FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[RyuDragnier]

I'm surprised that people don't like dancer too much. I find the job fun as hell, while also giving enough downtime to where you can actually adjust to mechanics without getting blindsided...like what happens when I play MCH and BRD. <_<

[ty_taurus]

I'm surprised that people don't like dancer too much. I find the job fun as hell, while also giving enough downtime to where you can actually adjust to mechanics without getting blindsided...like what happens when I play MCH and BRD. <_<

As a Dancer player myself, I went with 7,8,8,8 for my scores. 7 on solo because without a dance partner, you generate Esprit significantly slower and your gameplay feels very noticeably slower. I think it's also quite fun, and I personally like elements of RNG in my gameplay, though I know that's not everyone's forte, which is why I think it's a good thing that we have some jobs with built-in RNG and others without it. But I do think there are a few things that could be improved upon:

1. Adding a bit more to your gameplay between burst windows. While I'd like to see the 2 minute burst meta shift and offensive buffs reduced, culled, and/or spread back to different timers, I do think Dancer should be a burst job. That's how it was concepted, and it's not a bad thing to have some burst jobs as long as not every job is burst-focused. But you can have very slow transitions between burst phases, and while the EW change to Flourish makes using your flourish buffs more easily during buff windows, it also made your 1 minute mini-burst do-able in literally 2 GCDs, so it feels quite short-lived.
2. Develop the Esprit gauge. I don't think it's good for any job to have a gauge that revolves around a single action. It feels excessive, and Dancer could really benefit from additional Esprit spender that make it a resource you need to manage in some capacity.
3. The job lacks utility for a support DPS. To be clear, I do not consider offensive buffs as "utility;" I just treat them as more damage because that's all they are. Dancer's utility is Curing Waltz and Improv (Samba technically, but every DPS has either a Samba equivalent, Feint, or Addle, so it's not really a unique advantage if every job has effectively the same thing even if the application is slightly different). The sustain from Waltz and Improv are nice, but I rarely feel like they're actually saving my healers any healing resources, and Improv is very clunky. Even with a wired connection, I find trying to double weave Improv with Improv Finish clips my GCD. If Dancer is going to be a support DPS, I don't mind that it's damage is low, but I'd like some form of more meaningful utility. I kind of want Chocobo Jig as a combat sprint and that would be all that I really need along with Curing Waltz, but I imagine that could be a controversial addition.

I think it's a fun job and a good example of how to have an easy job that's still fun, because there's nuance to it, but I can also respect players who find it too slow, or who aren't fans of RNG.

[RyuDragnier]

Good points ty. There's a lot of stuff that can be done with DNC, and you've actually nailed something that the job could definitely get. Dance partner rez ability when, SE?

[ty_taurus]

So I just discovered the ability to enable result viewing on each survey. If you return to the survey link, it will allow you to view the results in more detailed graphs. I added a note about this on the initial post as well, but if you want to see what percentage of people are choosing which checkboxes for what they want to see or what they want to see less of, you can do that more accurate that way.

[Rilifane]

Adding to what ty said, being among the least played jobs does not equal "least enjoyed" and let alone "isn't fun/ doesn't flow nice" - that is only your opinion of the job. Not every job has to be for you but that doesn't mean it automatically lacks "flow" or isn't fun.
I played GNB at max level and even in some Ex trials and savage raids. So technically, I'm part of the crowd that plays it - so since I play it, I probably enjoy it, right?
No, not really. It's alright. It's the tank that suits me most but can't say I enjoy it to the point I'd play it more than once in a blue moon. Nonetheless, the data counts me as a +1 for "people who play and probably enjoy GNB". It's important to learn the difference between x amount of players playing a class and x amount of players enjoying a class.

BLM isn't the kind of class that someone who doesn't want to play BLM might still play it.
Healers and tanks have the bonus of having shorter queue times so there's an additional incentive to play them at least occasionally even if you don't enjoy it and I can guarantee you that a non-significant amount of people does exactly that. DNC is another good example of a class people are most likely to play even if they don't really enjoy it in the sense of playing it more than once in a blue moon. It's great if you want full mobility, fairly easy gameplay or just turn your brain off for a bit, push glowing buttons and still perform decently well. It's easy to play even if it's not for you. It certainly isn't for me on a regular basis but alright every once in a while. So I'm another +1 there even though I don't really play it.

So that means unlike many other classes, BLM player count isn't skewed by a certain amount of "I don't really like it but play it anyway" players; people enjoy it and play it or don't and not play it. So it's safe to say that the vast majority counting towards BLM players are people who genuinely enjoy it. Not every class has to be popular.
We really need to get rid of the notion that a class design is bad or unfun just because the class isn't topping the charts of people playing it. The fact that BLM has historically been the most consistently well-received class speaks for itself.
BLM simply isn't the type of "I don't really like it but play it anyway" class. And that is fine.

[Renathras]

I think it's better that people aren't forced to answer for jobs they don't play nor care about

I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying it's creating somewhat less useful results since it's going to create abnormalities in Jobs that are less played or have a niche audience. Niche audience Jobs will score very high because they appeal to a narrow band of people, and those people (to whom the appeal) being the only ones answering them are going to give them high scores. On the other hand, more "mainstream" Jobs will have a lot more variance since they are played at least semi-frequently by players of all stripes, leading to some people loving, hating, and being neutral on them, as we can see, for example, with the Healers.

I think the thing with BLM is that it is extremely apparent to most people whether the job is or isn't for you at a glance. We know it's a low-mobility, slow APM nuke style job either because we're told so by other players, we read that in FFXIV guides, or we gauge that from its aesthetic which is consistent with many other wizard/sorcerer archetypes. People know if that is or isn't for them, so anyone who's not interest in that playstyle is just not going to play BLM and probably isn't going to submit their opinions on it because, why would they?

Exactly my point and completely agreed.

The people that answer the survey for BLM are largely the people that love BLM, which you can see in its bar graph. Is there even a single other Job with that curve?

BLM

Conversely, SMN's...

SMN

...has a lot of people that dislike it (the 1s and 3s), but also has 10s at both 5 and 8, and 9 responses of 9 (again, looking at overall enjoyment). This implies a cadre of people that REALLY hate it, but then a good deal of people that are neutral towards it and that like it. And notice SMN has 133 responses (as of right now) vs 86 for BLM, which is 50% more than BLM (or BLM having about 1/3rd less than SMN, if you want to look at it from that side of the coin).

I think the way to see this is what you say in your first paragraph - that people who love what BLM offers play BLM and love BLM, and people who do not, do not play it. For most other Jobs, it's not quite as clear, so you have a lot of people pick them up and then get disappointed in the results later. For example, some people pick up CNJ and enjoy the nature themed elemental spells, then become disappointed when they get to ShB/EW WHM and no longer have those.

The single worst case of this, though, is SMN, since you have the people who HAD a Job they liked lose it, and who are very vocal with their disdain. It would be interesting if the SMN page had a question for people who loved old SMN vs those who did not and see if there's a difference in how the two groups view new SMN. What is telling to me is that only 12% say they picked up SMN in EW, but 22% say they like the EW iteration the best. Meaning there were some people who played old SMN who enjoy new SMN better. Further, a bit over 20% recommend no change at all to the Job with a further 23% wanting only a minor rework. That doesn't exactly speak to high levels of dissatisfaction on par with the number of people who say the Job is unfun to them. The implication being that around 45% either like the Job or are fine/okay/neutral with it. It's just the ones who hate it REALLY hate it.

The question to me is, all the people who know BLM isn't for them, how would they rate BLM? Probably not the resounding 10s we see.

Adding to what ty said, being among the least played jobs does not equal "least enjoyed"

That...is...kinda what it means.

What it means is it is the least enjoyed/least enjoyable playstyle. This doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable to people who love that playstyle. A lot of people didn't like old SMN being a DoT mage, which makes no sense with Summoner lore or what a Summoner is, but some people enjoyed it immensely. That's what things that appeal to niche audiences are. They're things that the majority of people don't like, thus they are the least enjoyed. But they are highly appealing to their niche audience, which is why they're able to be successful.

BLM is peculiar specifically BECAUSE people who don't enjoy it don't play it.

In all other Job and role cases, this isn't true. Many people play at least one Tank Job and at least one Healer Job (often WHM), not because they enjoy it, but because their party needs them to play it - as you say as well in your post. They find these Jobs unappealing because they'd rather be playing something else. It's one reason GNB was made more like a Melee DPS; specifically to appeal to such players who were "forced" to play a Tank so they'd actually enjoy it. And it's somewhat telling that GNB has the highest rate of approval, meaning the effort was at least somewhat a success. 7.58 out of 10 is a pretty solid rating no matter how you look at it.

But when it comes to DPS in general, this is less true (with the exception of some RDM players "asked" by their parties to play SMN instead). Generally speaking, people playing BLM are choosing to, they don't feel pressure or force to do so. So you don't have any really disgruntled BLMs. The people who WOULD be disgruntled BLMs aren't playing BLMs. This gives BLM an unusual skew in the data, which was kind of my point. It's unique in that MOST people playing it WANT to play it, and thus are going to be people more likely to enjoy it. Hence why I was saying if people had to answer all the Jobs at once (instead of separate sheets), BLM would probably have much lower marks since a lot of people would be rating it 3s or 5s.

DNC is a particularly odd case since a lot of Ranged have been "encouraged" to play it, but it seems to be genuinely enjoyable enough that they don't feel TOO angry/put out for having to do so. 7.43 out of 10, the most approved of Ranged. The only Jobs more approved of are GNB (7.58), DRG (7.92) RPR (7.57), RDM (7.81), and BLM (8.57).

DRG LIKELY has a similar situation going for it to BLM, honestly...so it kinda sucks they're looking at it for a rework since it seems to be generally well liked and has (like BLM) had a lot of consistency over the years. Honestly, it seems their focus should be elsewhere than on DRG, which likely just needs some minor work instead of a total redesign. SCH and AST (AST they've confirmed I suppose, but not SCH) need one much more (probably the entire Healing role in some way or another), and probably DRK and BRD. I'm not sure why they want to touch DRG so badly in the first place. They can always just add upgrades to existing abilities instead of needing to outright change it.

I do agree: Not every class has to be popular. This is one of the things I most support in terms of Job design - that not every Job NEEDS to be for everyone (in fact, none do), and that having different kinds of Jobs for different player tastes is good for the game. It's why I am so big on the "4 Healers" idea, because I think that addresses the needs of the disparate players and reduces people having to play something they don't enjoy.

I don't think BLM is well received overall. It's well received specifically by the kinds of players that like BLM and actually play it. I agree that IS, indeed, fine.

.

Another weird one to me is Healers, but specifically the sub-breakdowns.

WHM has a lower approval than SCH (5.03 vs 5.24), but is more (as I said before) even across the board. That is, people feel less strongly about it in general in that it has no really lopsided "super high" and "super low" response values. It's kind of the "vanilla" of Healer Jobs; few people hate it, few people love it, most people find it acceptably un-obnoxious. Everything is in a pretty narrow band. But what really gets to me is the preferred version. 41.2% think Endwalker is the best iteration with 15.3% preferring ShB. The two were more or less identical, with the only significant changes being (a) Thin Air is now a 2 charge ability rather than a 15 sec duration CD, (b) Misery is now damage neutral instead of a minor DPS loss, (c) Assize has a slightly shorter CD of 40 sec instead of 45, (d) WHM now has Aquaveil as a targeted Rampart and Lilybell as a strong oGCD tool that is MOST useful (though not ONLY useful) for mulit-hit attacks that don't happen often. Overall, it was one of the least changed Jobs from ShB to EW, with most of the changes being well received.

Regardless, taken together, the post-SB/5.0 and on paradigm version of WHM (also perhaps known as the "post Aero 3 removal" versions) have a combined 56.5% approval. Further, "No Rework" (20%) + "Minor Rework" (37%) has a total of 57%, so on par with that.

But then look at SCH and AST.

SCH, in stark contrast to WHM, has 41.4% preferring SB (vs 15.3% for WHM) and a further 29.9% preferring HW. Taken together, that's a resounding 71.3% that prefer the HW/SB era. Only 2.3% preferred ShB, on par with the amount that preferred ARR. 46.8% want a "Major Rework", and when "Total Overhaul" (14.7%) is added in, that's 61.5% that want large changes to the Job, and clearly the SB iteration is VASTLY preferred. Only 9.2% want no rework and only 24.1%, a respectable minority but still a minority, prefer EW's incarnation of the Job the best. And unlike WHM, it can't lean on ShB's numbers to shore that up into a majority that like the post-SB paradigm.

AST is even more stark, and has the lowest approval (4.74). The prefer-SB version is ALREADY an outright majority of 55.6%. Adding in HW's 12.3% brings this up to 67.9%. Not quite SCH's 71.3%, but pretty high. Tellingly, there's not even a SINGLE vote for "No Rework" at this time, with "Major Rework" (45.0%) + "Total Overhaul" (29.0%) being a whopping 74% together.

It's pretty clear, despite SCH having a slightly higher approval rating than the "vanilla flavor" WHM that there's a strong desire for it to receive a significant rework back to something resembling the SB era, and AST's are desperate for a major shakeup as well.

WHMs, by contrast, seem to be relatively content, with a majority preferring the post-SB world (granted, SB WHM and the initial iteration of the "Lily" system...was pretty bad (the only era WHMs absolutely preferred less than SB was ARR; SB and ShB being tied at the moment) and wanting to see only minor changes to the Job (a lot of people seem to want Aero 3 and some mention more mitigation/party utility, but much beyond that is kind of vague).

And SGE, as a kind of "control group"(?), is oddly also the most popular (5.47), with 29.3% wanting "No Rework", 32.0% wanting a "Mini Rework" (together, these sum to 61.3%, a clear majority), vs 30.7% wanting a "Major Rework" and 8.0% wanting a "Total Overhaul" (taken together, 38.7%)

Which also kind of agrees with a lot of responses from those long-form question survey responses, which often said WHM and SGE people enjoyed as-is and only wanted no or minor changes vs SCH and AST, where people seem to be pretty consistent on wanting reworks. AST seems to be the Job most in need/desired of a rework in the game right now.

[ForsakenRoe]

Another weird one to me is Healers, but specifically the sub-breakdowns.

WHM has a lower approval than SCH (5.03 vs 5.24), but is more (as I said before) even across the board. That is, people feel less strongly about it in general in that it has no really lopsided "super high" and "super low" response values. It's kind of the "vanilla" of Healer Jobs; few people hate it, few people love it, most people find it acceptably un-obnoxious. Everything is in a pretty narrow band. But what really gets to me is the preferred version. 41.2% think Endwalker is the best iteration with 15.3% preferring ShB. The two were more or less identical, with the only significant changes being (a) Thin Air is now a 2 charge ability rather than a 15 sec duration CD, (b) Misery is now damage neutral instead of a minor DPS loss, (c) Assize has a slightly shorter CD of 40 sec instead of 45, (d) WHM now has Aquaveil as a targeted Rampart and Lilybell as a strong oGCD tool that is MOST useful (though not ONLY useful) for mulit-hit attacks that don't happen often. Overall, it was one of the least changed Jobs from ShB to EW, with most of the changes being well received.

Regardless, taken together, the post-SB/5.0 and on paradigm version of WHM (also perhaps known as the "post Aero 3 removal" versions) have a combined 56.5% approval. Further, "No Rework" (20%) + "Minor Rework" (37%) has a total of 57%, so on par with that.

But then look at SCH and AST.

SCH, in stark contrast to WHM, has 41.4% preferring SB (vs 15.3% for WHM) and a further 29.9% preferring HW. Taken together, that's a resounding 71.3% that prefer the HW/SB era. Only 2.3% preferred ShB, on par with the amount that preferred ARR. 46.8% want a "Major Rework", and when "Total Overhaul" (14.7%) is added in, that's 61.5% that want large changes to the Job, and clearly the SB iteration is VASTLY preferred. Only 9.2% want no rework and only 24.1%, a respectable minority but still a minority, prefer EW's incarnation of the Job the best. And unlike WHM, it can't lean on ShB's numbers to shore that up into a majority that like the post-SB paradigm.

AST is even more stark, and has the lowest approval (4.74). The prefer-SB version is ALREADY an outright majority of 55.6%. Adding in HW's 12.3% brings this up to 67.9%. Not quite SCH's 71.3%, but pretty high. Tellingly, there's not even a SINGLE vote for "No Rework" at this time, with "Major Rework" (45.0%) + "Total Overhaul" (29.0%) being a whopping 74% together.

It's pretty clear, despite SCH having a slightly higher approval rating than the "vanilla flavor" WHM that there's a strong desire for it to receive a significant rework back to something resembling the SB era, and AST's are desperate for a major shakeup as well.

WHMs, by contrast, seem to be relatively content, with a majority preferring the post-SB world (granted, SB WHM and the initial iteration of the "Lily" system...was pretty bad (the only era WHMs absolutely preferred less than SB was ARR; SB and ShB being tied at the moment) and wanting to see only minor changes to the Job (a lot of people seem to want Aero 3 and some mention more mitigation/party utility, but much beyond that is kind of vague).

And SGE, as a kind of "control group"(?), is oddly also the most popular (5.47), with 29.3% wanting "No Rework", 32.0% wanting a "Mini Rework" (together, these sum to 61.3%, a clear majority), vs 30.7% wanting a "Major Rework" and 8.0% wanting a "Total Overhaul" (taken together, 38.7%)

Personally, I assumed (and I'd bet many others did) that 'No rework' doesn't mean 'absolutely zero changes', but 'receives the usual expansion additions, but they match well with it's current playstyle', like how Despair slotted in to BLM's rotation as a Fire Phase ender and SingleTarget Flare. As such, I also see 'mini rework' as something akin to Monk losing GL in 5.4 or NIN Mudras becoming GCD in 5.1, 'major rework' as DRK going into 5.0 or WAR in 4.2, and 'total overhaul' would I guess be something like what happened to MCH going into 5.0, or SMN going into 6.0.

WHM being 'EW is the favorite' is not actually all that surprising when you consider that the class has been constantly dunked on meta-wise by AST since 3.4, and it's taken until EW to make the Lily system 'not completely awful'. If you look at the 'extra comments' sections you can see a lot of people saying they want more damage buttons. Like, I sort by 'I think EW is the best iteration' and this is what I get (some say 'more damage actions' further in to the cell where it goes offscreen, but you can see it by clicking the cell and looking at the formula bar at the top):

This tells me that people are answering that 'EW is the favorite' not because of the whole kit, but because it's healing side of things actually feels functional now. Anyway, point I'm trying to make is, I wouldn't group 'mini rework' and 'no rework' together to try and paint supermajorities. A LOT of people were not happy about NIN Mudras becoming GCD at the time, saying it'd kill the class, it'd be massive damage loss and they'd be locked out of PF, the usual doomsaying. It'd be like if I were to group up all the non-'no rework' votes, because all of the people in the other 3 categories are asking for 'changes that extend beyond just the usual expansion additions', so their views are more aligned than 'no rework' players and say, 'mini rework' players? Some of that group want things to change a little bit, some want it to stay as is.

Or if you prefer, we can just look at the middle, and group 'mini' and 'major reworks' together, and consider the 'no rework' and 'total overhaul' sections as 'the extremes'. Then WHM's at 59%. Which would imply a change 'a little bit bigger than a mini rework' is the solution that would sort-of satisfy the most players. See, we can't just use the face value of the data on the pretty charts or we draw conclusions favorable to a specific view. So we need to look at the extra details sections to find out why people are putting the answers they are. And it seems to me that the answer is 'they like that the Lily system doesn't screw the player over now, and that it's actually functional', but also 'they don't like how WHM has redundant tools eg Medica when you have Rapture, Regen forgotten about because of Solace, etc, and there's a lack of damage tools to use'. So the answer for SE would presumably be 'add a couple more DPS moves to the rotation eg Water and Aero3 on short CDs, and prune some of the old healing tools like merging Cure1 and Cure2, or Medica1 and Medica2'. People probably don't vote SB as their favorite because that was a time where WHM was getting actively locked out of PF on some DCs. I voted HW because I liked the MP management aspect of things back then, a skill that has been all but forgotten about with how healers can run base piety in every fight pretty comfortably

As an aside, I'd like to think the idea I posted a while ago would fall under that category, a change list that is 'more than mini, less than major', since it readded a few extra skills like Divine Seal or Protect, or added some Shielding Lily spenders. And a way to actually cast Flood so Y'shtola can stop monopolizing it. As such, with a couple of tweaks discussed in the interim since then (Protect upgrading to PI, for example) I think the data shows that 'something like that' would be the solution to aim for. No ego or anything honest. My list of SGE wants is definitely more leaning towards 'Major rework' territory though, and the numbers imply that it's a bit too much of a change all at once, so that one's off the table. Maybe just add a couple of select things, like Eukrasian Phlegma.

As for AST, the reason nobody voted 'no rework' is likely because we already know it's getting one. The question is how big a rework it gets. If I had to put money on it, I'd expect AST to get 'Major' and DRG to get 'Mini'. For comparison, I'd call what happened between SB and SHB to the AST cards 'total overhaul', and what happened from SHB to EW 'halfway between mini and major' (Astrodyne sucks). Which means that in order to qualify for at least 'major rework' territory, which the 'total overhaul' crowd will grumble about but likely eventually go 'well it's better than nothing' about, something more than just 'the cards are now GCD' has to occur. A lot more, in fact. 'Cards have different effects again' would be a start, making Minor Arcana actually interesting would be another, giving us something to do beyond Malefic spam is another. Any two out of those three would be enough to put it in 'major rework' mode and satisfy that big chunk of the playerbase. Which means SE will make cards GCD to alleviate the APM issue and go 'ta-da we fixed it pls clap'

Taking "Most people rate WHM a 5/10" to mean "WHM is enjoyable as-is!" is an...interpretation.

Wow, a class people find mediocre and don't really care about, how fun.

TBF, we're so inundated with 8/10 and 9/10 ratings in life that we see anything below a 7 as 'dog shit bad', despite the average of the rating system being a 5. Our brains have skewed towards the higher numbers, because of how readily available something better is. Why would I watch a movie on Netflix that is 5/10, when so many 9/10 ones are available? So I see the healers all getting 5/10 (except AST, get dunked card boy) and that's... ok I guess. But why settle for a 5/10 role when you could put your time into learning to master an 8.5/10 gigachad class like BLM? So rather than going 'ok healers are 'literally mid', that's fine' we should look for ways to get them up to being an 8/10 as well. And 'don't touch them' isn't going to magically gain them 3 points of approval rating. Still waters grow stagnant, the longer we leave them 'pretty much as is' the lower that number would drop. If we did this survey at this time next expansion, with the healers just getting 'upgrade to nuke skill (10 potency up) and a new OGCD healing tool we didn't actually need' like this expansion, I'd estimate that those numbers would be 3.5 at the highest (and for AST it'd be at like a 2). Thankfully we have the AST rework coming, but it remains to be seen what that'll be like. And considering the last 'rework' it got was what put it in this mess, I expect a lot more people than just me have a degree of pessimism about it

[IDontPetLalas]

When I interpret the results, all of the results show a majority of "no rework" for healers. Looks like as AST, you will have by far the worst experience soloing - absolutely unacceptable- (I would agree) , but all healers are roughly the same (meh) in casual and overall experience.

The revised spreadsheets are excellent it should put SE to shame - they should be the ones doing this and sharing it with us. Thank you!

[Rolder50]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who doesn't like new summoner.

[NullPointerException]

What a legend for doing this.

1&2- Only played EW and ShB. ShB is much better with buffs on multiples of 60s rather than flat 120s. Currently there are so many 120s buffs that they circle-jerk into some nearly 50% damage gain in that brief 20s window where all your damage go out, which also makes crit RNG so awful in tight DPS fights like TOP, and amplifies the balance issues classes with weak burst windows face. As a red mage player, I would love to at least see the return of 60, 90, 180s buffs so I can use the extra melee combos between 120s on some buff. In the long term, it's not good. I'm most likely going to quit the game after clearing TOP then see how 7.0 changes all this.

3- WOW has the public test realm. I think ff14 NEEDS a public test environment, doesn't need to be fancy. Maybe just some simple fight instances with different downtime plans. Pick some gear and hop in to test. Just monitor how the classes perform by themselves and with each other. Anonymous surveys that pop up when a player logs in and reward them some in-game currency like gil or casino chips would be sufficient incentive.