Evolution Of Final Fantasy 14 Combat Each Expansion

[Naraka]

[Supersnow845]

Didn’t darkness damage remain as enrage damage into ShB

Otherwise I still say SB was the peak of game design

[GrayLowell]

Don't we still have "unique" damage? That is not magical nor physical? How is it different from darkness?

[Mithron]

HW > SHB > ARR > SB > EW > DT

[Nebelheim]

My favorite combat era was arr and hw and stormblood.

[Renathras]

There were never "sub jobs". FFXIV has never had them. FF11 or FFTactics had sub jobs in the sense you have access to abilities from a second Job. FFXIV had "cross-class", which was NOT sub jobs. Cross-class honestly had more in common with the 15 level Talents in WoW where there's basically a set of "right" choices and everything else was an "illusion of choice". Then they just removed the choice with the second iteration of the Role actions. The first iteration was basically the cross-class system that just didn't require leveling THM to 30 to get Swiftcast on a healer, but you could only pick 5. But again, illusion of choice, most Jobs had one set of "correct" 5. So then they went with the ShB version where you just had them all.

[To be super clear on this: PLD having CNJ as a "sub Job" didn't mean it had all the low to mid level CNJ abilities. It didn't have Cure 2, for example. It meant it had a random smattering of abilities. This was true of all Jobs and classes and cross-class abilities. In some cases, the cross-class abilities were just kind of random. Blizzard 2 was cross class but not Blizzard 1, and it didn't give Umbral Ice - if it HAD, it would have been super useful to other Casters/Healers as a MP management tool...but it wasn't. Contrast FF11 where you have access to all abilities of your sub-Job up to half your level, meaning if your main Job was level 50, you'd have access to ALL abilities of the sub-Job up to and including level 25. THAT is what a sub-Job system looks like.]

I liked the flavor of cross-class, but let's be real, having an out-of-combat-only Raise on PLD was kind of cool, but almost NEVER useful outside of PotD. And when it WOULD have been useful (Eureka), it was removed just before that content came out. Being able to pick CNJ's Raise on PLD but not have CNJ's Trait that allowed use in combat means if PLD today could pick out-of-combat-only Raise, no raiding PLD would because what use is it in any of the Pandaemonium fights where you're never out of combat?

Healers do not have "1 button dps". That's hyperbole and people need to stop doing it. "But it's effectively-" "Oh, so it's not actually then, now is it?" People use too much hyperbole to overstate their cases and they need to stop. If you actually have a case - and there absolutely is one for healer damage rotation simplification - then don't hyperbolize it to where people have something to challenge you on. Let the argument stand on "Healers have a simplistic rotation consisting of generally about 5 damage buttons that don't really have an interesting or engaging combat flow during periods where GCD healing (exception: Lilies) isn't needed." THAT is a good argument and an accurate statement of the situation.

The Tank subforum has a thread on old threat/agro management, and the majority position seems to be that it was stupid and they don't want it back: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-want-it-back

Large Scale Raiding...what do you mean by this? If you mean BA/DR, that was introduced in SB, not ShB, with Eureka. And there was kind of a (sorta bad) prototype of that with original Diadem in HW.

The accuracy removal seems to have been something almost everyone liked. The persistent downside to today is that crit giving both crit chance AND crit potency boost has made it too powerful a stat vs all other stats.

Belts were removed in 2.0 in reality. They were just invisible stat sticks from 2.0 until they were eventually removed in EW. See: https://youtu.be/0TXcMPA39Xc?t=452

HW raids almost killed raiding (and according to some people like Happy, almost killed the game a second time), and Cleric Stance...has to be the single most rose-tinted glasses ability in MMO history. It was SUCH a bad, clunky, janky ability and it truly boggles the mind why anyone would like it as a role-wide mechanic, much less why people would pine over it endlessly. Other than WHM, SB healers were better in every way for having had Cleric removed; WHM was made "not sucky" again in ShB when they made a Lily system that actually worked (the SB WHM was the single worst iteration of healer Job at any point in FFXIV's history) and fixed its MP issues that had been an issue since HW.

"Darkness damage" wasn't some kind of amazing system, and is still used for Ultimates or "true damage" now. And it was never "darkness damage", I don't think. I believe that was a community name for it, but not an official or lore one.

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The things I do kinda miss:

1) There was more world building leveling a second class to 15 to unlock another Job...but it wasn't a great system because it wasn't a true sub-Job system like FF11 has. Worse, you often had to level up unrelated Jobs. WHM, for example, was CNJ to 30 and ACN to 15, but you had to level THM up to 30-something to get Swiftcast and Surecast, despite THM not being connected to WHM and THM not having any good abilities for WHM other than Swiftcast and debateably Surecast. And on this topic, there was so much more world building IN GENERAL in ARR. Like we just don't have "Battle of Highbridge" or "Poor Maid's Folly" type FATEs anymore, and the world has suffered for it.

2) Raids being LESS SCRIPTED/SPECTACLES. They weren't "way harder", players were just way worse. It's like Vanilla WoW vs WoW Classic; the puzzle has been solved and players are far better in 2023 than they were in 2004, making most of the "hard" boss battles of that era seem like child's play now. The bigger thing is that fights weren't as heavily scripted. Random damage could happen to people, crits could happen on Tanks, bosses would autoattack while also casting other things, there wasn't a "right answer" to boss mechanics where you take little to no damage, failing a boss mechanic didn't slap you with...well...death. It wasn't pass-fail. The meta and parsing hadn't developed to the point of damage >>> all, either, allowing for more interesting mechanics. Could you imagine the Alex fight where people had to pilot the gobwalkers or turn into monkeys to punt the bombs going over well in this modern environment. SAM: "I don't want to pilot it! MY PARSE!!" AST: "Well, it needs to be done around the 2 min window, so obviously I can't do it or you'll miss out on all my buffs!" etc.

3) Debatably TP (and MP management), since this made Jobs have to adjust rotation in response to resources and made Jobs that had TP/MP refresh utility for other party members actually useful utility. Now, Jobs are just "here's the optimal rotation, do it at all times" because there isn't any limiting factor that has to be accounted for.

4) 2 min meta has also really boxed in Jobs to the point every Job just about is a builder-spender on either a 1 or 2 min rotation. BLM is, at present, the only Job that hasn't been conformed to this system. It also highly limits new Job additions, as GNB, DNC, RPR, and SGE all had to conform to this system now, and we can see how samey they are as a result.

5) Ranged physical using the healer LBs. Because that actually fits the theming of them being support DPS well and was just kind of cool.

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Most of the changes and additions have been either better in part or better in whole. Though I think SCH as a peculiar example was better off in SB or even ShB. Changing Broil to 1.5 sec cast makes Ruin 2 kind of...pointless, and has mussed with the Job's overall balance and flow, though the pet AI improvements and responsiveness have been definite boosts. They should take those changes and merge them with something half-way between SB and ShB. Anyone who says WHM was better in SB than ShB is bloody insane, and anyone who likes or wants Cleric Stance should be cursed to play 1.0 forever.

[Post]

HW > SHB > ARR > SB > EW > DT

Agreed, Dawntrail sucks. That's the only expansion so far that's had NO combat whatsoever. What a decline for a beloved game system.

[Rolder50]

Pretty sure "Devolution" would be the more appropriate word, at least for recent expansions.

[Zarkovitch]

SB was fun. I was hoping when they changes stuff for SHB to the start of good foundation due remove a lot of jank of older expansion. OH BOY, I was wrong they made EW a SHB 2.0 with less flavor than even SHB himself. The gameplay is at it's worst, even hell ARR is better than EW for fun factor. I play 2.0 to 6.0. I let you know I quit tanking due how the game didn't bring nothing for my role to play with in EW.

[Absimiliard]

More like devolution.

Edit: Damn, looks like somebody beat me to it.

Pretty sure "Devolution" would be the more appropriate word, at least for recent expansions.