 in OG FFXI... jesus... Orz / cry lol), but also because the audience that took part in that is also aging (/adulting) creating a double impact to people who don't want to invest the time because they were never interested in that and people who cant invest the time. Sure if I was a pro-streamer I'd want something more, because I'd be spending 8 hours a day on it. I find it not uncommon people from the older era have trouble grasping that there are /a lot/ of people who actually like the multiplayer nature while also having /a lot/ of solo opportunity and casual content (but through multiple current games it's fairly obvious this is common and large group of people, so I find it interesting people usually still have trouble imaging they exist and call their preferences silly).

Also I want to note that either intentionally or mistakenly you took things out of context. I didn't say sole focus, I said I enjoy carrying the team in those moments where others are doing bad and I am able to do so. There isn't as much carrying in something that is super hard in a team effort because if one fails you all fail, sure you could have crazy good call outs so you're mvp but at that tier of play I'd consider the game 'work'. Like I used to play Warcraft 3 ladder a lot until I got to the ranks where I was using hotkeys like a Starcraft Korean and to which I felt stressed and had no fun anymore. If someone paid me, I don't think I would have an issue doing it.. since I've done it before, but that 'aint fun' to me. Like if someone was "do you want to join my ultimate group" that's a hard pass for me, even if you bent to my very schedule perfectly- I don't want to memorize a bunch of stuff, for me that's literal work. Pay me lol. Of course I have no interest in nerfing ultimate as I see it is content designed specifically for a very particular type of person, who is clearly by statistics part of the minority.

I like having people in the world space, talking to them, doing the frontlines / crystal pvp, etc. I'm aware it's an MMO. But I also like to be able to do stuff solo or at least within the time constraints I give the game. If people who wanted hardcore stuff, without compromise, had their way then the entire game would be a huge waste of my time. I'd have to watch a 10 minute video so I could go die for a few hours because some dude can't figure their stuff out, so then I'd be forced to PF (a good place to organize more skilled groups, cause you can kick if you need), and then I'd be spending time also asking for parties and feeling compelled to play a lot during the 'hot' periods because if I didn't then I wouldn't get to enjoy the content. By this nature of different desires I therefore do like that the game has in most places a low barrier to entry. Of course those means change, like I think its fair and fine that for a while harder content will remain roughly hard (of course we can talk about how well or fun that content is, as I mentioned a bit already in my previous post, but the concept that for a time it's not designed for broad-spectrum is totally fine).

Beyond that I think you missed my point I also think it's actively wrong to any longer consider MMO is exclusively for multiplayer content, as is clearly (like massively obvious) proved by the sure amount of casuals or casual games that have soft social elements. People like to come in contact with each other but that doesn't mean those same people want to always be forced into content like a can of sardines, a common mistake from people used to older MMOs. The amount of MMOs that support actively or at least with at least an element of thought is extremely high these days, actions by design- and I think what is more nonsensical is that many people who come from older backgrounds have a bit of an immoveable unfathomable concept of this. Like that patrick meme from spongebob, where you go step by step by the obvious points that /a lot/ of people like casual / solo opportunities and then you get to the end of the meme and the older player fails the test that MMOs these days actively support solo play because it is a desired feature of .. yes.. an mmo.

That said I also don't think you should forget about the multiplayer element (..obviously? lol). Like personally, if I had all the money in the world and talent lol (which I've neither haha), I would probably make sure people could team up for the MSQ. I don't think it's that great you have to join and leave parties as you do the content, I would like to see it possible to do the entire MSQ with your friends. Yet I also would absolutely not require that, and would ensure it was solo-able.

There are some situations where you can't make everyone happy, and that sucks... but if you can it's worth it I think. So on your last point, sure you don't need to engage in the content but I think it's also fine to make that content accessible over time. Initially it might be crazy hard, but after a few months there is new content and so there is something called 'echo' added to allow it to remain fairly hard but invite more players, then after even more time some absolutely unforgiving mechanics might be adjusted (personally I'd like to see stuff coded into automatic gates), and again and again until it's like a year later and a dude is going in solo. Ideally the solo experience in that moment isn't 1 hit kill, but say certain 1 shot mechanics might be changed to high damage, etc, so you still see a lot of mechanics, enjoy the environment and music, but you're not doomed because no one is doing that content anymore.

Content death, imo, is entirely optional and on that shouldn't generally happen unless it's just bad content that is getting redesigned / redistributed. To which I include having to beg the PF gods to get a group essentially content death, if you have to ask for multiple hours (especially on multiple days) to do something.. then at that point it's dead. This to note can happen to content that isn't even hard, which is why solo-ability is important. Back in 1.0 I was trying to do the ifrit quest at like level 30 or whatever it was... I /literally/ shouted multiple days for multiple hours in Ul'Dah. Finally a group of people volunteered because they felt bad and were probably sick of seeing me shout. Before I finished the introduction cutscene ifrit was dead..... It was that easy... Just no one did it anymore because they 'got theirs' (which is fine, but an example of why I think it's important you do keep lowering barrier to entry over and over and over until it is actually solo-able, adding things like echo, trusts, or what have you). 1.0 would be a more exaggerated example since it was relatively dead at the time, but you do have queues before trusts that were relatively long for certain story content (hence partial trusts being added I imagine, as those contents were essentially dead).

I don't think everything needs to be 'smooth brained', but I don't believe there is an issue with some jobs being smoother than others, or inviting large groups of people into content over a large spread of time, etc. Which is why I said to address certain issues probably requires that specific point brought up. Imo it's good the game is casual friendly, this is a major reason why I play it, but I also see some things happening that are perhaps too 'smooth' lol or are not offering alternative opportunities for those who seek more. I think for the most part both parties can be pleased. Though I wont be interested much in conversations that are like "this is my content, never nerf, never change it, if you want to do it - do it like I did 2 years ago" (with very unique exceptions, since I see ultimate as the carrot on the stick for that very type of person-- but personally on a social / personal level I don't really buy that type of thing.. you playing GoW on max difficulty does not impact my normal difficulty so long as we both had fun doing it or vice versa.. since GoW was the game I played on max and it was crazy hard..).

Just as an aside example, in the previous post, I was discussing things that might be done for healers to gain back some depth (and have on other occasions gone on much longer posts about such a thing). But that's why I said we'd best go point by point... "Stop nerfing savage overtime, remove echo" I'll be like.. no.. keep doing that. "Improve the fun I have while playing savage during current content window", that sounds like an interesting conversation to have. Or Healers who are like "I press 3 buttons, maybe, in casual oversynced DF... I'm so bored" (damage / ogcd heal, maybe raise).. That sounds interesting to discuss.