Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Connor]

I honestly just miss when jobs were allowed to be complex. MCH and BRD during HW were the most fun any classes have ever been in this game, and the fact they are what they are now? It vexes me.

I honestly really miss Bow Mage. I know Bard aren’t allowed to like it cuz it was wholly unbalanced for an entire expansion or w/e but I still had more fun as a Bow Mage than with anything I have as a level 90 Bard lol. I want the songs back too, it makes literally no sense for them to require a target, deal damage, have a massive cool-down (why are we so exhausted after singing each song that we need 75s before we can start again lol, just make them use MP).

Also it’s a complaint that goes for most jobs but I really hate that ‘support’ in ffxiv is almost entirely passive (though it’s most noticeable on Bard). Your songs are all just damage cooldowns that deal damage (stay there while I sing a song about the travels of a kind Mage, it will physically harm you and make my arrows shoot faster lol), and the support effects are just slapped on top because we all complained about them not being there.

Troubadour and Nature’s Minne may as well be auto-activated, considering every enemy aoe comes exactly 120 seconds apart lol. Then there’s the fact that the effects are functionally redundant (damage reduction and healing increases in a game with infinitesimal damage values and microscopic healing requirements), Warden’s Paean is still so pointless most Bards aren’t aware of existence. And as if having an ability that has no use 99% of the time wasn’t enough, it has a goddamn 45 second cool-down time . On an ability that does essentially nothing! Just because it’s a ‘support’ effect.

Just because ‘supportive’ jobs aren’t very popular in MMOs really doesn’t give them to right to just pretend an entire playstyle doesn’t exist within the majority of final fantasy games lol. Bard is a prime example of how support jobs in FFXIV have been shafted time and time again; Astrologian is the same. And the worst part is, I bet if Yoshi-P was asked about it, he’d say ‘you wanna support the party just be a dancer wwwww’.

Also as an aside, what is Machinist even supposed to be now? It can’t be a selfish dps with sky high damage because it’s a phys ranged, can’t be a support because Dancer. It doesn’t seem fair to relegate it to ‘does lower damage than black Mage and Samurai but you can jump while you attack’ lol

Tl;dr Bow Mage had many, many…many issues but personally I’d rather have enjoyable clunk than a perfect polished poop

[fulminating]

It isn’t fine, noone claims it plays like a level 90 job and even its most ardent supporters won’t praise the levelling experience - something deeply concerning given it’s, you know, a starting class. The incredibly modular design of the so-called summons essentially means you have 5 buttons to shuffle around outside of burst, ifrit’s dash/slap combo even gets broken by ruby ruin so you can’t save half of it for small movements in the next few seconds.

Furthermore the style of summoner it appears to want to emulate already existed within the game and in a less janky way - specifically on blue mage.

[Renathras]

Okay, let me put it in simple terms, and then just...I dunno, stop replying to me and I'll bow out and let you believe...whatever it is you want to believe and not bother with this thread further:

1) The Job works - it does good DPS, and has both party buffs and Raise utility that make it viable in all content, including double Caster clears of the hardest fights in the game.

2) The Job is understandable - it doesn't require someone to be a theorycrafter just to figure out what they should be doing, and the progression is understandable from level 1 to level 90, so players can understand and effectively make use of the new skills they get as they level.

3) The Job isn't clunky - its systems all work and are effective at what they do. Really the only at all clunky thing is using Carby's shield, and Carby should be doing SOMETHING else (Ruin 2 instant casts or something), but the rest of the kit is what's on the tin, and that's fine.

Those are really the only requirements for a Job to be fine or not.

High skill ceiling? Not required for a Job to be fine.

"play like a level 90 job"? Also not required for a Job to be fine. Been playing since ARR and Jobs were perfectly fun then, too.

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You don't want a dissenting view because...I have no idea why. Maybe you're worried that if people like New SMN, the Devs won't make it like Old SMN and you really want Old SMN or something similar back? I dunno. But what I DO know is that New SMN works well and is right now the most popular Caster in the game at all levels of play. Even in TOP, where the gap isn't even close. You can try to hand-wave this away with Raise utility or RDM being undertuned, but the end result is the same: That New SMN works and that New SMN is very popular and effective.

Or, to use a different phrase to describe this: That New SMN is, indeed, fine.

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It's not what you want it to be. Sure. I very rarely will tell people they "feel" wrong. So your subjective feelings are fine. New SMN isn't a Job you enjoy playing and it doesn't appeal to you in its present form.

Say that.

That's a true statement and it's perfectly acceptable for you to feel that way.

But don't make objective statements like "It isn't fine" when it objectively IS fine. It's just not what you want the Job to be, which is a different statement entirely - a statement it's fine for you to make, but make that one instead.

[fulminating]

1) ok, how does that make it good/well designed?
2) shb summoner wasn’t hard, it just had a high ceiling. Keeping your dots up and pressing egi assaults would let you perform well enough. Reading tooltips is not an insurmountable barrier to entry.
3) you can still ghost the demi ogcds, there is no reason for carbuncle to exist beyond delaying the “summons”, the flexibility it claims to offer is a joke, it is a caster with 3-4 casts/minute (significantly less than red and black mages, and noticeably less than samurai), it no longer fits with its own lore. There is no clear direction for meaningful development, negligible opportunities to optimise and generally reeks of being a rush job.

Play like a level cap job then. In arr the analogue would be a level 30 class. I don’t understand why it’s necessary to translate into such terms given the context - is it not an open secret that the butter of complexity is spread across the ever-lengthening bread of levels more and more thinly with each passing expansion?

I would also argue that a dps job - ie one whose primary and near sole responsibility is damage - should have depth to its rotation no matter how accessible it is intended to be. I can understand why that might not be as obvious for healers, but current warrior should not be a beacon for smn to aspire to.

I don’t care if there’s a dissenting view as long as it has logically understandable and coherent arguments. Popularity is not one of them, as the playerbase gravitates towards the easiest path - which is why blue mage is used to do wt extremes, ct is the only alliance raid, dungeons are in fact corridors, warriors keep showing up in expert without inner release, and you can make a fortune reselling vendor mats on the mb.

If people want to play things badly they will. I don’t see why this is any reason to ignore those who want some room to improve.

[Mikey_R]

I think people here have different definitions on what they mean when they say a job has 'depth', so really, the question I have is, what counts as 'depth'? What quantifies one job having more 'depth' than another?

There is also the flexibility, is that separate to 'depth' or is it a component of 'depth'?

Once this baseline has been established, a proper discussion can be had comparing different jobs because, at the moment, it is going nowhere.

[Connor]

I think people here have different definitions on what they mean when they say a job has 'depth', so really, the question I have is, what counts as 'depth'? What quantifies one job having more 'depth' than another?

There is also the flexibility, is that separate to 'depth' or is it a component of 'depth'?

Once this baseline has been established, a proper discussion can be had comparing different jobs because, at the moment, it is going nowhere.

It’s been going nowhere for the past 6 years lol. Yet people still ask for same things they asked for during previous expansions and never got (like BLM white mage, or wanting Scholar to become the Poison God of Plagues and Pestilence, remove all healing gcds and replace with oGCD, ‘skill ceilings’ that scale infinitely, etc ).

Also why is it so bad to like the new Summoner? It’s easy sure but in case people haven’t noticed that’s kind of the aim-of-the-game when it comes to ffxiv designs. Seems a little unfair to say ‘if you like new Summoner you’re just a brainless piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to play this game’. What about people who liked both?

[Mikey_R]

Also why is it so bad to like the new Summoner? It’s easy sure but in case people haven’t noticed that’s kind of the aim-of-the-game when it comes to ffxiv designs. Seems a little unfair to say ‘if you like new Summoner you’re just a brainless piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to play this game’. What about people who liked both?

Coincidentally, this is Renathras's whole point. People don't necessarily hate new summoner for what it is, but for what it took away. Meaning, if the game had both new AND old summoner, nooone would be complaining about new summoner.

[tearagion]

People don't necessarily hate new summoner for what it is, but for what it took away.

Nah I hate it for what it is too. When RDM/RPR run absolute circles around you in nuance and flexibility, and tanks+ast have more involved rotations, maybe the DPS job in question is poorly designed. What it took away is what makes me upset in addition to hating the job.

[IDontPetLalas]

Nah I hate it for what it is too. When RDM/RPR run absolute circles around you in nuance and flexibility, and tanks+ast have more involved rotations, maybe the DPS job in question is poorly designed. What it took away is what makes me upset in addition to hating the job.

I wouldn't say that AST is more involved rotations than the current summoner. You may be thinking of the opener, but after that? No, not at all. With tanks, maybe you could make a case that they're comparable.

[tearagion]

I wouldn't say that AST is more involved rotations than the current summoner. You may be thinking of the opener, but after that? No, not at all. With tanks, maybe you could make a case that they're comparable.

I chose the word involved for a specific reason, cards alone require more consideration than anything in SMN's kit.