Raid buffs and combo actions should go.

[Azlith]

Well yes, it's a self-inflicted wound, but the issue before was designing the fight for people who did coordinate raid buffs and those who didn't at the same time. The people who coordinated them could say that it was too easy because it had to be scaled for those who didn't.

I don't think they used to consider inclusivity very much. If you go back to ARR, you had to clear high-end raids just to see the coil story and jobs were allowed to be extremely busy and clunky in Heavensward to the point many were avoided or the people who couldn't play them properly would have a massive gap in contribution from those who could. Just take for example not being able to "keep up" the basic part of your rotation that unlocks most of your firepower. These things are now traits.

It was pretty obvious that it was a problem and probably inevitable that they started caring about it.

I'm not sure I understand how this pertains to anything I've said. My posts were never about any sort of difficulty in playing jobs or difficulty aligning raid buffs or anything like that. It was simply about how raid buffs and combo actions limit diversity in job design.

[Jeeqbit]

I'm not sure I understand how this pertains to anything I've said. My posts were never about any sort of difficulty in playing jobs or difficulty aligning raid buffs or anything like that. It was simply about how raid buffs and combo actions limit diversity in job design.

It was in reference to the discussion after about the 2-minute window restricting job design and that being a self-inflicted wound. It's a self-inflicted wound, yes, but it has a purpose which is to meet people's demands for content to be harder. Which can only be achieved if they can align the skill level of more of their players. And that can be achieved, in part, by forcing more casual-minded players to align their buffs without trying.

I was referencing the discussion after that said SE is always trying to make it more inclusive and my point is that they didn't used to and it's just something they started to do because it was a problem and it was the elephant in the room. If players were good, they were really good and if they weren't, they were far below so SE decided to start closing that gap as much as possible.

[Semirhage]

Much as I dislike the two minute meta (and boy do I), I think the easier way to cut through the tangle of issues is nerfing the crap out of crit. It's become such a dominant stat that everyone wants to meld it. It's so strong that it beats out every other option for even the jobs that traditionally like skill/spell speed more. Even worse, it's the king of RNG stats. Combine that with the high potency finisher moves and it's a recipe for a large chunk of your damage being completely out of your control. So much of your damage comes from crit luck in buff windows. Every time I watch my auto attack eat that direct crit roll for 40 overexcited damage before Resolution hits for a limp regular hit, I know I just missed out on 30-40 thousand damage that had nothing to do with me.

[dspguy]

What we are discussing her is just a symptom but it isn't the cause. The symptoms we are seeing is this need for aligning all these high damaging attacks in a raid buff window. Back in SB, we started seeing that some jobs aligned better than others and those jobs became preferable in a raid group. Over the last few years, SE has simply made more jobs conform to this raid window. As others have said, it is stifling their options with making jobs feel different.

But why do we care so much about aligning these raid buff windows? DPS and enrage timers. Bosses have to be cleared in X seconds or you wipe. Hence the need to squeeze in as much damage as you can within those X seconds. The mechanics of many of these fights are difficult. Raid fights are mostly a dance. Dance to the tune of the mechanics while maintaining up-time.

I'd rather see SE take a different direction on the "fix." Change the enrage timer to more of a "failure count." For example, if your group, collectively, reaches X vuln stacks - you wipe. It is a failure to do mechanics. If a team can do the dance flawlessly for longer with less DPS, they should still be able to clear.

This removes the need to align buffs. Sure, it would help to align buffs, but would a group rather take a player that is going to stand in the poop to get off an extra ability and possibly wipe the group or a player that is going to do the mechanics properly? Just a thought.

[ForteNightshade]

It was in reference to the discussion after about the 2-minute window restricting job design and that being a self-inflicted wound. It's a self-inflicted wound, yes, but it has a purpose which is to meet people's demands for content to be harder. Which can only be achieved if they can align the skill level of more of their players. And that can be achieved, in part, by forcing more casual-minded players to align their buffs without trying.

I was referencing the discussion after that said SE is always trying to make it more inclusive and my point is that they didn't used to and it's just something they started to do because it was a problem and it was the elephant in the room. If players were good, they were really good and if they weren't, they were far below so SE decided to start closing that gap as much as possible.

The hilarious irony is they've actually made it less inclusive and exceedingly more punishing. If you misalign buffs now or die leading into a two minute window, your damage completely tanks. Having weakness in Endwalker is significantly more punishing than in Stormblood or Shadowbringers. Likewise, the crit variance has become so ridiculous high that misaligning your buffs will kill your damage. And you can't fix it. Did you forget to press Litany for five GCDs? Whelp, you've now delayed it for the entire fight and because there's only two minute intervals, you'll never have a chance to realign it elsewhere.

What the dev team fails to understand is more casual and inexperienced aren't paying attention to their buffs to begin with. Attempting to force an alignment while reducing or replacing others altogether doesn't accomplish anything except to annoy the players who enjoy higher difficulty content.

[R041]

The solution is simple... play a different game that cater to your personal needs instead of trying to change a game that does not.

These type of people need to Stop Gatekeeping discussions. We know the game changes, your character and profile say you started in 2016, so you should know this well enough. Stop Gatekeeping, let people talk things out like human beings. If these discussions pain you so much, then you have the option of not reading them. Yoshi-P will not give you a high-five for thwarting discussion.


Carry on..

[Atelier-Bagur]

These type of people need to Stop Gatekeeping discussions. We know the game changes, your character and profile say you started in 2016, so you should know this well enough. Stop Gatekeeping, let people talk things out like human beings. If these discussions pain you so much, then you have the option of not reading them. Yoshi-P will not give you a high-five for thwarting discussion.


Carry on..

You know you can just ignore those people. You know like...actually turning their advice back on them?

[R041]

You know you can just ignore those people. You know like...actually turning their advice back on them?

Yeah maybe, but these things need to be said, and I'm not the better person anyway.

Can't ignore cockroaches, gotta squish them or they'll keep running rampant telling everyone to stop push and pull discussions until all we have on this forum are a bunch of "Show us your Miqo'te!" threads.

I don't even necessarily agree with OP - But active discussions spark ideas and collaboration.

[dspguy]

Yeah maybe, but these things need to be said, and I'm not the better person anyway.

Can't ignore cockroaches, gotta squish them or they'll keep running rampant telling everyone to stop push and pull discussions until all we have on this forum are a bunch of "Show us your Miqo'te!" threads.

I don't even necessarily agree with OP - But active discussions spark ideas and collaboration.

I hear you. That is like saying "stop trying to push for advances in cellular technology! It is 1985! We don't want high-powered computers in the palm of our hand that weigh half a pound with access to all knowledge and information on our planet during the course our lifetime! No changes allowed!"

[Atelier-Bagur]

I think to me the current design choice are the devs way of trying to incorporate more teamwork based gameplay with party comps with making these homogenous burst windows align perfectly with the group. Rather than everyone just being individuals. Reminds me of Magic bursting from FFXI

Its a good direction but yeah not the best way to do it with if it means taking away individuality from jobs