Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

I just hate shadow/whorl of death. Give me another big hitting ogcd to weave in somewhere to make up for the dps loss from the buff and I'd be happy.

[Dyvid]

How long till job designs boil down to this:



Truth be told, when I played SMN prior to Endwalker I ran content for no other reason than I simply enjoyed playing the job. Now I find it boring and uninteresting. Only way I mess up is by pressing Primal-Single attack when I meant to press Demi-Singe Attack even though its the same command just two different buttons trying to make it look more complex.

I wouldn't be surprise that 8.0 they just give everyone the PvP skillset while patting themselves on the back.

[Lyth]

Movement is tied to not dying. Square cannot or will not increase the skill-floor before Extreme and players don't want that content to be more difficult.

This is incorrect.

Positioning and movement are related to uptime. Plenty of fights at all difficulty levels offer you choices between playing safely and moving off the boss or playing more aggressively to maintain uptime. The main differentiator between players often isn't that you forgot what button comes after Hakaze, but that you lost a GCD or two by playing a bit safer than you actually needed to. Having more interesting movement tools available to the player also means that you have greater room to challenge players with this. That and designing less fights with arena-wide hitboxes and wall bosses.

I personally don't care much about movement. I care more about positioning

These two are functionally the same thing. It's about your spatial position on the map. Otherwise we'd be playing a text-based game with combo buttons.

[Payadopa]

I wouldn't be surprise that 8.0 they just give everyone the PvP skillset while patting themselves on the back.

That would actually be amazing. Imagine having more interesting abilities and not just "press this when it's out of CD".

[Arohk]

yes please , reduce the button bloat. I don' need 7 buttons to do AOE damage in a dungeon, 3-4 is enough.

[Valence]

WhM comparisons

I am not trying to advance an agenda with rose tinted glasses like a lot of people enjoy doing, and do not especially think that jobs are especially easier or harder than before, because that's in actuality not a black and white answer. Some are, some aren't, but overall most are more accessible today, which may explain the usual bias on top of rose tinted glassed veterans having naturally grown better at the game as well (this is an actual thing that should never be underestimated). However, one objective truth that has been extremely simplified is the general battle system in general, and this was mostly started in ShB: everything that's not damage focused (enmity control, party resources control, MP and TP management individually and collectively, boss positioning, more thoughtful burst synergies and raid plans, etc) has been cut out of the game either in shb or in ew. This on its own removes a decent chunk on the teamplay and cognitive load required to clear content.

Now then, you're conveniently forgetting a lot of things that made WhM for example, more complex back in the days, even without talking about actual MP management and economy. Aero 1 was still used for mobility when it wasn't possible to cast stone. The job was also a lot less mobile and weave friendly (even in shb) due to the mass amount of full GCD casts, like for most healers. In short it required a LOT more thought to play skillfully just because of that fact alone. Cleric Stance was also a huge skill hurdle especially for casual players (and I'm not saying I liked it, I actually disliked it, it was annoying and clunky). You can't just say that the difficulty of applying damage on healers has remained the same, because it hasn't. And i'm not even speaking about SCH and miasma 2 optimization back then.

[Vinal211]

You can't just say that the difficulty of applying damage on healers has remained the same, because it hasn't. And i'm not even speaking about SCH and miasma 2 optimization back then.

i am both interested and slightly concerned at what this means. it sounds like it was a lot of hoops to go through to keep good uptime on that alongside your other skills.

[Valence]

I didn't say EASY, but it should be doable without needing any out of game resources. Many single player RPGs actually have some pretty crazy stuff that you can do, yet people can figure it out based on in-game resources as they don't have things like parsers or theorycrafting scenes or whatnot. I would say SOME should be easy, but some should not. In FFTactices, for example, you can make a lot of powerful Job builds pretty easily, but you can also go ham into some pretty insane things if you really want to push it.

That comparison is completely disingenuous and not even true an inch. I don't know what single player games you play, but a lot of them, and the old FFs actually, have so many hidden optimization or even ways to break the game that it's unreal, and if you're telling me you figured all of them on your own I don't believe you.

Diversity is a good thing, sometimes, ya know?

Okay, let's drop the nebulous, passive aggressive, clichés. If you truly believe that what make jobs diverse is their skill ceilings, floors, or whatever, then it's indeed frightening and dull.

[Rithy255]

Jobs should have more variety in simple vs complicated, It's fine to have Jobs that are easier to play it's fine to have Jobs that are harder to play, I think the issue is that being "busy" doesn't mean difficulty when a lot Jobs designs are needlessly busy in the 120 minute windows, but outside of that they're just pressing a 1, 2, 3 filler.

I even think variety extends beyond rotations, I don't think Jobs should just only serve a purpose of being there to bring a slightly different rotation and cosmetic look, at least I would enjoy something that brings new options or something else.. But It feels like even expecting a Job with at least a nice rotation feels like I'm expecting too much. Raid buffs aren't even interesting you just click this 120 buff and yay. I don't think the current raid buff system works in favour of making jobs stand out unless they're Bard, Dragoon, dancer or Astro.

With Tanks & Healers, They should all stand out with utility kits especially, It's sort of there? (like some small differences?) but I feel like 7.0 will likely make things even closer then they are.. Paladin/Dark knight will likely be more inline with the other tanks in kit (Which some aspects of their kits such as Cover on PLD I don't mind changing), While something like Astro I', genuinely worried if it will be reworked into something that's easier I love Astro it's the only healer I like to play in casual content. Because it stands out, it feel active.

What I want is More interactive gameplay, Paladin for example should have more ways to interact with it's gauge, I hope healers like white mage have I don't know more damage buttons or something? Melee DPS should get a semi "support", Raid buffs should be more Unique to jobs instead of this boring ability you press every 2 minutes... Jobs in general should have some skill to learn while being welcoming to new players, I don't want to be afraid of balance changes or some forms of making a job more balanced, but balancing to ruin the purpose of a job and just making it like every other makes the job feel pointless to me.

[Valence]

The only reason I still stick to rphys is because I like the gameplay of its classes that remain true to its original premise (proc based, priority, freeform-ish), and which is also why I dumped my favorite job of all times to the dumpsterfire where it belongs (mch). I tried melees but they're not my cup of tea. Casters as well, don't interest me the slightest. Yet I am consigned into not playing a dps role, but a 1% party bonus role.

These two are functionally the same thing. It's about your spatial position on the map. Otherwise we'd be playing a text-based game with combo buttons.

I don't think we had the same idea of what movement refers to, but then I'll clarify and say that in my mind, it means dynamic motions where the focus is on the spatial translation. Positioning implies a focus on where to stand.

Both are tied, but they're not the same to me. A gameplay that asks me to constantly jump all around like a bunny, I don't want to. Melees can have it if it makes them happy, that was the whole point of positionals. A gameplay that asks me to go here or there for specific purposes, like solving mechanics (fight related), or to trigger melee (like on old DNC), it interests me already more. I'd even shove in the latter the old AoE patterns we had on MNK and some other jobs, where you constantly had to adjust the positioning of the character to adjust to the pack of enemies, whereas positionals are just an artificial mechanic to generate motion for no real purpose.

If we both have the idea that motions for a clear, non artificial purpose are good and desired, but that motions for the sake of moving are not desirable, then we're in agreement though. As I said above, as a rphys player I'd actually like having to move a little more, and I do feel that most of those jobs could benefit from some melee or mid range skills for example, which are only for AoE currently. Could even get inspired from pvp and have the occasional skill (not your damn filler mind you) that is affected by range, but this would need a better UI and indicators to not be a pain.