IGN Brazil Asked Yoshida about 2 min meta

[Absimiliard]

People will take Meta, that other people discover, and force it upon throat of others. Happened in HW, in other MMO's etc. ''Gamers'' want the biggest odds for winning. And they're willing to throw other people under bus for that few % more dmg.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with this. People have the right to curate their groups however they want. Besides, it's still going on. Meta will always exist, and there's nothing SE can do about it without dumbing things down to the point they kill the game.

[StarRosie]

Can I get a source of the drop in subs?

Though, in all seriousness, they will probably quote you the one graph folks are tossing around to 'prove' XIV is dying. But it's also just the usual pre-expansion lull going on, combined with some folks leaving. I won't deny folks are quitting, but some folks unsub for a few months or till expansion launch to save money.

[Payadopa]

As a former speedrunner in other games. Devs need to stop saying that players will optimize the fun out of the game. They are way to overly concerned about people picking meta and optimal choices, so they remove all choices. What they fail to realize is the discovery and journey behind those optimizations is a part of the fun. When you remove that journey, the fun is bland.

Funny you said the exact same thing but worded it so it's soley SE's fault and people vote it up. lol But yeah, I agree.

Thing is, people can praise perfect balance all they like, at the end all you have left is bland uniformity. And let's be real here, if you are in PF and waiting for 45 minutes for that one slot to fill you really don't care about the job. Yet everyone loves to pretend that every. single. person. will only use the "bestest" combo imaginable. And then I look at my PF and static experience and everyone plays what they feel like. So why are we doing this again?

[ElysiumDragon]

I'd argue that at this point, undoing the '2 minute meta' would take significantly more work, and be the far riskier option.

Now, if they were to 'stagger' things so that some jobs would focus around 1 or 3 minute rotations, with the greatest possible DPS occurring during the opener and at 6 minutes, I could see that happening.

[Silverquick]

Here's kinda my take on it, and this is looking at old vs new.

Talking about a 2 minute "rotation" meta... is kinda pointless with the way some of these redesigns are. I'll speak specifically on SMN. I think the 90th level SMN is ok, but the reality is it flat out doesn't have a "rotation" anymore. It has a series of powers linked to summons, and those aren't dependent on a "rotation" in the old sense of the terminology. It is more like... where does THIS particular Summon and associated powers fit in THIS particular 8-man segment, and it would change with each raid.

For example:
You can't use Ifrit in a segment of the raid that would require a lot of mobility, because this one has long casting times and a melee closer with a followup. You can't use Garuda in a segment of the raid where the boss will be moving around a lot. While the casting times for the powers are very fast and mobile, just not very damaging, the basis of it is a DoT Pool called Slipstream that the rest of the powers are based on so its a serious DPS hit if the boss moves out of the DoT, upon which the casting of those other powers rest in order to make up the damage.
While the Titan Powers and the Bahamut/Phoenix powers remain mobile, the rest of them require more thought and their use will be dictated by the segment of the raid itself.

This is no longer a "rotation", its a use dependent upon the segment you're in.

The old "rotations" were actual based on the Cooldowns of the various abilities, their duration timers as to when the ability expired, or in the case of DoTs like Bio/Miasma when they had to be re-applied. THAT is what a rotation really was, and it really didn't matter what part or segment of the raid you were in other than perhaps when a Boss Mob would disappear, but just as often as not they would be replaced with adds of a segment with a DPS check to avoid a wipe so all you did was just continued on the same part of the rotation you left off on, just retargeting to the new target.

THAT is a rotation.

The way SMN plays now is NOT a rotation at all, you can pretty much with the exception of Ifrit and Garuda (and associated powers) use the others in any order you want to, and those two aren't "rotation" dependent, but rather specifically dependent on whether you can use them or not in that particular segment of THAT particular raid.

That's not a rotation anymore, so... what exactly is the point of a "2 minute" rotation when the only thing it applies to are buffs, and not the classes at all. Obviously if this is the way "redesigns" are being done, they aren't "going with a new rotation" schedule, they are ditching rotations entirely.

So I honestly don't see a point in scheduling Buff rotations either if this is the direction it's going. If you're gonna ditch it all, then just ditch it all.

Now I will also state I don't have a personal preference on this at all. I am merely stating my observations of this version of it vs the old version.

[Averax]

The 2 min meta is a symptom of the encounter design formula, tbh.

[xbahax92]

They're acting like boss fights are super special fun to begin with, 2min meta is not even the real fault here. Mechanics are being reused more often lately and while it is true that some people complain on a regular basis on the forums, nobody told them to release clunky jobs. People ask and leave feedback for healing jobs over 2 expansions. Now he's blaming the playerbase? Come on Yoshida, you can do better.

[Derio]

Its hard to undo the 2 minute meta since all jobs are balanced around that burst of dps. Even if you changed a few of those jobs and they dont meet the meta dps requirement or even slightly underperform there will be outrage.

[Turtledeluxe]

Can I get a source of the drop in subs?

Generally revenue declining and data indicating players are not active combine to mean subscriptions are down. Unless you want to say the MMO part of SE is down due to people not spending in the shop which is an lol argument you can have, I don't really care. The truth is no you won't see a source because even if SE straight up said it you'd find some excuse.

Additionally you can other insights such as Steam, Twitch to see engagement is down. Some part of this is post pandemic effect but the point is that EW is failing to keep people.engaged.

[Volgia]

Generally revenue declining and data indicating players are not active combine to mean subscriptions are down. Unless you want to say the MMO part of SE is down due to people not spending in the shop which is an lol argument you can have, I don't really care. The truth is no you won't see a source because even if SE straight up said it you'd find some excuse.

Additionally you can other insights such as Steam, Twitch to see engagement is down. Some part of this is post pandemic effect but the point is that EW is failing to keep people.engaged.

So you're saying that because you feel it's dying, then it's dying. Like what metric are you trying to use? I don't play on Steam, and twitch doesn't feel like a good metric to see if people are playing or not. Like I agree that this expansion feels less engaging the ShB and SB, but I don't see the evidence of it dying.