Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[CelestiCer]

Have had a question for a while... " Can you execute older Rotations to the current EW content? ". Say max-level/peak ARR/HW/SH/SHB rotations of your favorite Job(s) in current EW Savage, DSR, TOP and Extremes? Without it coming at the cost of EW's fight designs, engagements, mechanics becoming less hard/unique?

I'd like to assume the answer to be " Theoretically? No ", as long DPS numbers are done correctly. Which would showcase... that any simplifications/hollowing/negative changes any Job received? isn't good grounds to use as an argument point for " It was required for better Fight Designs ".

And to be clear... I am not arguing which Rotation of what Job in which expansion patch was the most fun or the best. It's about rather any Job losing any complexity or depth was necessary for better unique fight designs to be created, plus if the difficulty difference of said rotations would matter to justify all the homogenizations every Job has gotten.

I haven't played enough to know every Rotation of every Job, nor all previous fights. I wouldn't know. But if all of it wasn't necessary for fight designs? and it comes at the cost of player enjoyment or engaging Job gameplay? then... why homogenize every job?... for easier Balance?

[Whalaqee]

Just give me back my note procs from dot ticks on Bard. It was a reward for actually keeping your dots active and why you had iron jaws as it basically was 1 click instead of 2 for reapplying your dots. Now stormbite and caustic bite and iron jaws just exist for the sake of only damage and not something that flows back into the rest of the job.

Black Mage is technically worse in this regard, as while it hasn't lost anything, it hasn't gained anything either. Thundercloud and Thunder 2 by themselves are not bad, they are actually good damage, but there is nothing about the rest of the job where Thunder flows back into the rest of the job. Its basically tripled down on the fire/ice motif while giving thunder nothing new since its ARR days.

Sage having the novel concept of putting a dot on a target with eukrasian dosis and having the dot act as a hot for whoever has kardion is great. It does something simple yet new as its serving two purposes. Oh and whats this, soteria, it grants 4 stacks and increases the heal potency by 70% to for kardion effects. Which while not going to be fully utilized by it as you have dosis and other spells that also damage and heal the kardion patient, but it does mean eukrasian dosis hot procs basically heal for an extra 70% for the next 1 to 4 ticks. Which as a healer means it flows back into keeping someone like the main tank or even yourself alive.

And thats not touching on old summoner and how it got so much right about what being a dot-mage meant. I'm not sad of what summoner has turned into, I am sad we didn't get a new job to scratch that itch for a job focused on dots.

[Vinal211]

And thats not touching on old summoner and how it got so much right about what being a dot-mage meant. I'm not sad of what summoner has turned into, I am sad we didn't get a new job to scratch that itch for a job focused on dots.

i feel like this is the best argument about the changes to summoner, in that it's not BAD, per say. braindead? yes. can it be changed around, expanded upon and given more complexity to it while keeping it in line with the changes made it? hopefully, though i don't think any of us are holding our breath with the dev team. but either way, it removed old SMN in the process, and with it a complex but rewarding experience, which could still readily fit on another class, yet players who want to play old SMN's playstyle don't have anything to work with.

[Whalaqee]

i feel like this is the best argument about the changes to summoner, in that it's not BAD, per say. braindead? yes. can it be changed around, expanded upon and given more complexity to it while keeping it in line with the changes made it? hopefully, though i don't think any of us are holding our breath with the dev team. but either way, it removed old SMN in the process, and with it a complex but rewarding experience, which could still readily fit on another class, yet players who want to play old SMN's playstyle don't have anything to work with.

Exactly. Much like how Eureka, or Housing, or Island Sanctuary or even the Gold Saucer for a few examples is not everyones cup of tea, the same should apply to jobs. Some people prefer different flavors of content that they just generally resonate with more. One person may find the job of Samurai boring, another may find it to be their favorite job. Having different jobs that are actually different from each other in more than just their aesthetics is what allows more of the community to enjoy the game, not less. I like jobs with dots as that aspect of micromangement alongside rotation is what resonates with me. If someone likes the current summoner and wants to see more of the class fantasy fulfilled with 7.0, more power to them, its just not for me.

[Mikey_R]

Sage having the novel concept of putting a dot on a target with eukrasian dosis and having the dot act as a hot for whoever has kardion is great.

I might not be understanding quite what you are implying here, however, the DoT ticks from Eukraisian Dosis do not trigger the effects of Kardia, only the initial hit does.

[Whalaqee]

I might not be understanding quite what you are implying here, however, the DoT ticks from Eukraisian Dosis do not trigger the effects of Kardia, only the initial hit does.

Sorry misremembering for that one specifically. I guess my mind gave them too much benefit of the doubt since it was a new job.

[Raikai]

Enjoying Complexity shouldn't be limited to Ultimate. That's like saying " your job only becomes fun in Ultimate "

That is the worst rhetoric of them all because the content being complex still won't make a simple job suddenly become more complex lol.

Honestly, to me, the only thing that was a good riddance is positionals having a huge impact with a job's performance. Not because of the idea of positionals itself, but because I just don't think that it's a good mechanic with the responsiveness of the game's netcode.

[SpartanPawnch]

To me, the biggest problem with job simplification is the inevitable reduction in gameplay variety. During the large content drought at the end of ShB, I was able to continue playing actively without the game getting stale by trying out different jobs for easier content. I already knew the fights inside and out, but having meaningfully different stuff to worry about for each job spiced them up just enough to keep them from being boring.

Unfortunately, I don't think I would be able to do the same in Endwalker. As a current MNK main, right now the only job that changes up content in a meaningful way for me is BLM.

Given the fact that the majority of the community only plays casual content, making some jobs more complex would be a benefit to its longevity. Having something to improve upon is a good reason to come back to content you would be bored of otherwise. At the same time, DPS requirements are very low to non-existent, so messing up a complex rotation or dying does not affect your ability to clear in any way.

[Sparkthor]

I've trully have the feeling that's what some people call "more complex" appears to me as "more broken".
-> About healer, Scholar was as off healer in ARR, because it only have a healing pet and 5 different skills from Sumoner, and Lustrate was a fix max HP heal to make it usable with cleric stance (if I remember right)
-> I don't think having 3 combo path to be that different from having just 1, for warrior using Storm Eye, Storm Path, Butcher Block over and over is not more complex than just having between Storm Eye and Path.
-> Back in HW Warrior have the feeling it was supposed to be some kind of OT, has he got very poor magic mitigation (it's 1st defensive ability was a def boost, and could be catch by others, and the second one was bloodbath as self sustain). I would also say Raw Intuition was extremely broked as Parry only work on physical dommage, and it's not like Camouflage which got a basic dommage reduction effect.
-> At the beginning, DRK got shadow shield, which was just a rempart with different name. I would love to have each tank having it's own version of rempart with side bonus, however i can understand it's extremely low on priority.

In a nutshell, to me, jobs were neither hard or complex back in time. Different for sure, but harder to play/execute ? Not to me.

[Lyth]

Performance differences are the product of both knowledge gaps and technical skill gaps. If you want performance to actually reflect player technical skill, you need to simplify the former and add depth to the latter, which is the opposite of what this game has done historically. Turn off tank stance and turn on Cleric Stance. Use STR accessories over VIT. Strafe lock your target to land directional autos. Established players love these sorts of differentiators because you exclude a portion of the playerbase from being competitive purely on knowledge alone. But you're not measuring player skill.

Many other game genres outside of MMOs are weighted in the exact opposite direction. Having map knowledge in an FPS game will give you a competitive edge to a certain extent, but a complete novice with superior aim can still outclass you on raw mechanical skill alone. As they should, because that's the entire point of the genre. Ideally, players should have a relative clear picture on how to excel without having to do a lot of additional research (i.e. stay on the boss as melee, keep casting as ranged), with precision movement actions and bullet hell tier dodging being the primary determinant of their uptime. The rotational mechanics are entirely fluff (you're going to memorize the GCD by GCD play by the time you're done prog anyways), and how hard you get pushed is very much dependent on fight design. If you want to build up the technical difficulty of jobs, then what we really need to see are more complex movement and evasion actions and fights that force you to use them to their full potential. That's why MOBAs can get away with five buttons, of which one or two might be entirely dedicated to movement.