Why is everyone anxious about a PLD Rework?

[FireMage]

The people who couldn't complete the Hien instance, despite it being provably 99% afkable (you only need to do the line stack aoe at the end). The people who couldn't complete 'In From The Cold' despite it's generous 25min time limit. The people who ignore NPC's telling them what to do in a solo instance, then wonder why they failed it (eg 'Focus on X enemy, we'll handle the rest', then they ignore X enemy and X kills the allied NPCs because they weren't dealt with). List goes on

You really have things wrong. 2 min window design was made for both sides of the player base

[ForsakenRoe]

To be fair, that's why they added the very easy option. I disagree with the inclusion of such things, I think gentle knowledge checks are important for co-op multiplayer games like this... but maybe adding those difficulty options made it more accessible? Accessibility is good.

Accessibility is fine yes, but I've seen people, with regard to some instances like In from the Cold getting nerfed, proudly saying 'good, f*** forced solo instances, i purposely fail them asap so i can put it on very easy mode', which... yeh it's within their right to play the game how they want I guess? I guess some people don't want to have any modicum of challenge or barrier to entry stand in their way, because that would potentially tell them they're actually not good at the game, and that'd upset them. On the flip side of 'accessibility' though, I've also seen physically handicapped people not only play this game, but play certain aspects of it better than most of the able playerbase. Saw a gamer with no hands (played with their feet) nail the HW MCH opener better than most players at the time (including myself), seen tweets from a physically disabled player who has cleared Ultimates despite their supposed 'limitations'. So it's just odd to me that able people would choose the path of least resistance, but I guess, as the old saying goes, 'I dont pay their sub'

You really have things wrong. 2 min window design was made for both sides of the player base

Which 'both sides' is that?

[Gserpent]

You really have things wrong. 2 min window design was made for both sides of the player base

I don't know if I agree with that. I could agree with asserting that it was done to simplify raid design and management, and thus save the dev team work-hours over the course of a patch or expansion - that seems very plausible. But to make the game more accessible to casuals? I think that's incorrect.

And it's pretty simple to understand why - if you are designing the game such that all DPS and enrage checks are tuned around *absolutely everything* being pumped into a 15-20 second window every 120 seconds, missing that window absolutely *guts* your raid's DPS. If someone is dead, has weakness, or just plain screws up and fat fingers their buttons... or literally doesn't know which button to hit and when, which is far more likely to describe "casual" players than more skilled ones... when that 2 minute timer comes up, your raid just lost a huge portion of its total rDPS.

And not only that, it's lost that damage *PERMANENTLY*. The only way you fix that loss of rDPS is by literally delaying the next window by 60 or more seconds to allow for that person's cooldowns to be available, and for Weakness to have fallen off. And knowing whether or not you can afford to do that requires coordination and understanding of the encounter you simply are not going to find in a typical PF group or, frankly, even in most statics I've seen. Let alone players playing at the "casual" level.

No... if anything, shifting everything into a very rigid 2 minute paradigm makes DPS considerably *harder* for players the lower their personal skill level is, and especially for raid groups the more disorganized they are (so, most PF groups.) This is a significant element in why Abyssos clear rates have been and continue to be lower than previous clear rates - I think they're lower than Eden's Verse was, too, even accounting for P8 being overtuned on launch?

With the amount of extra balancing headaches this is going to cause them, I'm not even sure it will have ended up saving them work-hours. But I don't know how many work-hours actually go into determining who needs +10 potency and where - probably substantially less than designing and tuning encounters around "personal DPS"?

Accessibility is fine yes, but I've seen people, with regard to some instances like In from the Cold getting nerfed, proudly saying 'good, f*** forced solo instances, i purposely fail them asap so i can put it on very easy mode', which... yeh it's within their right to play the game how they want I guess? I guess some people don't want to have any modicum of challenge or barrier to entry stand in their way, because that would potentially tell them they're actually not good at the game, and that'd upset them. On the flip side of 'accessibility' though, I've also seen physically handicapped people not only play this game, but play certain aspects of it better than most of the able playerbase. Saw a gamer with no hands (played with their feet) nail the HW MCH opener better than most players at the time (including myself), seen tweets from a physically disabled player who has cleared Ultimates despite their supposed 'limitations'. So it's just odd to me that able people would choose the path of least resistance, but I guess, as the old saying goes, 'I dont pay their sub'

Yeah. The friction only comes from when these two disparate groups of players (the players who tend to bite into their games and try to master them, the "hardcore" types; and the kind of players who want minimal challenges or even gameplay, and who mostly want to participate in a story... they aren't "casual," but something even farther down the line... "story" players?) interact. And the way XIV is designed, it's guaranteed to happen. Duty Finder is a core part of the PvE gameplay loop, it's *required* to complete some MSQ tasks still, and Yoshida himself has said in interviews that they design the game such that... "more skilled players can assist (read: carry) less skilled players through content." It's a setup that is *GUARANTEED* to result in sour grapes all around, and it's maybe a credit to the typical player of this game that this toxicity only ever really seems to leak out in places that are outside of the game. I've been playing for several years and I can still count on fingers and toes the number of times I've seen genuine toxic behavior out of people in Duty Finder... unless you count Frontlines, but that's a different can of worms...

But it's grating, the idea that some people will effectively just freeload while effectively demanding others carry them to the same rewards. I don't think it's a good setup. But I guess it's functional enough that trying to explore alternatives wouldn't be worth the trouble.

Incidentally, it's one issue that *other* game largely avoids, as the "hardcore" players and the "story" players tend to self-segregate themselves by nature of its gameplay content and setup. The "hardcore" players are off in their own regulated area that has its own separate ratings and trackers and tend to only interact and play with others of that same mindset. There, of course, is plenty of toxicity within that area... as anyone who has participated in that content can probably attest to... but I've found it interesting that you don't usually see the different groups of players quipping at each other. It seems like that other development team tripped over the solution to that particular problem.

[HyperiusUltima]

I think I'm starting to understand why with the responses I've read throughout the thread. The irritability comes from the battle team attempting to fix PLD into the 2m Burst Window compared to the other tanks that do, and it comes with the belief that they're going to remove crucial parts of what make Paladin Paladin. Same with the anxiety; I can relate this with the removal of Kaiten from Samurai. Core Gameplay mechanics being removed for less complexity in a job's rotation.

It makes sense. If I had to name one thing I think they'd attempt to remove, it's probably Fight or Flight being removed and pushed into potency for PLD's Goring Blade and Royal Authority. Just staring at PLD's rotation tells me that their GCD Rotation for FoF is too long(11 GCDs) compared to Requiescat(8 GCDs) to the point where they are forced to Atonement drift if FoF doesn't line up perfectly. That deviation isn't present in the other tank's kits due to the fact that no other tank has two burst phases like PLD does - and that's what creates that complexity and deviation in PLD's damage. Breaking it down, every buff optimally is up by the 4th GCD. PLD has to go out of its way to waste 18s worth of FoF in order to line up their damage for the buff window before the pull starts. Other tanks don't have to do that. When PLD comes out of a phase transition, they go straight into their FoF window since you have slightly more damage there than Requiescat; or they go into Requiescat if they can't fit all 11 GCDs into the buff window(spoiler: THEY CAN'T). However, the damage difference between the rotations is very slight, by about 15 potency.

FoF Rotation: 5,525 potency total(after FoF calculated into rotation)
Requiescat Rotation: 5,510 potency total

Removing FoF would get rid of the complexity that PLD has currently, though the question is is this complexity needed or is it needless? It's something to think about, since I can't make heads or tails of whether it's needed or not due to PLD's current nature. The main thing holding back PLD is the fact it has a 11 GCD rotation in FoF while Req has 8. When you're doing the general rotation, there is bound to be some desync between that and your FoF coming up due to Atonements in the "filler" phase after Requiescat as I mentioned before; the question I'll leave at the end here is how would PLD feel for you if FoF didn't exist?

If it didn't exist for me, I'd still be following the 2 Atonements during filler to keep things going without having an extra layer of complexity to worry about during the filler phase. Whether I should give up an Atonement or not. Whether I should hold a GCD for FoF to line up perfectly. It can be determined as skill expression, but it feels like it's a constraint at times during fights that don't have 100% uptime.

[Mikey_R]

It makes sense. If I had to name one thing I think they'd attempt to remove, it's probably Fight or Flight being removed and pushed into potency for PLD's Goring Blade and Royal Authority.

This is something I probably wouldn't be completely against and, as much as I love PLD, having so much of the rotation be buffed can make the job feel off sometimes, mainly when a boss becomes untargetable, especially with FoF. You can use it beforehand, get some GCDs in, but not the full duration, so it is effectively ticking down and not being used, which feels like a waste, however, if you were to save it, you delay your requiescat phase. You could use Requiescat then FoF, but for the most optimum use, you wait until your next Goring Blade, which means you should have used it before anyway.

On another note, because PLD is buffed for most of it's rotation, I do almost consider FoF to be PLD's base damage anyway. Requiescat is more damage per GCD than FoF, so it is effectively behaving like Lance Charge or Riddle of Fire or No Mercy for a tank example. By baking in FoF damage into PLD's combos you not only make PLD do more damage (your 6 unbuffed GCDs will be increased thanks to this change) and it gets rid of the cursed opener. Whether that damage increase is enough to bring it more inline with other tanks or if it needs a bit more I do not know, however, it is the least intrusive change to PLD's current rotation.

Now, we can get to something interesting, the extra Atonement. Now, I don't know about anyone else, but not using an Atonement always felt, wrong. So, since we are changing PLD anyway, we can see if this can be adressed.

I have worked out in the past, if you combine Skill/Spell Speed, PLD needs a 8% reduction from base GCD to fit everything into a 60 second window. However, what if we keep the spells at 2.5?

Of the 60 seconds, the spells take up 20 seconds (8*2.5), which means we need to fit 18 more GCDs into that time. Doing the quick maths, this is an 11% reduction on the GCD needed. However, knowing that this tier, using info from The Balance Discord, tanks are looking to get their GCDs to around 2.47. If we were to make the GCD reduction 10%, then, from the 2.47 GCD, that would get reduced to 2.223, which is close enough to what we want.

So, the proposal is to make Fight or Flight into a trait that reduced PLDs GCD by 10% and we can even keep it at level 2. This would obviously make PLD a quicker tank than the rest, but I don't see that as a bad thing. The only thing that could cause a problem is double weaving because of the shorter GCD window. I personally do not know a good threshold for GCD speed where double weaving can potentially cause an issue for some. However, compared to DRK and GNB which have to deal with alot of oGCDs, PLD has far fewer, so I don't see it as being too big of an issue.

I am omitting changes to PLD's defensive actions as they have already been talked about many times.

TLDR Remove Fight or Flight as an action, put the 25% damage increase into all weaponskills as base potency. Fight or Flight is added as a trait that reduces weaponskill recast time by 10% obtained at level 2 to make PLD a more speedier tank and remove the concept of not using an atonement in your rotation.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Or, the most likely change would be they increase recast of Fight or Flight to 2minutes, and allow it to affect all damage, so we'd have a big Requiescat burst in opener and every 2 minutes, and a small Requiescat burst every other minute.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Or, the most likely change would be they increase recast of Fight or Flight to 2minutes, and allow it to affect all damage, so we'd have a big Requiescat burst in opener and every 2 minutes, and a small Requiescat burst every other minute.

Guess I wasn't entirely too far off the mark in the end lol

over shot by like 60seconds on FoF...so close

[Gserpent]

Guess I wasn't entirely too far off the mark in the end lol

over shot by like 60seconds on FoF...so close

60 sec rotations feel better, anyway. 2 minutes is a *long* time to go with nothing but filler.

[Gserpent]

snip

Something like that, yeah. As much as I hate continued homogenization, I think it's undeniable that's where they're going with class design for one reason or another. In that vein, copying No Mercy seems like the best fit for PLD - FoF simply becomes their version of No Mercy. Maybe with different timings, but the base concept is there. Instead of weaving in a ton of oGCDs and having that big burst of extra damage in between GCDs, you're instead putting the Req window in there somewhere and then you'll just be a boring, bland, awful "afk while pressing 1-2-3 for the next 35 seconds" class like everything else in the game is now. It's where we're going here, no doubt about it. With the changes this expansion such that using spells doesn't break weapon combos, it shouldn't be tough to fit in spells while still making sure Goring Blade is inside raid buffs (you would probably just do your 1-2-4 instead of 1-2-3, I imagine.) Oh, and I'm assuming that FoF applies to all damage, not just physical damage (hence the No Mercy comparison.) Potency of skills adjusted as needed of course.

For some of the outlying problems, I'd just copy how PvP solved them - Atonement just becomes something that outright replaces Fast Blade, like Raiden Thrust replaces... whatever the first step of DRG's combos is called, I forget. It's simply a potency booster that can't be assigned to a hotkey and is a "reward" for managing to press 1-2-3 without screwing up. Boring? I don't know, I guess? But is pressing 5-5-5 or sometimes only 5-5 any more exciting? Atonement just kinda sucks in PvE, it's not a "fun" button. I'd probably want to see a deeper redesign for it, but I don't think we'll see something more extensive like that in a mid-expansion patch. Then again, the ShB NIN patch shook things up a fair bit, so who knows?

I'm not a big fan of Circle of Scorn and the blade final dot overwriting each other. It's never been something I've liked and I would want to see that changed. Maybe it would be shifted to that the final blade spell gives you a lengthy buff that increases the damage of your next Circle of Scorn by whatever amount?

I also like the idea that others have mentioned, that FoF would be tuned to be a 120 second cooldown, so that you still have the 60 second Req window every odd minute to at least keep the gameplay from being a complete snoozefest. But it's going to be more boring than what we have now, no doubts about it - that's how they are choosing to design things.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

Except paladin is being changed to fit 2minute burst meta, so thinking it's going to retain the sustain damage is sheer copium otherwise Paladin would be getting reworked lmao.
So like or hate it, that's the reality of where paladin is most likely going to go, is dump everything into raid buffs, with a big burst and a small burst every other minute.

But I seriously doubt Mikey's wish for Paladin rework will happen to be perfectly honest, since he's assuming the rotation loop will remain the same as it is at present, but it's SE they dumb every job down when they rework, so highly doubt it will come to fruition. And if, just if, Mikey's idea came to fruition, play around with a 2.22 GCD would be awful, which would get worse long term, due to SkS on other gear in past and future BiS, can't rely solely on GCD of one tier to base theories on.