FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[Zairava]

further feedback questions

Sorry I'm a bit late to this, but I'll put in my thoughts here.

1) 1-10 scale is better because it provides more input to work with, there's much less of a middle ground in 1-5 as it's a small frame. I think you did ask the right questions in general, as anything outside what you already asked will tend to fall onto a job-by-job basis based on its current kit. My only comment is that (and this could also be a job-by-job basis) in the "what would you like to see in the future for X" (at least in the Dark Knight pane), there probably should be "More GCD actions" and "More OGCD actions" like how it is in the "What could X use less of in its current kit".

2) I believe good is roughly around a 7, while anything below that is under par. I don't think investigation into changes should be limited to how the score is, because even if a job currently works, that doesn't mean the people who play it are happy with how it plays. (*cough* Dark Knight). However, if any jobs' average starts teetering on rounding down to 6 and below that, that's cause for concern in a general sense.

[ty_taurus]

Sorry I'm a bit late to this, but I'll put in my thoughts here.

1) 1-10 scale is better because it provides more input to work with, there's much less of a middle ground in 1-5 as it's a small frame. I think you did ask the right questions in general, as anything outside what you already asked will tend to fall onto a job-by-job basis based on its current kit. My only comment is that (and this could also be a job-by-job basis) in the "what would you like to see in the future for X" (at least in the Dark Knight pane), there probably should be "More GCD actions" and "More OGCD actions" like how it is in the "What could X use less of in its current kit".

2) I believe good is roughly around a 7, while anything below that is under par. I don't think investigation into changes should be limited to how the score is, because even if a job currently works, that doesn't mean the people who play it are happy with how it plays. (*cough* Dark Knight). However, if any jobs' average starts teetering on rounding down to 6 and below that, that's cause for concern in a general sense.

I plan on really expanding on the "more/less of" questions and removing the option for a fill-in-the-blank space. There's already the bottom write-in response area for that type of info, and all that having the "other" option gave me was results like this:



As you can see, it's just a big wall of 1 individual responses that are hard to actually read, and I've outlined that like half of these are different ways of saying basically the same thing: different faeries. It's not super helpful, and there was no easy way to add that to the spreadsheets. Could you imagine a pie chart with that breakdown?

Instead, I'd like to just be more thorough with options on each job, perhaps being more curated to individual jobs as well. I mocked up this list below of options I might offer for the healers over on that forum since I'm more colloquial there to see if anyone had suggestions on what to add.

What to Add:

• Animation Updates
• Higher rDPS
• Stronger MP Economy
• Burst Healing Actions
• Regen Actions
• Barrier Actions
• Attack Actions
• Party Mitigation
• Party Utility (Expedient/Warden's Paean/etc.)
• Personal DPS Buffs
• Party DPS Buffs
• Crowd Control (Stun/Silence/etc.)
• Mobility Tools (Swiftcast/Icarus/etc.)
• Unsure/Nothing Specific

What to Remove:

• Total rDPS (This job is too strong)
• Total MP Economy (This job's MP management is too strong)
• Burst Healing Actions
• Regen Actions
• Barrier Actions
• Attack Actions
• Party Mitigation
• Party Utility (Expedient/Warden's Paean/etc.)
• Personal DPS Buffs
• Party DPS Buffs
• Crowd Control (Stun/Silence/etc.)
• Mobility Tools (Swiftcast/Icarus/etc.)
• N/A (Nothing needs removing)

There's still plenty of time before we get any news on 7.0 of course, so it's not something I need to worry about right now. But it's still on my mind, and I want to do a better job collecting information leading up to 7.0 and after to see if how people feel about whatever media tour news we get changes, or if it largely doesn't change. Something like those lists though would allow me to turn that into graphs on the spreadsheets which would make them a lot easier to absorb information from.

[AmiableApkallu]

I mocked up this list below of options I might offer for the healers over on that forum since I'm more colloquial there to see if anyone had suggestions on what to add.

What's the difference you're trying to get at between, say, "add higher rDPS" and "add party DPS buffs"? (Similarly for "remove" options.) I mean, the latter accomplishes the former, does it not?

[ty_taurus]

What's the difference you're trying to get at between, say, "add higher rDPS" and "add party DPS buffs"? (Similarly for "remove" options.) I mean, the latter accomplishes the former, does it not?

My goal there is thus...

Add higher rDPS = This job does not do enough total damage and needs a higher total damage, whether that comes from selfish damage or buffs.
Add more attack actions = This job needs more DPS skills in their rotation regardless of overall damage output.
Add more selfish DPS buffs = This job should have more buffs that increase their own damage dealt (such as Presence of Mind) regardless of overall damage output.
Add more Party DPS buffs = This job should have more party-wide buffs in their gameplay that increase everyone's DPS regardless of the job's overall damage output.

In other words, the rDPS question is meant to be about how much damage you're actually doing while the other responses are about wanting more actions that get you to that number.

If you were to say that this job should have more attack actions and party DPS buffs, but also said they should have lower rDPS, what you're saying is that this job should reduce the potencies of their existing attacks and spread that to new actions as well as possibly lower their total damage output because, presumably, you believe that job's current damage output is too high in relation to other jobs of the same role.

[Rhysati]

1. I think job homogenization is at its absolute worst right now and makes me completely uninterested in every single class in the game. When every class feels so similar to play within a role, what decision do I have to make beyond "what do I think looks the coolest?" I think it is at the worst point in the game's history but nothing leads me to believe it will change for the better. World of Warcraft doesn't have this problem. Every class and specialization feels unique to itself. They all offer something different in gameplay loop and theming so that you have a reason to play them all, or skip one or two in particular that don't feel good to you. In FFXIV, they all feel bland and cruddy.

2. I'll echo what so many other have and say Stormblood. They made Bard fun to play and every healer felt great. The tanks were doing alright too, but I think the simplification of Tanking had already begun to take place by then. I miss the days of actually having to work at tanking to be good at it. Now, anyone can do it by simple breathing and it makes me completely uninterested in doing the job.

3. They could I suppose, though I don't see much point in it. It's the forums and the subreddits that the developers need to be looking at. Threads like this one encourage people to provide productive feedback and conversations can be had on the points raised. Surveys in the game or whatever will not only be skipped by a lot of people, but some people will just fill them out without reading them(if there is a reward for doing it). You're also getting no conversation at all, so how the questions are worded will HEAVILY impact the responses and can lead the development team getting the completely wrong idea about what people want.

[ForsakenRoe]

I think the main concern with job updates really is the duality of the situation. Let's take AST's 7.0 'rework' that is scheduled. If they're not going to ask the playerbase for feedback on what they plan for the future of the job, we're basically left in the situation that 'the people who put the job in such a state that 'it needs a rework so big, that it has to be done at expansion time', are the people who are the sole voices of how the design should go'. How's anyone meant to have any optimism in that situation? It's like having faith that the person who set fire to your house accidentally is going to be the one who can handle putting the fire out. Chances are they're gonna throw water on a cooking oil fire and flare it up even more, because they don't know what they're doing.



Pretty relevant lines, I'd say

[MonsutaMan]

The job design of XIV is poor.

You can say that, and still be a fan of the game.....

Skyrim is the greatest open world game ever made....but people sink into floors & walk through walls like Kitty Pride.

XIV job design is a cluster f***.

Some jobs start at lvl1, some at lvl 50...others at lvl 70....

Some have hunting logs, others do not....

Some can do the STORY!!!!!!! One cannot.......

XIV's job design is like someone in the board room was throwing darts for ideas....and used all the ones that did not stick.

"What does not make sense...Okay, lets go with that"

[RyuDragnier]

Skyrim is the greatest open world game ever made...

That's the biggest lie anybody could tell. That title goes to Dragon's Dogma.

[Turnintino]

That's the biggest lie anybody could tell. That title goes to Dragon's Dogma.

Just popping in to commend a fellow Dragon's Dogma enjoyer. ฅ(^◕ᴥ◕^)ฅ

[fulminating]

Who can sincerely say that skyrim's great? Even in the same series morrowind is far superior as an open world game.

Blue mage stands as the only good job, presumably its inability to turn in msq is to avoid saddling the player with up to an 80 level grind when BLU hits the level cap.