Please stop alienating the playerbase with job total reworks

[LianaThorne]

I, for one, have been one of those who have been alienated with such drastic changes. I stopped playing at around the end of Heavensward because adulting but when I got my s*** together, I am now replaying the game. And going back to SMN, boy I was so shocked and immediately switched jobs at how terrible the gameplay it has now than what I remembered how it used to.

So I watched videos of SMN from Stormblood to Shadowbringers and I must say that ShB SMN was the closest to what I envisioned SMN would be. Why the hell did they make it like this? Also with SCH... A certain job is well maintained, but the pet jobs scrapped over in favor of oversimplification?

Please SE. Bring back the pet system to ACN.

I know you're newly returning so you should probably be made aware that using any healer as a comparison for a well maintained job is a choice at this stage of the game lol. We've been screaming for our jobs to change for months or years now so it's not so boring or simple to play. Hell, WAR can literally do our job for us (as I have been asked on more than one occasion to sit out of bosses so they can practice playing all 3 roles) so that might be a better example of a "well-maintained" job.

[Gemina]

I know you're newly returning so you should probably be made aware that using any healer as a comparison for a well maintained job is a choice at this stage of the game lol. We've been screaming for our jobs to change for months or years now so it's not so boring or simple to play. Hell, WAR can literally do our job for us (as I have been asked on more than one occasion to sit out of bosses so they can practice playing all 3 roles) so that might be a better example of a "well-maintained" job.

"Maintained" is the proper word to describe healers since ShB release. In Stormblood, that role was utter chaos due to AST changes. The truest to an actual pure healer/barrier healer dynamic was back in ARR when there was a certain harmony between WHM and SCH as the two jobs had very distinct identities and roles to play in content. In late HW, AST came along and effed all that up. Now, all four healers are essentially the same with some niche differences between them. This "balance" has indeed been maintained for over four years now.

WAR has been a jack of all trades, "I can do it all" job as far back as I can remember playing this game. They've always made healers feel useless in dungeons. The only difference between now and ARR is that they no longer need skill to do it. If WAR is an example of a well-maintained job, the game needs less of it, not more.

[rawker]

I was referring to BLM as the well-maintained job. Both SCH and SMN have been gutted off pet management and that's what i want and what drove me to love both jobs, in the first place.

[SieyaM]

Any change to any job will risk alienating players from it, there is no change that is going to make all the current players happy while attracting new players to it. I don't think developers should insist on keeping a job design simply because some players may be adverse to changing it. In the case of SMN there are some very vocal players who are positively infuriated by the changes but in the end they are far far fewer than players who are playing the job and even enjoying it.

[Aravell]

Any change to any job will risk alienating players from it, there is no change that is going to make all the current players happy while attracting new players to it. I don't think developers should insist on keeping a job design simply because some players may be adverse to changing it. In the case of SMN there are some very vocal players who are positively infuriated by the changes but in the end they are far far fewer than players who are playing the job and even enjoying it.

Once again, no one is saying jobs should never be changed ever, the point is that the dev team should at least acknowledge the feedback from the current playerbase of the job instead of changing the whole thing without warning and going "Meh, they would've quit anyway".

Also, it was very much possible to give SMN the flashy summons to make them "feel like a summoner" (whatever that means) without completely deleting pet management and DoTs.

[SieyaM]

Once again, no one is saying jobs should never be changed ever, the point is that the dev team should at least acknowledge the feedback from the current playerbase of the job instead of changing the whole thing without warning and going "Meh, they would've quit anyway".

Also, it was very much possible to give SMN the flashy summons to make them "feel like a summoner" (whatever that means) without completely deleting pet management and DoTs.

Old SMN didn't actually have pet management. Everquest Magician and Necro have pet management, FFXIV had skills cast by proxy. The pet didn't do anything but auto attack and you used skills on your hotbar with your cooldowns that were activated at the pets location.

[Volkai]

I didn't like Summoner before the Endwalker changes, now I love it, so, while you may have a point about some players no longer liking it, that doesn't mean EVERYONE dislikes it. Furthermore, the identity of Summoner remains even if it's manifested in a different form than the one you were used to. Also both current and previous implementations of the Job in FFXI have failed to live up to the ideal of having a Summon that is a Controllable Pet Of Significant Power, and that's been true ever since they made pets untargetable, if not going all the way back to the job's introduction in 2.0

I'd like to see an implementation more like FFXI Online's Summoner, but that wouldn't be a good fit with how FFXIV works. But if you want to really have control over an extended-duration summon of signifcant power, FFXI is right there, letting you summon, say, Alexander. Or Odin. Or Fenrir (but the cool Fenrir.)

[rawker]

Now let's see them drastically change a job you loved so much just to appease another.

You are saying this because the current SMN fits your criteria. The main problem that bas been discussed here is that an entire playerbase, mind you who are also paying for subs, is that they are no longer represented. If the game didn't introduce pet systems from the get go, it will not attract people who like it. But the thing is, they did implement a pet system. It survived 4 expansions... then all of a sudden, they have completely removed it so abruptly just because what?

That is something lovers of current SMN will never understand.

[Volkai]

Now let's see them drastically change a job you loved so much just to appease another.

You are saying this because the current SMN fits your criteria. The main problem that bas been discussed here is that an entire playerbase, mind you who are also paying for subs, is that they are no longer represented. If the game didn't introduce pet systems from the get go, it will not attract people who like it. But the thing is, they did implement a pet system. It survived 4 expansions... then all of a sudden, they have completely removed it so abruptly just because what?

That is something lovers of current SMN will never understand.

Oh, you mean when they removed Thunder from Arcanist in patch 2.1? When they decided Gladiator's suddenly forgot how to use Daggers? When White Mages and Black Mages stopped getting one-handed weapons and Shields? When Protect and Shell were removed? Or when they implemented Red Mage in 4.0 but as a DPS instead of the Healer I had played it as in FFXI? When they removed Dark Knight's ability to use all of HP, MP, and TP and individual resources to fuel different aiblities? WHen they removed Flash from Paladin? When I could no longer create a Jank Paladin, before Jobs even existed, by cross-classing up Protect and Cure and Stoneskin?
Yeah no, I DO understand.

They killed the Class I immediately fell in love with at the relaunch, and then they deleted its long-rotting corpse and replaced it with a different Class, a different Job, one that carries the soul in a new body.

As for your 'paying for subs' quip, my subscription is currently at 3,750 days, so we can set subscriptions aside with this conversation. Especially since only active subscribers can even post here.