Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Sqwall]

Meanwhile I picked up Monk in EW as it's now a manageable DPS class for me now. I also dropped Summoner which was my primary DPS previously in ShB as it was a pain in the butt for the performance you got in return compared to other classes, and main it now.

I share the same points. There are some jobs that I have tried now do frustration from other jobs jank and clunkyness.

I figured this out when I realized how poorly MNK was designed from Heavensward to Endwalker after I tried out Red Mage. I literally couldn't' believe how well designed Red Mage was compared to Monk. If I could do just as much damage with considerably less effort...why the hell would I work harder???? If some people want to go crazy jumping through hoops just to say "i'm good at a complex job, and I work way harder then you. Praise me..." *confused clap*

I'm happier with Monk now...and it's WAY more fun to play. (also positionals need to die)

[DistantStar]

When I started back in late StB/early ShB, I loved MNK because of its multiple oGCDs, the positionals forcing you to keep on the move, and, of course, because it fights bare-handed. Other than just feeling plain fun to me (I'm a sucker for anything that has you pressing buttons often), they also contributed to its job fantasy of being a fleet-footed, fast as hell underdog. Just a constant stream of damage that, while smaller than someone with a weapon, will add up in the long run.

In EW, I love monk because it fights bare-handed. That's it.

Streamlining gameplay is fine, but streamlining it to the point of removing parts of the job's identity (or making them outright unrecognizable like DRK or SMN) is going really overboard, and imo it has the potential to bite Square in the ass in the long run. If the fans' reaction to a rework of a job they love goes from "Oh, I'll miss current *job*, but I'm excited to see what they have in store for it!" to "please please don't make me hate it" is a sign that something's off.

quoting this month old post because it is my exact experience. I don't really care about the numbers, I just want it to *feel* exciting, flavorful and fun in a way that stokes my imagination. having Riddle of Earth put at 120s instead of 30s just feels bad because I liked having a button to press that made me feel clever that I was paying attention to the boss's attack. They could still have nerfed it numerically, but now I get to push that button 1/4th as much! SE is missing the appeal of the job for me!

[Mikey_R]

3) EW 6.1: No more proc overwrites from flourish, which is a huge downgrade in complexity since you had to make sure before that to keep enough esprit to fill the last GCD before a flourish in the case of not having any proc to spend.

Out of the whole post I just want to talk about this point right here. You say this change reduced complexity, I say it was a quality of life fix. I will preface this by saying I am not a dedicated Dancer by any means, however, in my experience in playing it, getting to the point where you used Flourish and still having a buff to use was problematic. You could use the buff and delay Flourish for the rest of the fight, or, overwrite the proc and this happened more in my limited usage of Dancer that it was starting to become a bit frustrating. Obviously, there might be something I am missing, but I can see why it was changed.

Which brings me to the main point I want to make. What counts as a reduction in complexity and what counts as a Quality of Life change? Going back to ShB, BLM got Despair as a single target flare option, so they needed a way for you to get back to UI smoothly, so Aspect Mastery was added. Come EW, Aspect Mastery is now gained at level 1. Now, it really isn't needed until level 50 when you get Flare as that is the first spell that drains all of your MP, but at the same time, I have been in situations where I haven't properly calculated MP and so end up with less MP than I thought and being unable to cast Blizzard 3 (at lower levels), so it helps there, but it has removed the need to worry too much about your MP. So, is this a reduction in complexity, or, a Quality of Life feature.

Maybe, Quality of life features for jobs ARE a reduction in complexity. Maybe some are and some are not. I'm sure there are plenty of examples that can be used either way, however, it (mostly) boils down to, the QoL feature changing something about the job that might have been considered a bit unintuitive or it just didn't flow right. So, in this regard, should a job receive QoL if it reduces complexity if it also means smoothing out the rough patches?

There is definitely an interesting discussion to be had there.

[Valence]

Out of the whole post I just want to talk about this point right here. You say this change reduced complexity, I say it was a quality of life fix. I will preface this by saying I am not a dedicated Dancer by any means, however, in my experience in playing it, getting to the point where you used Flourish and still having a buff to use was problematic. You could use the buff and delay Flourish for the rest of the fight, or, overwrite the proc and this happened more in my limited usage of Dancer that it was starting to become a bit frustrating. Obviously, there might be something I am missing, but I can see why it was changed.

Which brings me to the main point I want to make. What counts as a reduction in complexity and what counts as a Quality of Life change? Going back to ShB, BLM got Despair as a single target flare option, so they needed a way for you to get back to UI smoothly, so Aspect Mastery was added. Come EW, Aspect Mastery is now gained at level 1. Now, it really isn't needed until level 50 when you get Flare as that is the first spell that drains all of your MP, but at the same time, I have been in situations where I haven't properly calculated MP and so end up with less MP than I thought and being unable to cast Blizzard 3 (at lower levels), so it helps there, but it has removed the need to worry too much about your MP. So, is this a reduction in complexity, or, a Quality of Life feature.

Maybe, Quality of life features for jobs ARE a reduction in complexity. Maybe some are and some are not. I'm sure there are plenty of examples that can be used either way, however, it (mostly) boils down to, the QoL feature changing something about the job that might have been considered a bit unintuitive or it just didn't flow right. So, in this regard, should a job receive QoL if it reduces complexity if it also means smoothing out the rough patches?

There is definitely an interesting discussion to be had there.

I never said it was not a QoL fix. It can be both a downgrade in complexity and a QoL fix. BRD adding charges on ballad procs or decoupling procs from crit, then from dots, is also a downgrade in complexity, yet it's QoL at least for ballad procs (but not really on procs from dots). The problem with SE is that they fix things (when they choose not to completely demolish a job and remake it from scratch), but then they shrug off the loss of complexity that results out of it. That's more or less the point I was trying to make.

Note on what you're missing: the way you dealt with proc overwrite in Flourish was to keep esprit in order to dump a Sabre Dance when you had no proc going, so that you'd not generate a proc just before the flourish ogcd. It added quite a bit of complexity to the rotation, but I'll be the first to admit that considering the volatile aspect of esprit generation it could prove extremely frustrating. Never liked it myself tbh and that's what kept me away from DNC, so believe me when I'm saying I don't hate that change, but I miss the idea of keeping something to dump before flourish in order not to generate a proc if there was none up, I just don't miss that something being tied to the gauge, it was just a headache like ShB MCH heat management before WF.

The real answer is that if one reduces complexity out of QoL actions, then one has to consider whether that complexity was just complexity for complexity's sake, or if it actually brought additional depth and value to skill play, which DNC proc overwrites actually did bring somewhat. Kaiten is another good example that a lot of players and the community seem to have grasped pretty well. Kaiten was removed for obvious reasons (was used with every iajutsu anyway, and proved to be just another button you pressed for every iajutsu, which was kinda bloatey), but at the same time it removed all the play around kenki management and made shinten spamm literally hell (on top of removing a cool looking skill that people were attached to).

[Payadopa]

It just doesn't work if you simplify jobs AND the encounters. Thanks to the ilvl creep you'll always be bored till you reach current endgame. If I had started the game now I'd have quit around mid-ARR. Dial back homogenisation at the very least. Fun gameplay > balance.

[CelestiCer]

They're homogenizing the wrong things:
...
- Skill floors and accessibility (which is good) but at the expense of skill ceilings.
...

I agree with this. Jobs can be complex without increasing the skill floor with an avenue to express mastery over your favorite Job(s) with an increased skill ceiling that is entirely " Optional to master ".

Often the notion that gets brought up is " difficulty is limited to certain jobs you choose ". Example? Love SMN, the fantasy the aesthetics? want complexity? give up SMN that you love? and pick up BLM for complexity. And I don't think its unreasonable nor impossible to give every job that complexity or some as optional regarding improvement of Job gameplay.

Another POV sometimes from the Balance Discord is that " Stream-lining is necessary for harder Fights ". I just disagree. The view that Fight design restrictions are based on Job complexity forcing homogenization... I could say the same for players demand to be able to execute their rotation perfectly at all times on all jobs 24/7 is equally restrictive. Granted, I understand that if you have x job being easier vs x difficult job to perform better forcing a meta in x fights? But, I believe this is due to the 2 min buff direction more then anything else.

More buttons for the sake of more? is as meaningless as less buttons for the sake of less. I prefer less buttons then what we have now? as long as it has more depth. Square also needs to cater to console/controller players, less Button Bloat with Skill-Depth is better.

Being pessimistic, has my expectations at Square Simplifying everything and at best not simplifying BLM for obvious love-child reasons. If I were to be optimistic? Square will give some nuances/complexity/gauge-interactions anywhere from 7.0 to 10 years into FFXIV's future. Can't blame me for having my expectations be this low... mhm

[Renathras]

I agree with this. Jobs can be complex without increasing the skill floor with an avenue to express mastery over your favorite Job(s) with an increased skill ceiling that is entirely " Optional to master ".

I think the problem with this is it's one of those designs that's fantastic on paper but doesn't work in the real world. ANYTHING related to damage will never be "optional" in a realistic sense. Utility, sure. A RDM that can throw in Verraises seemlessly in its rotation is great. A RDM that only uses Jolt (not Fire/Stone) is not, because in real terms the latter is hampering the party while the former MAY (situation depending) be providing redundancy (generally speaking, Healers get the first two KO's per minute, RDM/SMN should get the third or get the raise if it's one of the Healers that went down, or more than 2 people went down)

We see this a lot where people propose ideas of low skill floors and high skill ceilings, but because the skill ceiling adds significant damage, people who aren't reaching somewhat close to it are unable to clear content, or are considered to be harming other players due to their lower personal skill.

The problem with "Optional to master" is when it's never optional. No one requires perfect 100% gameplay, but players are still not allowed the "option" of significantly lower damage in content that is based around Enrage mechanics.

This is also the problem with the Job idea. For example, if we make all four healers play like SB SCH, many people would quit the role since they'd have no viable choice anymore. Whereas leaving one or two closer to what they are today fixes that problem, where players so inclined may pick which of the two they like better. This is especially true when it actively plays into the Job fantasy. For example, while one could argue for GNB or PLD to be skillful, technical combatants, WAR being unga bunga actually fills the Job fantasy of playing a raging berserker.

I do agree with you on the "less can be more" thing with buttons. A number of Jobs have extra buttons that largely just...exist to exist. Like Goring Blade on PLD right now, or Sonic Break in GNB. They don't add anything to the rotation, have no resource basis, and don't interact with any other mechanics other than they're used on CD in a buff window (but what isn't?), leading them to just be clutter that doesn't achieve anything useful.

[CelestiCer]

I think the problem with this is it's one of those designs that's fantastic on paper but doesn't work in the real world. ANYTHING related to damage will never be "optional" in a realistic sense. Utility, sure.

I'll clarify what I meant with what I wrote.

SkillFloor = barrier of entry to clear any content before Extreme difficulty. Examples: Using DutySupport NPC's to clear Dungeons while you eat a Sandwich in RL or Pressing 1 skill even though you have 15 skills available to clear 90% of all MSQ quests. The bare minimum to clear that level of content is the SkillFloor to me. The SkillCeiling is pushing Jobs to their limits, even in content without any Enrage.

Content without DPS checks makes complexity of any Job " Optional ". Any complexity that is optional is there for not goin to harm the players who are trying to clear this lvl of content. Because complexity can be added without lifting the skillfloor. Only where DPS checks matter is learning jobs properly mandatory i.e anything above Extreme Difficulty. Here adding depth to Jobs shouldn't make clearing this impossible by having Square allow a certain margin of error. Heck... as weeks go by in Savage we have players who can't find the Feint/Addle button while parties have 15 deaths in a singular pull and still clear the fight...

The appeal of complexity is to be able to do it better then it is necessary. That extra stone you're allowed to carry that another didn't. Doing dungeons and never casting Phlegma or any other AoE skill, that's the Bar Square sets. But, when someone comes a long that actually practiced their Job well? its day and night. And I wish that to be highlighted through available optional depth available for every Job.

Instead its all taken away...
Reworked, removed... every uniqueness/trait/resource interactions/simplified/homogenized/every nuance, every...everything. It becomes so Streamlined that making Content clearable becomes the priority over making Jobs as enjoyable to play.

[Valence]

I also do wish for more interesting mechanical rotations to play with, especially on rphys if only to give them a bone to gnaw at and make people cease defending job rdps segregation into two groups (dps jobs and 1% party bonus jobs). If anything, ironically enough, what they've managed to do in pvp and albeit it probably could gain from some polish, and also granted, benefits from a lot of variables that are present in pvp compared to pve, is actually pretty flavorful at least to me. I feel that the kits are coherent and all offer very unique mechanics no matter the job. Maybe they should take some inspiration from there, because it feels to me like they've kinda reached a terminus with the current pve system.

After removing more and more core gameplay facet from the game notably in shb (enmity management, party support and resource management, oversimplification of the general battle system) in order to focus on the only thing that they've painted themselves into a corner with (damage, damage, damage and more damage), because that's the only thing that truly matters now... Well it feels like they're just struggling to find new mechanics, too scared to butcher some jobs while butchering others instead of making them funnier, or just outright removing identities in favor of blandness (hello MCH). On top of this they keep following that slippery slope leading to potency creep with the new capstone ability that constantly has to be shinier and bigger and more nukey than the one from the last expansion, and we end up with silly stuff of 1200+ potency and then they complain that the crit variance over those is too damn high and harmful to the game (hello kaiten removal)...

[Valence]

And now that I mentioned MCH, then I'm gonna ramble because I want to... It seems that they never listen to the actual feedback people give. I know it's been since ShB release for that one, but who even asked for ammo and procs to be removed on that job? And reload? Why is it on RDM now? We loved this no? Why did the job depart from this to a bland 3 steps melee combo? Why did it take them 6 years to actually start doing something about the latency feedback and give us stacks? Who asked them to remove all the rest of the job identity that was party support (dps and mitigation)? Because BRD and DNC were already supportey? And what about the class identity being the biggest burst job in the game within a 10s window every minute? Why was that removed? And past ShB, why does queen still not have any AoE falloff on some of her moves? It's not like literally everybody was waiting for that to happen for EW...

This is just an example, but I do feel like it illustrates perfectly the disconnect between feedback and whatever... SE feels like doing. I'm definitely not saying to listen to every stupid thing that comes out of player's feedback, but so many choices are so incomprehensible at times that it just causes concern for me.