SAM is dead

[xAFROx]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Job's fine numerically, and that's all they care about. I played the job from Stormblood to 6.1, so yeah, I can regale you with how much I loved the old flow. It's really why I hate what its become, the "wildly flailing a katana around".

Otherwise, I'd be playing it still. Now? My katana's gone to rest and likely wont ever be used again. Maybe when they end up changing the abomination from what it is now, but you know, that wont be until 7.0 at the very least. Still what, two years, give or take? Better to just move on.

It's been my main since I unlocked it during 4.2

I joined the game officially in 4.1 so I'm well aware of how SAM has been up to now. But I guess I'm a tank main for the remainder of the xpac now.

[CelestiCer]

There's a sense of compiled Irony in the 6.2 changes.

With Kaiten's removal, DPS execution is made easier. Now you can Fk up Kaiten endlessly if there's no Kaiten to be cast. ( Larryzaur video reference. ) Now with the new Crit/D.Hit changes? it means this appeals to players who will love Raid Buff alignment for slightly more damage in search of what they used to experience before 6.1 changes. Casual Samurai's and Casual players who play Jobs with Raidbuff's will not care nor know how to fully optimize this. So who these changes are appealing to is frustratingly confusing...

Then again there's no " Not Accepting Free Damage " when SE throws it at our faces. It's not how many requested it to be done cause it's still more braindead then Kaiten? and our PvE damage without Raidbuffs is still flaccid. It's probably great in performances, but really bland and boring due to Auto-Crits.

Will we be top DPS? I still don't care... I just cared about how our DPS is achieved, and it is still hollow and thoughtless it's soulless. But we'll take it extra damage, can't say no anyways to it. It's Yoshi's world.

[Darkpaw]

So…. This is what has come to replace the constant “give us back scourge” remarks of the DRKs… so for the next 6 years each patch will be “give us Kaiten back”….

Huh… neat.

[Memoranda]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is. Ultimately I don't play SAM enough to determine whether or not they increased potencies enough to offset Kaiten's removal, but I would wager that its removal is going to lead towards better game design in the future, regardless of what every other player personally believes.

[Deo14]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is. Ultimately I don't play SAM enough to determine whether or not they increased potencies enough to offset Kaiten's removal, but I would wager that its removal is going to lead towards better game design in the future, regardless of what every other player personally believes.

Having gauge that you use only for one ability is much, much worse design (I don't count movement skills, since they're situational and cost just 10 kenki + you use Senei always after Ikishoten). Especially if said gauge was made with Kaiten with mind, but they didn't adjust kenki generation/or give another way to spend extra kenki after they removed it. Also, I've played a little bit of WoW long time ago, but doesn't it have GCDs only? I could see Kaiten-like abilities being bad there, but here it's oGCD, so it doesn't really interfere with anything.

And yes, they increased potencies to adjust its removal, obviously. Problem is, they put more potency in basic GCDs and nerfed all the big attacks. Which, you know, is straight up contradictory to the core SAM design. Having cast times for Iaijutus is unjustified now, since they deal maybe like 2-3 times more damage than regular GCDs. Considering the amount of negative feedback even after 4 months, both in JP and EN communities, it's really foolish to try to claim that changes were in any shape or form good.

[Deithwen]

I don't really play SAM myself. [...]
I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact.

What a way to give your opinion.

You compare two things that should not be compared, and would know that if you knew what you were talking about.
Kaiten was not just a button to increase damage like life surge is for DRG, it was a Kenki spender so the job gauge is not a mindless Shinten spender, but forces you to be mindful and don't screw up your next big hit.
Additionally, it's a 1s animation that was created to fill in the gap between the last GCD and the Iaijutsu cast. Just like when you use swiftcast for a skill, then cast the next one, you have a long time of inaction. Kaiten fell right in between to remove that weird timing.

[CelestiCer]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is.

Love these overused argument points...

I don't really play WoW myself, but I've always thought the value of a skill (Kaiten or no Kaiten) isn't based on it's animation alone. So if an animation is thrown back in our faces without it's actual values or purpose? it's meaningless.

As meaningless as what the most satisfying gauge of the game has become by a singular skill removal, the Kenki Guage devolved into a Shinten/Kyuten gauge where you spam Shinten/Kyuten thoughtlessly both with " Fk-all-intend ", very well said by Misshapenchair. No one, and I mean No one seems to proof nor can they that " THIS " is somehow better then how bad Kaiten supposedly was.

But if that wasn't enough? the good ole argument of

• Hey, I didn't ask this carpenter to punch a hole in my roof and wall
• Carpenter asked me to try it out and give feedback
• So we did, it sucked and we gave feedback
• We totally preferred our not broken wall and roof
• We wonder when they will fix it and replace it with something new?

And they didn't return the call...

Might be a weird metaphor, but this is exactly SE. They made changes on one asked for, they didn't explained for it in the patch-notes they said they would? and the future changes they were promising to us is met with silence. We can now wait for months a year or an new expansion since they will not acknowledge this fk up.

it's also ironic... for how badly designed Kaiten supposedly was? it seemed to have made a lot of players very satisfied and happy for how fun it was. But hey? " Fun Metric " was to high and Fun was detected, and that's real bad gameplay design - amirite? /s

[Ransu]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is. Ultimately I don't play SAM enough to determine whether or not they increased potencies enough to offset Kaiten's removal, but I would wager that its removal is going to lead towards better game design in the future, regardless of what every other player personally believes.

Its only bad game design for people who don't want to pay attention.

Also, we're not mad about just losing a cool animation. Yes, the animation was awesome and it was the perfect oGCD to flow into the casted iaujutsu's, but it also served a purpose for the kenki gauge. If you bothered to read other replies you would understand this. Kenki guage is now pointless and all we do is spam shinten now. Kaiten at least required you to pay attention to your kenki gauge to ensure you always had enough for your iaijutsu's otherwise you face the consequences of either wasting a GCD to get the kenki you need or casting without kaiten. It was a good system for those of us that want some semblance of thought put into our rotation instead of what we have now which is completely brain dead and boring.

Kenki serves no purpose now and the amount we generate with the loss of kaiten means we now use gyoten (gap closer skill) to burn excess kenki left over from shinten completely defeating the whole "reducing action bloat" crap and the auto crits still hit like wet noodles. The job isn't fun anymore.

Having gauge that you use only for one ability is much, much worse design (I don't count movement skills, since they're situational and cost just 10 kenki + you use Senei always after Ikishoten). Especially if said gauge was made with Kaiten with mind, but they didn't adjust kenki generation/or give another way to spend extra kenki after they removed it. Also, I've played a little bit of WoW long time ago, but doesn't it have GCDs only? I could see Kaiten-like abilities being bad there, but here it's oGCD, so it doesn't really interfere with anything.

And yes, they increased potencies to adjust its removal, obviously. Problem is, they put more potency in basic GCDs and nerfed all the big attacks. Which, you know, is straight up contradictory to the core SAM design. Having cast times for Iaijutus is unjustified now, since they deal maybe like 2-3 times more damage than regular GCDs. Considering the amount of negative feedback even after 4 months, both in JP and EN communities, it's really foolish to try to claim that changes were in any shape or form good.

Ya WoW has purged most of its oGCD stuff. Modern WoW is almost entirely GCD locked skills. To be fair though, their GCD is pretty short.

And yes, the cast times on iaijutsu's basically are dumb now. There's no reward for using a casted skill that barely hits harder than a crit/dh gekko.

[Thursdays]

I don't really play SAM myself, but I've always felt that folks were salty over the removal of Kaiten because the animation is now gone. I feel like they need to find a way to add that animation back and folks would be happier.

That said, as someone who's played Warcraft for years, even long before the mass WoW Exodus, having an ability that you press before every big weaponskill to increase its damage (or potency, whatever) is bad game design in every sense of the phrase. I don't care how hard you try, you're not going to successfully argue this fact. It just is. Ultimately I don't play SAM enough to determine whether or not they increased potencies enough to offset Kaiten's removal, but I would wager that its removal is going to lead towards better game design in the future, regardless of what every other player personally believes.

You know, bar your phrasing I honestly think you might be right. The developers have also stated they are being held back by Kaiten in designing SAM further.

I'd say "never put a big booster in front of a burst" lacks nuance because burst enablers and resource management are interesting factors in game design. Pooling energy before Toxic Blade and going ham on Envenoms was a meaningful expression of player skill on Assassination Rogue and so is Kaiten to Samurai.

Regardless of that fact, if you take one of my most meaningful toys away because you need to make space for new and better toys, don't make me wait a year while you figure out what to replace it with. Just replace it when you have something that is indeed better.

Now we're left with a class that feels hollow - and after half a year we still don't clearly know why it has been gutted and when it will be made whole again.

[Xaphire]

Kaiten wasn't a good button, but it did have a cool animation and big number fun.

While I miss the animation, it wasn't great design and people losing their minds over it being gone are massively over-reacting and have been since it was removed.