How do you define (meaningful) choice?

[AmiableApkallu]

Ruin 2 has some cases where it is the better choice (situational) than Broil IV, and Broil IV has many situations where it is the better choice. But there is some gray area where it's up to the user. A tight movement where you MIGHT be able to get in the Broil, but the player might deem it too risky and go for the Ruin 2. This is still a meaningful choice since there is a choice and which answer is right isn't necessarily a set thing.

As you've phrased it, the correct answer isn't a set thing only because you've neither precisely formulated the question to be answered nor precisely formulated the criteria by which potential answers are to be evaluated:

• If the question is, "which action maximizes DPS for this GCD, everything else be damned" and it's theoretically possible to cast Broil IV safely, then the correct answer is Broil IV.
• If the question is, "which action is expected to maximize my personal DPS for this GCD" and there is a 220 / 295 ~= 75% chance or better of casting Broil IV safely (where "not safely" means, say, tanking the floor), then the correct answer is Broil IV. Otherwise, the correct answer is Ruin II.
• If the question is, "which action maximizes the party's DPS for this fight" and there's a non-zero chance you might wipe the party if you cast Broil IV, then the correct answer is Ruin II.
• Etc. Etc.

The choice between Broil IV and Ruin II here isn't meaningful because you're trying to choose between the actions themselves. It's meaningful because you're trying to decide which question you actually care about, and then trying to answer it with imperfect knowledge (do you really know what your chances are of pulling off a Broil IV are?).

[Renathras]

As you've phrased it, the correct answer isn't a set thing only because you've neither precisely formulated the question to be answered nor precisely formulated the criteria by which potential answers are to be evaluated:

• If the question is, "which action maximizes DPS for this GCD, everything else be damned" and it's theoretically possible to cast Broil IV safely, then the correct answer is Broil IV.
• If the question is, "which action is expected to maximize my personal DPS for this GCD" and there is a 220 / 295 ~= 75% chance or better of casting Broil IV safely (where "not safely" means, say, tanking the floor), then the correct answer is Broil IV. Otherwise, the correct answer is Ruin II.
• If the question is, "which action maximizes the party's DPS for this fight" and there's a non-zero chance you might wipe the party if you cast Broil IV, then the correct answer is Ruin II.
• Etc. Etc.

The choice between Broil IV and Ruin II here isn't meaningful because you're trying to choose between the actions themselves. It's meaningful because you're trying to decide which question you actually care about, and then trying to answer it with imperfect knowledge (do you really know what your chances are of pulling off a Broil IV are?).

Yeah, but the point is, those are actually interesting questions and thus allow for choice, especially when the answer ISN'T automatically clear.

Contrast Medica 1 vs Afflatus Rapture or even Medica 2. In which case is Medica 1 ever the correct choice? Or Cure 1?

I'm sure if you work hard enough, you MIGHT come up with something for Cure 1 (if the person will die if they don't get SOME healing within 1.5 sec, and where Cure 1 would satisfy that, and where all your instant cast and oGCD heals are on CD), but it's a pretty wild case that is exceptionally rare. On the other hand, there is no case for Medica 1 unless you have EXACTLY 900-999 MP (but not 1000 where you could cast Medica 2) AND where you only have one Lily AND can't spend it due to either overcapping or anticipating a future movement you need it AND you can't cast Swiftcast.

...which isn't just rare, it's effectively impossible to ever happen since MP ticks will almost always take you above 1000 if you aren't to 900 yet, and you're almost always going to be well above this, and even if you aren't, you likely have oGCDs or other tools available to use.

That means Medica 1 is basically NEVER a choice from level 50 onward, and Cure 1 is only rarely a choice before about 52, and never after that.

Broil IV and Ruin II actually offer something, Cure 1 and Medica 1 do not.

[Post]

Yoshi says all kinds of things. He's a public face, it's part of his job to spin.

Ironically it was much easier for me to pick up and put down jobs in a game like WoW, where kits were distinct and memorable and full of choices that depended on the situation, than one like FF14 where all the barely-differentiated skill slop runs together.

I couldn't tell you what the MCH skill order is anymore after not playing MCH for 8 months but I could tell you what the Warlock pets in vanilla WoW did and when to use each one despite having played it as an alt job over 16 years ago. Not even as a main job.

I think this is because when skills are creative, they're more memorable, and when choices are meaningful and impactful it feels good to make the choice, and good feelings are more memorable.

A Warlock's Healthstones don't use your potion cooldown btw, so passing them out before a tough pull is a great way to relieve some pressure on your healers. :-)

I dunno man, it's pretty easy to figure out the best way to play most of the jobs in FFXIV just from reading the tooltips if you're already familiar with the game. I haven't played WoW since 2010, but even just going from one patch or item level to the next, your stat priority, talents and rotations could all change pretty significantly to play 'optimally' to avoid 'wasting the group's time'.

I get what you're trying to say about a job's identity (and I don't disagree), but I think when it comes to just playing the jobs, our different experiences might mean that this point is more subjective than it seems.

I tried making that comment from a more generalized perspective, anyways. I was trying to mean more like 'they design the game as a whole to limit the amount of player friction from interaction as possible.' I believe this has always been the case, and it's why Duty Finder is a core tenant if the game (and not Duty Support, but now that they can do Duty Support that's where they're heading, even with encounter design). It's why players could skip cutscenes in Prae originally, and why we had to complain to get them to put in an ilvl sync on Endsinger and a rolling min ilvl on Alliance Raid Roulette.

I believe they basically don't want players to have to interact because some aren't comfortable doing it, and while that's a noble goal, I think it's gone on to affect things like job design so that there's less of a chance your healer or tank aren't up to snuff and need some help or interaction.

As it is now, either one can carry most of the MSQ content alone, and it's not too difficult to do so.

As it is now, deep, meaningful choice is too dangerous to exist in the players hands because so many avenues of choice could lead to player friction, and the simpler road avoids this.

[vetch]

I dunno man, it's pretty easy to figure out the best way to play most of the jobs in FFXIV just from reading the tooltips if you're already familiar with the game. I haven't played WoW since 2010, but even just going from one patch or item level to the next, your stat priority, talents and rotations could all change pretty significantly to play 'optimally' to avoid 'wasting the group's time'.

Certainly. It's not hard to determine the rotation by reading the skills. What's hard is finding the desire to do so more than once when the skills themselves are as interesting as a bowl of rice gruel.

I tried making that comment from a more generalized perspective, anyways. I was trying to mean more like 'they design the game as a whole to limit the amount of player friction from interaction as possible.' I believe this has always been the case, and it's why Duty Finder is a core tenant if the game (and not Duty Support, but now that they can do Duty Support that's where they're heading, even with encounter design). It's why players could skip cutscenes in Prae originally, and why we had to complain to get them to put in an ilvl sync on Endsinger and a rolling min ilvl on Alliance Raid Roulette.

I believe they basically don't want players to have to interact because some aren't comfortable doing it, and while that's a noble goal, I think it's gone on to affect things like job design so that there's less of a chance your healer or tank aren't up to snuff and need some help or interaction.

'Designing to reduce friction from interaction' is giving them too much credit. They straight-up design the game to reduce player interactions, period. Even should I want to talk to people it's more efficient to use a third-party chat program because of crap like not being able to whisper someone if one of us is in an instance -- a technology that has existed since at least 2005. That's a HUGE bootstrapping issue to ever making friends. And it's not a noble goal, because of the following:

As it is now, deep, meaningful choice is too dangerous to exist in the players hands because so many avenues of choice could lead to player friction, and the simpler road avoids this.

People literally crave agency! When they don't have any agency over their lives they get violent and irascible. It's why people trash public restrooms. How shameful for a multiplayer game that promotes itself as a recreational activity to remove the fun elements people crave because some players might be rude to others, instead of just keeping the fun and having more GMs to deal with the rude players! You can literally have both if you choose them, except that Square is the EA of Japan and won't tolerate making 1% less profit in exchange for an immensely richer game experience.

To tie it to your examples, Prae might be unskippable, but you can still skip the incredibly long MSQ cutscenes in Bowl of Embers, Toto-Rak, ARF, etc., and yet the players stopped bugging sprouts to skip them because the company made it a point to protect that aspect of fun with enforcement instead of amputating it.

[Post]

Just to be clear, I don't actually think this: "As it is now, deep, meaningful choice is too dangerous to exist in the players hands because so many avenues of choice could lead to player friction, and the simpler road avoids this."

I imagine this is how they design because it's cheaper. I don't like the way that it is. I call trying to create an environment where there's a limited potential amount of player friction a noble goal, not what we actually have. You know what they say about the road to Hell.

Yeah, I got nothing on the tells during duties thing. Way back when I started FFXIV I just assumed it was some kinda Japanese culture thing, like to reduce splitting your focus from the duty or sending tells behind each other's backs. Eventually I assumed it was a design limitations thing. They've surpassed that now, and have actually enforced stricter chat regulations in the likes of PvP modes but allow linkshells and fcchat when tells don't work so I got no idea.

And you're right, they do design the game to reduce player interaction, especially since Duty Support's addition. They've reworked earlier parts of the game to work better solo, but not for a small group. No shared cutscenes. Instead they put in escort quests. No allowing 1 or 2 NPCs to join and fill out your group of friend's duty. Instead they reworked the duties themselves so their NPCs could handle them.

I'm not sure what you mean about e.g. Toto-Rak, people just pull the boss all the time in those dungeons. I've never heard of their enforcement getting in the way of that. I assume that duty support gives a skipper more of an argument to tell the new player: 'if you want to watch cutscenes, use duty support,' and now they have even less of an incentive it chances to bump into people and make friends.

Hell, the game itself will interrupt your cutscene if you're locked out of the arena and the timer to join the battle tics down. You can select 'no' and it'll still force you in. It was a huge pain in the ass in Castrum Lacus Latore... It's always been the players letting others view the cutscenes themselves unless it was old old Prae or places like Bowl of Embers where you're just trapped in the starting gate.

[Faidid]

Go back to 4.0 design concepts. Healers were a blast to play in that era. Now they are absolutely boring --I'm so damn sick of spamming 1 button dps. It's forced me from the game more than once over the last few years b/c of burnout and boredom. Healers in FF14 are the most poorly designed healing class in any MMO around.

[Renathras]

Go back to 4.0 design concepts. Healers were a blast to play in that era. Now they are absolutely boring --I'm so damn sick of spamming 1 button dps. It's forced me from the game more than once over the last few years b/c of burnout and boredom. Healers in FF14 are the most poorly designed healing class in any MMO around.

As has the same damage kit in 6.X that it did in 4.X. WHM has the same damage kit other than it lost Aero 3 and it gained Misery. How were they "a blast to play in that era" when they had effectively the same DPS kits?

What else changed?

[ForsakenRoe]

As has the same damage kit in 6.X that it did in 4.X. WHM has the same damage kit other than it lost Aero 3 and it gained Misery. How were they "a blast to play in that era" when they had effectively the same DPS kits?

What else changed?

AST had a card system that encouraged doing card related things each 30s, rather than holding everything for one hectic 2min window. Such 30s mark things were not just 'play the card', but also considering whether to use Royal Road, Spread a card to save for later, redrawing, etc. Meaning potentially two or three OGCD weaves per 30s dedicated to card gameplay. SCH had two DOTs, a third in Shadowflare (though that was an OGCD after HW) and a 4th in Miasma 2 which took the place of Ruin2 for movement

WHM being regarded as the 'red headed stepchild' of the day and being significantly improved (aside from losing A3) going into SHB does not undo all the losses the others faced. There is zero reason we couldn't have gained the SHB lily fix, AND kept Aero 3, for example. Trying to say that one replaced the other 'so nothing changed really' is like what SE tries to convince us with, with things like 'yeh you lost Stoneskin but here's Stoneskin with a new coat of paint (benison)', or the removal and readdition of the healing% increase CD called Divine Seal>Largesse>Temperance

[Neoyoshi]

With a meaningful consequence.

Wait, what are we talking about here?

[Renathras]

WHM being regarded as the 'red headed stepchild' of the day and being significantly improved (aside from losing A3) going into SHB does not undo all the losses the others faced. There is zero reason we couldn't have gained the SHB lily fix, AND kept Aero 3, for example. Trying to say that one replaced the other 'so nothing changed really' is like what SE tries to convince us with, with things like 'yeh you lost Stoneskin but here's Stoneskin with a new coat of paint (benison)', or the removal and readdition of the healing% increase CD called Divine Seal>Largesse>Temperance

Well, it's not the topic at hand, but this IS kind of a point I've made before. And why I've specifically advocated for Aero3/Banish since otherwise WHM is pretty much undisputedly better now than it was in SB. Most of the other things about SB WHM really sucked, and while people keep saying "SB was better", when pinned down on WHM, there's a lot of dithering passed Aero 3. It's also a reason for the advocation that WHM stay mostly the same since there's not really anything from that era aside from Aero 3 that people really miss when pressed on the question. And yet, people didn't complain about it being braindead back then, so apparently, having only Aero 3 that we don't know (and possibly a few less oGCDs...but with WHM, that doesn't really make a lot of sense...) was sufficient for people at the time to find WHM intensely engaging and fun to play.

Stoneskin and Benison aren't the same (one was a GCD, spamable and there was sometimes reason to do so, though by SB most people had stopped using it as much; the other is an oGCD with a CD that you weave between Nukespam casts), likewise, Divine Seal should honestly still be in the game and simply upgrade to Temperance (Largesse wasn't a separate action, it was Divine Seal converted to a Role Action).

But that's more for that other thread (guess I can cross-post it there), not this one.

This is about what makes choice.

I feel like the people saying "meaningful consequence" aren't understanding what I mean by choice. Choice has to allow a player to choose actions, and if there is only one right and the punishment severe for not choosing it, that isn't a real choice. As someone said before, it's like offering a person poison or medicine to take when ill. While technically a choice, the reality is that there's only one true option as the other is never picked.

To me, to have meaningful choice requires having - at the minimum - more than one VIABLE choice, and situations where either option can be argued to be correct. Outside of that, it's not a choice. It's being right or wrong.