Please stop alienating the playerbase with job total reworks

[Valence]

It's probably been repeated a lot, but this is my own feedback.

It is absolutely normal and expected that jobs change and evolve over time naturally. It is also absolutely expected that some people will not like some of those changes, while some will probably like them.

However, whenever you decide to rework a job entirely for X or Y reason, please be considerate into what you're about to do. This is not just about changing a couple of abilities or removing one or two and how they work. This is about reworking the job almost from scratch.

I do not strictly find any issue with in inherently, but if you start turning the job into something entirely different where it could just be a new job, you're essentially deleting a job out of the game because the issues you were trying to fix were deemed too problematic to even try and fix them to begin with. You're alienating all the fans of said job by doing so, essentially telling them that you're going to remove their favorite toys in order to repurpose it entirely for a different audience. And more often than not there is literally very little reasons beyond a developer's whim.

I'll take the two elephants in the room as examples, being summoner and machinist, and another example that may be more controversial to put things into perspective.

Summoner

People always asked to have a job that feels more like an actual summoner of primals, summoning more than a single pitiful egi. I get that you tried to address that and turn it into actually rotating between impressive summons. However, you forgot halfway that a summoner job implies summoning pets that you control. Maybe it didn't in early final fantasy titles sure, but it did in XIV and has since its inception, even if the egis were absolutely underwhelming in that regard.

You also deliberately chose to change the gameplay entirely, removing cast times, removing spell choice and the dot system by replacing it with a linear ranged physical experience. Did you seriously expect the fans of the job would get behind such a drastic change? Or are you just telling them to make way for a new audience of summoner fans, and they can just go play another job, after all there is 19 other ones?

Machinist

The job had jank and issues on some of its mechanics. It was decided at some point that it required a full rework, because you wanted more of edgar from ff6. I can get behind this, like for summoner and the vibe of the job.

Did it warrant a full rework though? You essentially went about to radically remove all the core identity of the job, mainly: the huge skillful burst every minute, the whole ammo and proc system, a meaningful overheat. And to add insult to injury when you did it, you didn't even fix the primary issue that had been plaguing the job for ages, which was latency issues tied to rapid fire (new hypercharge). We had to wait until half endwalker to actually get heat stacks on hypercharge, while the feature has been requested since Stormblood!

What you did was essentially reworking the job without even fixing its underlying issues. You reworked the whole job just on a whim, and alienated all the players that were attached to its gameplay and identity, and again, to add salt on the wound, you decided to add the same expansion a new ranged physical job that was based and procs and rng (less so, but still), which was dancer, while removing all of that from machinist.

Monk

Monk was reworked extensively and I'm sure a lot of people mourn greased lightning stacks. I still do believe the system could have been smoothed out and kept, if just to add speed variations into the rotation, but whatever.

The point is, monk has kept the core fundamentals of its gameplay mechanics. The job still relies on its 6 core weaponskills sorted around its 3 main forms one cycles through. If anything the job got fleshed out on its burst by adding a surprisingly simple yet complex (if one wants to push it further) system of Nadi combinations. And while the job has certainly lost a lot of positionals which a lot of monk fans seemed to appreciate, it still retains a lot of its core identity, and it feels to me more like a job that was adjusted for a new expansion (even if more heavily than usual) than a complete blank slate. I do believe that reworks should be keener into taking that road, if reworks really have to happen for whatever reason.

I'm probably going to make monk enemies out of saying this, and I do agree that not everything was cool, but I think it could be safely argued that it didn't face riots as much as summoner, and for a reason.

tl;dr

Please stop alienating the playerbase enjoying their main favorite jobs that fill a niche in gameplay by destroying them instead of fixing them, and removing their whole identity.

Thank you.

[Valence]

Before anybody chimes in and says "yeah and what about kaiten" or "what about repertoire dots on bard", I'll cut it short here: this is NOT the same, even remotely close. The removal of those mechanics on other job expansion adjustments/changes sure HARMED those jobs, but it didn't DESTROY them entirely to make them into something entirely different.

Thank you.

[CelestiCer]

Before anybody chimes in and says "yeah and what about Kaiten" or "what about Repertoire dots on bard", I'll cut it short here: this is NOT the same, even remotely close. The removal of those mechanics on other job expansion adjustments/changes sure HARMED those jobs, but it didn't DESTROY them entirely to make them into something entirely different.

Hey, what the Hail... that stung... My enjoyment doesn't matter until my favorite Job reaches rework levels of absurdity or something D: ? ( meanwhile Blackmage... jk )

I don't throw other Jobs or players wishes and desires for homogenization's / simplifications to stop under the Bus or keeping an ounce of Job identify from being erased, through Reworks or Not ( except Blackmage, big obviously ). Samurai's recent total changes ( or lack there of ) boils down to more then just 1 singular skill removal. Coupled with how Square implemented the changes paired with BS excuses which we debunked up-down-left-right-everyway as it didn't resolve nor tackled any issues Square stated those changes would do till this very day, rubbed players the wrong way. It sows doubt to not have us have faith in future Job Changes - Rework or Not. I really do hope all Jobs get improved in Gameplay... here's to hoping in DawnTrail, mhm.

[Valence]

In the case of the summoner, it seems to me (and I could be wrong here) that the class is played more now. So it's rather a success from their point of view, regardless of whether the old-timers are angry or not.

It's played more (and even there I'm not sure) because it's braindead. If we start gauging the success of the game by the neurons it takes to play every one of its jobs, then I don't even know why I'm still playing tbh. Maybe I'm just at odds with the bigger part of the community, ShB babies and whatnot. It's what tends to happen when you shift enough the type of audience and gameplay you design in a way. You attract more players that have mutually exclusive needs and likes in the game, and you end up with old timers clashing with the new baseline.

If this continues like this, I'm legitimately considering to just drop raiding altogether. It saddens me, but I'll still have the story to enjoy (and pvp ironically, that savior that came out of nowhere this expansion). As a result i'll feel that the price I pay every month is harder to justify, but it is what it is.

Anyway, in relation to the original post: on the contrary, regular reworks (every two expansions) wouldn't be unwelcome. It would probably mean changing hands, but that's not dramatic in a game where you can play all the jobs. Not accepting this is tantamount to asking for what's currently happening, i.e. the more or less clumsy addition of new stacks in rotations, new powers that have no real impact or synergy (SAM, Shoha) because the overall dynamism of the job has already been drained for ages... And that it should be renewed in depth to find new avenues for improvement.

I have looked through all the job roster to find the niche the old one filled for me as a main job. Never found any. I play bard as a backup because it's fun, but it doesn't tick all the boxes either.

Other jobs in the roster are neat to have variations and try out other things from time to time, but they don't replace a main job. Especially when you consider that there is not only jobs, because 19 sounds like a lot, but there is also subroles, and while I like playing a bit of everything in casual, I can't stand tank, healers (lol healers), melee dps or casters in challenging content. That's just not me, so it leaves me with 3 jobs to choose from.

Maybe I'm too picky? Maybe that's a me problem? It's possible, I know a lot of people that move across all of the roster, and I do envy them.

Hey, what the Hail... that stung... My enjoyment doesn't matter until my favorite Job reaches rework levels of absurdity or something D: ? ( meanwhile Blackmage... jk )

I don't throw other Jobs or players wishes and desires for homogenization's / simplifications to stop under the Bus or keeping an ounce of Job identify from being erased, through Reworks or Not ( except Blackmage, big obviously ). Samurai's recent total changes ( or lack there of ) boils down to more then just 1 singular skill removal. Coupled with how Square implemented the changes paired with BS excuses which we debunked up-down-left-right-everyway as it didn't resolve nor tackled any issues Square stated those changes would do till this very day, rubbed players the wrong way. It sows doubt to not have us have faith in future Job Changes - Rework or Not. I really do hope all Jobs get improved in Gameplay... here's to hoping in DawnTrail, mhm.

Once more, I absolutely hate what they did with kaiten or the bard's repertoire (but they need to change ballad, it feels like shinten spamm on steroids no matter the expansion and my wrist hurts, it's only fun on AoE rain of death). It's part of the whole same issue with butchering jobs in favor of obsessive encounter gameplay, but I still wanted to keep those separate in the OP because it's still different. Be glad they don't rework samurai fully the same way. Kaiten would be the last of your worries if they did, and it's scary to think about.

[Rithy255]

I'm just going off my bias here as I enjoyed tanking
I know PLD wasn't a total rework but I feel as if it was changed to appeal to other tank players... I think the rework honestly didn't even try to keep the "feeling" that old PLD had rotationally, it felt different from the other tanks the DOT upkeep was very core to the job, Even if they had to make the job more flexible (being able to stack it or just keeping the second combo letting it do something else) outright removing the DOT second combo made it very spammy and one note, It feels off with how much atonements you get now... it just somewhat blends with other tanks now, It feels like the rework appealed to players who want to play holy Warrior, or slower Gunbreaker, it didn't want to appeal to the actual playerbase that played the job.

Yeah the job is now more used, In part likely because it's more meta, but mostly because it's easier and now more appealing to your average tank player, But that's the issue... A lot of old PLD players don't want to just play "holy warrior" they want to play Paladin, I'm always welcome to change but not when the job just feels very samey to other jobs.

Thing that annoys me the most is I just feel like the job was blatantly rushed for a rework and It's not like I outright dislike playing it I've always enjoyed tank but it's lost it's spark to me in a sense. I mainly only play it over other tanks because of visual reasons and comfort. If anything I play DPS way more now because at least I feel like DPS rotations are generally more fun.

[Aravell]

I still can't forgive them for reworking MCH in SB. It felt like they had a vision for MCH in HW, the kit flowed well and executing it properly felt rewarding, then BRD players complained about casting, so they threw their MCH vision into the trashcan and slapped on a heat gimmick that made MCH feel like a frankenstein monster. Did it function as a job? Sure, but the heat system felt tacked on simply because they needed to give MCH a gauge.

I feel like them thinking that no one cared for their original vision of MCH led to them just deleting the job from existence and replacing it with the current shallow job with fancy tools. I think gunmage had a lot of potential, and I also think bowmage was a mistake despite liking it, MCH was built with cast times, BRD was not. Them forcing parity between the phys ranged was at least partially what caused MCH to become.....whatever this is.

[Valence]

I do agree that the PLD rework didnt even try to rework everything from scratch and still managed to remove most of PLD's identity (dual physical/magical phase and the dot being the prime element here), only bringing it closer to GNB (like WAR is to DRK). Something something tank homogenization.

Well I loved the heat gimmick on SB MCH and I do feel it still retained enough of the HW concept. Could have kept some cast times? Sure, why not, but I don't play rphys for immobile cast times either, even though the procs removed them, else I'd play casters. HW MCH also had truly boring issues like mildfires. I have nothing against a WF weaker variant, but those could be infuriatingly bad with the 1-1-1-1-1 proc fishing. I do agree however that those issues were already fixed with the increased ammo count per minute in SB and a better spread of it. I really liked HW MCH, and I honestly don't feel it was contradictory with what was added in SB either. It's ShB that nuked everything down the drain.

Can't say I agree with the heat system, it felt inherently proper to the design and I'd kill to get my overheat bursts back into the game (as well as heat management). But more importantly than anything, sure, I'd kill for ammo and procs to be back. I'll never forgive them for making this a ranged melee with an unbranching combo filler.

[Eraden]

Mao is luckys. Mao is BLMs. BLMs nots has any big change over the years other than speeding up castings by time get to 90. Mao feels for peoples whats them jobs get major reworks into something much differents. Is one of reasons why Mao left WoW. Druids kept gettings redone each expansion. Was hurting Mao poor head.

[Aravell]

Well I loved the heat gimmick on SB MCH and I do feel it still retained enough of the HW concept. Could have kept some cast times? Sure, why not, but I don't play rphys for immobile cast times either, even though the procs removed them, else I'd play casters. HW MCH also had truly boring issues like mildfires. I have nothing against a WF weaker variant, but those could be infuriatingly bad with the 1-1-1-1-1 proc fishing. I do agree however that those issues were already fixed with the increased ammo count per minute in SB and a better spread of it. I really liked HW MCH, and I honestly don't feel it was contradictory with what was added in SB either. It's ShB that nuked everything down the drain.

Can't say I agree with the heat system, it felt inherently proper to the design and I'd kill to get my overheat bursts back into the game (as well as heat management). But more importantly than anything, sure, I'd kill for ammo and procs to be back. I'll never forgive them for making this a ranged melee with an unbranching combo filler.

While I respect your opinion as a fellow old MCH enjoyer, I think we simply enjoyed different things about the job. I vastly prefer HW MCH because if the choices you had to make, dropping Gauss Barrel for extended movement, knowing when to Hypercharge and which turret to use it with, knowing when to support your healers or melee who are hurting for resources, plus dropping Gauss Barrel to squeeze in the last auto before Wildfire explodes was an amazing feeling.

I personally felt that SB introduced a bit of unneeded clunk into the kit while removing aspects of what I enjoyed, which is why I don't favour it. It's worth noting that I don't think the SB kit is bad though, I just think it's not a good evolution to me.

[Valence]

While I respect your opinion as a fellow old MCH enjoyer, I think we simply enjoyed different things about the job. I vastly prefer HW MCH because if the choices you had to make, dropping Gauss Barrel for extended movement, knowing when to Hypercharge and which turret to use it with, knowing when to support your healers or melee who are hurting for resources, plus dropping Gauss Barrel to squeeze in the last auto before Wildfire explodes was an amazing feeling.

I personally felt that SB introduced a bit of unneeded clunk into the kit while removing aspects of what I enjoyed, which is why I don't favour it. It's worth noting that I don't think the SB kit is bad though, I just think it's not a good evolution to me.

I actually do not disagree with the barrel mobility and especially with the turret tactical choices, when to hypercharge, etc. I missed this during SB, even though I had a blast with the job's new systems.