Thread: SAM: 6.2 Excited

Originally Posted by Shinstrike

Are the devs aware?

I'd say so. The way they specifically mentioned how they want to discuss future job plans in the next live letter, as well as reasonings behind changes, tells me that they understand there was backlash and that the backlash was powerful and founded on solid reasons. Whether or not this will change their plans remains to be seen, but it at least seems like they understand that the community has a strong negative reaction to 6.1 SAM (and likely to a lesser-though-no-less-important degree, the NIN changes and complete LACK of any attention whatsoever towards MCH).

Assuming their final stated reason of "difficult to build new parts of the job kit around" is the actual [REAL] [TRUE] reason behind Kaiten's removal, then things might be done and dusted as far as that goes. I get that, from a long-term job-design perspective. What I most vehemently don't get is why on earth they decided to do something so earth-shattering in the middle of a friggin' xpac. They even talk about how they had comprehensive changes planned for DRG and AST but will be holding back on them until 7.0. Where was that logic in relation to SAM and NIN? Why the unnecessary mid-xpac job surgery?

I, and many other SAM's, have discussed how if SE had handled this differently, down to the timing and transparency of things, then the concept of removing Kaiten isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing. Most SAM's who seriously play this job do so out of a love for how the job plays, but we're not so blind to the greater whole that we can't accommodate changes to the job for the long-term health of the game and the job. If SE had come out and said "look, we know Kaiten is core to the gameplay loop of SAM but due to how it was designed back when the job released in 4.0, we've ultimately found ourselves backed into a corner when it comes to any further expansion on the SAM tool kit. With that in mind, we have decided to remove Kaiten, but in it's place we will be adding this new move that preserves the same feel and level of skill expression as Kaiten so that the core sense of how the job plays remains the same. We will release more information on this as we approach 7.0 but for the time being please continue to enjoy the SAM job and Kaiten as it stands now." then I think the SAM community as a whole would have been willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. If they could show us something that kept the feel of Kaiten while also freeing the job design team to innovate and iterate, then that would be a win condition for everyone involved.

Of course, that most definitely did NOT happen, since the 6.1 changes were entirely subtractive and came literally out of left fucking field, catching the entire SAM community by surprise as SE cold-cocked us and then kicked us in our collective gonads with each subsequent "reason" they gave us as to why they absolutely had to punch us in the face, for our own good you see. There was zero transparency regarding all of this, and with each new day it seemed like SE had a new even more bullshittier reason as to why Kaiten totally had to be removed guys, trust me bro. Well, now at least it seems like we're getting transparency. Hopefully with this transparency comes a full reversion to the 6.08 SAM, but SE has fucked this up badly enough that no small amount of SAM's are now also clamoring for SAM to be brought back to it's 5.58 state, in addition to SE doing a full review of it's job design direction as a whole (to include the direction tanks and healers have been going the past few years). A 6.08 reversion would still a lot of that discontent, but the fire has already been lit as more and more people have begun to question SE's job balancing philosophy. AST is looking at their upcoming changes with a mix of expectation and dread while most DRG's question what SE could even change about the job without destroying it, aside from a handful of small QoL things like second aoe combo coming before 62 as one example.

I doubt SE will address anything beyond the immediate though. My hopeful optimist self wants to get an explanation and a reversion. The realist side of me says we'll get our explanation and mayyybe a SAM job design road map of sorts with a hearty "please look forward to it" and no 6.08 reversion. It sucks to say that but it's the truth. My faith in Yoshi and his team was once nearly-unshakable, and ever since the terrible decisions made in 6.1 I've found myself with more doubts regarding the future of FF14 then I've had since I played 1.0.