Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Alice9]

I very much do not like the current state and degree of homogenization that is occurring. I understand that this will always happen to some degree for balancing reasons, ease of future changes, etc., but I believe it is starting to mess with the identity of jobs and the unique aspects that make them (or made them) fun to play- and has gotten to the point in which whenever they announce job changes, my first reaction is concern as to whether or not I will continue to find the job fun to play in the future. Kaiten's removal gutted the feel of samurai for me, Monk's Riddle of Earth changes turned what was originally a unique and interesting ability into a vapid mitigation, Summoner doesn't feel complete, and Paladin's recent changes feel like a glove that doesn't fit the hand. These aspects are just simply my opinion, and perhaps it is too negative- but there is definitely a theme between them all that causes me to feel that way.

Personally, I always prefer more complex jobs and rotations to jobs that are simpler. I understand wanting either however, and I think the best possible direction that Square could go to please both audiences would be to introduce jobs and job changes that create high skill ceilings- while also having a general rotation or flow that people can pick up on intuitively. Those who enjoy optimizing their job and rotation can really push the job to its limits and be rewarded for it- and those who would just like to pick up and play a job can do so with little issue. This is obviously easier said than done, but I believe that would be a good general direction to aim for if they desired to simultaneously cater to both sides of the player base.

[ataren3]

I'm not a fan of the homogenization that's been happening and the reworked classes having their identity altered or removed entirely. I see their want/need to remove DoTs from a design perspective: too many buffs/debuffs and you cause issues with trying to clear content, like what happened in TOP as well as several other encounters earlier. Why they haven't raised or removed this limit is anyone's guess (mine is that it's still 1.0 code and nobody knows how to rework it without breaking everything).

What I'd like to see is sort of the introduction of the "master-style" classes that people have been discussing recently. Since Square Enix wants to make every class easy enough to play, why not provide an "advanced" version of each class that provides high-risk high-reward?

As an example take the current Summoner. Nearly everyone agrees that while the change is nice it's just far, far too simple. It's rotation really doesn't change in any meaningful way from X -> Y level. You basically have your rotation set in stone from level 50(?) onwards. Now imagine there's an option to master class Summoner. This changes or enhances its rotation between low & high levels and provides more things to do (or manage) which in turn ups the damage it spits out. The caveat is that these things you can do are inherently more complex, maybe more nuanced (like BLM "when can I move and when can I accept a hit?"), and comes with penalties for messing up. I think it'd be really neat to see the "simple" class that can go through all normal content (MSQ, dungeons, trials, maybe raids) and the advanced class that can go through all that content but also participate in current endgame stuff like Savage, EX, and Ultimates.

People who don't care don't have to worry about their class getting too complex because most people don't bother with endgame stuff anyway. Those that want that challenge and feel accomplished for mastering the class have something to work towards.

[Valence]

I'm not a fan of the homogenization that's been happening and the reworked classes having their identity altered or removed entirely. I see their want/need to remove DoTs from a design perspective: too many buffs/debuffs and you cause issues with trying to clear content, like what happened in TOP as well as several other encounters earlier. Why they haven't raised or removed this limit is anyone's guess (mine is that it's still 1.0 code and nobody knows how to rework it without breaking everything).

What I'd like to see is sort of the introduction of the "master-style" classes that people have been discussing recently. Since Square Enix wants to make every class easy enough to play, why not provide an "advanced" version of each class that provides high-risk high-reward?

As an example take the current Summoner. Nearly everyone agrees that while the change is nice it's just far, far too simple. It's rotation really doesn't change in any meaningful way from X -> Y level. You basically have your rotation set in stone from level 50(?) onwards. Now imagine there's an option to master class Summoner. This changes or enhances its rotation between low & high levels and provides more things to do (or manage) which in turn ups the damage it spits out. The caveat is that these things you can do are inherently more complex, maybe more nuanced (like BLM "when can I move and when can I accept a hit?"), and comes with penalties for messing up. I think it'd be really neat to see the "simple" class that can go through all normal content (MSQ, dungeons, trials, maybe raids) and the advanced class that can go through all that content but also participate in current endgame stuff like Savage, EX, and Ultimates.

People who don't care don't have to worry about their class getting too complex because most people don't bother with endgame stuff anyway. Those that want that challenge and feel accomplished for mastering the class have something to work towards.

Knowing the community already I'll play devil's advocate: I can already feel that even in casual content you'd see a lot of scorn and elitism suddenly dropping down on everybody daring to use the simple versions, because "tHeY aRe wAsTiNg mY pReCiOuS gAmEr tImE aNd tHeY nEeD tO gIt gUd".

But it definitely ties to skill floor (accessibility) and ceiling (skill expression), so yes, I find it interesting.

[Vinal211]

i will say, i personally do not mind the changes made to summoner. i think new summoner is nice and inviting for people picking up the game. it can be that magic dps of a low skill floor, and it still fits both xiv lore and FF lore as a whole. but i don't mind it with the idea that new summoner can be expanded upon and that hopefully, later on, it will have a pretty good skill ceiling to keep you coming back to it. keep adding more to the rotation, more summons or not and all that. what i would hate to see happen is that for new summoner to come in, stay as it is for the rest of the games life with only like...2-3 extra buttons of DoT's not even connected to the carbuncle or any summons period, and then old summoner kit is tossed aside and forgotten. like not even giving SCH back its DoT management with Tri-Disaster and Bane included for more fun, just Bio, Miasma, all that stuff that you could do with summoner between pet commands and bahamut/phoenix? "nah, we don't need that anymore because 'it was too complicated'".

i said it in another thread, but both kits can work, and both kits can exist at the same time. maybe it could be a whole separate class of its own, maybe they'll have some kind of odd specialization thing later on where you can choose between current and old summoner. i wouldn't mind either way. but i would mind it if i was given current SMN, not given anything to add on to/fix it, and then everyone else who doesn't like current SMN doesn't have something to play that reminds them of old SMN.

[Valence]

i will say, i personally do not mind the changes made to summoner. i think new summoner is nice and inviting for people picking up the game. it can be that magic dps of a low skill floor, and it still fits both xiv lore and FF lore as a whole. but i don't mind it with the idea that new summoner can be expanded upon and that hopefully, later on, it will have a pretty good skill ceiling to keep you coming back to it. keep adding more to the rotation, more summons or not and all that. what i would hate to see happen is that for new summoner to come in, stay as it is for the rest of the games life with only like...2-3 extra buttons of DoT's not even connected to the carbuncle or any summons period, and then old summoner kit is tossed aside and forgotten. like not even giving SCH back its DoT management with Tri-Disaster and Bane included for more fun, just Bio, Miasma, all that stuff that you could do with summoner between pet commands and bahamut/phoenix? "nah, we don't need that anymore because 'it was too complicated'".

That's literally what happened to MCH, and nothing has been done for EW to make it more engaging. We all thought they were trying to get a basic core rotation right and improve upon it, but they haven't, it's still the same brainless carpal tunnel sludge.

This alone doesn't make me hopeful for 7.0 SMN at all because it's been following the exact same pattern.

[Zarkovitch]

When someone wants pets command back. Please reconsider the clunkiness of this game.There a reason why pet have bare minimum of enteraction on this game.Ghosting and delay input. Casual player thinks might be cool, but on the high end game raiding you are griefing if this happens on you. Simplifcation can be good if you know the game well enough, however it SE. So you got a 50% chance it be a good quality life change.

[addz3]

Homogenization is such a bad idea, what's the point in having 20+ jobs when the do the same thing as 5. Personally I'd like them to take the FFXI route a bit more, there's a reason why that game is still going strong. The reason behind making everything the same is so that nobody feels left out? Left out of what, high tier raiding groups? No disrespect but aren't they like 5% of the player base? Don't they play for the challenge rather than what job? Maybe just me but I don't care that my PLD may do 8% less damage as long as its true to an identity and becomes a brick wall. Warrior - go for it do you 10% extra damage than the other tanks but be a squashy piece of meat. That's my balancing. If some jobs fall off certain content, that's fine. Players can then just swap job to have a new experience. I feel they are really screwing this game by making it damage damage damage. Going back to FFXI that was a true role experience, they need to do that. I'd argue the majority of people play XIV for story and lore which includes role-playing not the weird stuff but getting in to character. Sword shield defender or an axe wielding maniac. It's all good.

[Renathras]

...to clear any content before Extreme difficulty.

This is the problem.

Extreme difficulty is the end-game content for most players. Savage raiders are a growing percent of the community (somewhere between 35-40%) because it's been made more accessible, but that's still a minority, while Ultimates are a minority of a minority. Extreme content is very likely the main endgame for something like 60-70% of the community. When you're proposing a change that affects that many people, it becomes a problem because - again - it isn't optional. As people constantly say, no matter how bad it's become for the game, damage is the only metric that counts. As long as at least one party member has at least 1 HP and the boss has died, any extra healing, mitigation, or utility is irrelevant (so people say), "damage is mitigation/healing because it prevents damage" (absurd in a realistic sense - you can't outdamage a boss before a party member on the verge of death is dead unless the boss is below 3-5%), etc etc.

In short, the community has decided damage IS NOT optional. Meaning any skill expression tied to damage, unless the gap between skill floor and skill ceiling damage is microscopic in % terms, isn't optional at all.

So that can't be how we allow skill expression in the game anymore, since the community has spoken and said that it isn't, in fact, optional, and never is, unless you're doing content with no Enrages, in which case Job balance and skill expression is arguably irrelevant.

To me:

The skill floor is the level of skill needed to reliably clear Extremes.

Anything less than that is irrelevant - a dipping bird on your keyboard with autorun going could clear it - and extremes are the majority of the community's end-game, either as an entry into Savage or as their stand-alone end-game source of weapons and replay-ability farming mounts. And so the "floor" is Extremes.

Thus damage is not optional in a realistic sense unless, again, the difference between floor and cap is vast and/or Extremes have ridiculously lax Enrages. (Granted, they have lately, so who knows? But you still have to have marginally competent players, even with Ex5 letting you blow a Healer LB3 [or possibly 2] and still make it. Seriously, Ex5's Enrage itself is actually appropriate, it's more a check of if your party can get at least one Healer through the stack/spread/cross/cleave/stack-spread combo and/or Limit Cut - if you can just get through all that, unless people are asleep at their keyboards, the DPS should be sufficient...but that's not always the case, as it wasn't in the earlier Extremes.)

Anyway, this is also why I'm a huge proponent of the "different complexity JOBS" (not skill floor vs ceiling) model. It's fine if a game has several easy classes, several moderate classes, and several hard classes. harder classes can be rewarded with feeling good about themselves, or possibly with non-damage utility stuff. But until the community decides to change its collective mind on the damage >>>> all thing, DAMAGE cannot be the thing hugely tied to skill ceilings, because it will NEVER be optional under that paradigm.

Homogenization is such a bad idea, what's the point in having 20+ jobs when the do the same thing as 5. Personally I'd like them to take the FFXI route a bit more, there's a reason why that game is still going strong. The reason behind making everything the same is so that nobody feels left out? Left out of what, high tier raiding groups? No disrespect but aren't they like 5% of the player base? Don't they play for the challenge rather than what job? Maybe just me but I don't care that my PLD may do 8% less damage as long as its true to an identity and becomes a brick wall. Warrior - go for it do you 10% extra damage than the other tanks but be a squashy piece of meat. That's my balancing. If some jobs fall off certain content, that's fine. Players can then just swap job to have a new experience. I feel they are really screwing this game by making it damage damage damage. Going back to FFXI that was a true role experience, they need to do that. I'd argue the majority of people play XIV for story and lore which includes role-playing not the weird stuff but getting in to character. Sword shield defender or an axe wielding maniac. It's all good.

Somewhat agreed. FFXI's Job design and identity are (largely) SO much better.

I think everything should be able to clear content in a general sense, but content should be tuned down to allow that, not Job identity. And there should be complex and intricate Jobs for people that want them, simple for those that want them, and a spectrum in between.

WHM is pretty simple (relatively speaking) while SCH is more complicated, but each are competent and functional, and it's up to the player what they like, with some in-between options available for people that want something in between.

There's no reason FFXIV can't do something like that - and the great irony is, it already did in its past, and in some cases, actually got it to work.

[Valence]

It's fine if a game has several easy classes, several moderate classes, and several hard classes.

I won't develop more on my thought pattern since CelestiCer already pretty much nailed it above for me. But this point in particular, I hate it. Like, I really hate it. It's already kind of what we get and it's literally what has RUINED rphys for the past two expansions.

I'm sure you'll find some players at the raiding end of the spectrum that never cared about job flair and aesthetics at all, and I know some of them, but that's not the case of most people: there is classes that I'm sure you love for their flair and feel more than others, and being shoved a braindead model down your throat on a job you love is one of the worst feeling I've had the displeasure to experience, and I've been wandering around looking for other jobs that 110% click with me since then with no real success. I'm pretty sure the opposite would also be true, where you're a player that struggles more with difficult rotations, and get shoved a complex model down their throat with little accessibility... Fortunately that latter case is less and less possible because accessibility of most jobs has been really eased over years (which is a good thing).

This alone is why not even entertaining the notion of skill floors and ceilings is a path to nonsense. I'm not saying that they should be a cardinal virtue in every design ever, but they're literally what makes your casual and hardcore players tick.

But until the community decides to change its collective mind on the damage >>>> all thing, DAMAGE cannot be the thing hugely tied to skill ceilings, because it will NEVER be optional under that paradigm.

See, the community really has a problem with the damage and performance mindset (fortunately nowhere yet near to WoW, but it's following the trend), especially in casual content where it's always about "carrying bad players" and "bad players wasting muh time", you'd literally be preaching to the choir here. But not tying your job performance and results to damage, especially at least on DPS jobs, is absolutely unrealistic and wishful. That's literally THE satisfaction you can take out of playing them well.

Well, at least that's the satisfaction I take out of them. Executing interesting and complex enough mechanics and witness the results.

If you were saying that healers should take satisfaction in a well planned or executed healing, or clutch saves, or whatever makes them tick, then I'd be inclined to agree. I don't play healers for their DPS rotations (especially in their current state lol). I know a lot of healers that enjoy healing, and when they meet some savage content, they're left flabbergasted by the lack of healing skill expression, where their kits are literally 90% about healing tools.

But that's not DPS jobs.

[CelestiCer]

To the points " Valence " made I agree.

Players tend to have a favorite Job they Main. Having said Job be ruined with changes/remakes? in gameplay, feel, flare, complexity, the Fantasy of its gameplay in a game called Final Fantasy, everything that made it Click and taking that away? is akin to killing the passion out of players. And somehow... this is viewed as being good for the game...

Lets say going 100 miles an hour is the Skill Ceiling. Do you need to go 100 miles to reach your destination in anything below Extreme? No... most content is not a race, but a stroll. No Deadlines. Just don't crash while you go 1 mile an hour. This is the The Skill-Floor. Slow? Sure, but that's the bar Square sets. Even in Ultimate the entire party doesn't' need to perfectly execute their Jobs at 100% percentile to clear it. What many players are asking is reaching 80 miles made exciting, that optional performance perhaps rewarded with tiny extra mile. And not through the Roads, but in what we pilot - " Our Jobs ", that makes every Road exciting and fun.


Players can demand the environment to be more hazardous as much as they want, sure. Once I dislike or have less fun piloting my Job however? The scenery becomes more and more irrelevant to me. Nothing is as fun anymore. And for many? Not as Fun as it used to be.

I wish to call it " Toxic-Casualism ", where any ounce of complexity is a ounce to much. In fear of ruining their... ugh... Guildhest? experience? Players already do not make full use of their Job's skill kit even in Savage let alone Dungeon roulettes. Having a tiny bit of Extra flare or flavor, is not going to hurt anyone.

But just like PF? many do not like " Seasoning ".