Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[CelestiCer]

Rotation doesn't get in the way of mechanic design. It's just not relevant.

You're proving my point...
If Rotation doesn't stand in the way of better mechanic design? then there is no harm to be found by making Job designs have any ounce of flare/flavor and any skill or gauge interactions have some ounce more depth. Since it doesn't get in the way of any prized movement mechanic designs.

The argument that everything Job rotation is so simple and there for irrelevant? Sounds quite elitist. Like how fun Job designs? is beneath your existence to exist. Because it doesn't increase the difficulty? there for meaningless... Not everyone wants to do Ultimate or Savage to get the excitement of executing something difficult, to which finding something difficult is subjective.

Movement is tied to not dying. Square cannot or will not increase the skill-floor before Extreme and players don't want that content to be more difficult. Rotation/Job-Design/Skills however? can be made more Fun, have more depth without it coming at the cost of any Skill-Floor or Skill-Ceiling. Although many call this not relevant? I call it Depth/Flavor/Fun when Jobs are given just that.

Although " Fun in a Game through Job Design " seems to be valued so poorly by some... that it can be seen as irrelevant. I guess we have to value Perfect Balance of everything above that? Then we truly want to pursue Jobs being played with only 1 functional Skill that you can bash for everything cause that's where we'll end up. Then nothing is relevant anymore... except of course that precious movement.

[Valence]

Rotation doesn't get in the way of mechanic design. It's just not relevant.

After many hours of gameplay, pretty much any rotation is going to be simple if all we have to show for it is target dummy conditions. Oh good, a cast bar. Target dummy. Oh no, a mechanic, partial target dummy, if I'm expected to actually do something with it. I can at least respect Valance's point because procs can force you to think about your rotation a bit. But let's face it, if you're playing this game even semi-casually you're going to have mastery over at least one job rotation, if not more, and most of this is just going to be reflex.

The reason why movement mechanics are fundamentally more interesting is because that's why video games are visual and not text-based. You use Hakaze is a text-based game. I use a gap closer to perform a skillshot teleport to a particular coordinate and teleport back to maintain 100% uptime is visual-spatial. The former bores me to death, but the latter is the main reason why I still play this game after nearly 10 years. And historically, in fights where tanks actually had some control over boss movement, movement was a critical part of gameplay. Fights like A7S were exciting for me personally historically because there were a lot of random movement elements that you had to react to on the fly while trying to keep perfect uptime.

I have nothing against the move to more of an ARPG design personally, but ARPGs are typically designed with a lot of movement in mind. So you could have a very scripted fight, but every job/class needs to have a lot of abilities that allow them to respond to highly mobile bosses. Not bosses that are cast locked for five minutes while we do target dummy rotations on them before breaking to do some DDR mechanic. It's that blind transition between two fight design styles (Trinity vs. ARPG) that's the problem, more than anything else.

I personally don't care much about movement. I care more about positioning, and even more about tactical choices in what I use or the mind process of deducting what to prioritize in my resources or rotational toolkit. I understand that a lot of modern games go for arpg or hack and slash stuff, but that's not my jibe personally (and I'm not even sure the game engine is really designed for something like it anyway). But, that aside, we'll have the dummy conditions for casual and storymode, and the more challenging fight designs for the more challenging content.

I fail to see how both are mutually exclusive, but I do believe CelestiCer has a point: one is a constant no matter the difficulty mode or the content, the other is by nature dependent of the content or mode.

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

The difficulty in ffxiv is derived from trying to execute your jobs abilities at the same time as performing mechanics. When jobs become more complex, fights need to be toned down mechanically to match the same level of difficulty. I believe jobs were/are getting simplified because it is easier to create bosses with unique mechanics that challenge the player, rather than creating a complex job that feels fun to play. Making job changes is much more difficult due to balance than altering boss mechanics. The idea is to derive more fun from mechanics than the job itself. This makes sense since doing the same rotation over and over tends to get boring to most as it is very repetitive. I understand the frustration though, since most content in ffxiv is considered pretty easy, especially to someone experienced in their job, the game can feel boring when not doing difficult content.

I don't really know of a good solution to this problem. I like being able to pickup and play whatever class I feel like without having to do hours of research or have years of muscle memory in order to play. At the same time I feel the game can be too easy, especially when running old/casual content. This is a constant balancing act the design team has to overcome. I feel as though the game year after year, in general, get better. I don't like every change but most are for the better in my eyes. At this point I'm not freaking out as I trust SE to keep the upward trend.

[tearagion]

The difficulty in ffxiv is derived from trying to execute your jobs abilities at the same time as performing mechanics. When jobs become more complex, fights need to be toned down mechanically to match the same level of difficulty.

Why would fights need to get easier? Is there any real reason? I can't think of one, otherwise every fight would currently give convenient uptime to BLM between triples/xenos. Which, as many fights this expansion have proven, they do not. People who do not wish to wrestle with BLM uptime puzzling simply play SMN or RDM instead.

TThis makes sense since doing the same rotation over and over tends to get boring to most as it is very repetitive. I understand the frustration though, since most content in ffxiv is considered pretty easy, especially to someone experienced in their job, the game can feel boring when not doing difficult content.

BLM is taken in my statics, so I'm bored with my job while I'm doing difficult content. I don't think it's too much to ask for one more job at BLM's level considering the job count, and the current average job difficulty.

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

Why would fights need to get easier? Is there any real reason? I can't think of one, otherwise every fight would currently give convenient uptime to BLM between triples/xenos. Which, as many fights this expansion have proven, they do not. People who do not wish to wrestle with BLM uptime puzzling simply play SMN or RDM instead.

I said to match the same difficulty. If you make the jobs more difficult to play by making them more complex then in turn the fights become more difficult. I don't see how it would be possible to make jobs more complex and not effect the difficulties of a fight, without also changing the mechanics of the fight.

BLM is taken in my statics, so I'm bored with my job while I'm doing difficult content. I don't think it's too much to ask for one more job at BLM's level considering the job count, and the current average job difficulty.

I wouldn't consider BLM rotation difficult. It's the combination of performing mechanics while also doing the rotation that is difficult, and that is simply because your not allowed to move during most abilities. There are jobs with much more complex rotations but are easier to perform mechanics since they get to move (Ninja for example). This is the exact difference I am talking about. Difficulty is derived from the combination of the two aspects of the game not either in isolation. One inevitably effects the other.

[tearagion]

I said to match the same difficulty. If you make the jobs more difficult to play by making them more complex then in turn the fights become more difficult. I don't see how it would be possible to make jobs more complex and not effect the difficulties of a fight, without also changing the mechanics of the fight.

I'm going to ignore the obvious logical failure and just say: the fights would uhh stay the same man, there would just be a wider range of job complexity than there is now, allowing a wider variety of players to be more satisfied with combat at all levels. I'm not saying turn DNC into BLM, just add some more stuff at BLM level, and stop tac-nuking existing jobs every expansion.

I wouldn't consider BLM rotation difficult. It's the combination of performing mechanics while also doing the rotation that is difficult, and that is simply because your not allowed to move during most abilities. There are jobs with much more complex rotations but are easier to perform mechanics since they get to move (Ninja for example). This is the exact difference I am talking about. Difficulty is derived from the combination of the two aspects of the game not either in isolation. One inevitably effects the other.

if you're just doing standard sure lol, but that's why BLM is good, for the people who want to dive into the complexities they are fully able, while standard is still able to clear anything.

[Nobuyuki_Sanada]

I'm going to ignore the obvious logical failure and just say: the fights would uhh stay the same man, there would just be a wider range of job complexity than there is now, allowing a wider variety of players to be more satisfied with combat at all levels. I'm not saying turn DNC into BLM, just add some more stuff at BLM level, and stop tac-nuking existing jobs every expansion.

No logical failure, your just not understanding for some reason. Your job adds to the difficulty of a fight, so it logically makes sense that making your job harder to play makes the fight more difficult. If you think making something more complex doesn't also make it more difficult then w/e I'm not going to entertain that hypothetical. Go ahead and be insulting for no reason, sorry I ruined your entire day with a post lol

[Valence]

BLM is taken in my statics, so I'm bored with my job while I'm doing difficult content. I don't think it's too much to ask for one more job at BLM's level considering the job count, and the current average job difficulty.

Maybe try MNK? And not at the unintended braindead DK spamm level, but at the optimization level. I do think the skill ceiling is very high when going for that, but maybe that's just me.

[tearagion]

Maybe try MNK? And not at the unintended braindead DK spamm level, but at the optimization level. I do think the skill ceiling is very high when going for that, but maybe that's just me.

I appreciate the suggestion and it's probably a good one (more so in an expansion without 99% melee uptime built into the fights perhaps), but my ping is too high to doubleweave on MNK gcd timers, which is a problem for another thread.

[Jirah]

More jobs more problems

If the game had say 5 jobs it would have tons of elbow room to expand and explore new ideas. The jobs themselves will lose their identities if they keep adding new ones and will only be distinguishable only by Role such as Ranged melee tank and healer. It is inevitable the game will stagnate struggling to be broad but distinct.

Honestly I’m looking forward to the crash, new growth can’t happen without destruction of the old they say, and that’s how we evolved from 2.0