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

[Raikai]

If you think that savage fights are about using 1-2-3 on a keyboard you're either making a joke, or have no idea what you are talking about to begin with.

Right now the complexity ('fun') of an encounter lies on its design and not on job gameplay... That does have a much more limited shelf life than if it was the other way around. You eventually clear the encounter and suddenly it goes from challenging to very easy (esp. for healers), because jobs aren't as engaging anymore. And then, moving on to the next fight, the amount of high end content is very limited, even if you decide to "go play Ultimates".

Ideally for the player engagement front, the job design and encounter complexity should be at balanced levels, but they are not.

[Valence]

If you think that savage fights are about using 1-2-3 on a keyboard you're either making a joke, or have no idea what you are talking about to begin with.

Are you moving the goalposts? I thought this was about the intricacies of playing combos and what they could bring for job gameplay. Hell, the whole thread is about "job gameplay", not "encounter gameplay".

Who spoke about savage encounter designs?

[strawberrycake]

It's a skill to press 1-2-3? kek

I have also absolutely no idea what the rest of your argument has to do with what we were talking about (Math? 2 min meta? What?).

YEah you're either a troll or missing the point.

[Quuoooote]

It's a skill to press 1-2-3? kek

I see this sentiment thrown out a lot, but yes, the general idea is supposed to be that maintaining the correct rotation while focusing on Extreme/Savage/Ultimate mechanics is a skill. If someone is capable of pressing their buttons perfectly even while they're being overwhelmed by unfamiliar mechanics they're just seeing for the first time and/or progging, that should indicate a level of muscle memory/job mastery that can only be attributed to player skill. Now, in Endwalker the focus has definitely shifted away from job complexity into mechanics dancing, so people take the combo gameplay for granted because of how easy it is to execute. But you can probably imagine a world (maybe in previous expansions, even!) where combos are more involved, or the rotation is harder with a heavy focus on oGCD management, or you have more individual responsibilities to juggle on your job (TP and MP management say hello) and more easily picture how even a 1-2-3 combo provides value in creating difficulty that allows for player skill to be expressed. At the end of the day, as minuscule as it is, even a 1-2-3 combo creates more of a skill floor and fail state than mindlessly pressing 1-1-1 over and over.

To tie this in to the topic of the thread, it's been a massive failing on Endwalker's part to shift all of the intricacies of combat into the mechanics dancing while leaving the players with nothing interesting to do. A lot of jobs can basically sleep through the majority of their rotation, because if it's not the burst window, you can bet they're doing bland 1-2-3 filler with maybe an occasional oGCD to dump gauge when at risk of overcapping. And that leads to the sentiment we have now, that "1-2-3 combos are so boring and bland and skill-less, we're better off making them into auto-combos!". Did people forget that healers have been tearing their hair out since Stormblood ended because they've been reduced to 1-1-1-1 gameplay for two entire expansions now? The solution is to move in the opposite direction: make jobs more involved and developed, give them more things to do, and the focus will be alleviated from the extremely barebones 1-2-3 combo gameplay we have going for us right now. Give players a skill ceiling that takes real time and effort to achieve, something to strive for, and people will actually want to engage with the gameplay to earn that mastery — that's hundreds of hours of content right there that EW is severely lacking because of how simplified the core gameplay has become.

[strawberrycake]

Did people forget that healers have been tearing their hair out since Stormblood ended because they've been reduced to 1-1-1-1 gameplay for two entire expansions now? The solution is to move in the opposite direction: make jobs more involved and developed, give them more things to do, and the focus will be alleviated from the extremely barebones 1-2-3 combo gameplay we have going for us right now. Give players a skill ceiling that takes real time and effort to achieve, something to strive for, and people will actually want to engage with the gameplay to earn that mastery — that's hundreds of hours of content right there that EW is severely lacking because of how simplified the core gameplay has become.

All this.

It's a skill to press 1-2-3? kek

I have also absolutely no idea what the rest of your argument has to do with what we were talking about (Math? 2 min meta? What?).

It's why the 2 min meta was bought up, it's why Savage was bought up. Healers are the exact reason why combo consolidation would never work and why the 2 min meta is INTRINSIC to this dicussion. Prior to it's existence, in ShB and SB, we had multiple burst windows to break up only pressing 1-2-3. And because of that It was and still is a skill so many have mastered to do while in content.

Sadly jobs like BRD, MCH and what not have been dumbed down to being near where healers are and healers are BEGGING to have better kits. It's why I said that the current state of the combo system is a symptom of the 2 min meta, the combo system is fine, the game needs to be better.

Like you honestly can't talk about the state of combat without the 2 min meta being bought up.

[Oizen]

I would say opt in would be the way to go for that sort of system. I cant imagine some combo button would feel good at all on a proc based job like Dancer.

But when we're talking mind-numbing tank 123 spam I can't say I'd care that much.

[OgruMogru]

Really hope they pull something out of the bag for the battle system in DT. Seeing as we're going to the homeland of Blu Mage I'd like us to be able to choose 2 Blu spells to supplement the kits of our actual combat classes, like an expansion of our cross class skills. This way if, we're so inclined, we can add a few more offensive spells to healer kits, an extra dot, a gap closer, or a personal buff like moonflute or the magic hammer attack that returns MP. The limited number of slots means we'd be making mini builds or skill-trees [skill-shrubs more like] that wouldn't be too disruptive to role identity but would still give us some much needed feeling of control and variety.

[Colt47]

The game doesn't really know where it wants to be at all right now. They got over-bloated grinding happening everywhere with crafting and also have savage content which requires all that extra work, while simplifying jobs so that more people are going to go into the supposedly harder content. It's like having to pay to get punched in the face for hours. There is no end game or plan for crafting other than to be a source of gear for savage at this point, since housing gear can be gained indirectly through other means like the online store, various side content like beast tribes, and just general provisioners. That and the crafters have to craft better crafting gear to craft better raiding gear, which requires farming scrips for even and odd grade materia because the spirit bond rate is awful, and then they often say "oh this is just fine. We have macros!"

Buddy, pal, you are MAKING a MACRO to avoid the minigame that the developers intentionally put IN THE GAME because it is supposed to make it "interesting and fun". If I'm making a macro that is going to avoid doing the task that makes it interesting and fun, there is something wrong here.

Second, the oversimplification of the jobs is largely to facilitate moving into harder content. So now there is even more pressure for people to go grind the craft system, which by the way has a lot of grinding involved and is surprisingly time consuming due to the gathering half requirements, to make gear, food, and other items. Additionally, crafting is the only way to gain access to pentamelding, which is needed on the gear. So because of this, a raider has to either both pay for gear and pay for pentameld, or they level a craft job to penta meld and then buy gear.

By the way, that raider also has to basically do roulettes for money or run map runs on off days because he has no source of income from their main pursuit. They are literally gobbling up goods being crafted and consuming a lot of gil in repairs. This is why the Gil problem is happening because SE has to give a ton of easy ways to gain gil that exceeds the costs of dying hundreds of times and upgrading gear every season. If someone stops playing right after beating a tier, they aren't losing money but they aren't gaining money either if they intend to play in the next. This is probably the main reason outside of burnout that people do not do every tier in an expansion. FYI, I did every tier in the expansion this time around just to get a feel for this insanity.

[strawberrycake]

All this

I mean I've been raid leading for years in XIV and raiding isn't that intense baseline, it depends on the group and how YOU want to engage. I run my raiders p chill, one Expert a day will get you all you need, and we run blind, and we have more then enough without crafted gear. And we usually chilled after clearing since people in the group didn;t care for ults, people only got crafted if they liked the way it looked and we were fine going into the next tier. And I really wanna say this, it sounds and comes off like this games baseline is a lot for you personally. And it sounds like you either elected to do all that or your raid lead ran ya'll p hard. But none of that is needed to clear.(been actively raiding since Coils) But XIV is known as the retirement home of MMOs for a reason.

If you know someone whos burnt out after these tiers then they were being ran p hard or just have low tolerance for stress baseline. And thats not me trying to sound mean, it just that all of that sounds like a lot of exaggeration and choices that didn't mesh well with you.

[Colt47]

I mean I've been raid leading for years in XIV and raiding isn't that intense baseline, it depends on the group and how YOU want to engage. I run my raiders p chill, one Expert a day will get you all you need, and we run blind, and we have more then enough without crafted gear. And we usually chilled after clearing since people in the group didn;t care for ults, people only got crafted if they liked the way it looked and we were fine going into the next tier. And I really wanna say this, it sounds and comes off like this games baseline is a lot for you personally. And it sounds like you either elected to do all that or your raid lead ran ya'll p hard. But none of that is needed to clear.(been actively raiding since Coils) But XIV is known as the retirement home of MMOs for a reason.

If you know someone who's burnt out after these tiers then they were being ran p hard or just have low tolerance for stress baseline. And that's not me trying to sound mean, it just that all of that sounds like a lot of exaggeration and choices that didn't mesh well with you.

I think you missed the point entirely. I'm saying they have multiple barriers to entry on Savage just from the standpoint of crafting. Not sure if people forgot, but the first tier was literally people scrambling to get crafting up so they could capitalize on week 1 and those people had to go full time crafting loco to do it (I know because several people in both my FC and various LS's all were involved) and that was with a one week head start. And the thing is that yes, back before DC travel and Aether determined the pacing it was possible to go more slowly or not care, but because of DC travel now it's just everyone has to go to aether, everyone has to deal with the same limited time wave of savage raiding that dies out quick and then leaves people struggling. And this isn't even getting into statics because it turned into nothing but people breaking up left and right once we hit the second tier and third tier.

I'm tired of people tossing others out of parties because they aren't learning fast enough, when the guy doing the tossing is using assistive technology like Cactbot. I'm tired of freaking ACT parse groups. Yoshi P. made a statement saying that if people are going to use assistive technology to make the savage fights easier, then it isn't worth making the content. There is literal rampant proof that people are using assistive technology to complete the content more quickly and it is influencing clear rates as well as how people behave or act to others, because those without those technologies are at a disadvantage just by choosing not to use them. And a lot of people don't even have an option since they play on console.