2-minute meta

[Heroman3003]

part of what could have probably solved a lot of the buff window issues would have been similar buffs overwriting each other instead of stacking. There would have been fair amount less of the "mash all your stuff in this small window" going on and more coordination on an overall cycling.

That would just get people complaining about their buffs being 'wasted' instead tbh. There's no winning with these 'minor but essential for high difficulty content' kinda buff things, whichever design you choose will have problems inheirent to it.

[RitsukoSonoda]

That would just get people complaining about their buffs being 'wasted' instead tbh. There's no winning with these 'minor but essential for high difficulty content' kinda buff things, whichever design you choose will have problems inheirent to it.

However that would have been a problem primarily limited to the people doing said content rather than the route they took which resulted in the job homogenization we've been steadily experiencing which has honestly been a mostly negative experience for the players not obsessed with numbers seen on a 3rd party tool the devs said not to use in the first place.

[mallleable]

That's because the 2 minute constraint and thematically unique rotations are mutually exclusive designs. Everything has to revolve around the buff window or you end up with a 6.0 paladin situation where it literally can't compete, but if everything needs to be a divisor of 120 seconds all jobs consequently become uninspired bland slop, almost interchangeable with each other.

To me, a rotation can be abstracted to a series of inputs over time, kinda like how music is a series of sounds over time. It is absolutely possible to make VASTLY different sounding songs that have the same length so I believe the same is possible for job rotations. The two ideas are not at odds with each other.

Also I am like the worst person to be lamenting old PLD because I did not like it, and think the the rework is better, and has more room to grow even if it is kinda boring now. To me, PLD's old rotation felt like it was two separate ideas that were not coherently linked together, and kinda felt at odds with eachother -- even before Endwalker. I am really curious to see how they expand upon Devine Might as a job mechanic in DT.

[Supersnow845]

To me, a rotation can be abstracted to a series of inputs over time, kinda like how music is a series of sounds over time. It is absolutely possible to make VASTLY different sounding songs that have the same length so I believe the same is possible for job rotations. The two ideas are not at odds with each other.

Also I am like the worst person to be lamenting old PLD because I did not like it, and think the the rework is better, and has more room to grow even if it is kinda boring now. To me, PLD's old rotation felt like it was two separate ideas that were not coherently linked together, and kinda felt at odds with eachother -- even before Endwalker. I am really curious to see how they expand upon Devine Might as a job mechanic in DT.

When has square enix once shown they can make a job simpler as a template to later make it makes complex (ie “build off”) and actually succeeded at that goal

[mallleable]

When has square enix once shown they can make a job simpler as a template to later make it makes complex (ie “build off”) and actually succeeded at that goal

MNK

They killed Greased Lightning management, and added Masterful Blitz.

[Colt47]

The way the calculate damage from buffs is awful to begin with and they sort of chose to do the 2 minute window to make it easier to stack all the buffs just to create the big dps increases during boss fights. The game would be 100% better if the buffs didn't act as multipliers onto each other and were just flat increases, since that way it doesn't matter how someone uses a buff and people can actually focus on getting good at their job rotations.

[Bladedance87]

Is this a pro joke im too casual to understand? Dont care about 2min meta with my sam. But i feel you. I would love to have different job designs too. They all feel too similar.

[GartredZW]

I think if they want to add a bit more variance to the 2 minute meta again while keeping the skill ceiling for hardcore players, they could change it back into the 6-minute meta. Buffs would be on 60s, 90s, 120s, or 180s CDs, and they would all line up perfectly once every six minutes. But if someone dies, or has to delay their burst a bit, then you can just use it late without waiting for the next big multiplicative spike of damage, or align it with whatever damage buff is coming next.
It would probably just feel better to have damage evenly spread around the encounter rather than completely bunched up every 2 minutes where everyone does twice as much damage for 15 seconds, and that one guy who died three seconds before the burst is just sitting there crying because he knows that if he died just 20 seconds later they'd be able to beat enrage.

I started in Endwalker, but even I can see the shell of what once was here not too long ago. I was pretty neutral on the concept until my old Tank main, Paladin got gutted to fit the new meta. Give us the damn DoT back, you cowards!

[Grizzlpaw]

2 minute meta is really fun during that big burst when everything is off cooldown and you get to dump your entire kit on the boss.

And then there's the 1 minute and 40 seconds of downtime where you're bored out of your mind. I'd like them to spread some of that gameplay out a bit.
It'd make deaths less punishing for inexperienced players who die during the burst phase, and it'd make the 80% of the fight where you're not bursting less dull.

DRK is perhaps the most egregious example of this. It takes too long to build resources, and you're forced to dump everything at once when you finally get it. Real shame too because I LOVE the theme.

The most fun Jobs for me right now are those that spice things up along the way. GNB, BLM, MNK, PLD, BRD are fun to me because you're not just waiting until your pre-scripted 20 seconds of fun starts. AST is also enjoyable thanks to the card system. it's fun to have to think on your feet and react to what the game throws at you. Could use more DPS buttons though. There's still long stretches of time where you have nothing to do but spam Gravity/Malefic.

[mallleable]

2 minute meta is really fun during that big burst when everything is off cooldown and you get to dump your entire kit on the boss.

And then there's the 1 minute and 40 seconds of downtime where you're bored out of your mind. I'd like them to spread some of that gameplay out a bit.
It'd make deaths less punishing for inexperienced players who die during the burst phase, and it'd make the 80% of the fight where you're not bursting less dull.

DRK is perhaps the most egregious example of this. It takes too long to build resources, and you're forced to dump everything at once when you finally get it. Real shame too because I LOVE the theme.

The most fun Jobs for me right now are those that spice things up along the way. GNB, BLM, MNK, PLD, BRD are fun to me because you're not just waiting until your pre-scripted 20 seconds of fun starts. AST is also enjoyable thanks to the card system. it's fun to have to think on your feet and react to what the game throws at you. Could use more DPS buttons though. There's still long stretches of time where you have nothing to do but spam Gravity/Malefic.

This is basically how I see the '2 minute problem' as well. I feel like so much of the discourse is focused on the actual burst window, and not on the rest of a job's rotation, and it's why I do think that standardized raid bursts, and interesting job rotations can coexist. If you are constantly interacting with what makes a job fun to play then the fact that raid buffs/burst have been standardized shouldn't matter. Improving the moment to moment gameplay of a job will solve two problems at once, it will pull complexity, and potency out of raid burst windows. But it's a tough, problem to solve because it needs to be done on a per job basis. There is no 'make jobs fun to play again' button. Solutions for improving WHM's filler rotation will not be appropriate for improving DRK's filler rotation.