Inevitable Job Simplifications?

[Renathras]

accuses someone of glossing over other people's posts while summarizing that person's post as "Whinning" and glossing over the post...

Come now, don't be upset you were called out for ad hominems and an attempt to derail the thread by attacking the person rather than their arguments. Just...don't do it going forward. Simple solution. Or do it again to the same result, it matters not. ANYway...moving on to the actual topic (sorta)

...the rest of the post, the part not in HB...

I kind of agree with AST. But I've honestly never liked AST, so I don't know what people that DO like AST would want the changes to be in the first place (other than I suspect everyone would like Nocturnal back, even some of the other Healer mains).

I saw a suggestion in the Healer forum to make two branches of Cards, with one being the damage buff (because Balance >>>>> all), and the other be the situational buffs (Bole, Ewer type stuff), this way, the two wouldn't be stepping on each other's toes in competition. I could see that being a possible solution. The problem with Bole and Ewer is that they probably weren't up when you needed them (e.g. Bole before a tankbuster), but you didn't want to hold onto them since that meant sacrificing a potential Balance. The combination of "competing with DPS boost instead" and "RNG means it's not likely to be there when you need it" made it not work well. Imagine, for example, if WHM had a single "Curin" spell. But it randomly would pick between Cure 1, Cure 2, or Cure 3 if you cast it. Or if BLM had a "Firin" spell which would randomly pick between Fire 1, Fire 2, Fire 3, and Fire 4 (and maybe Flare) if you cast it. That level of RNG isn't useful.

AST had that problem with Bole being a card that COULD be useful, but you had no control of it it was up when you needed it or not. So the suggested split (I think that person proposed the Minor Arcana be those buff type cards) with some Redraw RNG security might help. But honestly...it might also be hard to pull off. But the point is that buffs which are unreliable make poor mechanics unless they're more or less equal OR so broad in effect they are still worth having in almost any situation. Which also tends to mean "more boring".

And AST's biggest problem is the having to hot swap targeting during the buff/burst windows...making Cards AOE could solve that, but would cause other issues - for example, what's the point in having charges to Draw/Play if you can only use one at a time and it buffs the whole party (they probably wouldn't stack)? And if they're as bland as "AOE Balance" (which is what PvP Balance is anyway), they'd feel - somehow - even less interesting than now. At least now you can play the pseudo game of "Do I give this card to the Melee...or to the Melee but it's not quite as good?"

Yeah, honestly, I have no idea what they're going to do with AST. They may not even know, which might be why they pushed it. Even if they tried to make a SMN-like redesign, I'm not even sure what THAT would look like. Hard to say...

...

I don't know why I bother when you don't but here you go:

Disjointed is a semantics argument at this point. If we're fighting over definitions, it's irrelevant as a metric, since for a metric to work, it must be something people can agree on. Your definition isn't inherently more powerful than anyone else's, though we're honestly using a similar definition, just differently worded, so that's not even the issue. I actually WAS using your definition. I'll even say how in just a sec.

"I clearly imply it's a "success" if your only metric is accessibility," - That's silly, there are several metrics by which it is a success. Thematically, it fits the class fantasy of a summoner of powerful minions to fight on the caster's behalf. In terms of rotational smoothness of flow, it has that going for it, too. By this I mean no weird "drop 2 Attonements per minute" or "use an Ether to get an additional Flare in", or the like. The rotation is a closed loop that doesn't have hanging threads and if you do it correctly, the total flow is Demi, 3x Primals, a Ruin 4 somewhere in there, and (depending on ping and spell speed) a Ruin 3. The rotation closes its loop and smoothly moves from each subphase to the next without any clunky mechanics or counter-intuitive "record skips" in the rotation. In terms of utility, it has that going for it between its party buff and combat raise. In terms of damage, it's well balanced in the sense it doesn't do so much to be an auto-lock for parties, but not so little that it's actively avoided.

There are additional ways it could be considered arguably a success, such as removing bloat from the Job (it succeeded in THAT, I think we can all agree - some might argue it went too far, but it definitely hit that checkbox), simplifying the Job, removing clunk from the Job (by essentially...removing the Job outright...), and so on. But we can ignore these and still note the successes above.

This does not make it perfect, and it does not mean one cannot dislike it as a whole or dislike components of it, but there are many ways that it can be seen as a success, even if we set aside accessibility as a measure of success (I would disagree it should be set aside and NOT counted as a mark of a successful Job; RDM has long been praised for its intuitive nature) and ignore that all the metrics we have suggest it is quite popular, and likely more played than Old SMN was.

As for the "system bloat", that's kind of a nebulous term we'd have to hammer down to before we could discuss it, but it's definitely far less bloated than Old SMN, it doesn't have DoTs (which are...somehow?...a drain on server side computational resources), nor is the AI doing weird things like Bahamut prioritizing movement over attacking or the AI having to run targeting routines for the Egis. Again, not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it was a success by the metric of reducing system bloat as well.

"I clearly ..." - This is what I mean about lying. (a) "easy to play" isn't the definition I used. Nor is "has a nice flow". I WAS using your definition. I disagreed with you on the application and, perhaps?, the subdefinitions. For example, Old SMN's mechanics were all over the place. They weren't "coherent" (part of your definition). Many were infrequently used or stutter-stepped. They weren't "continuous" (part of your definition). And many were unrelated or only tangentially related. They weren't "connected" (part of your definition). Or rather, a lot of parts of it were not, and just kind of did their own thing. At best, Old SMN only half-way met one of your three criteria. That is: (b) I probably didn't word it as direct/simply enough to make it clear, but I was using the same definition you presented. I didn't ignore it while substituting it with another. (Though it wouldn't have been a crime to have done so, as this is a discussion, I didn't even do that!)

I said that we can ALSO consider thematic continuity, of which New SMN has more and Old SMN had less. But you seem to want to just discard any argument that doesn't agree with yours and are willing to entertain such considerations or definitions. You and I may disagree on what we consider coherent, continuous, or connected, but I didn't ignore them. I was using those same metrics in my evaluation!

(c) I was not "vaguely gesticulate at a different one and don't engage with mine at all". God DAUM if you can't see how wording it like that makes you insufferable you need new glasses! I was using your own definition with my interpretation of your terms. You know, what people do in a debate or discussion when they have a disagreement on how to apply or view something?

And this is just Grade A disgusting: "I get what you're trying to do, you're trying to exhaust under the false pretense of "good faith discussion" where you're just intentionally obtuse, or skirting the actual argument. Timeless-classic online argumentative strategy."

STOP.
LYING.

I was honestly content with just hitting post as I read through and typed this up until I got to that disgusting display.

UNLIKE you, I'm just interested in exchanging points of view with people and presenting my case while offering rebuttals to what I see as incorrect or hyperbolic. The one with the false pretense here, trying to be obtuse and avoid the argument while exhausting their opponent...is you.

I'm not the one that started engaging in personal attacks to distract from the topic. I'm the one who refrained from doing so. You started well before this, as I pointed out, with your "taking the piss" comment pages and pages ago, before I said anything at all that could be interpreted even loosely as an attack on you. A post you still haven't admitted to nor apologized for, even when presented with it.