Combat system is beyond saving.

[xivYuiM]

Heavensward was the peak of this game as far as the combat system goes and it has gotten worse with every patch since 4.0 to the point that now it feels like they actually WANT people to quit.

Before anyone cries about it, yes, other aspects of the game have improved immensely like world travel, inventory management, glam dresser, abilities reset after wipes, etc.

I don’t understand what they claim the issue was with the combat back then. It was NEAR PERFECT. The skill floor was low enough that if someone had enough brain power to type in their login credentials without help then surely they were able to clear all of the MSQ content, dungeons, or normal difficulty raids without much issue. The skill ceiling was high enough that if you really wanted to push your job to the limits it made doing dungeons at the time more engaging than today’s savage raids. It was brilliant. Not only the best MMO combat I have ever experienced but maybe even one of the best online games EVER MADE.

Everyone has been (rightfully) crying about how dumb the jobs themselves are but even on a core mechanical level the system that was once accessible, in-depth, and satisfying to master has become so bare-bones it is actually embarrassing. It is not even the same game. It really is sad and honestly I cannot believe that the same team that created HW has had any input on how the game has ended up.


Half of the playerbase hasn’t even experienced the actual final fantasy XIV combat system that had things like:

• Aggro management
• Cleric stance and Multiple tank stances (3.x WAR was the best job in the history of this game)
• TP (sprint not draining it was a good change)
• Dungeon packs actually being a threat
• Multiple viable builds for all jobs
• Power level being driven by skill rather than solely depending on your gear ilvl

The list goes on.

Aggro management ALONE made this game fundamentally different. It was a deceptively in-depth mechanic that, while being immensely satisfying to master as a tank, required interaction from ALL THREE ROLES and really added a sense of teamwork to every encounter and was the SOLE REASON TO PLAY TANKS!!! Now tanks are just 123 drones that act as a (somehow) even less engaging melee DPS.

A change like that happening in any other franchise would instantly kill it. Imagine if a franchise like counter-strike removed grenades in the name of making it “more accessible” because high level players take better advantage of them and you had half of the playerbase saying “it’s the same game!!! Stop being elitist!!!!” I understand that a competitive FPS and an MMO are not the same but I think the comparison is very appropriate.

I have been on maximum cope hoping that each expansion will make the game fun again and it’s my fault for staying subbed but at this point I think anything short of a complete overhaul in 8.0 there is no chance for another 10 years of this game existing.

[xivYuiM]

I don't expect to generate a ton of discussion with this post, it is 100% just to vent about frustrations after seeing the live letter and them bothering to say they made the game even more dull "in accordance with feedback" is making me feel like they are trying to gaslight me into thinking they didn't already make the best MMO ever made and didn't spend the last 7 years making it worse with every update.

[Rekh]

It is beyond saving, they make too much money now to listen. They're not in that "gotta save the FF franchise" situation they were in back in ARR and HW. An online rpg will come around and steal their thunder eventually though, just a matter of time.

[Mikey_R]

Aggro management ALONE made this game fundamentally different. It was a deceptively in-depth mechanic that, while being immensely satisfying to master as a tank, required interaction from ALL THREE ROLES and really added a sense of teamwork to every encounter and was the SOLE REASON TO PLAY TANKS!!! Now tanks are just 123 drones that act as a (somehow) even less engaging melee DPS.

If generate large amounts of enmity at the start of a fight then swap to DPS stance for the rest of the fight constitutes as a 'deceptively in-depth mechanic', then I don't know what to say.

[Boblawblah]

it’s my fault for staying subbed

It's not too late to change. Just don't buy DT, take an expansion off and do other things.

[Kikoten]

Admittably, I agree with one thing: I do miss the days of actually having to use my brain, at least a little bit, as a healer. Cleric Stance was pretty cool with the whole swapping MND and INT so the healer could manually shift into and out of DPS mode. At the same time, though, it's difficult for me to complain with not having to worry about Cleric Stance--I'm lock into both healing mode AND DPS mode, so I can DPS quicker and then more quickly switch back to healing.

In hindsight, I kind of liked when sprint drained TP to 0. It put a check on people sprinting ahead of me [ the healer ]. That shit got annoying so fast when sprint stopped affecting TP and people just did it willy nilly.

Tank stances were interesting. Someone tried to tell me to tank without a tank stance, so I could maximize on DPS. I tried that one time. One time was all it took for me to realize that that was the worst advice I'd ever received. It nearly caused my party to wipe. STILL! The fact that that nuance existed was nice. It brings to mind a certain Titan trial (before HW launch). We were too slow with damage, so what'd the tank do? Turned off tank stance so he could add DPS. I ended up healer-tanking that fight, and that was what got us through it. While I can't complain about tank stance no longer reducing damage output in favor of increasing defense, those were some pretty rad times back then. It actually took a bit of thinking.

I'm not personally too torn up about how things are now, compared to back then. Not yet, at least.

[xivYuiM]

If generate large amounts of enmity at the start of a fight then swap to DPS stance for the rest of the fight constitutes as a 'deceptively in-depth mechanic', then I don't know what to say.

I was more referring to the limits you could push in non-raid content (like dungeons) where there was endless fun to be had in trying to maximize the damage you could deal while also staying just on the edge of losing aggro or dying because you lost the damage reduction from tank stance. If all you wanted to do was hold aggro and not worry about anything else you could just turn on stance and walk forward while you spammed flash and used DCDs which is basically how every tank has been forced to play for many years now. There is no depth, no reward, no excitement. The dungeons mobs can't kill you, you can't lose aggro, and everyone does pretty much the exact same DPS assuming you have the same gear on while we mash the same 3 abilities without thinking for 17 minutes in a dungeon.

[CuteBucket]

I never played while HW was current, but I play with a few friends who did, and while they do miss the occasional job ability lost, sometimes it's funny to bring up things like Cleric Stance and TP just to make them shudder and laugh. They don't remember it that fondly. Two of them even dropped the game and came back a year or so later during SB because they weren't having much fun in HW patch content. But conversely, all of my friends who started playing in HW are now bored with the EW jobs and have dropped the game again or gone back to other MMOs like WoW.

I'd like to think there's a balance somewhere here, because I do feel like the jobs have become too homogenized in EW, but a lot of those old systems were dropped for a reason.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Yeah, back when accuracy was around we had such deep stat choices for our gear. Let's not forget that tanks had to meld more accuracy than others and mages the least amount.

[xivYuiM]

The thing with stuff like cleric stance is, it was optional. If you were doing any content that was the "normal difficulty" of the time then there was nobody forcing you to use it. If you were worried about activating it and then getting caught unable to heal enough then simply don't use it! It was a brilliant way for people who spent the time to learn the limits of their job to take the risk of turning it on to squeeze out extra damage when they could and, if done appropriately, they would be rewarded for doing so. There is nothing even close to that in the game the way it is today.