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

[Oizen]

The fetishization players have towards turning XIV into a One-Button-Bashing-Experience is something I'll never understand... and there are players that are in full support of it, as long as the content lore and story isn't lackluster enough to complain about, then players truly don't care how much more simplified Jobs can get or shouldn't be. Players complaining more about Krile being the right Scion for Pictomancer or Wuk Lamat's voice acting... I can believe it yay which is really sad...

Here's my 2 cents about that.

No one will ever say "Bro you gotta try this game, its good cause the controls are so complex!". Its just not going to happen, its not what makes a game good. The best games tend to have simple controls and their complexity come from game play mechanics. To me, almost all of the complexity of FFXIV has been stripped out, and it's all kinda mindless right now. I'd like to see that change more on a mechanical level rather than the buttons you press in sequence over the course of 10 minutes.

If the complexity of this game is resting solely on pressing 123 over 111, its too late for us. I functionally see very little difference between the two.

[Solakor]

Here's my 2 cents about that.

No one will ever say "Bro you gotta try this game, its good cause the controls are so complex!". Its just not going to happen, its not what makes a game good. The best games tend to have simple controls and their complexity come from game play mechanics. To me, almost all of the complexity of FFXIV has been stripped out, and it's all kinda mindless right now. I'd like to see that change more on a mechanical level rather than the buttons you press in sequence over the course of 10 minutes.

If the complexity of this game is resting solely on pressing 123 over 111, its too late for us. I functionally see very little difference between the two.

This game had a distinctive class gameplay. It has been steadily stripped out. If we were at HW or SB i would say absolutely play this game and the class gameplay feels fantastic. Now it's a shadow of what it was.
Why does this game need to be closer to some other games when it had it's own flare and it worked extremely well before? If you want to play like wow then go play wow or whatever else combat system you liked. But no. Ppl cry like the bi***es they are and want the game to be braindead and load everything to the encounters. Well guess what, you made the game worse on every level because no matter what kinda encounter you make, if the underlying system is flawed, it will still feel ass.

[CelestiCer]

Here's my 2 cents about that.

No one will ever say "Bro you gotta try this game, its good cause the controls are so complex!". Its just not going to happen, its not what makes a game good. The best games tend to have simple controls and their complexity come from game play mechanics. To me, almost all of the complexity of FFXIV has been stripped out, and it's all kinda mindless right now. I'd like to see that change more on a mechanical level rather than the buttons you press in sequence over the course of 10 minutes.

If the complexity of this game is resting solely on pressing 123 over 111, its too late for us. I functionally see very little difference between the two.

Hmmm, bit skewed to say simple controls are better when it has complex mechanics. Cause you can't apply this to XIV, that leaves literally 95% of all content in the dust... So you might as well Quote Yoshi-P and say " Just go play Ultimate ". And by your logic...Tic-Tac-Toe is a better game then Chess even though I know this is a skewed comparison.

Here's my 3 cents... I prefer a medium well seasoned steak, nice sear sometimes basted giving it depth and layers to its taste while I fill my tummy. A unseasoned boiled chicken? functionally will fill our tummies the same way yes very...very valid... but at that point? I don't see a difference when I play XIV Job-Gameplay-wise? vs reading a book be it a children's book or a dictionary while simultaneously squeezing a stress-ball the same way repeatedly in the same manner over and over... Oh, " functionally speaking " that is, mhm.

Apparently advocating for better is somehow Taboo. We want mediocrity. Promote it. Why play XIV? for everything but it's Job-Gameplay as you yourself put it. Why not make it also cause of Job-Gameplay... what's the negative of doing so?

[ty_taurus]

Here's my 2 cents about that.

No one will ever say "Bro you gotta try this game, its good cause the controls are so complex!". Its just not going to happen, its not what makes a game good.

I don't agree with this part in particular. I don't think complexity is a requirement for a game's success, but there are absolutely players who rave about complexity. I work for a mobile game company, for example, and my Boss and I both are into mobile gacha games like Genshin and Star Rail. He's particularly interested in the upcoming Wuthering Waves specifically because its combat is more technical and complex than Genshin's which is not entirely simple, but doesn't really feature many technical aspects to its combat largely because being on Mobile first means the controls make it difficult to perform at a technical level. Wuthering Waves is not going to be a mobile game and is emphasizing its combat more, which is a selling point to that game over its biggest competitor. This is anecdotal of course, but there are many games where the complexity and depth are a selling point for people.

Now, simple games can also be very successful, but I think something worth noting is a lot of games that are simple, are simple on the surface, yet have an ocean of depth beneath the surface that players can optionally engage in. Super Smash Bros for example is, on the surface, a casual party fighter game, but also has an entire community of competitive players who will break down details as small and seemingly minute as frame data. Super Mario 64, a classic masterpiece, is a simple game to play with lots of ways to engage with its platforming at a far more technical level. Look at any speedrun of the game, and you can see that in action. Even Tetris had a layer of optional complexity that drastically impacts how a player builds and clears their map: T-spinning.

FFXIV on the other hand was already a simple game. What they have been doing is not making the game more simple, but actively stifling the optional depth that used to exist within its job design. In that regard, I would argue FFXIV is gradually approaching Balan Wonderworld with each expansion, a game full of power ups that are all basically the same and a control scheme where every button does the same thing--A game where depth is stifled and you are forced to take the game at face value and nothing further.

Bushnell's Law: The best video games are the ones that are easy to play but difficult to master. FFXIV stands in opposition to this by being a game that has always been easy to play, but seems desperate to force it to be easy to master as well. It's like with this segment of Misshapen Chair's more recent FFXIV job design video...

"Because every single little tiny thing that requires any modicum of additional effort or is slightly outside of the exact scenario that they practice is frustrating."

In his video, he's referring to the types of players who want to be the best at the game, but have no interest in putting in any amount of effort to become the best. But that does seem to be how the design team are approaching changes. Anything that even sounds like it has the tiniest amount of complexity is something that needs to be purged, or sanded down into oblivion.

[strawberrycake]

Here's my 2 cents about that.

No one will ever say "Bro you gotta try this game, its good cause the controls are so complex!". Its just not going to happen, its not what makes a game good. The best games tend to have simple controls and their complexity come from game play mechanics. To me, almost all of the complexity of FFXIV has been stripped out, and it's all kinda mindless right now. I'd like to see that change more on a mechanical level rather than the buttons you press in sequence over the course of 10 minutes.

If the complexity of this game is resting solely on pressing 123 over 111, its too late for us. I functionally see very little difference between the two.

Elden Ring and the Entire Soulsborne series would like to have words with you.

[strawberrycake]

again with comparing the action games to a tab target mmo?

a fair comparison is lord of the rings online, which i've played since 2012. somehow that old game has more class identity than ffxiv.
there's no GCD in that game, and the trinity exists extremely well.

guardians(tanks) have a shield bash combo to keep aggro, and you have to keep doing it all while adds pop out in boss fights or mechanics are happening. you NEED a lore master in some raids for their 30second stun ability, and ability to give teammates power. minstrels are like a white mage, strong group healing. rune keepers focus on healing over time and single target. LOtRO's healers don't do dps unless they're in red line.

even though lotro has combos or skills that proc, some of them have different functions. idk how to explain it but the 111 argument wont work in lotro but might be fine in ffxiv because skills really dont do anything other than X amount of potency. there's a plugin for that

They made a very generalized comment:

No one will ever say "Bro you gotta try this game, its good cause the controls are so complex!". Its just not going to happen, its not what makes a game good. The best games tend to have simple controls and their complexity come from game play mechanics..

And I gave a Response Based on that:

Elden Ring and the Entire Soulsborne series would like to have words with you.

Check and Mate.

Anyways let's get back on track from Semantics. I sometimes wonder if Yoshida and The Dev team made the gameplay uh....less involved,to reduce infighting in PFs and Prog, since there were so many different strats were floating around during ShB.

[strawberrycake]

At this point it's clear that yoshi wants the game to be super easy to pick up and put down on any class. Lotro is a really old game but has a strong fanbase who doesn't mind learning how to play. For a game like ffxiv that is trying to be mainstream and accessible on console, the goal is to have anyone with a pulse be able to play.
FFXIV combat and content design, is braindead at it's core. Condensing some classes combo is not really the problem, the expert roulette will still be a faceroll

Again, I'm not gonna advocate for making an already bad situation worse, if you wanna use XIV combo, you go ahead, but that tool should stay a tool, and of a consolidated combo button makes it out of PvP, it should only be an opt in feature.

Instead of trying to put more band-aids on the situation, we need to be pushing Yoshida and the Devs to be better about how they balance their game, because theres a difference between a game being easy on the surface for people who don't wanna be that involved and depth for the rest, and a game thats just overtly braindead.

I for one would like to see XIV return to form for the sake of those of us who have been here from the start and supoorted it through worse. You're free to disagree tho.

[Oizen]

This game had a distinctive class gameplay. It has been steadily stripped out. If we were at HW or SB i would say absolutely play this game and the class gameplay feels fantastic. Now it's a shadow of what it was..

I agree? That flare you're talking about this game having doesn't exist. It was removed ages ago. I just don't really view a combo button as something that harms the game.
Everything you didn't want to happen already happened. All of that flare the game used to has been removed. I'd love to see it come back.
I'm just saying that if the only thing you can point to for this game's complexity is pressing 1 2 3 in sequence for 2 minutes, then barfing out all the resources you spent, then going back to pressing 1-2-3 for 2 more minutes then I'm just not really seeing it.

Hmmm, bit skewed to say simple controls are better when it has complex mechanics. Cause you can't apply this to XIV, that leaves literally 95% of all content in the dust... So you might as well Quote Yoshi-P and say " Just go play Ultimate ". And by your logic...Tic-Tac-Toe is a better game then Chess even though I know this is a skewed comparison.

Well no, actually. FFXIV already has simple controls and simple mechanics. I don't feel like the job design really tests anything about how you play, nor do I think they even differentiate the feeling between jobs at all anymore.
For your comparison, FFXIV in its current state is no chess. The complexity you want from this game just doesn't exist anymore.

The current difficulty of the game basically comes from the developers trying to obfuscate mechanics behind debuff-soup and big flashy effects hiding the fact that almost everything is just spread/stack/gaze, I'm gonna be honest the current game feels far more like a bullet hell than it does some combo-rotation based battle system.

And it seems to me the Developers like this direction so I'm expecting to see it doubled down on. As a result I think a combo button is way more in line with FFXIV's psudeo-bullet hell gameplay.

Apparently advocating for better is somehow Taboo. We want mediocrity. Promote it. Why play XIV? for everything but it's Job-Gameplay as you yourself put it. Why not make it also cause of Job-Gameplay... what's the negative of doing so?

Oh I'd love that. I can't get excited for PCT or VPR because I already know exactly how they're going to play, injecting some love into the jobs and giving them real identities again would be great.
But I don't think its going to happen.

Elden Ring and the Entire Soulsborne series would like to have words with you.

Both of those games are incredibly simple from a control standpoint? I don't see how that contradicts anything I've said.
They get complexity from Boss patterns, different weapon types, custom builds, ect. not from pressing 123 for 10 minutes.