Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Connor]

I feel like ‘simplification’ maybe isn’t the right way of phrasing this issue. It’s more like the jobs have been like, hollowed out? They’ve cut out so many of the things that made jobs fun and unique for the sake of balance, so now they’re just shells with nothing beneath the layers.

I think ‘simplification’ isn’t inherently a bad thing. Rather, it’s the ‘hollowing things out for the sake for simplification’ that’s the issue. And I think a lot of that is related to their overwhelming desperation for absolute job balance (which, mathematically, is nigh impossible unless all jobs are reduced to a single button with the same fixed attack potency, as far as I understand it).

I think it’s possible for the jobs to be both ‘simple and engaging’, or ‘simple and fun’. Complexity itself doesn’t inherently make something fun, just like simplicity doesn’t.

Also frankly, I feel like they’ve always had fairly unfair view of what players need to consider a job ‘simplistic’. I don’t think we’re so uneducated that we can’t understand the difference between abilities, or that we’re not capable of managing things like DoTs, buffs or debuffs. Part of the reason I think ffxiv’s ‘simplification’ has gone down so poorly is that they’re not listening and simplifying all the wrong things

[Sqwall]

The counterargument to support it? Complex Job rotations restricts Fight designs and mechanics. And I disagree...

Giving up Job gameplay/flavor/uniqueness...

• Simplify every combo
• Do away with every pet
• Kill Dots, to hard for the Dev's to manage
• Resource management dumbed down
• All AoE's become a Circle
• Reduce buttons cause Button bloat
• Remove Positionals
• Take the 2 min buffs and choke on it

Simplify-Homogenize-Rework-Optimize...
To the point jobs and their gameplay become unrecognizable. In exchange for the empty promise of better unique harder fight designs. Right...

I don't know man....I keep thinking of P8S Phase1 and Phase 2....

Picture the Heavensward rotation and job design during that fight....and all I can think of is that fight would be just a boring Savage. The complexity of the fight would need to be dumbed down just so average players could even finish it. If you had an overly complex rotation and niche style gameplay it would seriously hamper the impeccable design of P8S...

I just don't know...that fight is ALMOST (not quite) touching Ultimate level mechanics. I would hate to see the fight become just less intense due to job design holding it back...it's incredibly tightly tuned....almost zero room for error...

I would MUCH rather have more interesting and difficult challenges then a job that is designed to be complex...just to be complex.

The encounter should be the obstacle....not the job getting in the way. I still have fun on WAR and PLD. Even though everyone thinks they are the exact same now...I feel the strategies that come with each compliment their play styles.
Inner Release doubling as an anti knock back during Centaur 1....or...
Blade Combo allowing me to position better during Four Fold Flames and Centaur 1 so that I can keep uptime.
Holmgang being used 2 times in phase 2 for the tank buster.

There are definite differences in the jobs and applications for certain fight mechanics...but not one can outshine the other. Speaking specifically about tanks...I can and HAVE run different tanks for a lot of fights. Each tank has a little to offer to each fight...no not one tank outshines the other.

[CelestiCer]

I don't know man....I keep thinking of P8S Phase1 and Phase 2....

I disagree. If I apply at least Kaiten Samurai vs no Kaiten Samurai? I see no issue with any content atm available. But they could give way more then just that to other Jobs as well. I don't find P8S difficult, although week 1 it probably was. Not to mention that you said " not one tank outshines the other " ... well Statistically that's not true? specially not in Week 1 and that might also not be true currently in The Omega Protocol Ultimate.

Raiding makes up 5% of the game.
95% of all other PvE Combat activities has now become dull to me. Where as I enjoyed MSQ? I just skip it now. Fates? I stopped farming. Dungeons? I used to spam it, now I wanna skip it. My Job used to be way more fun and I know there are other players who felt like this for a long time about other jobs they main. You can throw the most difficult content at me... even P8S that you find so difficult? It's boring because my Job feels hollow. And that I have to get my excitement at Ultimate on strict hours, scheduled prog, joined Statics and etc etc. The good ol " Go play Ultimate ". I much rather have my Job be fun around any corner? vs dull and boring, but at least I get to do mechanics.

The only reason for me to raid is ...helpers high. The satisfaction of helping that's it.

[tearagion]

I don't know man....I keep thinking of P8S Phase1 and Phase 2....

Picture the Heavensward rotation and job design during that fight....and all I can think of is that fight would be just a boring Savage. The complexity of the fight would need to be dumbed down just so average players could even finish it. If you had an overly complex rotation and niche style gameplay it would seriously hamper the impeccable design of P8S...

How does that track? These have been 2 of the easiest tiers since deltascape lol. Maybe p8s edges out Kefka, it's been a while. What is there in p8s that's remotely challenging? Subjective, sure, but they are definitely not leveraging this "extra complexity space" you claim exists.

The encounter should be the obstacle....not the job getting in the way.

If you see performing well on a complex job as an obstacle, your perspective is completely and entirely removed from that of people who enjoy complex jobs. It's not an obstacle, or a hinderance, or whatever, it's fun.

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????

job requires little player input and is fun to me = well designed. bravo lol

[Renathras]

...

You're pretty much right, though your view is not generally shared by the forums, so...but you're right. Especially about this:

I would MUCH rather have more interesting and difficult challenges then a job that is designed to be complex...just to be complex.

The encounter should be the obstacle....not the job getting in the way.

It's why I support the idea of different Jobs within a Role (no Role has less than three) having an easy/simple, medium (or two), and complex/hard Jobs in it. That way, people who want to run their faces through coals can choose to do so and those that don't want to do that and want Jobs that aren't nerfted and gimped and clunky to the point they barely even work can simply choose the other Jobs. Everyone wins.

EDIT:

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.

It's honestly a lot of rose tinted glasses. For example, SB WHM had two DoTs instead of one, and they had awkward durations instead of the clean ones we have today. One was 15 or 18 sec and the other was 18 or 21, I don't remember which. It was frankly annoying. There was also Aero 3, but that was mostly used in AOE by people for a long time since it wasn't clear to people if it was a single target gain or not. WHM today still has the spam nuke and DoT, and traded Aero 3 for misery. So in effect, it lost one DoT and a lot of clunk. And don't get me started on SB's version of Lilies - they were not like today, they just reduced the CD of abilties used by 5% or something, and to generate them, you had to cast Cure 1/2 on targets. That was also true of Confession stacks from Plenary Indulgence. It made no sense at all. WHM in ShB was far better. SB WHM sucked so bad.

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.

Bozja/Zadnor recycle names, but not abilities. Cleric Stance didn't work the same at all. It was an annoying mechanic that swapped your MND and INT stats, and cut healing by 20% on top of that. So when you were in Cleric, you couldn't heal except for % healing effects like Benediction or (in ARR) SCH's Lustrate did a flat 25% heal and Eos's heals weren't affected by it. Nor was Stoneskin. So SCH's remember Cleric way more fondly because their kit actually kind of worked with it. Oh, and the best part was, it was a toggle and had something like a 5+ second before you could cancel it, meaning if you activated it and then the boss got a string of crits on the tank, you were just hammering Cure 2 and hammering Cleric so you could turn it off as soon as it was up so your Tank and party didn't wipe. And if you hammered it too much, you could accidentally reactivate it.

Cleric is the single most rose tinted goggles ability that I've ever seen in MMO history. Such a horribly bad ability that some people think was the height of Job design, it's ridiculous.

[Jirah]

Jobs are just cog of the main framework. The juxtaposition between it and the varies instances and non-instance is what matters and to no surprise it’s still laughable bad.

A hard job on easy content may be decent as core content (story content) doesn’t require your all or any foreknowledge of your job to this day

A easy job on hard content is conundrum at first glance but if the fights don’t require high DPS but better cooperation and coordination than it’s still a fun experience

What we got is easy jobs (trivial even for SMN) on easy content. Not Toast with Butter and bacon and eggs but a plain white slice of bread on paste. Tank busters hardly harm, they reside the same stack markers that tickles you, the mechanics threat have been reduced by a lot and the window of execution is noticeably larger and for whose benefit?

Trials have evolved gracefully, NM trials have also been decent. Dungeons and 24 man have been in a downward course compared to its past incarnations with so many examples.

I didn’t talk about hardcore content like savage as that’s maybe 2% of overall content. And no matter how amazing savage trials are it’ll never make core better, worse if jobs remain conflict adverse and stale

[ForsakenRoe]

How does that track? These have been 2 of the easiest tiers since deltascape lol. Maybe p8s edges out Kefka, it's been a while. What is there in p8s that's remotely challenging? Subjective, sure, but they are definitely not leveraging this "extra complexity space" you claim exists.

Consider, how many times were there a fight in Delta/Sigma/Alphascape, where the strat was named 'braindead strat'? I don't remember a single one. Now contrast to now, we have Braindead Purgation, Braindead Death's Harvest (though it also gets called JP static positions too), Braindead positions for HC2 final mix (no, not like kingdom hearts), Braindead Intemp (which everyone later hated because it killed people's parses), and last expansion E7S was the pinnacle of 'a potentially interesting fight, made completely trash boring by the discovery of a 'braindead strat''. Closest to 'braindead strat' I remember from the SB days was stuff like Unreal (regular, not uptime) HW, Spyro strat for O10S with that accursed Bulwark that refused to pass properly, and arguments about whether it's better to 'die on 1st vs die on 3rd' in Grand Cross Omega. But nothing was referred to as the name, 'braindead strat'

We don't even have to think about hitting the boss during High Concept. We didn't during Grand Cross either, sure, but we did during Forsaken and Hello World. As for:

I don't know man....I keep thinking of P8S Phase1 and Phase 2....

Picture the Heavensward rotation and job design during that fight....and all I can think of is that fight would be just a boring Savage. The complexity of the fight would need to be dumbed down just so average players could even finish it. If you had an overly complex rotation and niche style gameplay it would seriously hamper the impeccable design of P8S...

I just don't know...that fight is ALMOST (not quite) touching Ultimate level mechanics. I would hate to see the fight become just less intense due to job design holding it back...it's incredibly tightly tuned....almost zero room for error...

Part 1: There is a world of difference between week 1 of that fight and week 'anything past 3', when the hotfix launched.

Part 2: That sounds pretty good, since it'd also mean that other content would have that potential for interesting gameplay from the classes, just without any of the expectations by the game that you'd use it. Like in SB, you could do an EX roulette by just spamming Malefic as AST, and not using any cards at all. But you COULD use cards, if you wanted to. If you're in P8S, you have the skill to adapt to a more intricate job design and rotation. You have to, if you're going to actually learn and solve the mechanics.

Part 3: lmao. Also, it is no longer 'incredibly tightly tuned, no room for error'. It WAS, in week 1. Now? Not so much, thanks to the hotfix, and gear. But even in week 3 it was easier by such a margin you could feel it. Also, is this fight not 'incredibly tightly tuned'? Or how about this one? Seems to me that they managed to deal with their 'more intense job design' and clear despite this supposed handicap. In fact, going back to HW's Creator tier, where the job design was (in some people's opinion) even more 'complex', the world first vid has them kill the boss before it even gets to START it's enrage cast, so even more leeway.

People can adapt, surprisingly enough, to a more complex rotation. Like, I'd personally argue that SAM got 'more complexity' going from SB to SHB, due to having to actually line things up cos of Tsubame's addition. Before that, it was 'spend sen on Hagakure, use kenki on Shinten, remember to save some for Kaiten, Midare if you got all 3 sen and Hagakure was still not ready'. Some people might find lining stuff up to make the 60s loop easy. I don't because I haven't practiced it. But if I WERE to practice it, for example, because it was my main and it just got updated with this new gameplay style, it'd eventually settle into the brain and things would be fine again. If anyone says 'people wouldn't be able to handle it because X Y Z reasons' I think it says a lot more about the person trying to make the argument, than the playerbase they're supposedly speaking for.

[CelestiCer]

English not being my main language feels like it limits what I can express and share in words. " Connor " put it way better then I could. " Hollowing ".

I think ‘simplification’ isn’t inherently a bad thing. Rather, it’s the ‘hollowing things out for the sake for simplification’ that’s the issue.

A brief discussion with " Stella_Khutga‎ ", who made the Mudra fix thread - where I asked the correlation between homogenization of Jobs? resulting in better/unique/complex/harder mechs and fight designs. Sadly? I require a history lesson since I started in ShB E9S Echo. Got told that " O3S - Halicarnassus ", is regarded as one of the best Savage encounters ever. Curious, I sought out for replay videos. And I saw...

• Smaller Hitboxes
• Lots Forced Downtime
• Shorter rotation loop
• Ranged tax making sense

Seemed like the Fight-Designers? didn't tried to appease the audience with 99% uptime, it looked like we had to fight for it.

VS EW's Pandæmonium Fights? Ginormous hitboxes. Never sensed the excitement of fighting for uptime with exceptions of P5S's knockback and P4S Act2/Act3/Act4. Not demanding fights to be harder... but more rewarding to do. I started comparing EW to ShB where I started. I find a mechanically easier fight like E11S more engaging and exciting then P8S simply because of the Job design difference.

Heck the thought of using my ShB rotation, and Kaiten Tenka-Goken a pack of mobs with Conal AoE is more exciting then anything PvE with my EW rotation. <- Had to reread this five times over and it sounds so dumb... yet this is how much I miss and value good rotation and job design. It makes telling me to find harder fights? or to " Go play Ultimate " with a soulless Job completely meaningless to me.

That's my horrible take... simpler fights with a more engaging job kit? was more fun to me. And I cannot find any evidence that the " hollowfication " of our Jobs? was indeed a necessity to create unique, better, harder engagements that players so desperately crave for. mhm

[Valence]

I don't think the fight design has especially become worse mechanically. We also had braindead strats in previous expansions, they were just not named as such, and I refuse to fall into the rose tinted glass syndrome that comes with that territory.

Some things are interesting or sometimes more fleshed out than the older fights, but on the other hand, they've been moving away from fight hurdles that make certain classes have to work harder to keep their rotation up:

- big hitboxes making melees sweat a lot less about it (even though they still lorded over rphys before as well in terms of damage alone, because they already had close to full uptime)
- weeding out of a lot of positionals on certain melee jobs (mainly monk)
- shorter cast times for healers, allowing for more weaving and mobility
- slower paced rotation loops
- removal of enmity
- removal of non lethal party resources management
- simplification of burst synergy

Which tends to make every fight extremely focused on damage more than ever because there isn't much more remaining to take care of, with the exception of cast times for casters, that are still here, but not as equally for most. For other jobs, it's full uptime (again, not that it was that much different for melees before, fights were literally designed already to favor full melee uptime, but melee disconnections were there).

If anything though, i'm starting to suspect they've been giving us harsher DPS checks recently (DSR, abyssos, TOP) just because of it.

[Naomishtola]

I feel like job simplification (and the 2 minute meta) have become a growing concern among experienced veterans, hardcore raiders and casuals to some extend. The same issue plagued WoW in previous expansions (namely Legion) and I would hate to see FFXIV go down that path further than it already has. Making jobs more complex again would mean that some of us wouldn't fall asleep during expert roulette and may actually enjoy the gameplay outside of whatever savage/ultimate is relevant.