Please reconsider 7.0 BLM changes

[HikariKurosawa]

If on log in everyone instantly got a clear of the current savage tier and a full suite of relics then savage engagement will reach 100%

Yeah but we both know how dumb of an assertion that was for you to make.

[Supersnow845]

Yeah but we both know how dumb of an assertion that was for you to make.

I made exactly the same assertion as you did

You entire half page argument I replied to basically boils down to “jobs can’t have complexity because then you are creating restrictions on content and that’s elitist”

Where is the logical conclusion of that argument

What if I think standard rotation BLM is too hard. Aren’t you being restrictive to me? What if I want to clear savage spamming fire 1? Ripping our job complexity in an effort to not be “elitist” is such a flawed argument because it has no logical conclusion

The only way to remove “elitism” of entry and optimisation of higher end content is to just remove said content from the game and flatten every job into a healer

[HikariKurosawa]

I made exactly the same assertion as you did

You entire half page argument I replied to basically boils down to “jobs can’t have complexity because then you are creating restrictions on content and that’s elitist”

Where is the logical conclusion of that argument

What if I think standard rotation BLM is too hard. Aren’t you being restrictive to me? What if I want to clear savage spamming fire 1? Ripping our job complexity in an effort to not be “elitist” is such a flawed argument because it has no logical conclusion

The only way to remove “elitism” of entry and optimisation of higher end content is to just remove said content from the game and flatten every job into a healer

No you didn't? You made an extreme exaggeration and think you had a gotcha moment. The logical conclusion of the argument is that it's better for jobs to just make sense to make room for complicated encounters and player engagement. You can get carried through savage spamming fire 1 if you want. There's no reason you couldn't do that. You'd just look like a fool if anyone even noticed. The job is plenty complex played the way it is intended to be played.

Try to have more nuance instead of being melodramatic.

[Supersnow845]

No you didn't? You made an extreme exaggeration and think you had a gotcha moment. The logical conclusion of the argument is that it's better for jobs to just make sense to make room for complicated encounters and player engagement. You can get carried through savage spamming fire 1 if you want. There's no reason you couldn't do that. You'd just look like a fool if anyone even noticed. The job is plenty complex played the way it is intended to be played.

Try to have more nuance instead of being melodramatic.

If I think BLM in its current form is too complex why does that not invoke the same argument you are using to argue against non standard lines. You think they are too complex and that more people should have access to top level play on BLM. What if I think standard BLM is too hard (I don’t I’m just arguing thereoticals). Isn’t it elitist for you to not want to dumb BLM down further to accomodate me.

So where does the “complexity reduction of BLM” end. For all classes it functionally ends when you squish them down into healers

[Zairava]

I don't see how non-standard lines is even a problem when no one is required to use it and most probably don't know it exists, and if they do they aren't using it anyway [me included]. Taking away that micro-optimization only hurts the players who enjoy that sort of thing, it doesn't hurt the ones who will never interact with it nor care to.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

I lowkey don't understand the intrinsic need of needing to make optional optimisation that barely pulls ahead in most scenarios anyways (especially for the effort it takes) be essentially deleted just so casuals "don't feel bad for not performing the ideal non-standard lines according to meta analyst dee-pee-ess".

All we do is lower ceilings and keep floors the same. Sorry, but this benefits noone except those with high levels of performance paranoia - who will still probably not perform standard line play to the maximum anyhow.

And honestly, saying "Summoner is great, look how many people play it, it is a success" is such a meme that I only believed CBU3/Yoshida might say. It's a job you can train a hamster to perform, is it really such a good metric to base job success on if people simply play it due to being easier than every other Caster (by basically not being a caster) and still somehow doing more damage than Red Mage (because clearly that's fair).

It's okay to have easy jobs, but can we have the ones with higher ceilings please stay the ones with higher ceilings? We don't need to lobotomize every job for people with performance anxiety.

[HikariKurosawa]

If I think BLM in its current form is too complex why does that not invoke the same argument you are using to argue against non standard lines. You think they are too complex and that more people should have access to top level play on BLM. What if I think standard BLM is too hard (I don’t I’m just arguing thereoticals). Isn’t it elitist for you to not want to dumb BLM down further to accomodate me.

So where does the “complexity reduction of BLM” end. For all classes it functionally ends when you squish them down into healers

It ends where it ended. The rotation is standardized and streamlined. This is the goal the devs set out to accomplish and they did just that. If you don't like it, that's too bad. The enjoyment of the majority is far more important than the enjoyment of a few elitists. You can always make your own game with a bunch of weird situational non-standard gameplay. See how successful it is.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

It ends where it ended. The rotation is standardized and streamlined. This is the goal the devs set out to accomplish and they did just that. If you don't like it, that's too bad. The enjoyment of the majority is far more important than the enjoyment of a few elitists. You can always make your own game with a bunch of weird situational non-standard gameplay. See how successful it is.

The "goal" from what I figured from the slides was to make MP generation not tick-dependent, which is a good thing. Please refer me to where the goal was explicitly stated to kill off non-standard BLM gameplay in an effort to streamline and unify Black Mage gameplay down to one route, because I'm not buying it otherwise. You call it enjoyment of elitists, but I feel like it would be neat if we actually took into account what our dear Yoshi P does on Black Mage at the moment - there is probably data somewhere on it.

If enough feedback comes in asking for non-Blizzard-spells during Umbral Ice to generate MP (a reasonable request if you ask me, depending on MP values) and that gets implemented, then we'd essentially have non-standard available again with a different MP system, which is what many don't mind. Personally also hoping that the Astral Hearts (or whatever the new gauge is) don't empty out upon entering Umbral Ice and just "freeze" for lack of a better pun, then we'd have a solid all-around Black Mage with the most annoying part, the MP regen ticks, fixed.

[HikariKurosawa]

The "goal" from what I figured from the slides was to make MP generation not tick-dependent, which is a good thing. Please refer me to where the goal was explicitly stated to kill off non-standard BLM gameplay in an effort to streamline and unify Black Mage gameplay down to one route, because I'm not buying it otherwise. You call it enjoyment of elitists, but I feel like it would be neat if we actually took into account what our dear Yoshi P does on Black Mage at the moment - there is probably data somewhere on it.

If enough feedback comes in asking for non-Blizzard-spells during Umbral Ice to generate MP (a reasonable request if you ask me, depending on MP values) and that gets implemented, then we'd essentially have non-standard available again with a different MP system, which is what many don't mind. Personally also hoping that the Astral Hearts (or whatever the new gauge is) don't empty out upon entering Umbral Ice and just "freeze" for lack of a better pun, then we'd have a solid all-around Black Mage with the most annoying part, the MP regen ticks, fixed.

Their entire goal with job design in dawntrail is to streamline the jobs and then give further identity to them in the next expansion.

The whole point of astral fire is that you're rushing to get all your power out within the window you have available. If it carried over to umbral ice it would defeat the fantasy of astral fire phases. If you didn't get your explosions out properly, try again next time from scratch. It doesn't make any sense for the gauge to carry over to umbral ice and would significantly lessen the weight and urgency of astral fire. It's supposed to feel like a hot streak.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Their entire goal with job design in dawntrail is to streamline the jobs and then give further identity to them in the next expansion.

The whole point of astral fire is that you're rushing to get all your power out within the window you have available. If it carried over to umbral ice it would defeat the fantasy of astral fire phases. If you didn't get your explosions out properly, try again next time from scratch. It doesn't make any sense for the gauge to carry over to umbral ice and would significantly lessen the weight and urgency of astral fire. It's supposed to feel like a hot streak.

They fundamentally are streamlining jobs by making sure things aren't dependent on timers as much as action input. In case of BLM, this means they streamline MP generation with spells casted rather than landing on MP server ticks. I don't see the need to streamline BLM by gutting non-standard lines specifically when they actually give a BLM more options.

And to be honest, I think it would be kinda foul if the new Astral gauge just deleted stacks if you failed to hit six stacks and then use <High Fire IV>. Simply failing to finish spellcasts on Black Mage alone is a huge loss of damage since all damage Black Mage does is GCD (i.e. potency-per-second is a usable metric).

So if you can't expend less than six Astral Hearts for <High Fire IV> (similar to Pitch Perfect, for lower potency) or are unable to retain stacks between AF/UI and for whatever reason you cannot reach it in that fire cycle, that is possibly a HUGE potency loss, the likes the other casters do not have to deal with in any capacity.

Lastly, we carry Umbral Hearts into Astral Fire. Us carrying what looks like Astral Hearts into Umbral Ice and retain them between cycles does not seem far fetched for me.