I Was Looking Forward To Playing Pictomancer

[Boblawblah]

I can see how the OP would be frustrated for sure, it comes across as a whimsical, casual job, but to have all of these extra mechanics that you're supposed to think about would be disappointing.

That said, I'm sure it'll just end up being the same as any other "complex" job, you'll have a very specific rotation with very specific moments that you're supposed to do 'x', or 'y'. I bet if you play it in low level dungeons and slowly work up, it won't be nearly as over the top.

[Taliriah]

I feel like the real problem is elsewhere. With this "new jobs are max extension lvl minus 20" philosophy, you begin with a toolkit that's either far to big to play correctly without spending a fair amount of time on a dummy (which most players won't), either so streamlined it becomes painfully incomplete on lower lvl. With the new jobs beginning a lvl 80 that feeling is only gonna grow, Because at 80, most job already have a nearly complete toolkits. Older jobs teach you how to play your class progressively (and the game does not always do a good job at that), but for new job, you just get the bomb dropped at you. I think this has to somehow change. I can understand that people want play the new extension with the new job, but at the same time, do we want having a lvl 90 job with a toolkit worth of a 60 class with next expansion (it's too late for DT)?

They already have the perfect tool in the game to teach people how to play a class from level 1 and gradually introduce abilities to the rotation: palace of the dead. They could have tutorial quest chains for new classes based on it.

[Kacho_Nacho]

There's always Smn

I’m talking about Pictomancer. The existence of Summoner doesn’t matter in this conversation.

Counter argument: people have been asking for more job complexity. They may now have a job to their preferences.

Offering one complex job while also ignoring all the requests by people who want their existing jobs to be more complex is odd, like, painfully odd. Shouldn't the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

I doubt it's actually as complicated as it seems, but even if that is the case the obvious solution there is if you don't like it, don't play it

That's not the point.

Picto's aesthetics don't appeal to me at all, but if it turns out to actually be a complicated job I think that is a wonderful addition to a game that is increasingly being dumbed down across the board. It is important that the game have a wide variety of jobs at different complexities to cater to different player preferences. It is completely irrelevant if a job is the "least played" or not.

It is relevant. I don't feel it is a sound decision to make one of the showcased jobs of a new expansion overly complicated just because CBU3 simultaneously decided to dumb down every other job even further.

I mean, what's the point? If CBU3 wanted a range of complexities, they could have easily tweaked the other jobs to achieve that goal.

That's not what we're getting.

[CNitsah]

They already have the perfect tool in the game to teach people how to play a class from level 1 and gradually introduce abilities to the rotation: palace of the dead. They could have tutorial quest chains for new classes based on it.

You mean the content only a small part of the community run because it's not worth the time. It's true that it exists, but unless you make it mandatory, nobody will do that. people will take the job at the lvl it's given and badly play in dungeons. as long it's dps, there is no problem, but we'll it's gonna a be lvl 90 heal that doesn't know how to use his kit, it's gonna be a fun ride. You cannot design something ignoring how most people will engage with it. And I can tell you, most people won't run PotD to learn their job. You give them a lvl that begins at lvl 80 they will at best read the skill description and go for it.

[ASkellington]

Offering one complex job while also ignoring all the requests by people who want their existing jobs to be more complex is odd, like, painfully odd. Shouldn't the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

While I agree its odd... it feels sadly on brand.

[Shikiseki]

Genuinely curious as to where the complexity appears to be in this case?

You have the aetherhue side (you got a light side of 3 buttons (single target, aoe, resource spending) and a strong side with higher damage (same 3 buttons as "light" side), the canvas side (3 activation type, 3 execution type, 3 special follow up type) and few extra utility buttons (a dash, 1 gauge related, 1 picto special)

Out of those 20 buttons, you'll probably only actively use your single or aoe aetherhue button on the light side until you build enough gauge to use the stronger darker side while utilizing your canvas boards, which generally have longer cooldowns (beast row has 3x40s, weapon has 2x60s, landscape 1x120s) so it's not something you press all the time either. Since you want to generally faceroll every resource every 2 minutes, you can bank everything for that moment then go ham ~ which all 3 canvas rows have conveniently have exactly collectively a cd of 120s.

If you break it down in sections like the presentation did, it isn't all that bad once you combine it together like every other 2min buff gauge builder/spender job really ^^

[Kacho_Nacho]

I can see how the OP would be frustrated for sure, it comes across as a whimsical, casual job, but to have all of these extra mechanics that you're supposed to think about would be disappointing.

That said, I'm sure it'll just end up being the same as any other "complex" job, you'll have a very specific rotation with very specific moments that you're supposed to do 'x', or 'y'. I bet if you play it in low level dungeons and slowly work up, it won't be nearly as over the top.

It is frustrating but I'm still give the job a twirl. Playing Pictomancer in through a progression of low level dungeons is an excellent suggestion. Thanks!

[Elkanah]

It seems complicated when they go into all the details of the animal motif rotation and such, but since you have no control over said rotation it has zero gameplay value. And it's nothing like mudras, the three canvas are independent. You don't get to cast different effects by combining different motifs. Anyway only the first canvas has more than one motif, and it's on a preset rotation, so it's purely cosmetic.

There's no such thing as "complicated" jobs. Only people who can't use their skills properly (which is 85% of casual players who don't bother to read or learn their jobs proper cause they could care less since they don't do endgame anyways). The gameplay style is exactly like popping 1 mudra and using a shuriken, or popping a couple paint pictures in place to then replace with something else entirely after a set, a couple slots, or all slots. Like EVERY single job in the game, it only LOOKS that way. But after a week, I guarantee you someone will have Viper AND Pictomancer posted on reddit or meta discords where players understand basic concepts of the job and overall DPS numbers. If people would just READ their skills (that's where 98% of the issues with players come from. NOT. READING. SKILLS).

[Kacho_Nacho]

Genuinely curious as to where the complexity appears to be in this case?

You have the aetherhue side (you got a light side of 3 buttons (single target, aoe, resource spending) and a strong side with higher damage (same 3 buttons as "light" side), the canvas side (3 activation type, 3 execution type, 3 special follow up type) and few extra utility buttons (a dash, 1 gauge related, 1 picto special)

Out of those 20 buttons, you'll probably only actively use your single or aoe aetherhue button on the light side until you build enough gauge to use the stronger darker side while utilizing your canvas boards, which generally have longer cooldowns (beast row has 3x40s, weapon has 2x60s, landscape 1x120s) so it's not something you press all the time either. Since you want to generally faceroll every resource every 2 minutes, you can bank everything for that moment then go ham ~ which all 3 canvas rows have conveniently have exactly collectively a cd of 120s.

If you break it down in sections like the presentation did, it isn't all that bad once you combine it together like every other 2min buff gauge builder/spender job really ^^

From the description I'd be doing things related to three different colors, adding things with white, subtracting things with black, keeping track of beasts, weapons, landscapes, buffs, and a gauge. Meanwhile, I'm also having to be mindful of boss mechanics. That sounds easy to you?

[Elkanah]

You mean the content only a small part of the community run because it's not worth the time. It's true that it exists, but unless you make it mandatory, nobody will do that. people will take the job at the lvl it's given and badly play in dungeons. as long it's dps, there is no problem, but we'll it's gonna a be lvl 90 heal that doesn't know how to use his kit, it's gonna be a fun ride. You cannot design something ignoring how most people will engage with it. And I can tell you, most people won't run PotD to learn their job. You give them a lvl that begins at lvl 80 they will at best read the skill description and go for it.

I mean-- since there's trusts now, all they have to do is pull single 3 mobs and learn as they go up to 99 lol. Which is (at this point) pretty similar to POTD without the randomness. The problem is the community lacking reading comprehensions to the job. I remember when NIN came out, and people didn't understand why using katon mudra fire and doton aoe were best in groups. This same issue happened with uhh... MCH too and not using aoes and just single target abilities on packs of 6 or more. It's not difficult if people actually learned how to play by reading what the skills did. Especially players who had max capped jobs, you'd THINK they'd have known about aoe's being significantly better. But they didn't use them at MCH30 on packs lol.