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

[Valence]

- Square erases Job Flare/Flavor/Depth, because...

I think Xenosys had the right idea in one of his videos with the Cup of Balance(tm): in short, you cannot overfill the cup, and you have to balance between DPS checks, Encounter mechanical intricacies, and Job/battlesystem intricacies. If you overfill it then the balance gets out of hand and it starts being too difficult for a wide margin, or at least, the system gets caught flat footed so to speak, or too obnoxious.

Back in HW/SB we had a similarly sized Encounter Design and Job Design. Since ShB and they doubled down in EW on this, they immensely reduced the side of Job intricacies until it became very thin, in favor of increasing dramatically Fight Design and difficulty (in savage+). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that everything hasn't become insanely rigid due to the formulaic aspect of their approach, and I do believe we could get more varied encounters and whatnot without even touching this balance, but fact of the matter is they have chosen a paradigm where they put 99% of the focus exclusively on fight design, difficulty and more intricate mechanics at the expense of job intricacy which only gets to deal with minimum welfare. For instance, if we had to clear the recent savage tiers, or worse, the last 2 ultimates with the HW/SB battlesystem and job kits, well, you can imagine the nightmare.

I do however wish for them to go back to a more balanced approach between Encounter Design and Job Design though, for the very reason you explain. I do agree 100%. I play for the battle system and the jobs first and foremost.

Question: " Does your favorite Job(s) give you the best Job-Gameplay experience in the current EW Expansion or even the current Patch 6.55 compared to another Patch or Expansion? "

I do not know if the question was only rhetorical or not, but no, my favorite job has stopped giving me satisfaction since ShB butchered it irremediably to the ground, and EW didn't improve anything on what people said would have been a " basic, fresh start". It's still as dull and its identity is at the opposite of what it used to be.

[CelestiCer]

I do not know if the question was only rhetorical or not...(snip)

Yay I meant it, due to the Job play-rate argument statistics being overused and then they go " Oh see! look how star-sparkling-flawless the Job designs are cause its being played so much. Look! they cast Glare so much they love it! ". Do people really think Job-Design peaked in EW or at this specific patch 6.57? Would like to hear Yes/No because... insert answer

I think Xenosys had the right idea in one of his videos with the Cup of Balance(tm)... (snip)

Seen Xenosys's take and agreed. There's only a certain amount of Inputs/Actions/Movements/Things players on Average even at high-end players can remember and execute a mix of all of it at the same time with the limitations of our Job-Kits. Gotta strike a balance and credit to the Dev's? the Fights are released overall in a good working state ( lets not talk about P8S and NIN issues with TOP release...) all things considered.

Back in HW/SB we had a similarly sized Encounter Design and Job Design. Since ShB and they doubled down in EW on this, they immensely reduced the side of Job intricacies until it became very thin, in favor of increasing dramatically Fight Design and difficulty (in savage+)...(snip)

This is XIV history that I know very little of as I joined late in end of SHB, its good to share insight. Hmm... Could take an angle? where you compare EW Savage encounters, compare them to previous expansions ( Coils/Alexander/Omega/Eden ) and how much more difficult it has become with mechanics and features such as hitbox increased, melee uptime, pulling as a Tank - then see if that difficulty we reached in EW justified all the simplifications we received... I would say with some fights I done at minilvl? Like Halicarnassus, Shiva Eden, Oracle, Kefka, ExDeath, a lot of streamlining wasn't required? or as well thought through as possible. I leave out Ultimate for the actual experts on it, as I found no joy in doing them, thus I have no expertise on Ultimate.

I do however wish for them to go back to a more balanced approach between Encounter Design and Job Design though, for the very reason you explain. I do agree 100%. I play for the battle system and the jobs first and foremost.

This is my main gripe with it all indeed. It doesn't feel balanced, it feels very heavily loaded on mechanics and as we know? most of XIV's mechanics are dull unless you go High-end content, making most the content extra dull... I know Square can do better then this, they even showed they have. It's really a matter of if they will. There is no negative to be had for Job-Gameplay to be improved for the Players-Experience, mhm

[ty_taurus]

I wish there was a place for more chaotic fights like King Mog Ex. It doesn’t have to be every extreme or savage or beyond, but if there was a good mix of more puzzle like fights and more chaotic ones, there’d at least be more options for players with different tastes.

[Raikai]

I wish there was a place for more chaotic fights like King Mog Ex. It doesn’t have to be every extreme or savage or beyond, but if there was a good mix of more puzzle like fights and more chaotic ones, there’d at least be more options for players with different tastes.

No wonder why Barb EX is regarded as the best trial in EW.

[Sani2341]

Yay I meant it, due to the Job play-rate argument statistics being overused and then they go " Oh see! look how star-sparkling-flawless the Job designs are cause its being played so much. Look! they cast Glare so much they love it! ". Do people really think Job-Design peaked in EW or at this specific patch 6.57? Would like to hear Yes/No because... insert answer

Not sure when the actual peak was, But what I can say for absolutely certain is that all the jobs I enjoyed during SB have been getting worse ever since ShB.

[OdinelStarrei]

Not sure when the actual peak was, But what I can say for absolutely certain is that all the jobs I enjoyed during SB have been getting worse ever since ShB.

You know...I was thinking, come on, there's no way that's true. Surely at least ONE of the jobs I've had a sincere interest in and played since HW aren't worse off.

PLD: Rearranged to fit the 2 min. I feel nothing.
WAR: Removed crit bonus/most management from gauge, removed stance dancing, just unkillable with no effort in casual content. Fell Cleave is the epitome of too much of a good thing makes you sick.
DRK: Oh my god.
GNB: How does adding a single extra cartridge make a job this tangibly worse to play.
DRG: Outside of the complete cock ups with Mirage Dive/Jump, this job remains the least damaged, but some additions (second charge of Life Surge) feels unneeded. Original Geirsokgul is my preferred implementation of BotD. It won't matter anyway because it's getting gutted in a few months, so I can just assume I'm not going to have a good time.
SAM: Refuse to play SAM.
BRD: The Bloodletter change was enough. Removing interactivity within a kit is a pet peeve. Can't wait until DoTs are deleted entirely next patch, am i right guys.
SMN: why
SCH: Oh my god.

Reaper is new so I guess I'm not allowed to cite it...I guess MCH??? Was pretty ambivalent to the EW "changes", and the only reason I'm not more harsh on it now is because I still have a grudge over the Blood Weapon/Hypercharge stack mess. I know that someone out there is cursing me though for saying that. Old MCH with the procs, casts and ammo was actually really unique, I liked it and preferred it over heat, I just didn't know what I had until it was gone.

Eh...

[Sani2341]

WAR: Removed crit bonus/most management from gauge, removed stance dancing, just unkillable with no effort in casual content. Fell Cleave is the epitome of too much of a good thing makes you sick.

SCH: Oh my god.

Yeah. self healing on WAR was, imho, much more interesting when you had the choice between fellcleave or healing. having both makes both feel less impactfull.

And yeah, poor Selene. hopefully she's comofrting miasma and bio in the cut ability jail.

[Oizen]

GNB: How does adding a single extra cartridge make a job this tangibly worse to play.

IMO I don't think its the 3rd bullet that makes GNB feel bad, its the fact Double Down costs 2 bullets. GNB's resource generation is surprisingly strict, between a 2m burst you'll only risk overcapping exactly once. Which means in any fight with downtime, or just mistakes on your end can make it very easy to not have enough bullets by the burst causing Doubledown to drift.
If Double Down was just a no-cost GCD, or just cost one bullet, I think GNB would feel significantly more forgiving to play.

[Aravell]

Do people really think Job-Design peaked in EW or at this specific patch 6.57? Would like to hear Yes/No because... insert answer

No for me, every peak iteration I enjoyed of a job comes from an expansion prior, EW completely ruined every job for me.

The iterations I enjoyed the most are SB PLD, HW WAR, HW DRK, ShB GNB, SB WHM (lilies aside), HW SCH, SB AST, SB MNK, HW DRG, HW NIN, ShB SAM, HW BRD, HW MCH, ShB DNC, HW BLM, HW SMN, ShB RDM.

I think HW really was peak job design to me (except PLD, HW PLD was awful).

[Valence]

I disagree with Xeno’s cup analogy because as I said in my previous response, my job is not fun in the first few parts of DSR either. The content is still not making my experience fun. Maybe this is true for other roles.

To be honest, SCH did have problems in ShB that were fixed in EW, but it was at the expense of removing even more job depth. My best experience was probably in some 4.xx patch.

You're speaking of fun (subjective), Xenosys is speaking about complexity/intricacy and difficulty overload.

I do not have fun in ultimates either because like you I care more about job intricacy than encounter mechanics or even difficulty (to a point).

This is XIV history that I know very little of as I joined late in end of SHB, its good to share insight. Hmm... Could take an angle? where you compare EW Savage encounters, compare them to previous expansions ( Coils/Alexander/Omega/Eden ) and how much more difficult it has become with mechanics and features such as hitbox increased, melee uptime, pulling as a Tank - then see if that difficulty we reached in EW justified all the simplifications we received... I would say with some fights I done at minilvl? Like Halicarnassus, Shiva Eden, Oracle, Kefka, ExDeath, a lot of streamlining wasn't required? or as well thought through as possible. I leave out Ultimate for the actual experts on it, as I found no joy in doing them, thus I have no expertise on Ultimate.

The hardest fights used to be the puzzle mechanic fights in savage usually, so the last fight of each tier. You can compare them to current 4S p2, 8S p2, 12S p2, etc. Those aren't the hardest anymore by far. Mechanically, things like Superchain, Gorgons, or even Pinax etc (aka doorbosses), can feel a lot more involved, fast paced and very stringent on mobility (which is where big hitboxes and less cast times are probably meant to help... rip RDM/BLM). More generally, I feel that the difficulty has increased tenfold for the earlier fights of tiers rather than the last fights. P5S was noticeable already but P9S has felt especially gruesome to prog for a first fight and required for most of the people I talked to, including myself, almost twice or thrice the time then older equivalent fights like O5S, O9S, etc... Even some extreme trials have increased in difficulty, like Golbez notably. Even P1S, while easy, was a lot harder than the very first savage fights of older expansions like A1S, O1S (lol), or even E1S, just because it had an actual puzzle mechanic (a puzzle in a first fight??? even if easier, that's literally never heard of so far). Now take a look at P10S and tell me if that wasn't gruesome for a 2nd fight in a tier?

I'm not saying it's systematic and noticeable everywhere, and difficulty is a very subjective thing, but it directly ties to my own experience. I am a semi hardcore raider that has raided since Stormblood, and the more expansions released and the more I felt that it become actually difficult for me to follow and learn. Maybe I'm getting old? But more seriously, especially Abyssos and Anabaseios have proven excruciatingly painful for me when it came to my most hated mechanic so far that is Superchain (I'm still unable to properly trudge through 2A and 2B without callouts and delaying burst). It's been especially frustrating and depressing because jobs and especially the battle system is supposed to be easier right? Yes, but no. It took me long enough to actually admit that yes, fights are getting harder, are shifting in paradigm and asking for a lot more precise DDR paying attention to countless things at the same time on the platform and the encounter compared to previously: you used to pay a lot more attention to your rotation (and various things like enmity for tanks, MP for casters or rPhys, etc), while nowadays a lot of your attention is required on the arena itself. My point is that, I enjoy RPG mechanics and player agency and rotational choice much more than I value encounter mechanics. Incidentally, it also makes me very good at the former and pretty average to sometimes passable at the latter.

Needless to say, I hate that shift.

Note on Ultimates: I have progged UwU halfway, TEA past phase 2, and DSR up to time reset. This has been enough for me to say that those fights, while definitely very difficult mechanically on top of additional things to deal with like short mini bursts and multi target scenari, just do not respect my time. You eventually end up having to go through 10+ minutes of fight again and again and again just to have the luxury of maybe see 10 more seconds of prog where you're currently stuck at. I feel this is artificially inflated difficulty at best, and I do not find this enjoyable, but a lot of people seem to, so props to them.

This is my main gripe with it all indeed. It doesn't feel balanced, it feels very heavily loaded on mechanics and as we know? most of XIV's mechanics are dull unless you go High-end content, making most the content extra dull... I know Square can do better then this, they even showed they have. It's really a matter of if they will. There is no negative to be had for Job-Gameplay to be improved for the Players-Experience, mhm

This also indirectly ties in with what I said above: while it's true for high end challenging content, it's not for casual content (roulettes, storymodes, dungeons etc). Difficulty has remained at a baseline level and hasnt much changed over expansions. If anything, the EW Alliance Raids have been a boring cakewalk comparatively to the more involved Mhach, Ivalice and Nier. Meanwhile, there is little left of the battle system and jobs have at least for some of them been very dumbed down, and/or dullified.

It seems to feed into a toxic logic of player castes where casuals stay in casual content, midcore players in extreme trials at best, and hardcore in savage and potentially ultimate.

YoshiP said it himself: go play ultimate if you're not happy with easier difficulty segments..........