FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[ty_taurus]

I've said this before, and I'll echo it again.

95% of FFXIV's content is extremely forgiving. You do not need to perform your jobs rotation perfectly, or even competently in order to clear the MSQ, FATEs, dungeons, variant dungeons, alliance raids, normal/hard trials, normal raids, Eureka/Bozja, deep dungeons, treasure maps, or even extreme trials. Savage raids can be cleared with at least mild competence particularly after the first several weeks as well. This alone is what makes the game incredibly accessible. Any player that is at the novice or intermediate skill level will have little difficulty getting through all of these examples regardless of whether they are playing an easy job like the new Summoner or a hard job like Ninja. If you don't believe me, look at any video of Nyxipuff playing FFXIV. Absolutely no hate to her in any way, shape, or form, but she spends a fair amount of time in any fight not even attacking and just admiring the boss, the music, and the environment. In her case, it has absolutely no tangible influence on her experience that she doesn't have to manage Greased Lightning as a Monk. Whether she was playing ARR Monk, HW Monk, SB Monk, ShB Monk, or EW Monk, her experience would probably be the same. I don't think if asked the question of which version of Monk was the best, that she would really care at all, because that's not why she plays the game. And you know what? I think that's a beautiful aspect of FFXIV.

But it's also because of that level of accessibility built into the content itself that I cannot understand why there is this crusade against all things that even sound like complexity across so many jobs--as if somehow the conal AoEs on Warrior or Samurai were somehow gatekeeping players like her from getting to experience the story, or melee positionals, or healers having DPS actions, or Dark Knight having Darkside, or Astrologian having different utility card effects instead of all flat 6% DPS increases on each card. And you know what else? Those aspects of complexity and nuance are what allow this game's incredibly accessible content to stay engaging for players who have gone beyond the novice and intermediate skill thresholds. Expert and master level players can find a lot of fun in simply trying to perfect their job even when that perfection is not necessary at all. Doing things like ensuring your Fleche and Contre-Sixte are always used as they come off cooldown, managing your DoT timers on old Scholar so that every DoT was always refreshed as the previous one fell off while still being on top of healing requirements, or being able keep your GCD always moving as a Black Mage are what the most experienced players get excited about during their expert roulette, their extreme trial farming, and their savage reclears.

Now, there are things that can be too complex as well, such as the old HW Cleric Stance. As a tool, it took away a player's ability to heal almost entirely anytime they wanted to perform any amount of DPS. Another thing that could be a far too punishing change if we were to implement it would be drastically increasing caster MP costs and building MP management into a more complex rotation, something like Machinist's Hyper Charge pre-charge system where each use of Heat Blast gave you MP back and you were required to hit all 5 Heat Blasts every time to have enough MP to keep your rotation going, and those Heat Blasts all had cast times, or you'd just run out of MP entirely and be forced to idle. Something like that would have a very negative impact on the novice and intermediate Summoner and Red Mage players, and possibly higher skilled players as well depending on how punishing that system turned out.

But my point, ultimately, is that there is a balance that should be maintained. The content being as forgiving and accessible as it is allows the jobs to have more challenging components to their optimization that more skilled players can enjoy, because it doesn't matter if the less skilled players fail to optimize properly, or don't even try to optimize certain aspects. Forcing jobs to essentially be playable on auto-pilot, and/or shaving their DPS gameplay down to a skeleton of a rotation only serves to hurt the skilled playerbase without necessarily providing something for the less skilled player base.

But also, whenever we talk about these issues, there are some of those more novice or intermediate level players (not all, just a few outliers), that lash out at these ideas because they immediately jump to the conclusion that that aspect of perfect play will now be required of them, and that's scary. But I don't know why that's the conclusion people continue to jump to. "Add or return this to job XYZ" is not synonymous with "play at a savage level or not be able to progress through the rest of the game" which I have never seen anyone actually propose.

[VentVanitas]

As you said, XIV is already incredibly accessible on the basis of letting a player get into a dungeon and beat it by pressing any order of buttons regardless of if it's optimal or not. Back in 2018 when I was a sprout I liberally used Tornado Kick as soon as I unlocked it on MNK despite the Double/Triple TK rotation not existing at the time and yet no one told me once about playing poorly or about how TK was a damage loss. I just used it because I thought it looked cool.

Removing aspects from jobs like Greased Lightning, positionals, old AST card effects, Dark Arts/MP management or DoT management is not accessibility, they don't prevent you from playing those jobs. They can prevent someone from enjoying them, and that's a matter of taste, not accessibility, which shouldn't necessarily be seen as a bad thing.

But also, whenever we talk about these issues, there are some of those more novice or intermediate level players (not all, just a few outliers), that lash out at these ideas because they immediately jump to the conclusion that that aspect of perfect play will now be required of them, and that's scary. But I don't know why that's the conclusion people continue to jump to. "Add or return this to job XYZ" is not synonymous with "play at a savage level or not be able to progress through the rest of the game" which I have never seen anyone actually propose.

As for this, it's just an incredibly exhausting and time wasting effort for users to disparage any form of discussion they don't like, so they deliberately act obtuse or misinterpret us thinking that whatever change we want couldn't possibly have any middle ground. You will see it in any discussion surrounding the game on any site, whether it be the forums, twitter or reddit.

"Hey guys I think the job design of XIV is too boring and focuses too much on balance" -> "Clearly you want to go back to Heavensward jank with accuracy stats and Cleric Stance"
"Content at level 90 is a little too easy" -> "You just want every form of content to have savage/ultimate tier difficulty"
"Endwalker has been lacklustre in delivering any form of long-lasting combat content" -> "Go squeeze every ounce of content from this game if you're so bored"
"The relics this time around feel uninspired and are just glorified tomestone weapons" -> "You just want to grind (x content) 20 times again"

So on and so forth.

[ForsakenRoe]

As for this, it's just an incredibly exhausting and time wasting effort for users to disparage any form of discussion they don't like, so they deliberately act obtuse or misinterpret us thinking that whatever change we want couldn't possibly have any middle ground. You will see it in any discussion surrounding the game on any site, whether it be the forums, twitter or reddit.

It's doubly annoying for those of us who made theorycrafting or suggestions or whatever, because we put a lot of thought into 'how do we strike a balance between keeping the design accessible for casuals and new players, while also having a deep optimization for veterans and hardcores to master'. For example, my SGE idea (and I think Ty's more recently posted one too) has Diagnosis and Prognosis, the basic GCD heals, as costing zero MP. Casuals will find this useful, as if they are overwhelmed and panicking, the idea of 'oh balls I overspent MP and now I can't heal' is not a factor, they can always fall back on that tool. It's a damage loss to do so, sure, but it's accessible without restriction. When we made these suggestions, the only people who would be 'forced' to use the new stuff is the people who clear Savages super early, people who have to be good at adapting to unknown things, because they're speed-learning the new mechanics for fights (even before guides are out for stuff, so blind). If they can learn how the hell High Concept works before any guides exist, just with their static looking at debuffs and thinking things out, I think it's fair to assume they can learn where to put Banish in their rotation as WHM.

Also, anyone who's got an opinion like the ones on the right of those arrows, the 'think of the casuals' crowd, needs to remember that I was a casual once upon a time too. I didn't join the game with an instant knowledge of how to perfectly optimally heal a raid (I still don't), I learned how to heal less wastefully and pump more damage by practicing, and I did it during 'clunky Cleric Stance' Heavensward, as AST. Cleric Stance, Accuracy caps, 6 different card effects, 3 Royal Road effects, Cross Class actions, and people still managed to graduate from 'casual' to 'not-quite-so-casual' in that supposedly horrid janky time

[Escence]

I had a conversation with someone like this other day to where when I said how community has voice they want something fun and engaging to chew on while they wait and this person respond well they can go back and do x with content with old expansion and I was like yeah but they are payed for similar content in endwalker and square has not for filled. I see player like this if you bring up a issue this game has and idea how they can solve it they want deflect and act like that people are just never happy with ever the develops release in terms of content. Which I think not alot of the playerbase is like that some people want to have more of a reason to login instead just doing three, four weeks of content and not returning until four months later. Like I brought up it would be cool if the housing wards had it own events like how firmament does to get more players to engage in the housing distracts to keep them from bein empty as they are now. They then made a tangent to the real world in where a neighbor you wont see everyone outside hangout in their house and which procced to say this a game and not the real world and for what understood Yoshi P vison for the wards to have a neighborhood atmosphere where people can come social interact with each other. Then they procced to talk about the night clubs that go on in some of wards then I said yeah community through parties in some of the large homies in wards my point was what if square hosted their own event that had it own rewards rather if you own a house or not it give people to go there more often and make feel like a social area. I do feel like that particular side of the playerbase with the mind set oh there plenty of stuff to do in game it just stuff that you don't want to do and just write you off that someone that complains and feel like the devs are doing their best and they don't have no room for creating even more engaging content. I do feel like they are most hard to talk about the state of the game and I mean you can play the game what ever way you like but we cant ignore the fact the devs can improve on some system that have not seen action since when they released.

[Aravell]

But also, whenever we talk about these issues, there are some of those more novice or intermediate level players (not all, just a few outliers), that lash out at these ideas because they immediately jump to the conclusion that that aspect of perfect play will now be required of them, and that's scary. But I don't know why that's the conclusion people continue to jump to. "Add or return this to job XYZ" is not synonymous with "play at a savage level or not be able to progress through the rest of the game" which I have never seen anyone actually propose.

It's not only that, there are also people that cut into discussions with the "I got mine" mentality, you can see it happening a lot in regards to healers and SMN. People coming into discussions and saying they enjoy the job so it's fine and everyone should stop whining. I'm not knocking them for enjoying the jobs as they currently are, I'm happy for them if they do, but it's quite annoying when they come and stifle discussion and call everyone whiners who should quit the game if they're so unhappy.

[ty_taurus]

Overall, I think the results that the feedback forms have gotten thus far aren't too surprising for the most part, but one that that is kinda weird is the Paladin Rework score is rated very low over and over, but the reworked 6.3+ paladin is actually being selected as the best iteration of Paladin. Not saying there's a "right" answer or anything, but the results seem opposite to one another. I'm wondering if maybe a lot of people rating are just selecting the bottom Endwalker quickly without reading into the specifics of if its 6.3+ or 6.0-6.2? Not sure if there's another reason why that might be the case.

[Crater]

[...]

If I had to guess, I would say that's best explained by PLD enjoying a pretty consistent design continuity from 4.0 all the way through to 6.2. PLD spent two and a half expansions as basically the same class, with a consistent rather than burst-focused damage profile, 100% DoT upkeep, the dual FoF/Physical and Req/Magic damage windows, etc. It's easy to imagine people who might prefer the Stormblood version (PLD was hard meta, game was overall more complex, Cover was good, etc), other people who might prefer the Shadowbringers version (game was less complex, PLD was still a solid performer), and still other people who might prefer the original Endwalker version (even if performance was bad, it was the poster boy job, people enjoyed Holy Sheltron and the Blade combo, etc). Taken together, the 4.x, 5.x, and 6.0-6.2 versions are nearly twice as popular in total as the 6.3+ version, while all being fairly similar in gameplay.

In contrast, I would expect that when WAR or DRK players say their favourite version is from Stormblood, they probably don't have much in common with players who say their favourite version is from Shadowbringers.

[Varia-Androise]

I don't have any worthwhile opinions of my own because I only just started branching outside of Summoner and don't have anything maxed, but I would like to ask for permission to link this thread (and polls of course) to Tumblr. I don't have much but it's existent and I want to get more than just whoever uses the forum some representation.

[ty_taurus]

I don't have any worthwhile opinions of my own because I only just started branching outside of Summoner and don't have anything maxed, but I would like to ask for permission to link this thread (and polls of course) to Tumblr. I don't have much but it's existent and I want to get more than just whoever uses the forum some representation.

Absolutely. I would love to get input from other players. I also intend to do another review thread after the media tour on the perception of the revealed changes, and after a week or two when 7.0 launches. These forms will stay open until then.