FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[Renathras]

SB added Earthly Star, I think that's the point where 'you can erase so many GCDs from your healing' got really out of control. Before that, your OGCD suite was very limited, WHM had Asylum and Assize (but Assize only did the damage half cos haha cleric), SCH had Soil (with no regen), Indom, Whispering Dawn (which could be roused). AST had what, bubble that you had to channel for the full duration? CU didn't heal it extended buffs, Star Horoscope etc didn't exist yet, if anything it was about reducing GCDs by 'using some, and extending their effects to prevent needing to cast another to reapply'

The best comparison would be 'HW, if damage skills scaled from mind as in SB', but that didn't exist

As I've told you before, don't play AST, don't like AST, never have. I'm talking WHM and SCH. WHM in SB still didn't have a ton of oGCDs (and the new ones sucked; Lilies weren't the only thing that sucked in SB, Plenary/Confession stacks were initially implemented horribly, and Benison only worked with Lilies which had to be generated by casting Cure 1/2s on people, and only had a chance of generating), and SCH didn't have a ton more than it had before. I'm trying to remember what they got in SB, I think it was Chain Strat (not a heal) and Dissipation (not a heal, and originally implemented so badly, people refused to use it)? Maybe Excog, but while useful, that's hardly completely upending the system.

WHM and SCH didn't have a significant increase in healing oGCD power and number in SB over HW. ShB and EW both added more and/or added charges to existing ones and/or added new effects (Soil's regen) to make them more powerful.

ShB WHM didn't really, either (they just made Lilies not suck).

So no, SB would be the best comparison point overall for Healers. Cleric Stance instantly makes HW different. Now, if we could have a HW kit set with the ShB Healer damage kits? I suppose that could be what you're going for. But that would be weird. I feel like SB was better for SCH and probably AST, while ShB/EW are both better for WHM. But that's more because of how bad SB WHM was.

A lot of crit variance issues could be more effectively resolved through making attacks multi-hit rather than just making them auto crit/direct hit. It's another thing that just makes me anxious to see if they'll return to more dramatic combat changes in the next expansion rather than just doing shadowbringers 3.0. I am sincerely worried that if they don't do something to shake up the gameplay, it will have damaging repercussions on the game's longevity.

Agreed.

It's like Omnislash vs some single ability that scales better and hits 9999 sooner, but only hits once.

[Recon1o6]

On topic of jobs, its probably fair to say at this point that the main 3 issues are affecting all jobs are being exacerbated by the stale battle design

1. Lack of complexity/skill expression- since fights are almost all the same in terms of mechanics and time frames, getting good at even blm or drg takes little effort compared to previous expansions
2. Extreme homogenisation- 2m meta stops most jobs from having timers or resources that are not within an increment of 30s. this eliminates faster/slower playstyles making them all the same length of rotation
3. Loss of identity- many jobs have changed for the worst, many lost their playstyles that drew their players in the first place. Only really blm and rdm are still the same as it was in terms of keeping their identity. In earlier expansions, some jobs were better suited for some duties than others, but all were viable to clear which was the important part

[ForsakenRoe]

As I've told you before, don't play AST, don't like AST, never have. I'm talking WHM and SCH.

Yes, but the point is, the move from HW AST where you didn't have 'free massive healing every 60s because of Star' to SB AST where you did, combined with WHM being dumpster because Lilies were absolute dog, meant that WHM was kicked to the curb and AST/SCH was locked in as the dominant meta, both because AST cards = more damage, and because the extra OGCD healing AST had compared to WHM meant spending less GCDs on heals. It doesn't matter if you played AST or not. Dissipation was the level 60 skill for SCH, in SB they got Chain, Excog, Fey Union, and Quickened Aetherflow. Union/Excog was big for reducing how much GCD tank-babysitting was required, and Quickened Aetherflow allowed for more uses of OGCD healing stuff like Excog or Indom. Saying 'it didn't get much more healing going into SB' is laughable. WHM is the one that got 'not much more', getting just Benison, Thin Air (admittedly this helped a bit with their MP issues at the time), and losing half of it's kit to the crossrole system like Divine S(t)eal. Oh and it got Plenary, but you had to Cure1/2 people to place stacks on them, and Plenary consumed the stacks to heal for a frankly insultingly low amount

But yeh, I remember seeing a video from Momo and his cohealer at the time about how they got O12S down to 4 healing GCDs as AST SCH. Absolutely no way would they have been able to get even below double digits if one of them was on WHM. So yeh, I hold that HW was more accurate to the idea of 'heal mainly via GCD, supplement with OGCD'. Cleric Stance's effect in that era has nothing to do with the damage profile of the fights. You could take it off your bar and you'd still have to 'heal mainly via GCD, supplement with OGCD'

A lot of crit variance issues could be more effectively resolved through making attacks multi-hit rather than just making them auto crit/direct hit. It's another thing that just makes me anxious to see if they'll return to more dramatic combat changes in the next expansion rather than just doing shadowbringers 3.0. I am sincerely worried that if they don't do something to shake up the gameplay, it will have damaging repercussions on the game's longevity.

I saw a vid from a guy who makes not-so-TOS compliant things, but this one was just using video editing software: 'damage segmentation'. Basically, rather than just doing 'big number' for Drill, it'd show a smaller number, getting bigger and bigger in quick pulses until it hits 'the real damage number' as a big hit. Or Bootshine being 4 smaller numbers that add up to one bigger one. We already have Dream Within a Dream hitting as 'three hits of 200p', or some BLU skills like Matra Magic being 8 hits of 50p, why can't we use that more for things? Carve and Spit has an almost identical tooltip to DWAD but is one single damage instance instead of the implied 3hit combo. Or, imagine how much cooler it'd feel if every 'swing' of the Gnashing Fang combo was a 'hit', so rather than 6 numbers it's more like 16. Faster strikes would feel better as multiple smaller numbers from a job aesthetic standpoint too I think. Monk being a job that hits with '5 damage instances' per GCD would fit way better with it's aesthetic, Phantom rush being multiple small hits then a massive one for the final slam, etc.

And the best part is, if the 'multi hit skills' like Higanbana or the lower GCDs have this segmentation effect, then the actual 'single strikes' like Senei being one MASSIVE number, feel even more MASSIVE. The Senei in that video looks meaty because it's a single hit that blows up for 90k

[VentVanitas]

Faster strikes would feel better as multiple smaller numbers from a job aesthetic standpoint too I think. Monk being a job that hits with '5 damage instances' per GCD would fit way better with it's aesthetic, Phantom rush being multiple small hits then a massive one for the final slam, etc.

I would definitely appreciate Phantom Rush being multi-hit. I've always hated MNK leaning so much into being a burst DPS because it goes completely against the theme of what the job was before ShB and EW which was sustained damage through quick strikes. In Master Hamon's words: what a Pugilist lacks in strength it makes up for in being able to strike twice as fast in the time it takes for one swing of a blade. (In a slightly unrelated note, bring back the lightning/wind aesthetic for the job!! It fits the theme of it being a fast attacker far better than fire does!)

[ty_taurus]

Most jobs could easily adopt this mentality of multi-hit moves. Most of dancer’s animations hit multiple times in animation, same with most melee animations, even on samurai, sage fires 4 lasers, scholar shoots multiple bolts… the list goes on. I think there is still some charm in having jobs that maintain a one-big-hit identity to some degree, like black mage whose animations are one large explosion most of the time, and white mage as well. The question then becomes, does a wider crit variance on those jobs become seen as nuance, or inherently problematic? And how do you resolve that if we do view it as still an issue without making everything auto-crit?

[Renathras]

On topic of jobs, its probably fair to say at this point that the main 3 issues are affecting all jobs are being exacerbated by the stale battle design
...
2. Extreme homogenisation- 2m meta stops most jobs from having timers or resources that are not within an increment of 30s. this eliminates faster/slower playstyles making them all the same length of rotation
3. Loss of identity- many jobs have changed for the worst, many lost their playstyles that drew their players in the first place. Only really blm and rdm are still the same as it was in terms of keeping their identity. In earlier expansions, some jobs were better suited for some duties than others, but all were viable to clear which was the important part

Don't agree with your 1, but agree with your 2 and 3. I would add DRG to BLM and RDM, though. And I'd note BLM has changed a lot from its original incarnation (DRG has done the pre-6.0 SMN thing of just adding stuff to it, and RDM has probably been the least changed Job over its entire history). Until 6.0, SMN, and until 6.3, PLD, would also make those lists. Though some Jobs have changed less than others. WHM still has a lot of its core and is far less different from its 2.X incarnation than SCH or AST are to their 2.X (3.0 for AST) incarnations, though Lilies changed it up, they largely slot into a Cure 2 or Medica use in practice.

It is worthy of note that Jobs added more recently have seen far less changes to their core structure, especially those made in the post-SB world. RDM, DNC, and GNB haven't changed much, for example.

...

Didn't I already say this?

Now, if we could have a HW kit set with the ShB Healer damage kits? I suppose that could be what you're going for.

Though this I find more agreeable:

Basically, rather than just doing 'big number' for Drill, it'd show a smaller number, getting bigger and bigger in quick pulses until it hits 'the real damage number' as a big hit. Or Bootshine being 4 smaller numbers that add up to one bigger one. We already have Dream Within a Dream hitting as 'three hits of 200p', or some BLU skills like Matra Magic being 8 hits of 50p, why can't we use that more for things? Carve and Spit has an almost identical tooltip to DWAD but is one single damage instance instead of the implied 3hit combo. Or, imagine how much cooler it'd feel if every 'swing' of the Gnashing Fang combo was a 'hit', so rather than 6 numbers it's more like 16. Faster strikes would feel better as multiple smaller numbers from a job aesthetic standpoint too I think. Monk being a job that hits with '5 damage instances' per GCD would fit way better with it's aesthetic, Phantom rush being multiple small hits then a massive one for the final slam, etc.

I'm guessing something about the combat engine, but then we have Dream Within A Dream, so...

[Amenara]

Most jobs could easily adopt this mentality of multi-hit moves. Most of dancer’s animations hit multiple times in animation, same with most melee animations, even on samurai, sage fires 4 lasers, scholar shoots multiple bolts… the list goes on. I think there is still some charm in having jobs that maintain a one-big-hit identity to some degree, like black mage whose animations are one large explosion most of the time, and white mage as well. The question then becomes, does a wider crit variance on those jobs become seen as nuance, or inherently problematic? And how do you resolve that if we do view it as still an issue without making everything auto-crit?

I think if we went the route of multi-hit moves we could use that as a platform for adding accuracy into the game again. If accuracy capped below 100% it would add in a bit of variance to multi-hit moves as well, though I would make the first hit be 100% accuracy and subsequent hits having less accuracy depending on the cap so that you don't get the gut punch of completely missing your strongest weaponskill/spell. I am under no impression that adding accuracy would be popular but secondary stats are in a really bad spot nowadays and it needs a shakeup badly.

[ForsakenRoe]

Most jobs could easily adopt this mentality of multi-hit moves. Most of dancer’s animations hit multiple times in animation, same with most melee animations, even on samurai, sage fires 4 lasers, scholar shoots multiple bolts… the list goes on. I think there is still some charm in having jobs that maintain a one-big-hit identity to some degree, like black mage whose animations are one large explosion most of the time, and white mage as well. The question then becomes, does a wider crit variance on those jobs become seen as nuance, or inherently problematic? And how do you resolve that if we do view it as still an issue without making everything auto-crit?

The way I assume it would work is as a clientside toggle option. So the actual damage being dealt is always the same in the server's calculation, it's just 'rendered' differently on the client's screen. Let's take a Phantom Rush for example. IIRC it's four smaller dash-hits, then the big slam. So, for someone with the option turned off, they'd see the one damage number say 50000!! (it's a direct crit). Someone WITH the option turned on, however, could see different numbers for each of the sub-dashes too. For example, maybe 50% comes from the final hit, and the other 50% is split between the smaller dashes in some way. For example, a 10/12/13/15% buildup. They'd all have +/- 5% damage variance ignored, as that is applied to the original 'total damage' the server sees. These smaller values are based on that total value, so they don't need the variance applied a second time. All of these mini-numbers would be DCrit too because the main hit (as seen by the server) is a DCrit. This doesn't solve the 'crit variance' issue, but it doesn't add to it either, it's just a clientside optional thing. It also keeps the server processing the same, as it's the client that is changing how it's rendered, but the maths and calculations behind the scenes is the same.

An example for your dancer: Starfall Dance. Big line blast of chakrams, right? So instead of seeing one big hit (guaranteed to DCrit, iirc), it'd be say, 8 smaller numbers of roughly equal size (give or take a little bit so they're not all the exact same number), but totalling that same DCrit total you'd see without the option turned on. Or, more importantly I think, something like Saber Dance would have the numbers not just split into smaller-but-many-more, but it'd stagger the timing of the numbers over the duration of the animation of the skill. The actual damage calculation would be applied at the same time, server-side speaking, so there wouldn't be some 'oh because the hits take place over the full 2.5s animation length some didn't make it in time for enrage and thats why we wiped', no, the damage still happens all at once according to what the server sees, it's just clientside

I had the same suggestion with a BLU idea I had for if they allowed stuff to be 'spell glamours': Triple Trident, Matra Magic and Rose of Destruction would all be skins of one another. They'd all do the same 'total damage', but Rose as one hit, Triple Trident as three, and Matra Magic as eight. In that video, he shows the 'final total' as a bigger number at the end, but TBH, I'm not sure that's even necessary. Do we need to see that Saber Dance go '10k, 10k, 10k, 10k, 10k, 10k, SIXTY THOUSAND', wouldn't the dopamine of seeing it say '10000' (give or take a couple hundred) six seperate times be enough

I think if we went the route of multi-hit moves we could use that as a platform for adding accuracy into the game again. If accuracy capped below 100% it would add in a bit of variance to multi-hit moves as well, though I would make the first hit be 100% accuracy and subsequent hits having less accuracy depending on the cap so that you don't get the gut punch of completely missing your strongest weaponskill/spell. I am under no impression that adding accuracy would be popular but secondary stats are in a really bad spot nowadays and it needs a shakeup badly.

Sounds like Multistrike from WOW, a stat so hilariously fun and imbalanced in equal measure that it stuck around for exactly one expansion. Like, would these 'additional strikes' that have various levels of accuracy also be able to crit? DHit? etc. Big can of worms

Didn't I already say this?

IDK, it sounded to me like you were saying

WHM and SCH didn't have a significant increase in healing oGCD power and number in SB over HW.

Which might have been true-ish for WHM on account of it's design at the time being real 'did they actually playtest this' energy, but it was definitely not true for SCH. Remember that Rouse still existed in SB (not added, existed), so we went from Rouse + W.Dawn in HW, into chaining Rouse + W.Dawn, plus it's boosted Embrace casts, into Excog, into Fey Union, and all of this combined massively reduced how much tank babysitting was required, allowing us to get closer to 'keep the tank alive by just using the raidwide healing the whole party needed anyway'. Couple that with Star every 60s from the AST

[Amenara]

Sounds like Multistrike from WOW, a stat so hilariously fun and imbalanced in equal measure that it stuck around for exactly one expansion. Like, would these 'additional strikes' that have various levels of accuracy also be able to crit? DHit? etc. Big can of worms

I 100% thought about having multi-strike as a stat like it was in WoW but came to that mindset as well about it being nearly impossible to balance (but it would feel really good to see it proc). My mindset was going more towards FF11 with different weaponskills having multiple hits and some stuff being single hit and having accuracy again as a means of adding some randomness to it. I also think skill speed should act more like haste or fast cast in FF11 and reduce CDs and cast times, make auto-attacks hit faster (and hopefully make autos a bit more impactful). I really want them to shake up secondary stats and make big combat changes again to share Ty's sentiment.

[Kisshu]

Part of it for me is that there's no mix-up of the PVE content. How dungeons/raids/trials were at the start of the expansion it will still be at the end 2.5 years after launch.

While Eureka had its issues, the way you went into it was different with the fate trains, and the actions from Pyros put another layer on it. Same for Bozja with the actions from the start and the "dungeons" being a bit of a different approach.

EW doesn't feel like it has this different approach, the closest is DD-Eureka, but it's very similar to PD/HoH. This could be the PVE content where they experimented a bit, don't need to be a full remake like PVP, but perhaps add some layers like upgradeable abilities (SAM's third Eye can be upgraded to the PVP parry version, RPR's Shadow of Death can be upgraded to Death Warrant) or bring back some old abilities that were removed. The big thing they could also add are the personal PVP limitbreaks (although some would need a bit of a change). This could create a new way for the combat system to function without interfering with normal balance in dungeons/raids/trials.