XIV EW Job-Gameplay is Terrible... Why?

[Rekh]

It's quite simple really. It's because the original design intent for FFXIV jobs is a diverse spread of jobs that roughly do the same thing while playing completely differently with different minor advantages which could be mixed and matched to make different ideal compositions for different encounters.

Yeah blame casuals while the raiders are the ones who whined required jobs like bard with piercing damage for savage content; as well as the fact that balancing ultimates (with very strict dps requirements) is much easier with homogenization. But yes, it's the dirty casuals /sarcasm.

[Supersnow845]

I have. And yeah, in every single game, leveling healers is boring. That's why you level them in dungeons. You have every single class maxed out. Why do I have to explain that to you?

You know healers are required for all content right

The whole system falls apart if you level them in dungeons then ignore them

[Nabril]

Knew it was bad, but only recently I tried healer? It feels terrible only after a few days...

My job got hit with eight simplifications ( give or take I'm losing count honestly ) and I tried looking up the casts done on my Job on why its so bad in late Endwalker patches or why it feels so more horrendous...

Here you can see my Job has turned into 1/5th Hissatsu: Shinten spamming gameplay. While most people who pick up Samurai as a side melee Job? on average they won't maximize the amount of Shinten's they can cast or even realize how much is being spammed in burst windows, but even then? the only thing to really weave is this skill. Here's a snapshot of a burst window... Its boring. And that's just Samurai after changes going into late Endwalker.

So what would you suggest? They stop changing everything with each expansion? No more new spells? Keep everyone the same level so they don't have to rebalance everything? Genuinely asking.

They drop a new expansion and we're all still level 90. No new abilities because that requires that they remove old abilities which also angers everyone. If they add new abilities without removing or streamlining old abilities, console controllers will need 15 more buttons. BLM got really crazy with Enochian and Fire IV. That needed to be streamlined in order to add even more spells or it would have been too many buttons. You see that right?

So I ask again, what do you suggest with each new expansion? Zero new spells and nothing taken away and remain at the same level so everything can remain exciting and complex and balanced?

Or do you prefer a complete revamp with all new abilities and all new complexities each and every single time we get a new expansion? That way nothing gets "streamlined". You start out having to learn a whole new job even though you're still playing SAM. It's got to be one or the other or we just run out of buttons or face streamlining.

I still have never seen this question answered. What do you hope to see in a new expansion? All the same buttons or all completely new buttons? Old or new?

[ty_taurus]

I still have never seen this question answered. What do you hope to see in a new expansion? All the same buttons or all completely new buttons? Old or new?

I can only speak from my own perspective, but I think generally it can be agreed upon that it can depend on the job first and foremost. For some jobs, expanding on relatively flat or linear aspects to their existing gameplay. For others, revamping old or outdated mechanics and elements. You can also consider Adding new problems to solve, and new tools on various jobs to solve those new problems. And perhaps its something that affects the overall vibe of the expansion.

If we take a look at something like Honkai Star Rail, for example, which got it's first major patch after its initial launch where we're visiting a new planet filled with new characters, we can see from the new characters, relics, and light cones (weapons), as well as rumors of upcoming character mechanics, that the game is expanding on two mechanics that were previously quite simple: breaking enemies by attacking their elemental weaknesses, and both the generation of and consumption of skill points. Misha for example has a passive that he gains stacks in every time any character consumes a skill point, which adds more hits to his ultimate. Sparkle, who's coming in a couple weeks, is supposedly increasing the skill point cap from 5 to 7 for the party while she's in it, and can restore 4 skill points with her ultimate, something we've never seen yet.

If we make a comparison to FFXIV, we could view the addition of job gauges as a similar type of gameplay update that we got back during SB. Something ripe with potential for them to take a similar approach with would be revamping MP, a resource that is literally functionless on almost every job in the game.

[mallleable]

I didn't say aesthetics aren't important. I'm pointing out that form and fuction are different things. There's nothing wrong with liking a job for its form, but it doesn't mean that the function is any more unique.

I personally liked SCH because of the function, I loved juggling the DoTs and micromanaging the fairy. I did not pick SCH because "owo cute fairy", so I'm losing out when function is erased. I don't have a favourite job because the jobs have all started functioning more and more alike each other, and that's a problem for people like me who put more importance into function than form.

Right, your post kinda read that way to me, sorry. What I would like to see happen with jobs is that form becomes deeply intertwined with function.

[SargeTheSeagull]

I found this week's titanman alt.

[Gemina]

Many people use this statement to try and prove that every job is still unique, but this statement us flawed. If I give you a choice between 4 identical desk mats, one blue, one green, one red and one yellow, you'd definitely have a preference, despite all of the choices being identical desk mats.

People can prefer a job because of aesthetics, but that doesn't change the fact that some jobs play almost identically. Like how the burst profile of MNK and NIN is very close to the same, or how you can play SCH and SGE by using all the similar buttons in the same order.

I'll tell you what. How about I mention some unique advantages/disadvantages the jobs I enjoy bring? I'll also do it without using metaphors, which should only be used to facilitate expression, not establishing a point.

NIN: The most magically based DPS job that is not a caster. Magical damage is calculated differently than physical attacks. No other job has anything like the mudra system, nor does any melee job have the ranged offensive capability as NIN. Forcing them out of melee range doesn't slow them down one bit.
Disadvantages involve being the weakest defensively out of the melee jobs. Shade Shift is on a long cooldown. Shakuchi requires a lot of skill to pull off, resulting in still taking the hit anyway. Still a great mobility tool.

MNK: It is the most flexible of the melee jobs, able to shift in and out of ST/AoE at any point in their rotation. It has the most self-sustain out of any DPS job. Bloodbath + wind is a respectable regen that can be combined with Earth's mitigation along with their already high defensive stat.
Weakness involves next to no ranged ability outside enlightenment, which still requires the total expenditure of their secondary resource. Lacks ogcds, but could be seen as a positive due to their speed trait lowering their GCD.

SAM: lives outside the 2-minute meta and instead focuses on sustained DPS resulting in the only job outside BLM that isn't a pump n dump of nearly their entire kit. The job continues right where it left off after boss transitions.
Weakness involves a lackluster resource spender with the kenki gauge. EW changes to this and loss of Kaiten and Seigan as spenders really hurt this job.

DRG: The only job in the game with combo extensions, which also increases the margin for error. Blood of the Dragon is unique in the sense that instead of building a gauge towards a big spender, it is instead unlocked and the DRG is granted access to their most powerful abilities as long as it is active and they are off CD. This includes Stardiver, which in my opinion is the most beautiful and satisfying skill to use in the entire game.
Weakness involves having zero ability to mitigate incoming damage. Their rotation is very fixed with no variation or flexibility. Lol DRG is still a thing.

SCH: Their fairy to this very day still provides some of the most useful utility in the game with sustained heals that does not result in a DPS loss to the SCH. Much of their utility involves combining their skills for increased effectiveness. Expedient started as the biggest meme of EW and turned out to be so strong it needed to be nerfed. It is the only healer with a reliable movement DPS skill in Ruin 2.
Weakness involves a ton of jank and loss of being the healer with access to the most offensive skills throughout the expansions. It's the only healer without a strong bounce back ability like macrocosmos, pnuema, and bell.

WHM: It's gimmick is being the only healer without a niche. But this healer is so baseline, that it serves as the blueprint for all the other healers in the game. It does have Misery, benediction, and cure 3. It can be argued that Misery is a DPS return skill, and the other two mentions are overkill in most situations. Be that as they may, these are still skills unique to WHM and they are fun to use.
Weakness is lack of offensive raid utility and poor mitigation. They also don't have a reliable offensive movement skill. SCH has ruin 2, SGE can build stacks of toxicon, and AST can hold on to lord until needed. WHM has nothing outside clipping Dia and Misery.

I could go on, but I don't have extensive experience with tanks, casters, and ranged DPS other than DNC, but I'm certain I can find things unique about these jobs as well. Jobs like RDM and SMN I don't like because they don't fit my playstyle. It's far easier to just say all jobs play the same and there is nothing unique about them. I find such statements to be parroting, especially when there is nothing being said to elaborate on why a player feels as such. Just say what everyone else is saying and rake in those sweet, sweet likes.

You did mention MNK and NIN having the same burst profile, but I don't find their burst phases to be close in even the slightest. NIN is FAR more complicated than MNK due to mudra inputs and ogcd weaving. As for SGE and SCH I have played both jobs extensively up through EX/unreal (this is as far as I go). While the skillsets seem identical on paper, these two jobs absolutely do not play, nor feel the same. SGE is unique in having their addersting resource built up by having their shields break. No other healer has that, including SCH. They also have to pay attention to burst windows as it is the most opportune time to use phelgma. They also have to pay attention to this skill so it does not overcap.

[Supersnow845]

^the problem is we could all come up with “well the classes are theoretically different” but not much of it amounts to a whole lot when the game encourages you to play the same, like sure expedient is a movement speed up but 9 times out of 10 you treat it the same way you treat temperance, or sure you can have someone on the other side of the arena get hit by whispering dawn because you placed the fairy there but what does that matter when physis can hit the next instance over anyway

A lot of the skill differences amount to pointless fluff that gives the appearance of doing something different while they all end up doing exactly the same thing, like ever since the stat squish magical and physical damage are functionally calculated the same anyway

[CelestiCer]

So what would you suggest? They stop changing everything with each expansion? No more new spells? Keep everyone the same level so they don't have to rebalance everything? Genuinely asking.

To give a very rough metaphor... Take " Chess ", a very complex game with its existing pieces and slowly turn each Rook, Bishop, Knight, Queen into Pawns... you'd imagine the game with such Depth, played by mostly casual rated players becoming boring... To answer your question: I want homogenization preferably to stop of which Square show no sign to do so, that would be at least a start.

Yes I play Samurai. Not anymore cause of Loving it's Design vs Aesthetics and a Melee that slide-casts lots. All they did for me was add AoE versions of existing skills that could have been added as upgraded versions and not adding Bloat and I think they could have done this with so many other Job skills...

Current Button Bloat doesn't halt players to clear all content even on controller. These issues can be solved by suggestions made to consolidate/merge/fuse skills that Dev's ignore. More for the sake of more is equally meaningless as Less for the sake of Less regarding Buttons which is what we see allover our Jobs. ( Why do we still have Shield Bash again? ) Dev's can add Job-features creatively while keeping it player-friendly. Even our Gauge Resources has been made or is released in a laughably dull state.

There is definitely a group of players who would love XIV a lot more if it had something more to offer through its Job-Designs, even as optionality to master and a good portion of them, specially Healers? are forced to swim in " Shallow " waters. It isn't shocking that plenty of them after few years are asking for some " Depth ".

[ty_taurus]

There is definitely a group of players who would love XIV a lot more if it had something more to offer through its Job-Designs, even as optionality to master and a good portion of them, specially Healers? are forced to swim in " Shallow " waters. It isn't shocking that plenty of them after few years are asking for some " Depth ".

The "Shallow waters" being the few drops of water that got on the floor while I was doing the dishes that will make my sock slightly damp when I inevitably step on them.