FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[Renathras]

Yeah, makes sense.

When I went through and tried to catalogue all the responses I got from Reddit, it was a similar boat. Only in that case it was even WORSE since the answers were totally free-form, so I was trying to think of categories that seemed to be what people were saying, but then someone would give an answer straddling categories or something new, and by the time I was done, I had roughly a third of the answers worth of separate categories, which makes it nearly impossible to make much sense of other than the very general (granted, part of the point, but still) "love, like, neutral, dislike, hate" sentiment, as most people were...generally pretty clear on that part.

Doing mine and seeing yours definitely has given me more to stew on in terms of considering how pollsters do their jobs and how tricky it can be to get something actionable (or even parsable) out of it...

[ty_taurus]

I'm thinking of rewording those questions to something along the lines of...

"What do you think [job name] needs to expand on?"
"Is there anything you think [job name] has too much of or doesn't need?"

Here are the options I'm thinking I'd give for each role. Note that some of the options might change for specific jobs based on what they do or don't have.

Tanks

• Basic Combo
• Other DPS Actions
• Gauge Actions
• Personal Mitigation
• Team Mitigation
• Personal Healing/Barriers
• Team Healing/Barriers
• Aggro Management
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Melee DPS

• Basic Combo
• Other DPS Actions
• Gauge Actions
• Positionals
• Damage Buffs
• Mitigation
• Healing/Barriers
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Physical Ranged DPS

• Basic Combo
• Other DPS Actions
• Gauge Actions
• Damage Buffs
• Mitigation
• Healing/Barriers
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Caster DPS

• Cast Time DPS Actions
• Instant Cast DPS Actions
• DPS Cooldowns (oGCD)
• Gauge Actions
• Damage Buffs
• Mitigation
• Healing/Barriers
• MP Management
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Healers

• Cast Time DPS Actions
• Instant Cast DPS Actions
• DPS Cooldowns (oGCD)
• Healing Spells (GCD)
• Healing Abilities (oGCD)
• Barrier Spells (GCD)
• Barrier Abilities (oGCD)
• Gauge Actions
• Damage Buffs
• Single Target Mitigation
• Party Mitigation
• MP Management
• Mobility
• Other Utility
• Nothing/Unsure

Is there anything I'm missing in any of those? Or anything I could be more specific about that would be worth expanding on? Or anything I'm being too specific with?

[RokkuEkkusu]

^^

I concur with most of your list. However, other than boss positioning, gap closers, and the usual long-ranged pull options, would mobility be a concern for tanks compared to melee dps?

[Aravell]

^^

I concur with most of your list. However, other than boss positioning, gap closers, and the usual long-ranged pull options, would mobility be a concern for tanks compared to melee dps?

I believe mobility was a concern for GNB when they're repositioning bosses a while back because Continuation was too short and they couldn't weave and pull the boss easily for people? I think that was the only case where tank mobility was an issue.

[Renathras]

I'm thinking of rewording those questions to something along the lines of...

It may pay to apply the K.I.S.S. method here. Sort of a "less is more". You want enough options to give people choices that best reflect what they want, but not so many to make it difficult to get anything meaningful from. I'd also suggest removing too open options that don't give real directions. For example "Unsure" should never be an option, because while people can be unsure "I don't like the Job. I'm unsure what it needs." isn't REALLY very helpful or instructive. If people dislike something, they should be able to say something that they dislike or want changed. Otherwise it's just a subjective "I don't like your hair" type thing, which isn't helpful or useful.

Tanks: I'm not sure if "Other Utility" is a great option, but it's probably fine. "Unsure" should be removed. If you must keep it, it needs to be a separate category, otherwise, if someone picks "Nothing/Unsure", we don't know if it means "I don't want anything changed" or "I want changes, I'm just not sure what", which are two very different things. "I don't want WHM changed" is a very different statement to "I want WHM changed, but I'm not sure in what way". The rest seem useful and 11/12 options isn't too terrible.

DPSers: I'm curious why you put "DPS Cooldowns (oGCD)" for Casters but not for Melee or Ranged? You put "Other DPS Actions" instead. You might also include MP Management for Melee and Ranged - weird as it sounds for non-Casters, there was a time where it was relevant. DRK is still (sorta) based on MP management, and BRD used to be once upon a time by how the songs worked. Also going to say again Nothing/Unsure should just be Nothing; if you want Unsure, it needs to be a separate option from Nothing.

Healers: You break Healing into GCDs and oGCDs (also barriers) where you have healing/barriers as a combined category for everyone else. Maybe you should make that distinction? For example, Clemency vs Nascent Flash are very different abilities, despite both being "healing". If we're going to parse to this level with healers, we should with the others. I know this is probably due to you being more familiar with healers so able to think of more categories for them, but that distinction exists for others. For example, I don't consider Vercure OP because it is a tradeoff of damage for healing and consumes resources and has optimization with other stuff (e.g. using one in downtime to go into a Dualcast Thunder/Aero for the reopener) vs DNC's Curing Waltz and Technical Step, which are both completely free healing with no downsides for use. Same with Clemency vs Nascent. So I think if we're going to make those distinctions for healers, we need to for the others as well. And, once again, Nothing/Unsure need to be separate categories, and Unsure probably shouldn't' be one, but if it's going to be, it needs to be its own.

.

Fair enough?

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EDIT:

Oh, one more thing:

You should have the person list their main Jobs at the start of the survey. This way, you can crosstab to see how people feel about the Jobs they specifically play, so we won't get, for example, people downvote bombing Jobs they don't actually main. We need it to be more reflective of "You play these Jobs, what do you think about them" not "Happy to have added to the “ew SMN is a dumpster fire” in the results", if that makes any sense.

The former is useful, the latter corrupts and taints the results, discrediting the survey.

[Lyth]

Tanks play in melee range, so mobility will always be of concern to them. They could probably stand to have their movement tools be renovated, though. ARR-era Shoulder Tackle design on tank gap closers no longer makes sense when we have the likes of Thunderclap and Ingress/Egress on melee jobs. If more versatile movement tools become the norm across all jobs, then there's the potential for much more dynamic fight designs with lots of movement. I'd suggest draw-in effects as another design possibility, but the last time we had those they broke mechanics by letting you interrupt mob actions that you shouldn't be able to.

The other thing that should be brought back to the role is proc-based counter attacks, like Shield Swipe and the original Reprisal action. They don't always have to be available, but it would be nice if you could land a big counter off of a scripted fight event, like on tankbusters or specific raidwides. Perhaps even tie in a 'stagger' effect to them. Outside of that they really just need to balance the tank role internally, especially when it comes to defensives and self-sustain.

The Continuation issue on GNB has to do with movement jank on mobs that's been present since ARR. Mobs stop moving to perform autos or use actions, so you have to anticipate this while repositioning or lose uptime. The requirements just become more precise when you're in a higher APM portion of your rotation.

[kaynide]

I get the game is moving in a direction that is counter to this..but here goes:

Similar to ARR/HW, I wish tanks had a higher damage rotation that generated zero enmity, and a low damage but high enmity rotation.

The point being you only need to hold enough enmity to keep the mobs on you. So, grab and lock down em it’s, then damage it up.

We already have colored enmity icons to gauge when other party members are getting close to pulling hate. All you had to do was throw a few enmity rotas ‘til they’re back in yellow/green.

[Mikey_R]

Similar to ARR/HW, I wish tanks had a higher damage rotation that generated zero enmity, and a low damage but high enmity rotation.

Start fight, enmity combo, swap for rest of fight. That is, in a very simple nutshell, how it worked in SB. It wasn't some intricate dance you done, it wasn't rewarding and I, infact, would describe it more as a punishment rather than a reward. You aren't rewarded with more damage, you are punished with less. The following topic is the most recent one that has happened on the tank forums and goes into way more detail about the issues with the design:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-want-it-back

Suffice it to say, as it was, it was not a good design.

[MisterNublet]

Two biggest issues plaguing job design currently. Two-minute meta and only 4 people in the job design team. Fix both and a lot of issues players have with the current game will improve.

[Amh_Wilzuun]

EW Monks is accidentally a really well designed job imo with it's engaging burst windows. I hope it maintains this W into DT