FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[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.

[CelestiCer]

I thought this is a FFXIV Job Design feedback thread, not off topic gaming thread...

Comparing XIV's Job Design to other games provides different perspectives other then just XIV that could help discussions.

XIV's Job Design to me is summarized as becoming " Lazier/Emptier/Scripted ". Making Jobs easier to manage sounds like a big win for Square regarding the work-load for the Dev's while pursuing unobtainable perfect balance, regardless at the cost of gameplay.

Is Job Design still good? It's Good Enough to get players to Subscribe.

Shoving another Job choice into a Players face ( often suggested... ) is a terrible solution. Players like x Job and should be granted optional depth/complexity/nuances to allow players to express mastery of the Jobs they love in any content they wish to do it in, " Not just Ultimate ". Taking that away? is akin to stomping the passion out of players who grew fond of the Jobs... This can be done without raising the skill-floor. And raising the skill-ceiling would not deter away hardcore Raiders, they'll more likely welcome the challenge to master it.

Job Design can be tweaked slightly to be 2x as Fun, with having the exact same skill requirement of the now. Square shown they can do this, but the focus obviously isn't about quality Job Design or Job gameplay here, it's about Balance and Content. Hence their stance on " Just go play Ultimate ". Square obviously seems to think it's all about the content they think you will enjoy, disregarding what Jobs you enjoy playing content with.

• Make the Jobs more Fun? and Combat content becomes more Fun to do
• Make the Jobs more Boring? at some point Combat Content becomes unappealing to do

Wishful thinking with the supposedly x amount of years of XIV to come that Square will give us something that improves Job design, gameplay and providing Job depth. Wouldn't hold my breath though. DRG and AST players are up next right? and if they weren't hoping for a SMN rework... here's to hoping

[ForsakenRoe]

Shoving another Job choice into a Players face ( often suggested... ) is a terrible solution. Players like x Job and should be granted optional depth/complexity/nuances to allow players to express mastery of the Jobs they love in any content they wish to do it in, " Not just Ultimate ". Taking that away? is akin to stomping the passion out of players who grew fond of the Jobs... This can be done without raising the skill-floor. And raising the skill-ceiling would not deter away hardcore Raiders, they'll more likely welcome the challenge to master it.

Said it many times, with comparisons to hot wings, curry, FPS games, all sorts. If I like Chicken, but can't handle spicy food so well, I don't get told 'sorry we only do chicken vindaloo', there is chicken korma, chicken tikka masala, chicken madras too, a spectrum of spice levels. Similarly, if I like the Sci-Fi aesthetic of Halo, but I find Easy to be, well, too easy, then I can ramp up to Normal, Hard, Legendary, whatever they call the hardest difficulty. The suggestion that 'oh you don't like Chicken Vindaloo? Too spicy? Well you can have Lamb Kofta instead, maybe that's your speed'. Yeh and maybe I don't like Lamb (I personally do, it's example). Or for the FPS example, someone getting told 'oh Halo's too easy for you? Go try COD or Battlefield then', well maybe said person doesn't like how everything in COD is so aggressively brown-filtered colorwise, or how it's too realistic and they like the futuristic stuff like energy swords and flying motorbikes.

I play SGE because I like the aesthetic. I shouldn't be told 'oh you find SGE easy? Well go and play SCH and fight the fairy clunk then, that'll give you some challenge' because I don't like the SCH aesthetic as much. Both classes should have a skill ceiling to strive for, and a skill floor that keeps them accessible to newcomers. And the worst offender is when people suggest something of a different role entirely. 'Oh you don't like X healer, well go and play DPS if you want to do damage' is the equivalent of saying 'Oh you don't like the mobility people have in Apex Legends? Well go and play turn based RPGs then' instead of suggesting a more grounded BR like PUBG

[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

[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.