Does FFXIV's combat system need an overhaul?

[Shougun]

The problem with the 2 min burst is that it is incredibly, exceedingly, inflexible.



One mistake and your timing is ruined. Personally, I think they need to dump job synergy entirely. It makes things too static.

When they were having sneak attack and AST troubles or people were asking for buff classes and they were like .. nah lol, I thought one way to get them partially in vibe without too much issue was having limits on buffs. Like Enfire could grant extra potency up to 500. Debuff on monster that increases incoming damage up to Y.

If for the most part other job's buffs become their own and we leave the shared burst window I think it would be generally even more okay. Ultimately it's very shallow synergy, but for a job that wants that theme it could be there as an opportunity. I think the example I used previously was Hemorrhaging Spine and Melt Flesh for a blood / necro like mage- which caused the target enemy to take additional damage from their actions, as well from flank/rear, and ranged while the latter dealt instant damage and set damage per incoming attack up to a maximum.

Variations established on the variables, like Hemorrhaging Spine could have a 20 second duration and a maximum of 1000 potency. While Melt Flesh would be instant 250 potency, and additional 500 divided across 5 debuffs that each get consumed by an attack with a debuff duration of 7 seconds and resets at each consumption (from anyone, and multifold attacks could trigger the effect faster). But as the player owns the buff the buff is only 'buffed' by that player's stuff- so the Dark Knight or Ninja might kick off the buff faster than normal yet it would ultimately still 'usually' end at the same.

[hunkygladiator]

they can design the DPS checks around them and make the checks harder to meet even for the harder core raiders

Statics and players get filtered by DPS checks every single raid tier (or they insist on playing terrible comps like double phys ranged). This isn't new.

[Oizen]

I think the 2-minute meta was meant to make raiding harder. SE could not scale DPS checks around aligned buffs because many raiders didn't care about it except statics and even some of those are probably too casual to care unless they are dying to enrage. Now that buff alignment is guaranteed in the class design, they can design the DPS checks around them and make the checks harder to meet even for the harder core raiders. As you explained, it seems to have succeeded in making it harder as well, considering even hardcore raiders were having trouble with P8S before the nerf.

SE wants the raids to be harder than they have been, but the rest of the game to be easier than it has been, from what I can see. Dungeons easier. Jobs easier. But they are redistributing that lost difficulty into the savage and ultimate raids where, some might argue, it belongs (I'm not going to say one way or the other, since I don't really care).

I wouldn't miss the 2-minute burst windows though, or burst windows in general. I loved PLD as it was without a single burst window. I loved how varied Dark Knight was with the abilities being on a variety of different cooldowns instead of now all being ready at 60 seconds.

I'm pretty sure the 2m meta was made solely so developing fights was made easier for the developers.

[R041]

I'm pretty sure the 2m meta was made solely so developing fights was made easier for the developers.

Dev: "Oh, looks like players are confused or having trouble with this thing.. What should we do?"
Yoshi: "Can't stop the MSQ train to fix every little thing, just remove it!"

Repeat 100x since HW

Literally every change they make, I put it through the lens of easy/lazy dev and it all starts to make sense.

[Jeeqbit]

I'm pretty sure the 2m meta was made solely so developing fights was made easier for the developers.

That was part of what I was saying. They can't decide on a DPS check if players are not all approaching the fight in the same way so making them all align makes it easier for them.

[Oizen]

That was part of what I was saying. They can't decide on a DPS check if players are not all approaching the fight in the same way so making them all align makes it easier for them.

I don't get the reason why this game has such a hard on for rigid damage checks, and I'm not saying this as some angry casual that can't meet them.

I'm of the opinion that the game shouldn't even have super rigid DPS checks if they're not going to implement systems to accurately teach people who to push their buttons correctly, and how to gauge their performance.

Seems like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too by having these hardcore raiding features but the rest of the game heavily favors casuals.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't get the reason why this game has such a hard on for rigid damage checks, and I'm not saying this as some angry casual that can't meet them.

Otherwise you could just play a macro every 15 GCDs to do a rotation for you. I've solo'd some of the Shadowbringers normal raids and been there over 20 minutes because of there not being an enrage. I solo'd one from Stormblood as a blue mage and discovered it actually had a 14 minute enrage. Should a boss really just repeat 2 mechanics after the first 10 minutes while you spend a further 20 minutes killing it because nobody can press their buttons well?

I'm of the opinion that the game shouldn't even have super rigid DPS checks if they're not going to implement systems to accurately teach people who to push their buttons correctly, and how to gauge their performance.

Tooltips, job guide, and Stone, Sky, Sea are how they do this and if someone actually uses them, they are enough. For example, I don't go to the balance every time a new expansion releases or every time I play a job with a new rotation. I just read the tooltips and job guide it's pretty obvious from there.

The Balance is useful to learn a tip or too for optimization (for example, delaying or dropping Atonements on paladin), but the core rotations are pretty obvious if you set it up and read it properly as you're doing it.

Seems like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too by having these hardcore raiding features but the rest of the game heavily favors casuals.

They have always designed content for both, with an extreme in every patch, savage every two patches, and various other types of content in between for both sides.

[DiaDeem]

the game's combat system is what needs an overhaul, not its graphics engine

Ok, before you go any further, let's not let this one fester in.

Regardless of what you think of the combat system, that doesn't mean we don't need a graphical overhaul, so don't go around saying we don't really need one or that for some reason doing one eliminates the other. These are not mutually exclusive and I don't understand why you'd preface your post by introducing them as such.

Do we need a combat overhaul? I don't think we do beyond revamping a few abilities to make things a bit more interesting.
Do we need a graphical update? Yes

They're not mutually exclusive.

Ok, continue.

[R041]

Ok, before you go any further, let's not let this one fester in.

Regardless of what you think of the combat system, that doesn't mean we don't need a graphical overhaul, so don't go around saying we don't really need one or that for some reason doing one eliminates the other. These are not mutually exclusive and I don't understand why you'd preface your post by introducing them as such.

Do we need a combat overhaul? I don't think we do beyond revamping a few abilities to make things a bit more interesting.
Do we need a graphical update? Yes

They're not mutually exclusive.

Ok, continue.

Combat can't keep existing with the jank snapshots.

We need a godamn everything overhaul. Gimme another Calamity, I'm ready.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Combat can't keep existing with the jank snapshots.

We need a godamn everything overhaul. Gimme another Calamity, I'm ready.

The snapshots generally are predicable. Cast bar finishes = snapshot, for 99% of mechanics.