Breaking the Majority’s Silence: A Job Criticism Thread

[Shougun]

PVP shows you don't need complex rotations to have unique action identity.

I almost universally prefer the PvP kits to the PvE kits lol. There are a few PvE kits that I also like, but the jobs are so well expressed in so few buttons in PvP that I just appreciate them on multiple levels. That and I'm not really particular for loads of buttons, I just want really 'cool' buttons that make me feel like whatever its trying to convey.

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Also I don't really see exactly what OP is claiming happens, in the sense of it at least. By that I mean someone may feel X job is imbalanced and wants to be on equal power footing but rarely, if ever, is it said "I want the same kit". It just happens to be a reliable way to balance jobs when they are more similar.

Naturally people will be upset if some jobs are just better at X Y Z given their unique aspect shinning in whatever scene fits it best, so balance will always be do you lose or do you lose lol. Personally I'd like to balance ( . . . .) the losing between unique and not so far that only jerks and the highest end of content (ultimate) will kick you if you're not optimally spec'd (in this case optimally job selected). I can't see how you can avoid the highest end having an impact here, since every element matters and uniqueness, if combat represented, will produce variations that fit better in specific situations (though the stat party bonus thing helps avoid stacking).

PERSONALLY, I actually believe the / most / likely culprit of why things are similar are not casual players who play BLM like an ice-mage, as is often suggested. Those players were going to be bad anyways, and wouldn't know what to suggest or why for. I believe most likely its people who are pinching %s via log websites and care about the top end of content (whether they are dreaming of doing it or actually doing it). Imo, balance is most irrelevant in the casual MSQ-only space.

So if we had to point fingers (we dont. . . haha), going to point at the space where numbers actually start to matter- and that's not where your ice mage is. Not that it was OP's point on casual vs savage, just that I see savage people ask for better balance and then more often then not also are the ones that will blame casual players for the homogenization.

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Anyway my 'silent' take (lol post count, yee real silent), from a willfully casual player* is that I wish to see, without huge damage to balance (but some can be given up), the jobs gain more identity. Outside of combat I also would really like to see some roleplay elements too, such that when I have a job selected I really feel that I'm that job both in AND out of combat.

Due to WoW's The War Within expansion stuff I was just curious how they were doing, and immediately I was slapped with tangible differences. Whether I was gaining cool self mount shape shifting, walking on water, teleporting myself around, seeing through walls and gliding, or sneaking and unlocking doors and chests, or using racials, it was a big difference. They're adding warbands which will essentially make WoW have a job system like FFXIV.. On top of the natural roleplay that they have, and fairly large differences in classes (which does lead to some specs being forbidden from high end content), they are also adding an additional element of roleplay in hero talents.. Not that I think we should have racials, but just an example. An example that doesn't end, as the crafting classes often have cool roleplay gimmicks, and they have that whole toy chest full of neat world interactions.

That and they are making Dragon Riding mechanic mount default, a system likely inspired by GW2's best in MMO class system (and one I have been asking FFXIV to add, prior to GW2 even adding it... lol).

While playing WoW I was instantly missing a lot of things in FFXIV (and left mostly not with "wow WoW is better" but "Man I feel WoW is getting hungry, has these neat things and is going to take other best of class elements from FFXIV, and other games, meanwhile I'm not certain FFXIV can or will even bother to do similar... I want to play FFXIV /over/ WoW but I am respecting where they are at and more particularly where they are going- it sounds like a fantastic plan", so I'm not saying "WoW better" but definitely felt I wish to see FFXIV reverse uno'd the thing Blizzard was famous for (even WoW recently stating some 'respecting player's time' bits that FFXIV is generally more famous for).


*(have and used to play MMOs more end game, I have for many years now chose not to as I don't feel it's a good use of time to value of fun anymore)

[Valknut]

PVP shows you don't need complex rotations to have unique action identity.

This is very true, but currently in PVP I have button bloat and no job identity.

[Sebazy]

There are 19 jobs. But let's be generous and include Blue Mage (20 jobs), the new jobs (22) and the new limited job (23).

Let's divide 2 years and 7 months or 929 days (the time between Endwalker relase and Dawntrail release) by 23. The result is 40.39 days spent designing each class/job, which is a lot.

Let's assume this task is split between 2 people doing 11.5 jobs each. The result is 80.78 days spent designing each job.

The point is, unless they are doing a lot else with their time, they would have plenty of time to do this task.

That's just not how MMO development works =(

It takes a long time to brainstorm up a cloud and basic design brief

It then takes a long time to integrate those ideas into a somewhat cohesive and functioning whole

It then takes a long time to tune that whole into something that functions and isn't going to faceplant/break the game

It then takes a long time to validate that whole and make sure the designer isn't being blinded by their own impressions

It then takes a long time to QA and bug fix said whole

It then takes a long time to adjust and correct things based on QA feedback

It then takes a long time to QA yet again etcetc. I could go on.

MMOs take utterly insane amounts of time to develop and evolve. Suggesting that 40 days is 'plenty of time' is wildly removed from reality sir. Vanilla WoW took ~4-5 years, Everquest took 3 years, FFXIV 1.0 took ~5-6 years, FFXIV 3.0 took ~3 years, BnS took ~5 years, SWTOR took ~5 years, SWG took at least 3 years and so forth. Despite all that time in the oven, how many MMOs can you look at on release that felt complete right out of the gate?

And this is before I cover the absolute horror story that is creative block and the other human factors of grinding so much out of such a small team over a long period of time.

Ps, keep in mind that I used to work for Bullfrog/EA etc. Been there, done that etc. This isn't conjecture on my part.

[Sebazy]

Another thing to add, trying to assume anything of the silent majority is a complete fallacy, why? Because they are silent.

Are the silent majority raiders that clear their tier then log out for the week right there and then in the duty instance? Are they the casuals that are happy to spend an hour a week doing the gear treadmill and nothing else? Or are they the people that tried ARR for a bit on release and decided it wasn't for them because the GCD felt too slow and classes felt too basic? (The majority of my old Everquest/WoW crew fell into that category btw).

We certainly won't ever know, so making assumptions that you are somehow their voice is just flat out wrong. Even SE are unlikely to have the complete picture given that the silent types who don't enjoy the game are going to simply vote with their feet and move onto something else. In this regard, are the silent types that *are* happy with the game even the majority? Again, we'll likely never know the full numbers unless it somehow gets leaked out from SE themselves.

[Calysto]

That's just not how MMO development works =(

It takes a long time to brainstorm up a cloud and basic design brief

It then takes a long time to integrate those ideas into a somewhat cohesive and functioning whole

It then takes a long time to tune that whole into something that functions and isn't going to faceplant/break the game

It then takes a long time to validate that whole and make sure the designer isn't being blinded by their own impressions

It then takes a long time to QA and bug fix said whole

It then takes a long time to adjust and correct things based on QA feedback

It then takes a long time to QA yet again etcetc. I could go on.

MMOs take utterly insane amounts of time to develop and evolve. Suggesting that 40 days is 'plenty of time' is wildly removed from reality sir. Vanilla WoW took ~4-5 years, Everquest took 3 years, FFXIV 1.0 took ~5-6 years, FFXIV 3.0 took ~3 years, BnS took ~5 years, SWTOR took ~5 years, SWG took at least 3 years and so forth. Despite all that time in the oven, how many MMOs can you look at on release that felt complete right out of the gate?

And this is before I cover the absolute horror story that is creative block and the other human factors of grinding so much out of such a small team over a long period of time.

Ps, keep in mind that I used to work for Bullfrog/EA etc. Been there, done that etc. This isn't conjecture on my part.

I get it's "not that simple", but you're making too much of it too.
They have baselines that define most of it :
-Jobs ax X level should have ~Y potency for Z role
-Jobs for X expansion should get ~4 new toys

As for the Q/A, not breaking the game and "functioning as a whole", they most likely skimp on theses steps

[IDontPetLalas]

What makes you say that "As for the Q/A, not breaking the game and "functioning as a whole", they most likely skimp on theses steps"? I don't see the evidence of that, if we look at Sage for example- it wasn't missing any critical skills on delivery, not was it far above nor way below the other healers. Did it get some adjustments late? yes- but they were relatively minor.

I would also agree that job designers likely don't start off from absolutely zero, however there is nonetheless a design/discovery process, reviews, presentations, discussions, approvals- before anyone gets into the actual detailed design, coding, QA, etc so no , I honestly doubt that 40 day estimate follows Square's methodology.

[Maltothoris]

Well technically look at how long it took for SE to develop SGE and RPR. I’m on mobile atm so not sure if I can find the source but it took SGE 6 months to completely finish while it took RPR three months.

[TomsYoungerBro]

The jobs are mostly fine. People who want more complexity are in the minority by far.

No the hell we aren’t. Anyone who cares about 14’s gameplay at all and has any perspective at all thinks jobs are unreasonably boring and oversimplified.

The problem is the feedback loop itself. Every change that is critiqued has been followed by "Well this is what the players wanted". However, said people can never point to a past source on said feedback that gained any amount of notable traction (actually nobody points to any past source at all!).

This is exactly what I am referring to...What is the basis for CBU3's feedback loop? How can Yoshi P say "this is what the players asked for" when clearly the playerbase is split? Again, CBU3 needs to be better at filtering feedback and gaining proper player feedback to make changes.

[LilimoLimomo]

I don't play Samurai much as the mechanics of the class aren't really my thing, but I got the job to 90 the other day and decided to get the class all decked out with optimal hotbars, macros, etc so I could play it comfortably should the spirit take me. And I sat in front of a training dummy testing it out, seeing how it all felt.

Late in the process, there was a point where I was just doing the standard combo weaponskills without any oGCD's, and I was struck by how beautiful and elegant the animations for each of them was. I stopped caring about making things work and just spent time performing and admiring these weaponskills. And in the midst of this admiration, there was a feeling of sadness, of loss, that I had somehow never seen these before. It struck me as sad that oGCD's are in this class at all when their presence interrupts the flow of these elegant maneuvers. It struck me as disappointing to realize that most of the time my eyeballs are focused on my hotbar so that I can see the GCD, and thus I'm not truly experiencing the aesthetic of these animations. In effect, the animations of the samurai seem at odds with the mechanics of the game and job design, and there was a sadness in that, because watching those elegant slashes and thrusts were the most joy I had ever experienced with Samurai.

It made me want to play a different version of the class, one that was slower, more methodical, with more bandwidth to experience the beauty of the clean motions of each strike.

[Sebazy]

I get it's "not that simple", but you're making too much of it too.
They have baselines that define most of it :
-Jobs ax X level should have ~Y potency for Z role
-Jobs for X expansion should get ~4 new toys

As for the Q/A, not breaking the game and "functioning as a whole", they most likely skimp on theses steps

Simplifying down to flat potency only really works when you take a job in isolation. You need to factor in how jobs scale with each other as well, a task that in itself has spiralled as we've gotten more jobs over the years. I assume that this is the real reason why the whole piercing debuff thing was removed amongst other things.

As for them skimping, I think it's more a case of them diluting and homogenising everything to an extreme to minimise any risks of game breaking wombo combos springing up out of nowhere