FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[ForsakenRoe]

Yeh if I see Bard at a 6 and healers overall at a 5 (or slightly less for AST), it doesn't say to me 'there is sampling bias', it tells me that both camps see there's a lot of room for improvement. With BRD, I assume that quite a few believe a previous incarnation of BRD was better, likely SB when the DOTs were a more integral part of your kit (they triggered your procs on crit after all), and they still had powerful useful utility skills like Refresh, Palisade, Tactician (lol TP), Minne's CD was busted good back then too iirc

Now, if they were to delete the DOTs from BRD because they don't really do anything anymore, I'd expect that 6 to go straight down to a 3 or less, because then they would be one step closer to that glorious 'one button, one braincell, impossible to f*** up' gameplay that everyone subconsciously desires /s

edit: my theory on why BRD is 6 and healers are 5 or less: they're both in the position of 'they function i guess, but the older versions were way more fun'. But the difference that gives BRD that extra point is that 'BRD retains some of it's interesting gameplay when doing solo stuff', you still have your songs, your DOTs, your procs

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".

If you want to look at 'no change' as literally zero changes, that's fine. But you have to also remember, 'absolutely zero changes whatsoever' is never going to occur when an expansion comes out (which would be the best time to rework things anyway). So right off the bat, that category is an impossibility, because 'some changes' is a literal selling point for the expansion. While I can't speak for anyone else, I'd assume that at least some respondents would have thought similarly

The only way 'no changes at all' would work is if the reworks occurred in a random patch like 'oh it's 7.1 here's a big overhaul of how SCH works, have fun learning how it works in two weeks before the new ultimate lands', so that the expansion changes had already occurred by that point. But then, if the expansion had added stuff, that breaks the whole 'no changes at all' clause, doesn't it, what a conundrum

[ty_taurus]

It’s true that what constitutes as a minor or major rework may differ depending on who you ask, but in general, a “rework” in games defines a fundamental shift in the play style of a class or character. As Roe stated, that does not mean literally nothing is added or removed, because that is never the case. Every expansion, every job is required to include new abilities because if they don’t, there is a fear of backlash.

No rework was meant to imply a normal amount of new actions, and maybe some subtle cleaning up of existing tools. For example, I do not think the removal of Shadowbringers Fluid Aura constitutes as a rework, and I imagine most people would agree. But I think we’re getting in the weeds over the semantics. The point of that question was to see how people felt about how each job’s gameplay feels.

No rework = this job has good gameplay and nothing specific is needed.

Minor rework = there is some clunkiness that needs to be ironed out, but otherwise the job is good.

Major rework = the job has a good concept, but does not feel fun/satisfying/rewarding to play and/or is not functioning properly.

Overhaul = The job is completely failing to deliver on its design and/or job fantasy and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

I wanted to keep each answer short and clear though, which is why I didn’t try to add that much detail to each response option. If it’s too long wordy, it may have gotten ignored.

[SieyaM]

Wow, I didn't realize there were 5 melee but only 3 casters and ranged jobs.

[RitsukoSonoda]

Wow, I didn't realize there were 5 melee but only 3 casters and ranged jobs.

That's due to them splitting melee into subtypes by gear.

Lightweight STR based (MNK, SAM)
Mediumweight STR Based (DRG, RPR)
Lightweight DEX Based (NIN)

Then again they also used to just call the rest Ranged DPS and separate them into 2 subtypes.

Physical Ranged DPS (BRD, MCH, DNC)
Magical Ranged DPS (BLM, SMN, RDM)

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

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.

Surely it must be because healers can’t be bad, right??! /s

L m a o

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

Not even a main BRD myself but I do really miss the relevancy of BRD’s DoT ticks. I felt this so much when I got into Paradigm Tower as a BRD couple of weeks ago. Back in ShB, I remember spamming Pitch Perfect like crazy while playing Minuet once I got all DoT ticking on both Hangry bosses. It.was.ecstatic!

Not anymore, no more Never experienced pre-ShB BRD but reading old guides/watching old vids makes me think it’ll be my secondary job after my healer main, they looked pretty awesome.

[Sebazy]

To expand and clarify some of my points above (Sorry, had to head out and missed important details in the process)

Regarding BarbEX. The thing that makes BarbEX a fun fight isn't the incoming damage because it's mathematically demonstrable that it's not actually that high in the grand scheme of things, it just felt that way after ZodiEX which did a lot of nothing, HydaEX which was a soft touch and EndsingerEX being a slowly paced puzzle. Where BarbEX shines is the pacing of the fight. She's winding up her next mechanic whilst the previous one is still resolving. There's relatively little downtime, if you take your eye off the ball for a few GCDs after resolving one mechanic, you've likely missed the start of the next one. It was that pacing and pressure that made mechanics like Knuckledrum feel good.

So yes, content design definitely has a lot of room to improve and even as someone who's been around and on the edge of world prog since ARR, SE's current 'esports friendly' design approach to high end content just feels super strange and at odds with the rest of the game to me. Sudo's designs were so much more organic and less 'by the numbers'. By comparison today's bosses feel like a box ticking exercise. AoE 5 seconds into the fight to remind healers that we care about them? Check.

Next up, expanding on healer kit design:

Look at it this way, take 2 BLMs in a soft 24 man like Aglaia. #1 is an absolute try hard with the talent, experience and knowledge to back it up. #2 has read the tooltips and knows to keep their GCD rolling but doesn't have anything like the same experience or knowledge. The #1 will decisively beat #2 even in this face roll content. This is a big part in why so many think so fondly of the job. You put the effort in, you get a reward out.

Now apply the same to 2 WHMs. #1 is my usual co-healer Fretty, quite literally a top 10 ranked SCH worldwide at his peak, #2 is me, a meme at best, a HPS monster at worst. In casual content like Aglaia I can match him or at the very least run him damn close. This isn't because I'm good and it's not entirely the fault of the content because after all, there's a clear gap between the BLMs. The problem is that as long as I'm mashing keys, it's very hard to press the wrong one without doing something REALLY stupid as a healer. The only reason why Fretty and myself are likely to gap other healers in the raid is because they are mindlessly overhealing or simply don't care.

And that right there makes up the bulk of the skill curve for a healer in your average 24 man raid (or other mid tier content) right now. Do you actually care? Can you watch your screen? Can you read a tooltip? If so, congrats you can likely keep up with some of the most talented healers this game has.

That is NOT good design by any stretch of the imagination.

[ty_taurus]

There are a few things to note about forum engagement vs playerbase that's worth mentioning. The amount of players active on either here or reddit is small in comparison to the total population, and I think it's safe to assume that those outspoken in these spaces are likely more impassioned about job design issues overall than the population of players that are not active in thread discussions. Having said that, there's a fatal flaw in using the broader audience as a weapon against the criticisms that the healers, or any job generally faces: we have no way to actually quantify that difference in player opinion.

How many players that do not visit reddit or the forums actively think positively of the healers? How many of them feel more neutral about the healers, but are content playing as one? How many of them are not active healer mains and merely flex into the healing role as needed? How many of them would feel unhappy with the types of changes regularly proposed on the healer forums? How many of them aren't bothered by healers currently, but would enjoy the types of changes proposed on the healer forums? How many of them would feel indifferent and wouldn't change their opinion either way?

Unless you have a way to identify those percentages, you also cannot say that the harsher criticism of healer design found on the healer forums is not reflective of the community's general perception, just more intense or cutthroat. Note that these surveys were shared over on the healer forums earlier than this thread was posted, and it was the healers that started out with a higher vote count of somewhere in the 20s where many of the healers active on the healer forums input their feedback first, resulting in very low averages of around 2.5 - 3.5 for all healers. Now that many more players who do not frequent the healer corner, reddit players, and lurkers have input their feedback, the vote count is significantly higher, and the averages now sit around the 4.5 - 5.5 range. So we've already seen how the perspective has shifted, and I would argue that's is far closer to what the general perception is probably like: the healers aren't hated as much, but aren't really seen as good either--inoffensive.

[Sebazy]

TLDR, Yoshi cites 5.0 as being the design choice that fits as many people as possible, not 3.0 or 4.0.

Basically, make it as friendly and accessible for sprouts as possible. This shows in healer design where for mainstream content, it really doesn't matter outside of logs if you go full try hard and min max everything into oGCDs or if you just roll Medica IIs and do the /manderville, resources are plenty and our kit is mighty, either way works just fine until you start progging Savage.

[ForsakenRoe]

I just want to get a clarification/enlightening out there because of:

WHM, for example, is one of the best designed Healers in MMOs IF you like to heal. The encounter design sucks for it since it doesn't really lean into healing, much, though. Now, if you like to damage? Yeah, FFXIV's Healers are all pretty badly designed for that. But that's why we have DPS Jobs, I guess? But WHM nails the fantasy of having powerful and efficient heals to keep your party alive. Put FFXIV's EW WHM into, for example, WoW's 4.1 Troll dungeons (the ones that caused a lot of healers in WoW to quit), for example, for a pretty solid time. Conclusion is: The Healer design isn't bad, much less "worst". But FFXIV's encounter design is becoming problematic with it breaking down the trinity to the point of obsolescence

Specifically the part in bold. See, Lilies heal for 400p, or 800 if singletarget. You get three per minute. But AST has CO (200, 500 over 15sec), CU (100 instant tick, 500 over 15sec), and Star (540p, 720 if charged). None cost you damage as they're all oGCD, and the three of them have 60s CDs, so you get 'three in a minute'. So WHM's 'powerful efficient heals' are... actually weaker than AST's tools, only able to beat out uncharged Star if you boost Rapture using PI. So while there's definitely an argument to be made about WHM 'feeling' good in terms of access to powerful heals, the objective maths says that it's not as strong a healer as AST. And we cannot consider Cure3 because you said 'efficient' and I'd consider both the GCD lost to it AND it's ridiculous MP cost to be 'inefficient' in most senses of the word. Add to that the frankly ridiculous MP pool AST has access to. Yeh WHM has Asylum, but it's a 90s instead, and Assize but you cannot hold that for a single second because 'you lose damage if you do that'. WHM is definitely not as 'efficient' or 'powerful' as one might think, it just 'feels' that way because the heal is delivered as one burst, rather than overtime

edit: oh and it has Horoscope, even if it's not charged it's 200p to 'top up' any of the other 3 tools, and it's a 60s CD too

edit2: and it has Lady of Crowns, RNG permitting, as a 'free Helios cast'

TLDR, Yoshi cites 5.0 as being the design choice that fits as many people as possible, not 3.0 or 4.0.

Basically, make it as friendly and accessible for sprouts as possible.

Imagine a jigsaw puzzle, and you've got a gap like this.

A piece that shape fits in the hole. But so does a regular square. It'd have gaps in the picture, sure, but the point is it'd fit into the space. SE decided that people didn't want to bother figuring out what 'sticky-out-bits' fit into what 'sticky-in-bits' to solve the jigsaw, so they just made all the pieces regular squares

[ty_taurus]

As a quick aside, I did go through each sheet to adjust the answers tabs to be more readable in places, mainly increasing the cell size for fill-in answer columns and reduced the text size on specific answers that where quite long and thus impossible to read because they filled up more than a screen's worth of column space. Some of them had to have pretty small text, so you may need to zoom in to read them.