2 minute meta: Rework or Remove?

[Shurrikhan]

Imposing a rhythm in itself requires that all classes are similar to each other in order to all be synergistically compatible.
This is exacerbated when out of 19 classes 10 "buff" (aka press the button every 120 seconds). among these 9 without buff of which 5 are all tanks.

Yes and no. It's required for balancing them across highly varied contexts, since you cannot have balance both across different jobs and different contexts if both significantly differ.

• If only jobs' ability to exploit those buffs significantly differ, not the contexts, you can just increase the less synergetic job's outputs so their total contribution is still as competitive as that of anyone else.
• If only contexts differ, then every job is equally helped or hurt in each context and thus job choice is not restricted.
• If both differ, then some jobs become slightly preferred for certain contexts.

Though, that begs the question of whether that's even such a bad thing, especially when homogeneity would otherwise be a requirement and we are comparatively free to swap jobs around.

At present, our only differing serious context is a one-off content form (Savage Criterion dungeons), so we're far from being unable to simply compensate less bursty jobs for their being less bursty if we so wanted.

While I'd be happy to see future-proofing for more content forms in the future, for now it's more likely that jobs tend to be more bursty primarily because the devs see the average players as preferring to having that dynamism in their output over, well, not having it.

1) the 2 minute rhythm is limiting and forces all jobs to have synchronized burst phases, force all jobs to work with burst GCD with 1000+ potency. (Don't get me wrong, it forces the designer to force the job into a very routed rotation where everything has to coincide perfectly with the 2 minute cycles.)

It doesn't, though. The design goal remains the same as ever: jobs should be competitive. If they all needed to have the same raw damage, then those with the best exploitable damage density would produce the most output, but not even every jobs without raidbuffs needs to all have the same raw damage. There can be a range between higher exploitability/burst and higher overall raw damage.

Consistent targetable buffers like Dancer would optimally swap Closed Position between the two, while non-targetable consistent buffers would faintly prefer the latter group and low-uptime buffers would prefer the former group, but they'd still be held in decent parity with each other, just like buffers and non-buffers have tended to be when one looks at more than half the picture (e.g., more than just their rDPS metric, for which exploitation gets no credit).

(SAMs having equal rDPS to a DRG, for instance, would signal an inequality in in-practice output, given SAMs they also produce more rDPS for the buffers they exploit through more potency dealt under those buffs, thereby producing more party dps for the same amount of rDPS -- just in a way that's hidden from the jobs' individual single metric.)

2) the buff should be part of the fantasy of the job and that it heavily influences the gameplay and way of thinking. If I choose MNK it's certainly not because I intend to buff my party mates.

While I'm tempted to agree, since that sounds more fun than just %dmg buffs, I have to ask: in what way? Even a rough example would be appreciated.

3) Nowadays everyone does everything and there are no longer certain peculiarities that influence gameplay. Everyone mitigates, everyone buff. And they all (in general) do it at the push of a single button. (Because actually they are tools purely disconnected from the core or introduced rather forcibly)

I'd agree that is a problem, but because of that last part: Most of those additional tools do not come out of the prior kits interestingly, but are instead obviously just tacked on (isolated and un-interactive).

To me, it's not a problem that Monk has self-mitigation. It literally started the game with the only instant and complete threat generator, counter-attacks, and multiple mitigation effects allowing it to snap-tank (just long enough to take the edge off the 'real' tank) or even off-tank (usually after ramping up and just for large dodgeable attacks or against adds, but still). All that is fine. But that shouldn't be done in the same way on Monk as it is on NIN as it is on BLM as it is on RPR, etc.

While interactions that give a pretense of depth on paper can often actually reduce the nuance available to a given skill, and there's plenty that can go wrong... we haven't even seen any real attempt to integrate them thus far...

Instead, a capacity is added to one job and then the creativity-vacuum sucks that up to spit out, sometimes cleaner, sometimes more muddled, into each kit the first job's competed with. It's yet more templating, rather than an attempt at role identity.

4) There shouldnt be almost exclusively utilities that directly influence damage (inflicted -> buffs, received -> mitigations) but there should also be utilities that influence gameplay in some way.

Agreed. That's far harder to design for, but I feel it'd be worth the attempt.

If there's one thing XIV seems to have in excess, it's complacency.

[Lyth]

It would be pretty fun if we had all sustained damage jobs with a relentless torrent of mechanics to keep you occupied while maintaining perfect uptime. For practical purposes, though, most players need a bit of ebb and flow in intensity order to handle fights, which is why you have periods of higher activity (burst) followed by downtime. These have to synchronize with fight mechanics, or else you just have free damage by bursting when no mechanics are up.

Burst is only meaningful if there are constraints placed on it. Raid buffs represent an external constraint by forcing you to commit your resources once you press the button. The alternative to this is if you script the damage windows directly into the fight itself (P8S Everburn), but this makes for an even more rigid system than the one we have.

Historically, there were fewer buff providing jobs, and the buffs they provided were more powerful (i.e. higher % damage increase over a shorter time interval). This meant that you saw jobs like NIN in virtually every comp. The current system replaces this with weaker, more diluted buffs, but spread across multiple party members to result in a comp independent setup.

I think it's reasonable to discuss alternative ways of solving these problems, but you do need to provide an alternative if you want the system to change. I'm not in favor of anything that blindly simplifies mechanics, however. There is plenty of content that caters to mindless play already.

[Ggwppino]

It doesn't, though. The design goal remains the same as ever: jobs should be competitive. If they all needed to have the same raw damage, then those with the best exploitable damage density would produce the most output, but not even every jobs without raidbuffs needs to all have the same raw damage. There can be a range between higher exploitability/burst and higher overall raw damage.

Take pld as an example.
The old pld could not exist with the new 2 minute meta and was reworked to be in the image and likeness of practically all rotations.
All the classes that were designed to have a sustained damage output over time have been transformed like all the others into burst classes. There is no other way out with this system.

Clearly, if we take shB as an example, leaving the 2 minute goal leads to another problem: some comps will perform better than others. Bad. But the point is another: why did it happen? why were some better than others? For raid buffs.
So we always return to the same point.
If you remove the raid buffs, or rather, you really skim them considerably, and these buffs become the main characteristic of the job that has them, these are used not when it is convenient for the user because he manages to take his hypothetically damage windo, but they would be used much more expertly, since they are the considerable source of their rdps.

While I'm tempted to agree, since that sounds more fun than just %dmg buffs, I have to ask: in what way? Even a rough example would be appreciated.

I think I wasn't clear here and you might have misunderstood, but in any case what you mean is a point that I would like them to valorise.
What I meant here is that a buff shouldn't be a measly button press every 120 seconds, but should be an integral part of the rotation.

Take for example the ast and the sch: they are 2 classes that buff (ok, the sch debuffs the boss but that's the story), the importance of these 2 buffs in the core of the rotation are completely different. The one for the sch is a button that you press every 120 seconds which is separate from everything else, the one for the ast is an active component of its rotation, it is its gameplay which is based a lot on its buffs and which rewards it by also unlocking some damage .

The fact is that if I take the brd, I know that I take it because they are a class that is based on support, its gameplay makes me understand it and I'm happy, it's part of its fantasy. If I take the rpr I take it because I want to hit Athena in the gums with my scythe not because it has a sad buff to use every 120 seconds. So I don't find the reason why all these classes should have raid buffs (that compromise the concrete and feasible possibility of get out of the 2 minute meta).

-----
As for what you mean and what I would like to see anyway, they are the buffs that do not directly affect the damage, and they could be mana regeneration for example, it could be the speed up, it could be the skill-speed. These buffs could change the considerations that are made during the content, also changing the way of approaching the fight.

[Shurrikhan]

Take pld as an example.
The old pld could not exist with the new 2 minute meta and was reworked to be in the image and likeness of practically all rotations.
All the classes that were designed to have a sustained damage output over time have been transformed like all the others into burst classes. There is no other way out with this system.

Again, though, Paladin could at the time literally could have been made fully competitive... by just being slightly buffed.

Heck, it still needed to be buffed twice more after its rehaul (6.4 and 6.5), so clearly just shuffling around when that damage was dealt was not enough.

Clearly, if we take shB as an example, leaving the 2 minute goal leads to another problem: some comps will perform better than others. Bad. But the point is another: why did it happen? why were some better than others? For raid buffs.

Not really, no. The majority of Shadowbringers' raid balance woes was from non-buffers overperforming, not underperforming.

It just happened that jobs with no business looking at rDPS for their measure of balance complained that their rDPS was fell below other jobs' (as it should, because it's still missing a good 3-5% of their additional value over other jobs with lesser ability to exploit buffs, which is only accounted for within the aDPS metric, with neither side alone telling the whole story of the value buffers bring).

BLM generally remained on top in rDPS and SAM near the top in rDPS despite their offering more value than anyone else from constant and finite-duration raid buffs, respectively, outside of the usual issues of minor outliers (SMN just wiping everyone else off the table in Ifrit/Garuda and Shiva, and later OoD, etc.).

And even before Shadowbringers, the problem was less that there was a meta comp or better performing jobs on the basis of raid buffs... as that there were set comps (outside of NIN being able to glide between whatever).

By late Stormblood, the best comp for a RDM could have damn near equal party dps to the best comp for SAM as the best comp for BRD as the best comp for DRG, etc., etc.; the issue was just that once you had jobs A, B, and C you wanted jobs D, E, and F, not jobs G, H, I, J, K, L, or M.

What I meant here is that a buff shouldn't be a measly button press every 120 seconds, but should be an integral part of the rotation.

Yours? Theirs?

If it's a vital part of your rotation, then you'd have to keep your rotation synced to the time others could most benefit from it, likely meaning you must follow a specific GCD tier and/or rotation, which would be less flexible even than what we have now (though obviously some jobs, like DRG, will be less flexible than others, like MNK/SAM).

If it's a vital part of their rotation or otherwise affects their gameplay in some pace-setting way, too, then they doubly have to keep synced to your actions, too. Again, not an increase in flexibility. Quite the opposite.

It comes down to the details for any of these implementations. What flexibility are you willing to give up? What is the threshold for something being "integral"?

Arcane Circle, for instance, is already useful to RPR's rotation, and Brotherhood to Monk's, regardless of their 3% and 5% buffs, respectively. Does that count, or is it something entirely separate?

Let's say we made it Chain Stratagem would cause each Crit landed on an enemy to increase their chance to be critically struck.

Does that change behaviors or otherwise make it any more integral to gameplay than the mere more direct damage increase of +10% crit? In itself, no.

There'd need to be available compromises between total damage and more opportunities to crit, so that before and after reaching a certain Chain Strategem stacks threshold given one's crit chance, you'd prioritize A and then prioritize B.

Maybe we go further, and make it so every job had some sort on-Crit proc, and many had ways to force a crit (revised Kaiten, certain procced arrows, Berserk, Life Surge, what have you), and Battle Voice would increase all proc chances by 25% (of their existing chances, so Repertoire becomes guaranteed), while Battle Litany stays as a crit.

Now they would all have gameplay effect, of some sort, that makes their value that bit more contextual. But would that at all redeem them in your eyes? What are you looking for here?

The one for the sch is a button that you press every 120 seconds which is separate from everything else, the one for the ast is an active component of its rotation, it is its gameplay which is based a lot on its buffs and which rewards it by also unlocking some damage .

...When Divination was actually linked to the grade, I'd agree, but... they are quite functionally identical now in single-target combat. It's just that SCH has and rDPS buff and a utility buff (Expedient), while AST has two purely rDPS buffs.

Now, thematically, if I were to make just one of them a buff job, and knowing what I do of their history in this game (had I known nothing of how XIV planned to implement each or seen only their ability names across the multiple languages, I would likely have gone with making SCH the buffer instead, but w/e), yeah, I'd make AST the buffer over SCH. But...

At the same time... does Chain Stratagem harm SCH's identity through its inclusion? Is it mutually exclusive with some other, more "XIV SCH-like" action that SCH would/likely could otherwise have had? Does it harm AST's, WHM's, and SGE's by association? I am not convinced it does any of those things.

As such, I don't see an issue in SCH's one-off raidbuff except in that could at least be more interesting for the SCH itself (and, per my preference for more staggered timers, perhaps could have been more engaging for the party as a whole if introduced in some other way).

As for what you mean and what I would like to see anyway, they are the buffs that do not directly affect the damage, and they could be mana regeneration for example, it could be the speed up, it could be the skill-speed. These buffs could change the considerations that are made during the content, also changing the way of approaching the fight.

Agreed. As long as there's sufficient context for them without also obliging them.

If a job can give MP with no alternatives (nothing else that cooldown or their MP-draining effect can be spent on) but no one has any way to favorably spend excess MP, then there needs to be a context in which that extra MP almost certainly cannot be excessive. But if you do that, then gameplay now depends on that MP-granting class being present, else the MP-receiving jobs end up with dead GCDs for reasons entirely outside their control, which will probably be far more unfun than uniquely granting MP will be to the MP-granter. (And what of the jobs that have no use for MP? Do we just avoid bringing them if bringing the MP-granter?)

If you give a job that grants Attack Speed, cool, you can hit new rotational/GCD breakpoints. Except, now you have to carry two sets of materia-ed gear, one for with that job and one without, in order not to be caught awkwardly between rotational/GCD tiers. Is that likely to carry a net improvement to enjoyment, in the current context?

Now, don't get me wrong: I absolutely think you could create a context in which those things are net gains or perhaps even have little to no downsides. But it's going to take a lot of very careful consideration and likely even some pretty drastic shifts in undermechanics.

• Games built around Stamina/Energy bars (with at least the length of a full rotational string before being depleted), for instance, can far better absorb differences in attack rate, because they take on a small amount of flexibly timed downtime in place of a lower base GCD, allowing them to overclock or underclock).
• If all jobs used MP, then we'd have a far better signal of readiness to burst at a glance from our party frames and %max, flat, or % of missing MP restoration or %MP cost reductions could be useful to each role without necessarily being identically useful to each role (may still favor emergency situations).
• Etc., etc.

[Ggwppino]

Again, though, Paladin could at the time literally could have been made fully competitive... by just being slightly buffed.

Heck, it still needed to be buffed twice more after its rehaul (6.4 and 6.5), so clearly just shuffling around when that damage was dealt was not enough.

Not when in the party you have 5 classes that buff ~4% of damage in which they go in stack where the more potency you vomit in that window and the more damage you do to the boss even reaching 20+% additional damage. without gcd potency 1000+ plus crit (statistic now too more significant than the others), you are not competitive. You really produce too much more damage during the phases where the buffs are activated, but because there are too many of them and therefore they become too significant for the dps check. And this in itself penalized him, then throw in the downtime phases where the boss is untargetable and the omelette is done.
It should have been heavily buffed.

If you remove the raid buffs from practically all the classes and give them to only a few and these are responsible due to their functioning to always keep up all the various buffs (raid and single target), the old pld can be always competitive, as can be all the classes that instead of having a mega burst every 2 minutes have a smaller one every 30 seconds, or perhaps others that work with dots, or others where the autoattack is a significant component of the damage, or for the classes that do incremental damage, or classes that do combo damage, or classes that do I don't know, other infinite possibilities. But no, everyone must respect the 2 minute meta. all jobs same with 15 seconds to vomit the big damage and then have all the rest filler.

Now, thematically, if I were to make just one of them a buff job, and knowing what I do of their history in this game (had I known nothing of how XIV planned to implement each or seen only their ability names across the multiple languages, I would likely have gone with making SCH the buffer instead, but w/e), yeah, I'd make AST the buffer over SCH. But...

At the same time... does Chain Stratagem harm SCH's identity through its inclusion? Is it mutually exclusive with some other, more "XIV SCH-like" action that SCH would/likely could otherwise have had? Does it harm AST's, WHM's, and SGE's by association? I am not convinced it does any of those things.

Well one has its core based on managing damage/healing with aetherflow, the other has a core based on buffing teammates. Who should be the buffer?
The fact Is that there are too many selfish classes that have given a buff to the entire party that, if it doesn't exist, literally changes nothing because the core absolutely doesn't take it into account.

Why would the mnk have a buff that buffs damage to everyone? Why doesn't he buff himself but the entire party? Given that its core doesn't suggest at all that the mnk is a class that provides support, but more of an ace to carry? But the same can be said for the rpr, the drg, the nin. But also to the rdm, the smn (since they introduced it as a personal raid buff and not the pet's) and the sch. They are all classes that buffing is not part of their core, it is not their essence, and I don't see why they should have it, especially if it limits the design of new jobs and reworks.

Agreed. As long as there's sufficient context for them without also obliging them.

Absolutely agree.
Take the sch with "Expedient": it is a skill that buffs the speed of other players. If this skill is not used it does not change anyone's life, if it is used it can simplify the movement of the players by giving them a little breathing room, perhaps even making them extremely optimize some GCDs for the casters.

A mana regen example: how many times does it happen that someone dies in a raid, the healer ress him and then maybe has difficulty keeping someone alive because has no longer mana. Mana regen it's a skill that helps the party, in this precisely case helps the healer not to drown. Its to be avoided, however, to design jobs in such a way that everyone at some point can't continue without this mana regen being used.

[Taranok]

Not when in the party you have 5 classes that buff ~4% of damage in which they go in stack where the more potency you vomit in that window and the more damage you do to the boss even reaching 20+% additional damage and without gcd from potency 1000+ plus crit (statistic now too more significant than the others), you are not competitive. You really produce too much more damage during the phases where the buffs are activated, but because there are too many of them and therefore they become too significant for the dps check. And this in itself penalized him, then throw in the downtime phases where the boss is untargetable and the omelette is done.
It should have been heavily buffed.

If you remove the raid buffs from practically all the classes and give them to only a few and these are responsible due to their functioning to always keep up all the various buffs (raid or single target), the old pld can be always competitive, as can be all the classes that instead of having a mega burst every 2 minutes have a smaller one every 30 seconds or perhaps others that work with dots or others where the autoattack is a significant component of the damage or for the classes that do incremental damage, or classes that do combo damage, or classes that do I don't know, other infinite possibilities. But no, everyone must respect the 2 minute meta. all jobs same with 15 seconds to vomit the big damage and then have all the rest filler.

Something also worth bringing up isn't just the raw amount of potency vomit you can get on classes during the 2m burst windows, but also things like boss downtime. If a boss jumps, a class like SMN which is timed via cooldowns primarily, gets a lot more resources, a lot more potential damage, back than a RDM who has their white/black mana shut down.

In the most extreme and egregious examples, a class can actually lose resources during boss downtime. Notable examples being BLM during aldezaal's legacy final boss, as well as BLM/DRG/MNK during E8S transition. These problems can also be seen with LB3, where a class like BLM can be forced out of their timers if they don't refresh them instantly before firing it, and be ready to refresh it instantly after.

That last example is kind of sidestepping the point of this conversation and what I'm bringing up, but this showcases that when you design classes in such an extreme way, things start to get very wonky when you do things like make the boss untargetable for a time. Some classes care a hell of a lot more than others, and the 2m meta makes this far more unforgiving.

This is what ultimately sunk PLD's design, as well as ruined SAM to a degree necessitating major potency buffs for SAM and a hasty rework for PLD. You can't take an over-time class into a fight like DSR where the boss is up for 30s, and then down for 30s, repeatedly in the meta you 2 are, rightfully, decrying.

[Lyth]

The old pld could not exist with the new 2 minute meta and was reworked to be in the image and likeness of practically all rotations.
All the classes that were designed to have a sustained damage output over time have been transformed like all the others into burst classes. There is no other way out with this system.

What you're describing isn't a raid buff issue. It's an issue of sustained damage output vs. burst, and it occurs even if you only have access to personal damage buffs.

Sustain and burst exist on a continuum. No job is truly 'sustain-only', because that means that all GCDs are equally weighted to deal the same amount of damage. Such a system would have no decision-making, because all actions have the same effect. It's better to think of each job as having a 'burst profile' that weights more of the total damage output on fewer GCDs. You haven't really changed the area under the dps curve, just the distribution. Some jobs just have more burst than others.

The problem with having large variations in burst profiles is that it becomes harder to tune job performance on a fight-specific basis in a way that's fair. If the jobs are balanced for a target dummy fight with full uptime, then a timer-driven burst job will pull ahead the instant that you have intermission phases where you can't hit the boss. Your timer still ticks down while you're in intermission, so a greater proportion of the 'active' fight is spent in burst. This sustain disadvantage was a big complaint about DRK during Stormblood, which is why it's moved to the other extreme over two expansions. The PLD changes this expansion boil down to the same issue, but it was likely exacerbated by how intermission-focused P8S P2 was.

The bottom line is that large discrepancies in burst profiles can result in performance differences within individual fights, especially if they have intermission phases. This creates a selection pressure for all jobs to become more burst-focused over time. Resource-based burst can be a mitigating factor in this, because you're not gaining resources if you can't hit the boss. But resource-based jobs also have an edge if there's an external buff that you can pool into (i.e. Everburn). It's actually quite difficult to balance fairly under different conditions unless you impose some constraints, either to the fight design or job design. Some variety is good, but when there are large differences you start to run into problems.

[Shurrikhan]

What you're describing isn't a raid buff issue. It's an issue of sustained damage output vs. burst, and it occurs even if you only have access to personal damage buffs.

I think what he was referring to is that burstier jobs naturally take more advantage of finite-duration raid buffs (so, almost all of them), and those difference in performance increase as the degree of overlap of those raid buffs increases.

The bottom line is that large discrepancies in burst profiles can result in performance differences within individual fights, especially if they have intermission phases. This creates a selection pressure for all jobs to become more burst-focused over time.

Yes, but to an extent, that'd be mitigatable by just letting the less bursty jobs also have faintly higher raw overall damage (and therefore roughly the same damage under a typical comp, even if still just faintly, faintly behind the burstier jobs' performance in the most stacked 15s raid buffs comp possible).

...a timer-driven burst job will pull ahead the instant that you have intermission phases where you can't hit the boss...
...Resource-based burst can be a mitigating factor in this, because you're not gaining resources if you can't hit the boss.

Aye.

Some variety is good, but when there are large differences you start to run into problems.

Pretty much this, though I suspect we could have a larger range than we currently do if there was at least some compensation for being less bursty.