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

[CelestiCer]

...The hardest fights used to be the puzzle mechanic fights in savage usually, so the last fight of each tier. / More generally, I feel that the difficulty has increased tenfold for the earlier fights of tiers rather than the last fights... (snip)

The Puzzle-type Fights in EW were not exciting for me & definitely do not feel difficult to do, at least not vs E4/8/12S. Rather? I believe its difficulty is loaded towards the blind-prog part of it vs player execution after its puzzled out. (with recording tools + reviewing footage etc). P3/5/10S stood out for me as the harder encounters. coincidently also the once I loved the most.

(snip) 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.

Agreed. I dislike that Mastery over your rotation or Job nuances (of what's left) isn't made satisfying in EW or I sense it not being the devs goal vs optimizing the joy out of your ASWD buttons - movement. Here's my hotbar setup on how I do PvE content. You might notice things are gone? It's because its to dumb... Just Feint and Thirdeye every raidwide, don't even need to know if its ready it probably lines up. Don't need to look at anything, just faceroll.

Note on Ultimates: I have progged UwU halfway, TEA past phase 2, and DSR up to time reset. / 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. (snip)

DSR up until phase 2 is where I was like " Okey Ultimate is not for me ". Not because its to easy or to difficult? it doesn't respect my time for titles and ugly Katana's I don't care for. My experience was with a group that forced us to watch a screenshared-Discord and reviewing recorded pulls we did, explaining each movement of each partymember... at this point I don't even feel like I'm playing XIV at all vs mind-rehearsing an excessively long dance. Props indeed for people who like it, it's not for me.

I wished Job mastery was more rewarding or felt more satisfying vs the only PhD you need in this game which is " Just don't die forehead ".

[Grizzlpaw]

Imagine a world where WHM plays like SMN.

Instead of rotating between summons you rotate between elements. Earth, Air, Water, and Holy. Even if we're still functionally just pressing 1111 in different flavors like SMN does, it would still do a lot to break up the monotony. SMN is known for being a great job to learn mechanics with, so we don't need to worry about players being overwhelmed.

Healers have such bloated healing kits that barely get used, and such barren DPS kits that consume 80% of their gameplay. This can't be the best SE can do. Even as a profit-maximizing strategy I refuse to believe this is the most optimal path SE can take.

[Supersnow845]

Imagine a world where WHM plays like SMN.

Instead of rotating between summons you rotate between elements. Earth, Air, Water, and Holy. Even if we're still functionally just pressing 1111 in different flavors like SMN does, it would still do a lot to break up the monotony. SMN is known for being a great job to learn mechanics with, so we don't need to worry about players being overwhelmed.

Healers have such bloated healing kits that barely get used, and such barren DPS kits that consume 80% of their gameplay. This can't be the best SE can do. Even as a profit-maximizing strategy I refuse to believe this is the most optimal path SE can take.

Counterpoint SMN is hot garbage and should only be used as a template for “how not to do any class, even a healer”

[Grizzlpaw]

Counterpoint SMN is hot garbage and should only be used as a template for “how not to do any class, even a healer”

I agree. I don't ask for SMN level difficulty because I enjoy current SMN. I ask because it's literally the bare minimum that SE could do. Even if you're the most turbo casual player on the planet who refuses to accept any amount of complexity on your healer because "Healer's job is to heal", A SMN level rotation is so brain-off that no one would have any grounds to complain.

As fair as compromises go, this is the least SE could do.

[Nizzi]

I agree. I don't ask for SMN level difficulty because I enjoy current SMN. I ask because it's literally the bare minimum that SE could do. Even if you're the most turbo casual player on the planet who refuses to accept any amount of complexity on your healer because "Healer's job is to heal", A SMN level rotation is so brain-off that no one would have any grounds to complain.

As fair as compromises go, this is the least SE could do.

I think I would legitimately argue that all four healers have more complex rotations than SMN does because inherently what makes a caster "complex" to me within XIV is how you optimize your movement and casting, and SMN only has that present within like 3 casts in its 60s loop.
I don't care to make the case for all of them because I think it's actually funny when you compare SMN to it's sibling SCH, and how SCH is literally just the old ARR Arcanist's DPS kit still (disregarding all of the removed parts like the Miasma line, Bane and Shadowflare.)

Optimally, SCH has 3 GCDs of non-cast free movement every 60s with 2 Bio refreshes and 1 Swiftcast Broil. Contrasting to SMN's 3 hardcasts per 60s (because you'll Swiftcast Slipstream, leaving you with 1 Ruin III and 2 Ruby Rites) that alone makes optimizing SCH much more complex, and doubly so when SCH's Aetherflow, which is another remaining part of the old Arcanist, is actual resource management with choice inherent in the kit, and SMN's is literally just "press button for damage :O" with zero resource management actually present anymore because of how you save Aetherflow for a minute so you have more to fit into the 2m burst. In ye olden days there was actually decision making in SMN's too because of the trade off between Energy Drain for MP (and 150 potency) versus Fester for flat damage that was double Energy Drain's; I bring that up because it's clearly an intended design of the original Aetherflow to have actual decision making versus what ACN/SMN have as Aetherflow now. Lastly, SCH wants to optimally hit its instant (Ruin II) as little as possible, and optimally SMN wants to cast as little as possible; of the two it is obviously much harder to fully optimize Ruin II out of SCH completely than it is to press Swiftcast and remove a hardcast from SMN's loop.

I wrote that not because I don't think you didn't know or understand that, I just can't believe the actual state of the current SMN lmao. And the fact that 5.0+ SCH is literally more complex than Endwalker SMN, and SCH has a 2 GCD DPS rotation it learns at level 2. The absolute state of this game rn lmfao

[ty_taurus]

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

Barb might honestly be the best EW encounter. Not that everything else sucks, cause there are other good fights too, but Barb is on another level. Even still though, there’s something about the Mog fight that I really enjoyed.

The enrage is something your party had control over. Healing the fight is more dynamic because there are more sources of damage on not only the tanks but other players too, had Esuna mechanics, lots of dodgeable AOEs that you can afford to get hit by since it’s easy to lose track of them and this easy to get clipped by them, and it’s also not a fight where all 8 party members spend 95% of the fight inside the boss’ asshole.

As mild as the impact of everyone huddled in one spot inside the boss mechanically is (to which I mean, it’s not an inherently bad thing in terms of gameplay feel) it’s so bizarre to me how that looks. I like for players to have different places they want to be in, where ranged can actually be ranged while melee stay melee. Ramuh EX is another example. You want to stay spread out most of the fight, ranged wants to bait charm by staying far away, but also has to leave the water during thunder strikes. There’s orbs to collect, a tether to break by collecting orbs and a reason to clip players with your AOE to break charm. Why can’t more fights encourage movement? And not hyper strict movement, but flexible movement.

[Supersnow845]

Energy drain is ironically super well designed for how much of a mess modern SCH is otherwise

The ability is the perfect potency to seriously make you consider that you want to use it (unlike ShB where it was a 10 potency gain to weave it into ruin 2 and 5 potency gain to clip it, ironically ShB SCH didn’t have enough weave windows because you had to use healing resources to create free weave space, a problem clip mage didn’t suffer from because clip mage barely weaved anything) but it’s not strong enough that you feel punished if you can’t afford to use it

SCH also has the right amount of totally free healing (blessing, illumination, whispering dawn, seraph and critdom) that organising energy drains is fulfilling without being overbearing on the cohealer

SCH is boring AF on the damage front but it’s far and away the best designed on the healing front

[SargeTheSeagull]

Before this subject gets buried, I’ll throw my favorite job iterations in for the sake of discussion:

PLD: 6.0-6.2
WAR: SB
DRK: HW
DRG: ShB
SAM: 6.0 (removing kaiten actually ruined the job)
MNK: 5.0-5.3
NIN: ShB (didn’t really play it before ShB)
BRD: SB by FAR. Damn near flawless
MCH: I have no favorite iteration.
DNC: ShB. Burst was more interesting due to melee/AoE procs during burst
BLM: tie between ShB and SB
RDM: ShB
SMN: ShB
SCH: SB
WHM: SB (this is more commentary on how bad WHM has always been than how good it’s ShB iteration was)
AST: SB. I miss old cards and buff extensions.

14’s job design USED to be second to none. I remember back in SB I got a friend of mine into the game specifically by talking about how fun jobs were. That’s is not the case at ALL anymore. In fact, it’s so bad at this point that I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who wants anything other than a visual novel.

Though I enjoyed more ShB versions of many jobs, on a more macro level I preferred job design in Stormblood. .

[LynxDubh]

I'll throw my favorite iterations as well. I'll only list ones I have clear preferences on since I don't enjoy Tanks or Melees.

DNC: EW - This one's my main. I was resistant to the changes at first with them losing melee, but the other skills made up for it. And this version has a goofy Improv that you can double weave, so that's fun.
BRD: SB - The kit was tied to the dots better and didn't have too many finishers.
MCH: SB/EW - I liked both equally.

SMN: SB - The job felt really good and tied to aetherflow. We are sorely missing a dot mage after its death. I like EW SMN, but it does not compare to SB.
RDM: SHB/EW - Hard to say, RDM has not changed much outside of gaining finishers, change to mana, and change to aoe skills. It's core gameplay is mostly the same since SB and it was good then as it is now.
BLM: ARR - This one is funny, I just like ARR BLM most for the proc gameplay. But BLM has been good throughout the multiple expac series and is in a great place now.

WHM: SB - Barring the tacked on lillies, This was the best WHM as it had its dps skills and a trim effective healing kit. I enjoyed Cleric Stance in HW, but I can see why it was not a great thing for the game.
SCH: SB - The kits were again, more trimmed and efficient. And Deployment Tactics was nice to use with Eye for an Eye.
AST: SB - My main at the time. Just the best AST has been, outside of having to deal with Sleeve Draw shenanigans.