2 minute meta: Rework or Remove?

[Tiramu]

Neither are good, I would go for:

1. Support focused jobs (like BRD) keep their buffs, and are reponsible for party buffs.

2. Make other job buffs and debuffs on a 1 minute cooldown, more interesting, and situational. So jobs can either use their own buffs and debuffs to react to specific situations (that they have to react to in high end) or give themselves a buff either aligned with support job buffs, or just for personal dps as and when.

[Valence]

For me, I'd go option 2. As far as I can tell there are really only three jobs whose fantasy is built around buffing allies (DNC, BRD, SCH) and the whole "buff allies" thing has been spread to so many jobs that it seems to have lost all thematic punch. I mean if I were a FF fan (who hadn't played 14) and were asked "name a job who's all about buffing allies" i probably wouldn't say ninja or dragoon or red mage. Beyond that, it also seems like the issue isn't so much the timing of raid buffs but more the volume of them. If there were only two or three in the game total then screwing up a buff window wouldn't be such a big deal. On top of that it also seems like raid buffs are stifling job design more than aiding it. You can't really have a job without a burst window anymore and though a lot of people like that, i don't think the point of having multiple classes in an MMO is so you can pick your favorite VFX to see every two minutes.

So, if I get it correctly, because you feel it's too punishing to miss a buff, or play within those, or align too many jobs having them, which can be valid arguments, you want to just nuke the whole concept instead of reworking or adjusting it? Do you work for SE? Because it kinda feels like you're advocating for what they've been doing since ShB with the removal of things with no real addition or compensation behind...

I really don't see the problem with buffs, because frankly them being on 2min timers or staggered all around is a fake debate on what actually matters to my eyes (mechanical intricacy), but I could definitely remove all the little buffs that are just "press that button on cooldown", and focus on working on more intricate ones on the actual buffing jobs (DNC, BRD, and yes MCH), which would probably fix/address rphys's identity crisis in the process.

Bring back stuff like Foe Requiem and buffs that are actually more than just "press this every 2min kthx". Radiant Finale went in the right direction, but it still remains a fire and forget button unfortunately. But even if you still want to use those buffs at certain specific intervals, it's already something if they require some manner of class kit interaction to build up and activate.


Edit: I actually like the idea of having adjustable buff gauges for a more restricted amount of buffing jobs (all of rphys notably), which would for example allow casting the buff at half gauge or less, but casting it at full gauge would obviously bring bigger buffs. You know which gauge worked very well for that, was flexible on demand, and offered tactical play and team coordination? The... MP bar on bard for Requiem. Make us use our MP again ffs, else why do we even have those bars?

[Kalaam]

I honestly think removing all direct damage buff that are party wide would be interresting to explore.
Have buffs be more indirect helps such has reduced cooldown, cast times, increased mp regen, movement speed etc.

Bard could still keep its cyclic "2% damage increase" during the songs etc. And if this all leads to job rotations spreading further again and being more varied that could make something interresting for dancer where as its dance flourishes are like minute or two minute, but some other dps are 3 minutes, you'd benefit the team more when knowing when to swap dance partner so you maximise everyone's DPS one at a time. That'd be quite a high skill ceiling on dancer all of a sudden. Could be fun, I think.

[Zairava]

Yes, it's another 2 minute raid buff thread. This horse has been beaten to death but I got a new whacking stick so why not. Someone brought this up on the xivdiscussion subreddit and it got my noggin joggin'. Let's say the devs leave this to a community vote. In 7.0 we get two options:
1. Raid buffs are put back on the cooldowns they had before EW.
2. Raid buffs are entirely removed. Anything that increases how much damage your party members deal, be it a buff on them or a debuff on the enemy, is gone.

Which would you pick and why?

I'm kind of mixed on this. Of course, I'll outline my thoughts here.

In my personal opinion, raid buffs should mostly be from support focused jobs (Dancer, Bard, etc), and any job not labeled such should not have any or have it as a part of its kit (think old Trick Attack, current Mug).

I do, however, see the benefits of having raid buffs as they were before, something that let us determine the best times to coordinate our bursts on a fight to fight basis. Which, if they were to keep this, I would take option 1 as I also like the idea of synchronizing raid buffs, just not as it is in its current state. If they insist that the 2-minute meta is the way moving forward, then option 2.

[Payadopa]

So because raiders will get their knickers in a twist because of their shiny parse it's better to yet again remove another aspect of the game.

How about no?

[Rychu]

I feel that people are being a touch too emotional about this topic.

The people that want it to stay the way it is are mad saying that raiders are ruining the fun for everyone else because missing a 2 minute burst in harder content fucks over a party in savage and ultimate.

The people that want it removed are mad that the people the 2 minute meta was made for aren't the ones that care about pressing their abilities on cooldown so everyone else has to deal with it.

I think that people should consider this as an idea. Is the act of everyone pressing a similar button together to make your damage higher for 15 seconds that much more interesting than not doing it? Is that worth every job in the game having to fit into this specific box and never being able to deviate because then it would fit the game's balance? I have thought about it some more and honestly here is a proposal. What if we remove the buffing abilities for all DPS jobs except phys ranged, indirectly making them a dedicated support class that people already associate them with. But on top of that, we then have all healers have some sort of raid buff as well, giving their kits something more than the crap they currently have. We already have to have 2 healers in every comp and are heavily encouraged to have 1 phyrs due to the 1% stat buff.

Or if we want to absolutely keep them in the game because high damage numbers are pretty to look at, don't worry i get it. Let's just have our 2 minute raid buffs only affect ourselves and bump up the percentage to compensate. This makes both camps happy since now we have more wiggle room for job design and we can keep our buffs for those special moments

[Shurrikhan]

The people that want it to stay the way it is are mad saying that raiders are ruining the fun for everyone else because missing a 2 minute burst in harder content fucks over a party in savage and ultimate.

???

All that depends on whether it's actually more fun, in the first place, to only have 2-minute raid buffs. If that's not the case, then regardless of the reason one may have for wanting a more diverse set of timings, it's not "ruining the fun for everyone else" to suggest a return to those more diverse timings...

The people that want it removed are mad that the people the 2 minute meta was made for aren't the ones that care about pressing their abilities on cooldown so everyone else has to deal with it.

We have no more reason to believe that the 2-minute meta was made for "the ones who don't care about pressing their abilities on cooldown" than for the players who simply didn't like having set comps forced onto them (having job A means job B gets barred because their CDs are out of sync) because they are the kinds of (sometimes unnecessary) optimization-prone players who tend to hit their abilities on cooldown (+/- specific nuance).

Or rather, logic would side with the latter group being the target, as the shift to the 2-minute meta increased the penalty for failing to align to raid buffs (at all) just as much as it decreased the ceiling of what minor raid buffs one can align themselves with through their bankable skills (Mirage Dive, Stardiver, gauge spenders, etc.).

Or if we want to absolutely keep them in the game because high damage numbers are pretty to look at, don't worry i get it. Let's just have our 2 minute raid buffs only affect ourselves and bump up the percentage to compensate. This makes both camps happy

That would more likely make neither side happy.

[Valence]

They have been removing all the infamous job comp synergies after it got out of hand in Stormblood, and that, I don't miss, if you remember the piercing and slashing debuffs and the jobs bringing them to the party, and the jobs not bringing them. Jobs being left out of sync with their odd timer bursts for raid buffs was also an understandable problem imo, even if less egregious, so I understand why it was addressed.

However I do feel SE always keeps going for solutions that I don't like, because they water down things or outright remove them. We had the perfect solution in the old Foe Requiem and MP based buffs that were actually adjustable to your comp depending on WHEN you wanted the team to burst without leaving anybody out. Obviously it was an outlier ability and the only one with HW hypercharge to allow for such a thing, but being able to plan out when your team wants to use raid buffs is, imo, the way it should have gone.

But I guess that now that everybody bursts every 2min anyway, this solution isn't quite as interesting. At best it still allows flexibility versus boss downtimes, but otherwise... You'd just need to buff every 2min.

[vetch]

Buff-stacking warps the design space around it like a neutron star. It means every job has to have stuff to unload in the important buff-stack window, so every job becomes a builder-spender or cooldown-monger or both, with no room for any other design like sustained-DPS. That's beyond tedious.

Not only that, but since the buffs are multiplicative and ubiquitous, each one has to be so weak individually that it blows playing a buff-intensive job in light-party content -- you need a parser and a microscope to see the difference a 3% buff is making in a dungeon. How about that -- the buff meta is ruining the buff jobs. Golf claps all around.

I'd love to see the buff-stacking meta killed and the job devs twist in the wind for a while until they come up with some more diverse designs.

[CKNovel]

I think there's too much buffs at the moment, the game revolves too much around 2 min buff because it's the simplest choice.
For example one last 90s buff could be delayed to not lose a use while being synchronized with the rest of the party.
A lot of jobs could just have their raidwide buffs removed or shifted away from dmg buff, in my opinion it would greatly benefit the game.

To me they could easily shave/rework Battle Litany, Brotherhood, Embolden, Searing Light, Arcane Circle and Trick Attack.
Especially Trick Attack which gimmick to be on 60s cooldown was changed to the 120s cycle.

For Bard and Dancer, support is their identity so it makes sense they can keep their buffs.

Even if SQEX wanted to avoid synergy with these 2min buffs, DNC+Loot eater SAM remains a powerful synergy.