Button bloat and patch balance

[Deithwen]

My biggest gripe is how they decided to communicate about the reasoning behind the change. I initially thought Dragoon was the only one to change due to ""player feedback"" but I was wrong, Astrologian for example; "Based on player feedback, Minor Arcana will now change into the drawn arcanum rather than the action Crown Play-" but, they did give some reasoning "The effect duration of Redraw has also been adjusted, making it easier to acquire astrosigns."
Not the biggest fan of this brief explanations but at least there was some payoff.

Dragoons? "Based on player feedback, we have changed Mirage Dive so it no longer overwrites Jump or High Jump on the hotbar when under the effect of Dive Ready."
Me: Okay...Why?
Devs: Because...Player Feedback? They wanted it reverted
Me: Okay, Why?! That isn't an explanation! Tell us how their feedback convinced you it changed!
Devs: Player Feedback! That's the reason!

And here lies Samurai, with player feedback never seen before, completely ignored.
SE has always had that weird way of only listening to the feeback they wanted, and somehow it's never the right one.

[Vencio]

I said it before and I'll say it again: Their balance devs are 100% not worth their salary. Drunk monkeys can do a better job than this.

You’re an Elezen, where’s your pride?

Button bloating is a new evolutionary process which is working fantastic

[Vencio]

- Sighs & sips Ishgardian wine -

Fanaticism thats what is, by Halone! Even the Holy See couldn’t bear such redundant perseverance of this “Kaiten” that’s driven most Eorzean mind’s mad

[xAFROx]

DRK was my main join during Stormblood and I left it during Shadowbringers due to it becoming WARlite. So yes I'll agree that 4.0 was what ruined the job and the lackluster additions in endwalker like enchanced Unmend just further placed it into the coffin.. tho I will admit the changes to living dead were in the right direction but not enought to fix years of the job being ignored or downgraded

I joined the game during stormblood 4.1 and drk was my favorite tank in that xpac of the three available. When shb dropped, I immediately disagreed with the direction of drk, but all my friends and a drk main among them insisted it was such an improvement. I honestly still don't see it, but unlike in shb, I can kind of enjoy drk again. But that really depends on who my healer is.

Ever since shb, gnb is my tank of choice, and is apparently going to be my main now since sam is now still junk from 6.1

Not a fan of how drk was made into a worse version of war upon its rework, and I don't like how the potencies of sam were shifted away from its main mechanic. The potency shifts make it seem more like they want it to be another version of monk as a consistent gcd loop instead of high burst spikes like it always was generally.

[Zarkovitch]

Only thing is good about the feedback is atleast we understand whatever the devs are deciding. However the choices are somewhat '' What?'' situation.

[SilverSkyway]

boo who?..

[CelestiCer]

Button Bloat is non-existing,... well at least to me.

Using Keyboard + cheap Logitech mouse with 2 extra side buttons, I have no issues with button bloat. Often bloat issue is associated with controller players when we have plenty parsers even DRG and AST at 99% on Controllers. Far extreme examples, still showcases its possible. Though SE seems to overcorrect/compensate. Cause Players differ in where they draw the line of liking more or less buttons, regardless of controller/keyboard preferences.

More/Less buttons purely for the sake of More/Less buttons is bad design.

• Change should be meaningful
• It should fix or improve something
• Done to appeal to whatever you prefer to use

I don't want to play needing 5 hotbars, 10 macro's, mathematician my keybinds while I also like to believe not everyone wants to play FFXIV with just 4 buttons and Netflix on their 2nd monitor during PvE combat.

Fusing Skills or making Skills turn into another/next Skill are solutions to tackle bloat and improve the space we have on whatever we use optimally. As long as this doesn't sacrifice gameplay? like it's fluidity and doesn't dumb it down nor overcomplicate it? I would be fine with it. Hence numerous Samurai suggested the same better alternatives vs blatantly removing Kaiten.

For Dragoons we can go to the " FFXIV Job Guide " part of the Webpage, scroll all the way down and click the shiny yellow button to see SE's reasoning for reverting Dragoon.

This seems like an overcorrection by many, that didn't fix nor improve anything. To topit off? they smacked " Based on Player-Feedback " to it to make sure the blame is shifted to ourselves instead of SE who made the changes. What do I know? Finger point at your leisure.

Another thing is that setting up keybinds isn't new... well to me. I played a lot of MMO's. Yet, if I realistically put myself in the shoes of a new player that perhaps also is new to MMO's? the game does a poor job at guiding you to setup hotkeys, key-binds, hud optimizations etc. It's there! but, just not very clear - which can lead to Button bloat issues. Although to be fair? every MMO has this issue.

And with that experience? I can safely say... FFXIV does not suffer from bloat like many other MMO's do. Some Jobs do have more buttons, and can use QOL changes? but it is unnecessary for it to come at the cost of Gameplay. SE clearly can do better, but my god the changes they done with the excuses they gave? does not address Button Bloat nor does it seem to be due to the issue they want to tackle i.e Button Bloat.

[MagiusNecros]

I'm honestly surprised they are keeping Dragon Kick Monk a thing. Monk was completely untouched.

Some of their changes are just baffling to me.

For the Dragoon change if I ever had the desire to play it again they made it worth using my Jump/Mirage Dive macros so good job Battle System dev team.

SAM players are going to complain as much as DRKS will because taking away Kaiten was half the job and they butchered it. They are understandably not happy.

Just like DRK is running on life support since they completely screwed over Dark Arts in favor of chasing a 2 min CD 15 second burst window where you throw everything you have at a boss and then wait to do it again.

[Kahnom]

Life surge laugh at Kaiten.

[CKNovel]

The real problem with Samurai is that they took one of the best gauge in the game, Kenki gauge, and made it into one of the worst gauge in the game.
During ShB, SAM could spend Kenki for Shinten, Senei and Kaiten. Today it's only used for Kaiten.

The only problem SAM had in ShB was the double midare drifting.
"Button bloat" wasn't an issue and they already removed the actions tied to 3rd eye. Everyone was fine with the 3rd eye change because the consequence remains the same:
Taking damage under 3rd eye results in DPS gain.

I believe the removal of Kaiten would've been fine if the Kenki gauge had another use or was replaced with something consuming the gauge.
The consequences of removing Kaiten impacts not only the SAM hotbar but also the gauge and core gameplay.

I think we should be happy with Mirage Dive revert, it's kinda a proof that they listen to feedback and we should encourage them to continue to do so.
The same goes for MCH, yet I have one complain with it, it's too late.

AQ duration and targeting were already too long during ShB. The fix is basically one expansion too late and EW brought/expanded a ton of issues within the ranged role and more precisely the MCH.
The changes we had for EW are questionable, they bring problems they then have to fix, without even expanding on the job's nature and identity. Crown Collider and Kaiten removal are two perfect examples.