Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Semirhage]

It's entirely possible to differentiate between simplifications that remove clunk and simplifications which make jobs more boring in ways that are more nuanced than "it's just the difference between you liking it or not".

Simplification just to make things as failproof as possible are frequently -bad- simplifications. Simplification which removes gamey, arbitrary lockouts that don't add to engagement is usually good. Conversely, adding noninteractive cruft like a press-on-cooldown oGCD that has no further point is bad complexity. Additions which add to a job's flow, create choice, or allow more interaction with an encounter are usually good.

[Renathras]

...

And that's fine...until you get to asking the question "What is clunk?"

Many people though SB SCH was clunky. But there were many people who LIKED having Eos Embrace macros. Was that clunk or was that a nuanced mechanic for skill expression? It depended ENTIRELY on who you asked.

Old SMN had a LOT of disjointed systems that barely worked together creating a clunky mess of a Frankenstein's Monster Job. A lot of people felt the pieces didn't make sense together and were awkward and annoying to try and work around. That they were fighting the Job more than playing the Job. Yet, to others, that was what they saw as skill expression and intrinsic to their enjoyment.

Old PLD was a technically involved Job where you also were fighting the Job mechnaics. Let's not forget the cursed -17sec FoF opener. It lacked consistent self-sustain healing in its rotation, and there were clunky things like whether or not you dropped Atonements. Yet to some people, these were all measures of skill expression and removing them was dumbing it down.

Boring is ALSO a subjective consideration, as you can again ask the question of "What is boring?" and get a lot of different answers that don't even agree with one another.

Saying "when it removes clunk it's good" is another way of saying "if you like it, you see it as good", since a lot of things that WERE clunky people LIKED and so the clunk being removed is still attacked.

I do agree, though, that there are such things as good complexity and bad complexity (and corollary to that, bad simplicity and good simplicity). But part of what I'm getting at is how subjective that is.

[tearagion]

Old SMN had a LOT of disjointed systems that barely worked together creating a clunky mess of a Frankenstein's Monster Job.

It has the same disjointed systems then as it does now, except those systems work together less lol. New SMN still has a permanent summon, Demis, Aetherflow, and filler spells. Difference is they have all been sanded down to absolute simplicity, removing the synergy along the way.
Ruin 4 has no nuance in it's use, it's just the instant cast filler you get one of every minute, compared to before where it was generated by your Egi and necessary for optimal Bahamut damage.
Aetherflow interacts with literally nothing anymore, whereas in ShB it at least only maxed out on potency with both of your DoTs applied to a target, and before that was critical to using Dreadwyrm Trance.
Gameplay at the level of Ruin filler spam is now the whole rotation, and easier (except for Ifrit Dash and Slipstream.)
Carbuncle does fuck and all, they even took Searing Light off of it.
The shiny new Gem Summons don't really interact with anything other than themselves. They generate nothing. You get them for free from pressing your Demi button (which requires nothing).
Rework was a complete failure if the objective was to avoid piling together disparate systems that don't work together. It's as much of a "Frankenstien's Monster Job" as it's ever been.

[Renathras]

It has the same disjointed systems then as it does now, except those systems work together les

Oh?

ARR: Autoattacking permanent egi (that could die in combat, but also one could tank) with a special ability on a CD, Ruin and Ruin 2, 3 DoTs, Aetherflow, Fester, Bane, Shadow Flare.
At this time, the gameplay was maintaining 3 DoTs (no, not four, you didn't have Miasma 2 until basically HW and Thunder was removed from cross-class in 2.1; the only extras you got from Cross-Class were Cleric Stance, Aero, and arguably Blizzard 2 for AOE situations), using Aetherflow on CD, using Fester on CD with AF stacks (I think it had a 5 or 10 sec CD to itself in addition to the AF cost), using the Egi attacks on CD (I'm trying to remember if we had Egi Assaults back then or just Enkindle, but basically those), and filler with Ruin. Ruin 2 did the same damage but had a slightly higher MP cost for the convenience of no cast time.

HW: Using Aetherflow gives you corrupted Aether and DWT. The rotation was otherwise the same, but you used DWT after expending all your AF, I believe. Then you got to use a bigger pew pew and did more damage. At this point in time, I think DWT didn't make your spells instant, it just increased the damage your Ruin 3 dealt.

SB: Now you have Bahamut. Using DWT twice - not once, twice - gave you Bahamut. When Bahamut was out, he had a weird way of working where he did a Wyrmwave for every single one of your attacks, including oGCDs. And "attacks" means "thing that struck an enemy target". As such, the above was amended to every second DWT, summon Bahamut then move as little as possible (he'd prioritize moving to your new location over attacking) and spam out as many GCD attacks and oGCD weaves of anything resembling an attack as possible. Addle counted as an "attack" in this system. Oh, and you had two Enkindle Bahamut uses (I think it was) to use under Bahamut, one at the start and the second before he left. But not TOO soon on summoning him or dismissing him. You also wanted to make sure your first spell on summoning him was Ruin 3 not Ruin 2/Further Ruin 4 because he'd come in with "summoning sickness" and wiff that first attack if you did an instant. You also wanted to end with an instant if possible so he didn't wiff the final attack while departing.

ShB: Now with more Phoenix, the system was kind of the same, but you no longer needed two DWTs to summon Bahamut. Moreover, DWT didn't require burning AF stacks to use. There was also a major patch somewhere during it, but at the start of ShB, it still had the "cram GCD" thing going. Egi-Assaults were turned into GCDs at some point, and now were the source of Further Ruin (I don't remember what it was before, but it was something else, maybe procs from DoTs?), and the rotation became an odd combination of rigid and flexible, depending on how you were looking at it. The rotation was a strict 2 minutes before there was the EW 2 min meta (irony...). It opened with DWT (getting all your weaves in to set up for Bahamut), then Bahamut, a natural Bio/Miasma refresh, spending Egi-Assaults before the 1 min mark, refressing DoTs with Tri-Disaster before FBT (DWT and FBT now both refreshed T-D, which was an oGCD that applied both DoTs), then roll into Phoenix, then filler for ~40 sec, building up the 4 Further Ruins for the 3:15 Bahamut, using the T-D refreshed by FBT at the 1:30 mark then using the one refreshed by DWT as soon as you entered it to close the loop on that end.

The disjointed systems were that AF had nothing to do with anything else and wasn't tied to anything else, the Egis were just kinda...there...at this point, Phoenix had nothing to do with Bahamut, FBT had nothing to do with DWT other than relying on it to start its CD, DWT kinda had something to do with Bahamut, neither had anything to do with Egis other than you wanted 4 Ruin 4s for Bahamut (but not Phoenix because its 1-2 combo was entirely self-contained and used your Ruin 3 and...Outburst [whatever its name was at the time] buttons for...god only knows why the second hit was the AOE one...), and each sub-phase could be seen as a disjointed time capsule of the Job: Filler was ARR, DWT was HW, Bahamut was SB, and Phoenix was ShB.

EW SMN, on the other hand...has almost none of that. The only thing it has that's really disjointed from the rest of the rotation is Energy Drain/Siphon and Fester/Painflare. They could just give it Painflare as a 2 charge, 30 sec recharge and Ruin 4 as a 60 sec CD GCD (or have it be generated by DWT/FBT instead of ED/ES) and nothing of value would be lost, and "The last remnants of the Old Republic (er, 2.0 ACN) have been swept away."

There wasn't much "synergy" to the older SMN, it was just a convoluted mess that worked despite itself but had several things that didn't make sense with the whole. For example, you only used Bio and Miasma 1 time every 2 minutes. There was really no point to them. If summoning Bahamut had refreshed Tri-Disaster, those two buttons could have been removed, the two DoTs could have been consolidated into one debuff, and nothing in the rotation would have changed. Bahamut and Phoenix were disjointed. FBT and DWT were disjointed. Egi Assaults were disjointed from everything other than cramming 4 Ruin IVs into Bahamut.

The new systems may be streamlined and sterile, but they absolutely work together other than Energy Drain/Siphon/Aetherflow stacks, which are just kinda...there. The Demis work mostly like FBT did in ShB, and lead into the Primals. you can say they "require nothing", but one generates the other, and then using all three closes the 1 min loop. There aren't disparate systems; there almost aren't any systems at all. Ruin 4 is used as a movement tool if movement is required under Ifrit that Swiftcast alone can't handle or when it needs to be held for something else (Slipstream or a Raise). So the only piece that really is disparate at this point is Energy Drain/Fester. The rest of the kit makes sense with itself and isn't disjointed at all. If ED/ES/Fester were removed, DWT/FBT generated Ruin 4, and Painflare was a 30 sec CD 2 stacking oGCD on its own, the kit wouldn't have anything disjointed at all about it.

.

Note, this isn't saying New SMN is a good Job (I believe it is, but for different reasons), but it's not a clunky cobbled together Frankenstein's Monster like Old SMN was. I don't think ANY Job is like Old SMN in that respect.

[tearagion]

tldr

newSMN is by definition as, or more, disjointed as/than shbSMN and your colossal post doesn't change that.

[Dahlinea]

Oh?
Wall of text with a lot of misconceptions

Fist of all, ShB SMN was not disjointed the way you paint it to be. The more I read your posts the more I see that you didn't understand how to play old SMN at all and probably just read how it works on some site teaching how to play and optimize it... or is just outright trolling.

Energy Drain/Syphoon gave Fester that needed DoTs applied to get its maximum damage. DoTs were applied either by using Bio and Miasma or Tri-disaster. The latter were refreshed every time you used DWT or Summon Phoenix. Egi-assaults gave Further Ruin stacks to use Ruin IV during movement phases outside Bahamut or during Bahamut to maximize its Wyrmwave attacks that were triggered by our spells. Want to call it cluncky because of pet responsiveness? Fine. But disjointed? Nah... you don't seem to know the old job like you claim it.

Current SMN is more disjoint than ever, the only thing tying something to another one is summoning Bahamut/Phoenix to have access to your legos and that's one of the reasons the job is so rigid. Your legos don't interact with each other, they are all disjoint and don't affect anything else in the rotation. Bahamut/Phoenix are self contained and don't interact with anything else in the rotation. The Demis are glorified DoTs now and do their attacks automatically. Aetherflow just give Fester, which don't need anything from the rotation to do its max damage, and a single Ruin IV that's worthless as a tool for movement since 90% of SMN spells are instacast. Would be better if Aetherflow gave 2 or more stacks of hardcasted Ruin IV spells to use for filler instead of Ruin III in a optimal scenario...

Also

There aren't disparate systems; there almost aren't any systems at all.

You said it all. There is basically no system to manage, that's why the job is braindead as it is. And that's why we're complaining about it.

[ty_taurus]

Current SMN is more disjoint than ever, the only thing tying something to another one is summoning Bahamut/Phoenix to have access to your legos.

I disagree on this point. I will say, overall, I really like the general direction that we are trying to take SMN in, but unhappy with the execution. It just is very inflexible and feels like the kit is unfinished and empty right now, but is otherwise a good foundation for something more. ShB SMN was the most disjointed of all iterations by far. It felt like the kitchen sink job--a garage sale of many different pieces that have no interaction with one another outside of specific, isolated combinations. SB SMN was very punishing, but I think that was peak SMN experience. It felt way more cohesive than ShB's smoothie challenge headache.

[Dahlinea]

It felt like the kitchen sink job--a garage sale of many different pieces that have no interaction with one another outside of specific, isolated combinations.

Yeah I can't agree with that or we're having different interpretations of what "disjoint" means. Disjoint for me is isolated pieces or independent and current SMN has a lot of independent blocks that don't interact with each other at all. Old SMN had dependencies, abilities resetting because of using other ones, the potency of Fester altering because of because of DoTs, using Egi-assaults before so we get to use Ruin IV during Bahamut to take most of it... I can't see this as disjoint at all.

I can understand your point if you mean that those abilities are not of same nature to be interacting with each other, because as a job system when you look at them as purely skills and abilities they did interact.

I just hope they free Bahamut/Phoenix from being a requirement to accessing the legos and add more additional abilities to fill the gaps the job has on next expansion.

[ty_taurus]

And that's fine...until you get to asking the question "What is clunk?".

There is no "right answer" in game design for how much is too much or too little for the player. But one way to look at things is to compare game design to your nails. Nail length is comparable to overall complexity in this example. The more complex a job is, the longer that nail is. How long or short anyone wants their nails is subjective, but there's also undeniably a state in which your nails can be too long or too short. In other words, there's a goldilocks zone that each job needs to hit in order to feel appropriate.

It's important to take care of your nails. Trim them before they get too long, remove hangnails, etc. This is comparable to pruning outdated or clunky mechanics from each job, but the problem that ShB and EW have is it feels like, for many jobs, the designers are aggressively filing away at the nail down to the flesh. They aren't just pruning clunk, they're eroding the healthy parts of the nail as well.

We are below the goldilocks zone in many ways, which is why there's so much unrest, and I don't even mean these forums. Everywhere you look, there's tension about SMN, about MNK, about the healers, about Kaiten... When you file the nail down past the skin, in hurts. There are too many people who feel an ache and soreness from the aggressive simplification many of the jobs are experiencing. It's like an unhealthy condition of OGCD, where someone is so aggressively cleaning the counter that they're causing damage to the wood, filing their nail down to the skin, washing their hair so excessively that they're drying the scalp. That is what EW feels like. There's not a right answer for where that line is. It's something you have to get a feel for, and that line may be in different spots for different people, but it's clear that we are below the goldilocks zone and have been for the last several years now.

[Renathras]

Ignoring realitty.

I get you don't like New SMN, but don't lie about it. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it EVERYTHING wrong in the world. Guess what? It's possible for it to be dumbed down, bad, and even a terrible idea while still being less disjointed than Old SMN. And what "by definition" are you referring to, EXACTLY?

You ignored my "colossal post" because it stated clearly WHY and HOW Old SMN was more disjointed than New SMN. New SMN has many things you can complain about with it, but being disjointed isn't one of them.

...

I think it ultimately depends on the player.

Which is kind of my point.

The terms are useless because they have no defined meaning and are just boogieman terms hurled at anything one doesn't like.

The problem with "get a feel for" is that different people "feel" different places. For example, I "feel" SMN is in a very good place right now, and is one of the only DPS Jobs that I don't "feel" has something obnoxious that makes it a chore to play rather than enjoyable to play. The only other one that comes close to me is RDM except for the proc system making it obnoxious. (Not the proc system itself, but how the procs aren't well displayed to the player). It's subjective to the point the term is useless as long as it doesn't catch those feelings like mine along with those like yours. I think we'd agree a Job that pressed one and only one button the entire time would be too much pruning, but the line above that of "cutting into the quick" vs "so long they're snapping off" we likely won't agree on unless there are some kind of objective measures we can employ.

I don't think there's tension "everywhere you look". It's just prominent people talking about it, while the rest of the playerbase remains blissfully unaware. It's kind of like politics. The extreme left and right are the loudest voices and get all the screen time, they're talked about in the news all the time, their politicians are the most outspoken and introduce the most dangerous bills...but then you have the normies which make up the vast majority of both the politicians and the public, EASILY outnumber the extremists on both sides added together, yet since you never hear from them, you'd think they were the minority instead. Listening to Fox or MSNBC and CNN, you'd think the world is about to end and the nation on the brink of one doom or civil war or another. But then you talk to normal people or listen to the middle of the road politicians and wonder where the hell the crazies are getting this from. I feel like FFXIV Job design is probably in a similar boat right now.

If anything, I think RDM is in more trouble than SMN is, for example.

EDIT: To clarify on that...

RDM mostly feels good to play and has its longstanding easy to understand conceptually and pick up, has nuance if one wishes to truly master it going for it. The problem is it is SEVERELY undertuned to the point of not QUITE unviable but not FAR from it for many comps.

It's kind of telling when, with ALL the utility RDM can bring (the Raise aside, it has an extra party mit and a party damage buff) that it is less played in TOP than BLM, the most difficult Caster that has the least utility and the most clunky mechanics. Though it IS possible this is just an artifact of Ultimate design (P8S-2 sees RDM in a far healthier spot, for example), there definitely seems to be a gap in overall damage that shouldn't be there.

When RDM is behind DNC and BRD...there's an issue.

Instead of trying to fix a problem that isn't in SMN, focus should be on fixing the problem that is with RDM. And the fact remains that SMN seems to be widely enjoyed by the playerbase as a whole, so it really ISN'T the problem.

Though as I've long been, I do think the next DPS Job added should be a DoT Caster like Green Mage or something with Old SMN's rotation. I doubt the Devs will do it, but the irony is...Old SMN was straight up 2 min meta, so it would be entirely compatible with the new paradigm...