FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[Renathras]

Right, but 'no change' means 'no change', so it'd be more like them being 'rates stay as is' as one end of the scale, and then the rest of the scale being 'rates cut by 30%', 'rates cut by 60%' and 'the government actually pays the students a grant to go to uni, and it also doesn't have fees at all'. I don't see how 'Mini rework' can equate to 'the fees stay exactly as is' because nothing is getting reworked in that example.

I'm pointing out there are four camps in the question bank, so that's the best way to make a parallel. It's very likely if you asked "remove DPS buttons", there would be a few takers (not many, but more than zero - had a few in the long-form survey say that's what they wanted, too). But we can't just make what we want, we have to work with the questions asked. No change isn't necessarily the opposite of "Major Overhaul", but that's another point entirely.

Again, subjective causes problems. I'd consider "No change" to be literally NO CHANGE, so Expansion alterations would be considered very minor changes, especially if they actually change the rotation at all. For example, WAR got Primal Rend, and while it's very small, it changes the rotation of the Job, so that's not "No change".

I think the problem is you're thinking of what the categories mean to you and thinking that's what everyone else meant by the terms. I'm kind of pointing out that's the problems with the terms being vague. Even "No change" we can debate over the meaning, and it's the one that would be the most straightforward of the options.

Anyway, the short version is that the AST/SCH results indicate people largely want a major rework, leaning towards total rework for AST and leaning towards minor rework for SCH (but pretty major overall), and that WHM/SGE players want minor changes that don't alter the Jobs too much but nudge around the edges.

I just wanted to chime in again and say that I'm happy that quite some people appreciated HW BRD, that was one of my favourite iterations of BRD, I greatly enjoyed both bowmage and gunmage. But I concede that a great many people hated it and it was a bad thing to give BRD cast times just to match with MCH, also SB BRD was also a lot of fun and quite well-designed.

However, I still firmly believe that them backtracking on their original vision of MCH in HW caused irreparable damage to the design as a whole. The SB form of MCH was obviously hastily slapped together and was a hot mess (heh, heat) of a job. I really wished there was a way to preserve the gameplay of gunmage and I firmly believe that it's a huge mistake to force onto BRD what MCH is designed for and vice versa.

Not in a mechanics sense (I didn't play either back then except in passing) but in a lore/physics of weapons sense, I always felt cast bars on an archer made more sense than cast bars on a gunner. Having shot both guns and bows irl, With bows you have the draw, set, release, which all take a good deal more time than shooting a gun. Gun aiming is also faster (to me) than bow aiming. For people of equal skill, bows will always have slower fire rates (cast times) than guns since both can acquire their target extremely quickly and from there it's just an argument of moving your finger a cm vs notching, drawing, and releasing with a bow.

Then there’s Dancer which I honestly think is a devs main or something lol, they basically took everything good from the ranged dps role and slapped it all on Dancer.

Agreed. This was so dumb to me.

ShB Announcement: We don't think Jobs should be reliant on other Jobs to do their full damage, so we're removing the party buffs from BRD.
Players: Okay, so no more buff abilities for other players, got i-
ShB Announcement: Incidentally, we're adding DNC as the new Job.
Players: Ah, cool, so it's a new Hea-
ShB Announcement: It will be a Ranged Physical DPS Job.
Players: A...what?
ShB Announcement: And it will buff allies so they can do their full damage.
Players: The...the what now..?

The whole ranged dps subcategory desperately needs to reworked.

Agreed. I actually REALLY LIKE current MCH, but a "selfish DPS" in a subrole that has a DPS tax makes no darn sense, and the role as a whole is fubar.

I honestly feel like Bard is just as bad as healers in terms of ‘one-button spam’ and occasionally smashing an oGCD with your face. Least Bards buff party members when they run their face across the keyboard lol.

It is one reason I think this survey (or the participants) are somehow particularly tilted against Healers. In most forums where BRD is talked about (both here and elsewhere), it's almost universally being ragged on. Yet here, it's scoring higher than Healers despite people being more negative on it basically everywhere. Which kinda tells me the survey results are being affected by a bit of sample bias or something.

[Sebazy]

It is one reason I think this survey (or the participants) are somehow particularly tilted against Healers. In most forums where BRD is talked about (both here and elsewhere), it's almost universally being ragged on. Yet here, it's scoring higher than Healers despite people being more negative on it basically everywhere. Which kinda tells me the survey results are being affected by a bit of sample bias or something.

I mean it couldn't possibly be that healers are just that bad right?

Impossible!

[Renathras]

I mean it couldn't possibly be that healers are just that bad right?

Impossible!

It COULD, but unlikely since there are other Jobs that are consistently ragged on as being REALLY bad AND that people who played the older versions hate aside from SMN that are getting oddly high marks.

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

I dunno, there's some things that don't add up well. /shrug That's all I'm saying.

Also: This isn't the Healer forum, you can save your dogpile for there.

[Shinkuno]

It COULD, but unlikely since there are other Jobs that are consistently ragged on as being REALLY bad AND that people who played the older versions hate aside from SMN that are getting oddly high marks.

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

I dunno, there's some things that don't add up well. /shrug That's all I'm saying.

Also: This isn't the Healer forum, you can save your dogpile for there.

You sound like a main healer that cant accept his role is the worst designed healer role in probably the whole mmo genre

[AnotherPerson]

It COULD, but unlikely since there are other Jobs that are consistently ragged on as being REALLY bad AND that people who played the older versions hate aside from SMN that are getting oddly high marks.

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

WHM is arguably in the best shape it has been in terms of lily usage, but taking away stuff from WHM consistently has already reduced its gameplay over the years. If it was at one point a 4 and then it dropped to a 2, just because it's in its best state as a 5, doesn't mean it's still good when the bar is up to a 10.

Also, What GCD rotation are you talking about? All WHM has is Glare and Dia. Assuming you're including Afflatus spells, you also have to remember that Afflatus spells fall under conditional usage - You use Afflatus spells to access Misery, but Afflatus spells are ultimately healing, and healing is part of a binary condition where you simply use it when people need healing or to avoid overcapping. There's virtually no thought to be had in it in most cases because of how much excessive healing you have in the first place. It doesn't matter if WHM suddenly has "4 GCD spells" in its rotation, if you're healing when you don't need to, it doesn't feel good. The GCD rotation doesn't feel rewarding and lacks engagement.

SGE barely has a different GCD rotation than WHM in all honesty. They have Dosis and Eukrasian Dosis (Glare / Dia equivalent), and Phlegma every 40 seconds. That's it. Toxikon II is so niche in its usage because it doesn't generate normally (limited to 3 at most if you never have to GCD shield) and doesn't have a purpose outside of double weaves/mobility. Double weaves are also because you want to use your healing skills -- which ultimately puts Toxikon II as a skill for your healing rotation -- which again brings up the previous issue. If you don't need healing, it doesn't actually have a place in your GCD rotation. Pneuma is also in its healing rotation and you don't use it under your GCD rotation every 120 seconds. Ultimately, 2 of a SGE's "GCD skills" are relegated to a binary conditional. In terms of diversity, SGE doesn't have it much better because Phlegma is 2 charges -- so there's a point where you just want to hold both charges when possible to dump it in raid buff windows now that all raid buffs are aligned to 120 seconds. The majority of the time is still spent on Dosis.

What puts SCH arguably above WHM is not due to its GCD rotation, but it's due to its engagement with Energy Drain optimization, as well as a more well-designed toolkit for encounters (mitigation checks only make SCH and SGE feel better). GCD Rotation only matters if there's enough to create a diverse and satisfying gameplay. SCH doesn't have a GCD rotation outside of Broil / Biolysis (Glare / Dia equivalents), but can be rated similarly to the both of the healers above exactly because WHM and SGE's "GCD rotations" doesn't feel as meaningful to its engagement. SCH instead excels at micromanaging excess healing resources they don't need through Energy Drain -- which provides a more meaningful engagement to its gameplay. It's still rated as a 5 out of 10 on average though, and that's no surprise because there's nothing else that's engaging outside of healing (which, again, is not always applicable).

[Sebazy]

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

I dunno, there's some things that don't add up well. /shrug That's all I'm saying.

Also: This isn't the Healer forum, you can save your dogpile for there.

Key point here, it's the best it's been in terms of balance. Balance and engagement are two very different things.

Two big details that you're ignoring here:

Healer engagement is arguably at the lowest it's ever been in mainstream content. You yourself keep saying that FFXIV's healers can be fixed entirely with changes to content and whilst I don't agree with that (More in a moment), you are at least partially right in that content design is a part of the problem here. Let's lay down some cold numbers here: You keep saying that BarbEX is a good fight that deals loads of damage. I've already clearly demonstrated that it actually deals substantially less damage than RubiEX (Even with the puzzle phases included), but here's what will make your head really spin. BarbEX has roughly the same HPS requirements as Emerald WeaponEX. A trial from last expansion. Go think about that for a second.

Secondly. Hand waving away anyone who so much dares as to claim that FFXIV's healers are poorly designed as subjective is comical. Did you ever touch healing in Swotor? Did you ever touch healing in Warhammer online? Both MMOs had healers who's kits had serious depth, broad utility and massively diverse styles of play with a ton of inter-kit interactions.

WHM, for example, is one of the best designed Healers in MMOs IF you like to heal.

Really? I'd legit expect this comment from Titanmen. A bloated kit full of overpowered abilities that trivialise anything the game is capable of throwing at you short of just oneshotting people doesn't equate to a well designed kit. Go look at E12S part 1. That boss literally throws AoEs every time it so much as sneazes, it takes a spreadsheet masterclass to minimise GCD heal usage on that fight but yet even with all the AoEs, you can just /shrug your shoulders and deal with it with Medica IIs. Thus we've ended up at the point where the only challenge to healing that matters isn't even really a healer check (If you're a WHM at least), it's a mitigation check.

Best designed healers don't make me laugh. You don't know what the F you are talking about.

[ForsakenRoe]

Well, BRD has a spammed move, a proc off of that spammed move, a short OGCD with charges (bloodletter), a short OGCD that forces a proc (empyreal arrow), a gauge that charges each time you get a proc to spend on a powerful hit (apex), dots (lets call it one because iron jaws resets both), and three separate 'stances' which all have slightly differing gameplay, and cause the procs to affect you differently. To have parity with healers, BRD would have to lose the songs (imagine you're in army's paeon all the time), Bloodletter, one of the two dots, the Apex gauge, Refulgent, and Empyreal would stay, but changed to be 40s CD

I didn't care much for bow mage in HW, but I found the cast times on MCH completely fine. It was designed around the idea of the cast times, the ammo made it instantcast, procs of your 123 made those instantcast, it worked together. Now we have constant flips and jumps everytime you want to do a simple 123. Can we rework the 5 Heat Blasts into 'Heat Blast, Heated Slug, Split, Clean, finisher of some sort (maybe the bazooka from diadem)' so we don't have to see the flips constantly, they get hella stale with how constant they are (and it's an excuse to bring back regular Clean Shot's animation)

[Aravell]

I didn't care much for bow mage in HW, but I found the cast times on MCH completely fine. It was designed around the idea of the cast times, the ammo made it instantcast, procs of your 123 made those instantcast, it worked together. Now we have constant flips and jumps everytime you want to do a simple 123. Can we rework the 5 Heat Blasts into 'Heat Blast, Heated Slug, Split, Clean, finisher of some sort (maybe the bazooka from diadem)' so we don't have to see the flips constantly, they get hella stale with how constant they are (and it's an excuse to bring back regular Clean Shot's animation)

Oh, I agree with you that the constant flipping is ridiculous, they've also already proven that they can do a nice casting animation for MCH in PvP. Honestly, I'd rather they just get rid of Hypercharge and the "Spam 5 in a row" gameplay and just bring back the old longer Wildfire where you actually had to set up beforehand and use your brain during it for maximum impact.

[yookilaylee]

Very happy and relieved to see a lot of Bard DoT defenders around!!

[Semirhage]

I find it fascinating that it *must* be bias. Has to be. Sampling or otherwise. No *true* population canvassing could possibly report dislike or boredom toward job design that involves rotting your brain mashing the Glare key six million times over the course of two expansions. It's such a brilliantly-designed set of jobs. No way people could find them boring or poorly-designed. It's got to be the encounter design fooling them into thinking that Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare is boring. Has to be. It's. So. Fun.