Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Renathras]

I hope you aren't advocating for every job to be proc based? If you are, then you need to realise that there are players out there that do enjoy the more rigid combos, so yo uneed options for both.

This, I think, is the key:

Options for players.

And the "option" can't be "play this thing you hate the way you hate it OR be bad and either unable to clear content or dead weight on other people dragging you through it". That's not an "option". Besides, if everything's the same, people hate that. Homogenized classes is one of the most complained about things across all MMOs.

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Don't touch my MNK combos, thanks.

It has the opposite problem actually. The fundamental structure of the job in its GCD loop is the most unique thing it has while its other aspects like Chakra and Blitz... not so much. Normally, I would count other things such as Six Sided Star but uses for it in EW so far have been very scarce outside of the typical "last attack before boss goes intangible/is dead."

MNK is actually really fun just because of how different it is, but it's different in a way that is SMOOTH, not clunky or unnecessarily complex. Like, it's GCD filler rotation is, what, 21 GCDs long, but it just flows so well.

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MCH is a travesty and I don't even want to get into how bad and nonsensical that design is.

I feel like we just may disagree on things.

Like...I find MCH really fun. It's the ONLY Ranged that I like playing. BRD is frustrating with the feast or famine procs and priority system being all over the place, and DNC.......I just hate DNC with a passion.

MCH, on the other hand? The Job is fun, abilities feel impactful, there's a priority system but it's pretty understandable and feels good to execute, the burst feels satisfying and high paced, and the base rotation is there for any time you'd otherwise have less to do or be bored. It just works on so many levels. It's easily the best designed Ranged in the game right now now that Hypercharge has a charge system.

I'd even say MCH is the ONLY good Ranged Job in the game right now in terms of play and feel. It's the only one that I at all enjoy. The others I'm leveling in Frontlines because of how much I dislike them.

I'd say this is a case of "Understand what what you like is not universal, and some things need to be made that you won't like to appeal to others". I have no problem with BRD and DNC being Jobs I don't like, even though archer is one of my favorite class fantasy/archetypes in gaming and the fantasy genre. But BRD in this game is for players that aren't me. MCH is more for players like me. Everyone wins.

It's already kind of what we get and it's literally what has RUINED rphys for the past two expansions.

Not...at all, actually. The problem with Ranged is that the entire SUBROLE was suffering a damage tax, not because they were easy or hard to play. Hell, RDM and SAM were easy, too, but were allowed to do more damage in ShB, and SAM in EW. That's a tuning issue, not a complexity one.

And, strictly speaking, I mean within each role there should be a simple, moderate, and complex one. Caster did this in both ShB and EW successfully (more successfully in ShB, but whatever). Melee also does this, with SAM in ShB and RPR in EW being pretty simple, NIN or high optimization MNK being complex, and everything else being somewhere in-between. So it clearly does work. ForsakenRoe talks about AST vs WHM in SB and neglects to point out WHM actually had a lot of problems and AST offered far higher output - the numbers being different, not the complexity being different, is why WHM was blacklisted from groups. If people blacklisted "simple" Jobs, then SMN wouldn't have been the most played Caster in Omega Protocol and Dragonsong Reprise. And it was the most played in both. And in Omega, it's not even CLOSE (in DSR, RDM is closer to it, but there's still a gap there, and RDM is considered the second easiest anyway)

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).

Yes, This cuts both ways - having a clunky convoluted mess of "high skill ceiling complexity" forced on people is even more alienating. If your Job is made easy, you can still play it, at least, even if you enjoy it less. If your Job is made unplayable convoluted, you have to abandon your Job entirely, it's not even an option at that point. That makes it the worst of the two.

Yes, but it varies on Job and content.

In general, I'm also opposed to big changes on Jobs, especially from one type to another.

Like I love New SMN. It actually FEELS like a Summoner and really has nailed the class fantasy, and the rotation is both smooth as butter and incredibly satisfying to execute. But the thing is, there were people that played Old SMN - the Frankenstein monster held together by duct tape and hope - that really loved it to death with the class fantasy of being a DoT/Plague/Green Mage. And that was ripped away from them with nothing given in return, even though Old SMN could honestly have been split into two Jobs, a SMN and a GRM, and actually work.

But those people were robbed of something and not even given something comparable as compensation. That just hurts everyone.

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.

I think this comes down to the individual. Many people don't get satisfaction from doing rotations well or big damage numbers. It's why a lot of people don't play DPS Jobs or play support-leaning DPS Jobs, because they don't care as much about that. They don't get "THE satisfaction" from it.

Others, on the other hand, do.

IMO, good game design gives each type of player something they can play. For example, GNB was made for people that like more DPS focus and big numbers when they play correctly. It was designed from the ground up to appeal to those types of players but be a Tank option so players with that mindset had a Tank Job they could play/a Job within the Tank role they could enjoy. It's not for everyone, but it's for those people. Maybe other people like GNB, but that isn't the option presented. GNB is geared towards the rotational complexity (more technical than complex, but whatever) minded player, and if you aren't that kind of player, the Devs are basically saying "Sorry, but hey, there are other Tanks that we have in the game that are made for people like you and we hope you'll try them out and maybe enjoy them."

Players who love GNB likely aren't going to enjoy WAR, but that's fine. Players who enjoy WAR likely aren't going to enjoy GNB, but that's fine. Some players really care about the aesthetic and push through their playstyle preference feelings while others make their decision on playstyle. But the thing is, those are choices, which are good, even if people aren't perfectly happy. Are there some people who say "I only want to play GNB gut it's too complex so I'm quiting the game" or people that say "I only want to play WAR but it's too simple so I'm quitting the game"? Maybe there are. But far less than if EVERY Tank was WAR or EVERY Tank was GNB just with different aesthetics. That would probably annoy far more people in the end.

Healers have the opposite problem where NONE of them are (any longer) designed to appeal to players that like a lot of rotational complexity. The problem isn't that ALL of them aren't, the problem is that NONE of them are. The problem isn't that there are easy rotational Healer Jobs. The problem is they're ALL rotationally easy, meaning players that want clunky, barely playable Jobs because they define their self-worth in mastering bad controls don't have a Healer they can play. IMO, they should have one. They just shouldn't get all of them. Moreover, it would be really bad for the game if they did because the Healer exodus would make HW and SB's exoduses look like a walk in the park.

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.

Mhm. Agree with this.

But that's not DPS jobs.

Didn't say it was. My statement was about classes in general.

Though as a rule, most successful MMOs have at least one "easy" DPS Job. Largely for that reason - Devs know that some people play with their friends, and friends playing together is good for the longevity of MMOs, so having "that one class" that anyone can play well tends to be good for the game. For quite some time in WoW (or even still today), Hunters were the most popular Jobs. Part of this was because they could solo well, but part was because they were just SO EASY to play. In Vanilla, they were basically autoattacking in raids (early on due to the debuff limit and lack of good agro management tools; though Feign Death was theirs and arguably one of the best as long as it didn't "miss"). RDM was the simplest DPS Job in ShB and...the most played. SMN is now and...the most played.

The four types of MMO player - Achievers/Diamonds (people like you), Killers/Clubs, Explorers/Spades, and Socializers/Hearts - the last type in particular often requires this, but those people are also often the glue that keeps their friends paying subs. Likewise, Spades and Clubs don't care about complexity, they'll take it or leave it and are more concerned with what works. Achievers are...actually also the same: They want to achieve things, but don't always master their success by complexity. Some do, some are more interested in mastering boss mechanics and stuff like that than in mastering designed clunk. That is, SOME Achievers measure success by their mastery of clunk and technical class rotations, but others define their mastery by being able to master fight mechanics; some want both. But this is also why the super high end world-first players often include simple/easy Jobs in their clears. Far from shunning them, they see the value in having a slimmed down rotation while doing challenging content. Otherwise, every Caster clearing TOP would be a BLM and every Healer an AST/SCH team. (BLM and AST are actually the least played.)

While everyone will have their own personal experiences of what they consider to be 'easy' and 'difficult', I don't think this is something that the dev team should ever offer an 'official' commentary on. The problem with the mindset that 'this job is officially harder to play, therefore is more powerful' is that you have the dev team officially sanctioning a balance discrepancy. Which means that players aren't going to want to play or take the officially sanctioned weaker job.

Which is why I've never advocated they do more damage. I do the opposite. Frequently.

I was saying that their rotations should be different in terms of complexity. Their damage should be balanced to be about the same when both are played optimally. This means if someone opts for a complex Job and plays poorly, they'll do less damage than someone playing the simple Job more poorly. But what they're getting is a playstyle they enjoy more and find more engaging and fun.

I think Caster is the best subrole in the game right now because it legitimately does this for the most part by having three levels of complexity that are all viable. Downside is it is somewhat based on damage, which is why I think ShB honestly did it even better. SMN in ShB did comparable damage with BLM (which is why they kept nerfing its potencies... <_< ). The three difficulties from simple to complex were RDM < BLM < SMN. But what SMN offered over BLM wasn't higher damage; it was comparable damage with higher utility. In its hay-day, SMN was doing roughly equal damage to BLM (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less) in ShB. But what it brought to compensate for what was absolutely a far more complex and difficult rotation was more mobility (DWT/FBT phases, 8 Ruin 4s and Egi-Assaults per 2 mins, arguably Ruin 2 substitutions if necessary), a party damage buff, a utility Raise (not as spamable as RDM, but still usable in emergencies), and some light party support from Phoenix healing and Excog-lite.

Players going for the more complex Job WERE rewarded, but not with more damage. They were rewarded with more utility, the value of which would depend on the player. RDM did less damage, but the gulf was smaller than now, I think, and it offered a combination of high amounts of utility (party damage buff, extremely situational healing, S tier combat raising) while also still having either the simplest or second simplest (after either DNC or BRD, depending on who you asked) rotation in the game.

Even in EW with it being not as good, the varied Job difficulty is still something the Caster role exemplifies well, it's just all weird now since RDM is way weaker than it should be, leading to SMN doing more damage while offering more utility AND being simpler to play. BLM is only competitive because it does much higher DPS...but it's still the least played of the three. Which is fine, it's there for people that want that higher bar.

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I think the issue with Ranged, SPECIFICALLY, is the Dev team KINDA designs them to be a fourth role type (Support), but won't actually commit to there being a Support role in the game.

So you have this weird case of "the DPS subrole that does less damage and does some support things...oh, but it's still TOTALLY a DPS. Oh, and one of them does less support and is damage focused. It still does less damage than any Melee or Caster, though. Because it's a damage focused selfish Job, but it's still in the DPS category, but in the support sub-category, because we don't have a Support just DPS, so it's a bad DPS that does less DPS because if offers support...but it doesn't offer Support."

It's in this weird limbo where Ranged are TREATED as if they're a fourth Support role (do less personal DPS but offer party buffs to allies), but because the Devs won't actually fully embrace that, you get this half-and-half nonsense that then becomes utterly absurd in the case of pre-6.3 MCH being trapped in the paradox of being a "selfish high persona DPS Job" in a "taxed, do lower DPS than all other DPS subroles" role.

(Seriously, they should just add a "Support/Yellow Icon" role, stick BRD, DNC, probably RDM, and maybe but probably not NIN in it, combine the rest into plain "DPS/Red Icon", have the DF work where it treats Support and DPS the same for the purposes of filling parties, and then actually MAKE THE JOBS WORK based on that instead of kinda/sorta/but also not shoe-horning them in other subroles...)

The problem with "performance within a job is always variable" is that it's not always VIABLE if the DPS gap is too large. If effective play is rewarded with DAMAGE - note damage, specifically; utility doesn't always incur this problem - then you are punished for making mistakes. On the other hand, if effective play is rewarded with non-damage utility of some form (greater mobility, better defense, more self-sustain, etc), then that is less of a problem since those things aren't strictly necessary but are often nice to have. For example, if optimal RDM play gave you tons more mobility such that a master RDM player could handle all the "spread, stand in towers, etc" type mechanics really well, this would be rewarding but not make RDM's that aren't perfectly optimal unable to clear content or a drag on their team. That is a case of rewarding effective play without punishing mistakes, because the additions you get for effective play may be useful but aren't mandatory, necessary, or what players decide party composition based around, but which high level players can flex to do things like speedruns or world firsts.

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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.

It was.

And some people loved it, which is why I think it was good for the game.

Some people hated it, so the Devs up to that point had done a few things (1 was remove Cleric Stance - though to be fair, Cleric's problem was it was a WHM, then Cross-Class ability; had it just been a SCH ability and not cross-class, then the Healers could have self-selected and the problem would have solved itself) to make it a bit more functional. Then in ShB, they just got tired of messing with it and the constant complaining, seemed like.

I think it's good for the game to have different Jobs that play differently; vastly differently in some cases. That way, those players that enjoy those playstyles can enjoy them. I think the problem comes when those decisions start affecting balance and/or when people start demanding homogenization/having toys the others have that they don't. That is, when people insist that the harder Job should "do more damage for the more work" (even if they're literally asking for said more work) and/or when people demand stuff like every Healer should have a party Sprint like SCH or that some things should just be role actions so every Job in the role has the same "essential" ability (it's almost never actually essential...); those two things ruin it for everyone.

When the solution was "If you like DPSing and juggling damage abilities while Healing, play SCH, if you don't like those things and prefer more thoughtful and methodical healing, play WHM; they're both viable in content and the best parties have one of each", the game worked really really well (WHM and SCH being the only two healers in ARR). It was when we moved away from that that things began to break down and we had multiple crashes in the Healer population in various ways all the way up until...well, Endlwalker, ironically. But that may be because a new Healer Job being added.

...much as people say a new Job being added to a role doesn't boost the number of people playing the role, the data seems to suggest otherwise.

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.

Agree with this.

Disagree with "WHM should have...more damage buttons or something?"; WHM actually is tied for the most damage buttons it's had in the game's entire history. It has as many as it had in SB (or 1 more, depending on how you're counting) and as many as it had in ARR. I think it might have one less than it had in HW, but the one less was a situational ability that wasn't actually used in optimal gameplay. So WHM is, in effect, what it's always been. The bigger issue is that Healers all have so many oGCD heals now (in ARR and HW, SCH was the oGCD Healer and WHM was the GCD Healer; it still is with Lilies but not the rest of its GCD heals) that it's shoehorned all the Healers into this weird "apply your DoT, use your one other utility damage spell, spam your spam spell, when the damage spikes come in, pop 1-2 oGCDs and everyone will be at full health, then go back to spam spell".

If nothing else, it makes them all very samey.

Honestly (there's a thread in the Healer forum right now about Healers Then and Now), the real issue is SCH.

WHM and AST feel different to play (people that say they don't are only looking at their GCD cast heals, which neither uses outside of emergency fallbacks), though AST probably needs some work. SCH and SGE feel like clones of each other with different coats of paint and SGE being SLIGHTLY easier. But SCH is actually the most spamnuke (Broil) focused Healer (moreso than WHM is a Glarebot - I know, it surprised me, too, but the math doesn't lie, and FFLogs confirmed this)

Changing SCH back more towards its SB form would...probably make it a bit less played by people that like current healing, but would make it highly appealing to players that enjoy that complex playstyle. But moreover, it would also fix several other problems at once. SGE would no longer feel like SCH, and it would reduce how samey the Healers all feel. That should honestly be the first thing done in any Healer overall project. The next should be AST, since it's more distinct and doesn't have the overlap problem SCH/SGE does, but is THE MOST spamnuke spammy (Malificbot) of all the Healers. Though maybe that's the one to do it, given their Card sidegame, but if so, then THAT needs to be made more interesting like it was in SB.

WHM is arguably the Healer that is (somewhat ironically, given history) working the best right now. The one thing it needs is a ~60 sec damage mitigation button, since it's the only Healer that has less than 3 mits per 2 minutes on average over the course of a fight...having only the ONE.

[Valence]

Like...I find MCH really fun. It's the ONLY Ranged that I like playing. BRD is frustrating with the feast or famine procs and priority system being all over the place, and DNC.......I just hate DNC with a passion.

MCH, on the other hand? The Job is fun, abilities feel impactful, there's a priority system but it's pretty understandable and feels good to execute, the burst feels satisfying and high paced, and the base rotation is there for any time you'd otherwise have less to do or be bored. It just works on so many levels. It's easily the best designed Ranged in the game right now now that Hypercharge has a charge system.

I'd even say MCH is the ONLY good Ranged Job in the game right now in terms of play and feel. It's the only one that I at all enjoy. The others I'm leveling in Frontlines because of how much I dislike them.

I'd say this is a case of "Understand what what you like is not universal, and some things need to be made that you won't like to appeal to others". I have no problem with BRD and DNC being Jobs I don't like, even though archer is one of my favorite class fantasy/archetypes in gaming and the fantasy genre. But BRD in this game is for players that aren't me. MCH is more for players like me. Everyone wins.

MCH burst feels pathetic and spamming heat blast like a monkey for 20% of the time doesn't feel great to me, but I'm happy it does for you. Nothing in the kit feels cohesive with each other, you have tools that you just have to use on CD else they drift and it feels awful, but they don't talk in any meaningful way with either the gauge, the combo filler, or the job mechanics. The combo filler could be replaced by a simple pvp button since it doesnt even have branches like most, it's just a boring filler. Some abilities give battery but it feels completely random on what decided that they should or not, and queen is a just a fire and forget underwhelming button that still doesnt have a single AoE ability.

But that's right, all of this always boils down to subjective tastes. The thing you're missing though is the baggage that comes with MCH. They decided to strip down the job of all of its identity and what made it tick and defined it before, gave some of those good parts to other jobs (namely RDM, DNC), and kept all the awful crap that people were telling them to get rid of (the latency issues, the 1.5s GCDs, etc). It used to be the biggest burst job in the game, known for having to play piano and cram everything into it to get a VERY satisfying result, tempo-ed by downtime in between. It was a rigid clockwork job sure, and it definitely had clunk and problems, sure. But what doesn't sit well with me at all is that they decided to alienate a whole bunch of players by completely drastically changing the job identity and feel. If they wanted fixed combos and inner release spamm, they could have used it for a new rphys job instead as far as I'm concerned.

[Kaliesto]

I think what is missing from the Jobs is all jobs not having unique non-combat traits or used for combat that make them special, like say for example its worked like this:

Ninja is given a unique ability to steal items from monsters, other than that I think Ninja is good.

Dragoon is given a passive ability to jump higher in any zone, might be good for those sightseeing stuff that requires a lot of practice. It would be kind of cool though if Dragoon was given the ability to turn into some kind of Dragon-Man for some seconds that buffs your stats temporarily.

Monk able to Jump-dash to locations really fast (Dragonball Z style)

Red Mage allowed to transfer Aether to BLM or WHM to replenish their Aether (though this costs all of the Red Mage's Magic), might be good for Savage Raiders that are in a dire bind though at the cost of DPS loss.

Gunbreaker allowed to switch to Physical Ranged with its own moveset to use their Gunblades from a distance, it would make it a even more unique Tank and also make it the first Hybrid Physical-Ranged Tank of FFXIV.

Warrior allowed a new set of Weapons called War Hammers that allows different variations of Warrior Combat Skills that Giant Axe Weapons cannot do, I know some War Hammers already exist in the game, but giving Warriors more Identity here would definitely help.

Dark Knight's Esteem ability should be a permanent effect in combat, but it ends up doing half the damage of what you can do to balance it out without risking of being Overpowered and unbalanced with the rest of the tanks.

Machinist, same thing with the Dark Knight, let the Robot Guy be a permanent effect.

White Mage, allow White Mages to cast a LB3 version of Holy as a alternative to the complete revival spell in case its not needed.

Astrologian, allow ASTs to cast a LB3 version of the Lord of Crowns & Lady of Crowns to apply to all members of the party for 10-15 seconds as a alternative to the All Revival LB3.

Scholar, allow SCHs to cast a LB3 spell that creates the ultimate Fairy Summon Spell that hits all enemies, and applies beneficial status effects for the party for maybe 6-7 or so seconds.

Summoner, I think its perfect as it is honestly, no comment.

Bard, perfect, no comment, it already has really good identity.

Paladin, The staple job of the Warrior of Light, I think what it needs is a alternative LB3 where it does a Signature FF1 Warrior of Light Style Attack (just to note I think all tanks need their own LB3 Attack as well).

Sage, should be given a alternative LB3 that has a unique shielding ability similar to a tank, not as strong as a tank's LB3, but comes with some beneficial effects?

Black Mage, its fine as it is I think, but I think it should not be forced to cast magic while standing still considering the complexity of Raids lately (just my opinion).

[remiff]

I miss the pve period of stormblood, just because the jobs were so much more fun to play, even if all the changes they made are not bad, there is a limit not to reach in the simplification of the content and jobs
what they start to do (personal opinion) since endwalker I find that the majority of jobs and content have become tasteless. it's certainly not an opinion that everyone shares, but I find the current state of the game a shame compared to what it was before, even if the format of the updates has not changed.

[Sparkthor]

That's strange because to me it's precisely at SB when job tend to get rid of easy global mech to nearly all jobs :
- Some kind of dommage buff to keep up.
- A dot on single gcd which break combos.

But this period was a mess transition between past concepts of the game and epured new one, getting rid of - to me - boring thing in practice. Aggro management could be cool if the way it was solved it SB was : DPS/Heal use you aggro reduction on CD. Or team ressource gestion for mana and TP, if TP wasn't just a think to prevent physical jobs to spam AOE and MP just a Bard Foe-Requiem duration (Mana restore tools were only targeting bard for more dommage).

I prefer when job kit seems fluid, but its a really personal opinion.

[CelestiCer]

For plenty it goes to far at the cost of Fun.

There's an audience that loves Job complexity. To spend hours to see results. The satisfaction of having mastered a Job they enjoy or love because it's Fun to execute. Job complexity benefits us players who love playing their Jobs endlessly to just play the Jobs. Simplifications stomps that passion out of players...

Raiders who love complexity through content, are more likely to favor homogenizations because Job complexity is viewed as restrictive to develop new unique/harder fight designs. I disagree, since I believe players demanding their rotations to be more easily executable and unbroken, with the 2 min buff windows to be more restrictive then Jobs having any ounce of depth.

As for Parsers who love rotations made easier to execute to get their crayons more easily... Why would you want your colorful rainbow numbers to devalue by making it any ounce easier to obtain by any other player? I thought the ladder was supposed to be competitive or something? making it any easier means... yeah idk about this one...

There's also a big portion of players who do not want anything " Pre-Extreme Trials " to be made any more difficult. Different, unique, more flavorful content? sure... but not more difficult. And that's fine since most content there can be cleared while not mastering any job to any degree. Any optional complexity that is taken or given? doesn't affect them.

As for the Yoshi's complexity argument? Just go play Ultimate?
I couldn't give 2 (peeps!). Keep my Job fun and I will do any content. Once my Job's fun is not the focus? At that point any content is less Fun to me. You can tell me to solve a Rubik's Cube with my tongue, while juggling Circus pins with my right foot, while playing DDR with my right hand, simultaneously executing my simplified rotation while doing Ultimate or any content for that matter to satisfy any ounce of complexity... it wouldn't matter cause the Jobs is made dumb and unsatisfying to play...

My problem with Square's direction, is that the focus is on making Content bearable and clearable. Not how fun a Job can be or was. All players will not do All Content that requires PvE combat... but all players at least have to play 1 Job at all times to do so. Make the Jobs have depth, complexity and a sense of satisfaction to execute as the priority. I will not agree that Jobs being made more fun? comes at the cost of any content in any manner.

[NullPointerException]

For plenty it goes to far at the cost of Fun.

Raiders who love complexity through content, are more likely to favor homogenizations because Job complexity is viewed as restrictive to develop new unique/harder fight designs. I disagree, since I believe players demanding their rotations to be more easily executable and unbroken, with the 2 min buff windows to be more restrictive then Jobs having any ounce of depth.

As for Parsers who love rotations made easier to execute to get their crayons more easily... Why would you want your colorful rainbow numbers to devalue by making it any ounce easier to obtain by any other player? I thought the ladder was supposed to be competitive or something? making it any easier means... yeah idk about this one...

I think this is a huge simplification. Most raiders that I know, me included, would sincerely hope they give classes MORE skill expression. Homogenization in classes also leads to homogenization in fight design, putting damage or mechanics at 120 seconds to mess with buff windows, 120s tank busters, all that. All one optimizes for now is just "can I use 120s at 120s," isn't that boring?

Speaking of harder or unique fight designs, I very much disagree that the homogenization in EW has really led to anything. P1S and P6S were target dummy practices. P7S was 8 minutes of sleeping + 1 semi-fun mechanic that a well-geared and skilled group can just skip now. P2S was interesting but again - the one downtime that messes with your 120s cool downs. Massive hit boxes mean that casters now have to run circles around the entire arena.

IMO the key issue to parsers isn't the complexity themselves, since coming up with optimization for different fight timelines is a part of the fun. People are more concerned about the insane RNG variance thanks to crit, dhit, and just the 3% damage rolls. Also, homogenizing everything at 120s windows have introduced balance nightmares. By having a re-opener every 2 minutes instead of 6, Square has effectively made the variance even more disparate between classes.

[ForsakenRoe]

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".

And on the flip side, there's people who would demand that the 'simple, non-master' version can also be used to clear Savage and Ultimates, and if SE doesn't let them 1-button SMN Macro their way to a clear they will be very angry about it on the forums

But yeh, we can see what would happen if there was a 'Mastery version' of a class with more reward (even with more risk attached). We HAD it. It was Simple-mode WHM, and Mastery-mode AST, in SB. And WHM was getting locked out of PFs, not every PF, but enough for it to be a glaring (heh) issue, because AST was just better. This would be no different. Better to just have classes have 'low skill floor, high skill ceiling', and different levels of content demand different levels of mastery of the class from the player. BLM's a good example, starting out you have 'use fire spell for damage use ice spell for MP restore' and that's enough to get by for most stuff. I could probably clear EX trial with BLM (and I HATE BLM) with the foundation level knowledge I have of the class. But going for a 99% looks like astrophysics to me, and I'm glad they get to have such a high skill ceiling to shoot for. Would that every class had skill ceilings as distant from their skill floor, as the theoretical 'perfectly optimized BLM'

[Sparkthor]

Even by reading all post, I really struggle to find the past game more complex/deep other than more messy and tidious.

Can someone take some time to explain what they mean by "Simplification" ? Maybe we just disagree, or maybe we didn't talk about the same things.

[CelestiCer]

Even by reading all post, I really struggle to find the past game more complex/deep other than more messy and tidious.

Can someone take some time to explain what they mean by "Simplification" ? Maybe we just disagree, or maybe we didn't talk about the same things.

" Simplifications ".
Anything that makes a Job easier to play/execute/perform well on regardless of Content. Taking away nuances/flare/flavor not for the sake of a Job needing it to clear Content? but just because it makes it easier for both the players and probably easier to manage regarding Job balance for the dev's at the cost of " Fun " at any content.

" Example "
I started at the End of ShadowBringers Expansion, with Samurai becoming my favorite job. I'll give the Samurai POV of simplifications regarding what I have experienced.

• Seigan Removed upon Third Eye proc
• Positionals no longer grants Kenki but Bonus Damage
• Senei now costs 25 Kenki instead of 50
• Third Eye duration increased by 1 second
• Iaijutsu range buffed and increased
• Fuga turned into Fuko, easier to handle Circle AOE
• Kaiten removed, Shinten spamming

7 Simplifications I witnessed. Now we can view plenty as positive QOL and some were needed... Ultimately? Samurai = Easier, and made Easier and Easier and Easier... it takes away the fun of mastering a Job or heck it makes it pointless to do so.

And this is just SAM, we didn't even get the SMN treatment. Square even said DRG and AST are up next so who knows. Then they shifted to PLD , although that seems positively received ( <- not sure on this ). WHM never got anything other then Glare and some have been yearning for something more then that, even as optional not on another healing Job but their favorite healer Job.

If you really really go far back into the past? apparently you have Bozja/Zadnor like skills that jobs used to have. Cleric Stance and really archaic designs. I personally am not asking to go that far back, I am just wanting Jobs to stop receiving simplifications or nuances ripped away from them and given some ounce of depth.

Aside from the 2 min burst window streamlining? This is just Job Design, we're not even at the Fight Design topic of removing all positionals and the gigantic hitboxes bosses gained where MaxMelee is given on a silver-platter which probably is an entire separate topic from this thread, but its kinda related.

You can definitely find simplifications from every Job that I am sure other posters can share regarding what they have experienced. Perhaps BLM has at least retained the most complexity and lost the least regarding being hit with simplifications.