My take on what can be changed for FFXIV

[RokkuEkkusu]

2) The Boss Trials

When it comes to Story Bosses they all have lost all their beastly teeth, and this is more of a design decision of CBU3 rather than a actual flaw which I completely disagree with.

The Fix:

I believe at the minimum the final bosses of each storyline final trial needs to be revamped in terms of difficulty, as it stands most are pushovers though once upon a time that wasn't the case apparently (I wasn't there, but I read things were different back in Heavensward).

Thordan story was ALWAYS easy back in base Heavensward, even with the minimum Item Level gear. Charibert's fight at the Vault was way harder.

[Cilia]

Thordan story was ALWAYS easy back in base Heavensward, even with the minimum Item Level gear. Charibert's fight at the Vault was way harder.

Nidhogg was a modest challenge.

Mostly because people didn't stay stacked for Akh Morn in the second phase since the "stay stacked" telegraph graphic didn't exist yet, but still!

[NekoMataMata]

Sooooo just curious, but what do people who want to remove the 2 minute meta want to do after that?

I dislike coordination, but isn't the 2 minute meta a necessary evil? Contrary to what the vast majority of ffxiv players think pushing your buttons is easy. You should naturally memorize most of your combos and even when to pop things like defensives because of how timeline based fights are.

Having to watch your CDs and make sure your abilities don't drift off the 2 minute timeline is something extra to keep you busy with. Assuming you could outright remove the 2 minute meta right now, what would you replace it with?

[Absimiliard]

Sooooo just curious, but what do people who want to remove the 2 minute meta want to do after that?

The heavy focus on the two-minute meta has resulted in the dumbing down of jobs, increased predictability in fights, and an over-reliance on other players for your own personal damage, so...

For starters; a nice dose of chaos, where everyone would blow their murder buttons at different times depending on the job they were playing. I would much rather everyone go back to having to monitor a bunch of different cooldowns and buff/debuff timers that don't necessarily line up with anythin else in their own kit, let alone someone else's. This would of course come in addition to rotational changes intended to reintroduce some of the complexity we've lost, and fights that would once again force melee to put in extra effort if they wish to remain in range or land their positionals.

I'll say, I feel like the defensive options of non-tanks should be scaled back to where they used to be as well. There is no reason for DPS or healers to be able to take mechanics straight to the face and actually survive it, and of course tanks should be getting hurt by failing mechanics a lot more than they presently are. Could probably just amp the damage up on everything instead of curtailing defensives. It would accomplish the same goal. Vuln stacks simply are not sufficient, so let's scrap those and go back to the days of getting deleted if you screw up.

[Rithy255]

Sooooo just curious, but what do people who want to remove the 2 minute meta want to do after that?

I dislike coordination, but isn't the 2 minute meta a necessary evil? Contrary to what the vast majority of ffxiv players think pushing your buttons is easy. You should naturally memorize most of your combos and even when to pop things like defensives because of how timeline based fights are.

Having to watch your CDs and make sure your abilities don't drift off the 2 minute timeline is something extra to keep you busy with. Assuming you could outright remove the 2 minute meta right now, what would you replace it with?

Remove Raid buffs (as they are)
Allow partner buffs like astro cards, dragon sight buffs & consistent buffs like bards songs.

I think the problem or issue with 2 minute raid buffs is they're not really interactive or fun, theirs no choice or skill expression to be found in them, you literally just press them on cooldown basically when everyone else does. Ontop of that we've seen the effect of 2 minute raid buffs basically ruin sustained jobs like PLD, or jobs having unique and different burst windows.

The main downside to non "2 minute meta" is that its harder to create "down time cant attack boss" phases, It cant also be "less harder to balance" but that's another issue with ff14's "balance" every job is meant to play the same with some small expectations in the DPS category, at this point you might as well give every job the same skillset and cool it a day. 2 Minute meta didn't exist in SHB and it was perfectly fine, it added skill expression to raid buffs, it allowed for jobs to be more about sustained damage, So it's really not a necessary evil

Even if they didn't get rid of raid buffs, I don't think every job should just be given a raid buff, it's more unique to not have a raid buff as a DPS. I feel like the game would havemore role design choices without raid buffs, you can make less burst jobs and have burst jobs.

[NekoMataMata]

Remove Raid buffs (as they are)
Allow partner buffs like astro cards, dragon sight buffs & consistent buffs like bards songs.

I think the problem or issue with 2 minute raid buffs is they're not really interactive or fun, theirs no choice or skill expression to be found in them, you literally just press them on cooldown basically when everyone else does. Ontop of that we've seen the effect of 2 minute raid buffs basically ruin sustained jobs like PLD, or jobs having unique and different burst windows.

The main downside to non "2 minute meta" is that its harder to create "down time cant attack boss" phases, It cant also be "less harder to balance" but that's another issue with ff14's "balance" every job is meant to play the same with some small expectations in the DPS category, at this point you might as well give every job the same skillset and cool it a day. 2 Minute meta didn't exist in SHB and it was perfectly fine, it added skill expression to raid buffs, it allowed for jobs to be more about sustained damage, So it's really not a necessary evil

Even if they didn't get rid of raid buffs, I don't think every job should just be given a raid buff, it's more unique to not have a raid buff as a DPS. I feel like the game would havemore role design choices without raid buffs, you can make less burst jobs and have burst jobs.

See that's where you're wrong. The skill of the two minute meta comes from monitoring your abilities. Like I said earlier, while most of the community finds hitting their buttons difficult, it's actually rather easy to do so. The two minute meta just forces you to stop hitting them non-stop. For example SAM actually has to delay some abilities by a couple of seconds in order to keep them from drifting away from the two minute burst.

Removing the two minute meta would provide a lot of individual power, but it would also simplify raids a lot. I thought people didn't want to dumb the game down any more?

[Rithy255]

See that's where you're wrong. The skill of the two minute meta comes from monitoring your abilities. Like I said earlier, while most of the community finds hitting their buttons difficult, it's actually rather easy to do so. The two minute meta just forces you to stop hitting them non-stop. For example SAM actually has to delay some abilities by a couple of seconds in order to keep them from drifting away from the two minute burst.

Removing the two minute meta would provide a lot of individual power, but it would also simplify raids a lot. I thought people didn't want to dumb the game down any more?

What skill expression lies in holding your abilities for the same burst windows though?

I'm not suggesting to completely remove dmg buffs either, but what I'm saying is that the game would be way more enjoyable even without raid buffs, it's not fun to hold your buttons for the same set times nor does it even take skill, it results in making every class play the same.

Imagine the team work of pairing partner buffs instead to maximise damage depending on other players burst damage abilities or Buffs on different CDs where the optimal meta of "holding" or not holding your raid buffs would make a massive damage difference depending on comp and the fight.

Removing two minute meta doesn't make the game more simple, Every job plays the same and would never need to adapt in the moment of gameplay, once they got a rotation down that sinks properly into the 2 minute meta they don't need to really think about anything else.

PLD is a perfect example of a Job who was sacrificed because of the two minute meta, Optimising it was one of the highest skill expressions in the game, but because 2 minute meta it can't exist in that way.

[Lyth]

What skill expression lies in holding your abilities for the same burst windows though?

Coordinating around burst windows have always been important, dating back to NIN's introduction and TA. Essentially every opener that you have learnt from HW onwards has been designed around the timing of raid buffs. Jobs which are less burst-focused and that have buff windows that don't sync up well with the others usually end up at a disadvantage, and we've seen many examples of that historically, especially in Stormblood.

By syncing up all the burst windows in a more transparent way while having individual jobs bring relatively smaller buffs, they've made the design around this a lot more transparent to casual players. The game itself hasn't changed, there's just an increasing awareness at lower skill levels of how players have been optimizing for about 8 years or so.

The other effect of this is that the fight designers have more opportunities to challenge you around buff timings. You may have noticed that most important mechanics coincidentally happen during those buff windows. That's deliberate. So now you have 'rest' periods where you can have a breather, coupled with more mechanically-intensive sections that are timed against periods where you want to focus on your burst. It's no longer just free damage.

[Lyth]

FFXIV hasn't had any gear gates since Gordias. If you want to clear a tier on release, a baseline set of crafted gear is sufficient to access the tier. The reason why gearing exists in the first place is to make content progressively easier over time. If you let players hit max ilvl by just grinding it out, then fights would be designed such that you always cleared them at week 1 difficulty. The most recent tier was probably the most accessible one we've seen in a long time, with incredibly soft checks. If you're dependent on max ilvl gear to clear it now, the current system is the entire reason why you're capable of clearing.

If you want to play through content on multiple jobs, what you're really looking for is easier access to an entry level set, not a max ilvl set. Presently, that comes from crafting, supplemented by the Primal weapon and normal mode raids. You could make a case for being allowed to grind an i640 set, for example. Crafters may have an issue with that, but prices generally crash within the first week or so anyways. It may be worthwhile letting players grind out an entry level set a couple of weeks into a tier after the profits dive, if they don't have the gil for crafted.

[Lyth]

Paradoxically, many of the things that create 'variety' also remove it. Unique advantages translate into certain jobs becoming perennial picks across multiple expansions. We've seen it before, and there are some repeat offenders. It's actually the antithesis of fun to be forced to suffer through an aesthetic that you genuinely dislike simply to bring the optimal advantages to your team in a particular role. Looking at you, WAR.

As far as burst uptime is concerned, burst windows were shorter and higher damage previously. The main difference is that there was a much bigger performance gap between players who knew that they had to sync up their burst windows and players who just had no clue (i.e. the people who are only now discovering the 'meta'). What we have right now is a middle ground between sustain and burst that's relatively balanced. You could opt for a shorter interval or 'One Minute Meta,' and push out major mechanics for 20 seconds out of every minute, moving the gameplay closer to pure sustained dps if you like. But be careful what you wish for.

I suspect the current system is designed around two minutes also to allow for a bit of 'resource building' for some of the newer jobs that aren't entirely timer driven, and that's something worth preserving. I don't have an objection myself to moving to a 'One Minute Meta' outside of that.