Combat system is beyond saving.

[Rekh]

The question is.. can combat even save this game? The way content has been released has been the same for years. You might play your class a little more braindead than before but..is that really all this game needs? I think it needs a lot more than just combat lol

Agree. After Dawntrail MSQ, leveling the new jobs, and sidequests i'm most likely out, there's nothing to do. No relic to grind, no long term anything; the tome gear's meaningless; just buy whatever crafter gear is up at the marketboard and you're set.

[RinaB]

One thing I've always hated in this game is no talent trees or different specs. Not only are we all the same when playing job X but switching between reaper and samurai for example is so samey it's pretty lazy. Viper looks like a reaper clone now so much so to the point where it looks like it has its own enshroud window. It also seems that the things they have kept from the past have no value. I hate positionals because they don't have the impact they should and they're just not satisfying with no cool indicator or big potency boost on hit. The argument of casual vs hard-core is stupid because there's a lot of players who simply hate 1 shot aoes. While we are talking about combat issues, let's talk about the fact that it's essentially AoE 14. Would really like some actual mechanics not just different shapes and aoe colours. They even managed to dumb down arr dungeons because they couldn't be bothered to make a dungeon guide like wow. Glamour sucks, should be like transmog from wow, there's no reason for the dresser. K I'm done my rant lol.

[Sjol]

Since a large part of the player base now has never seen combat from the HW or SB era, it's going to be hard for them to be nostalgic for it.

Returning to higher friction systems now would likely drive a lot of the new player base away as I think it would likely be interpreted as them just coming up with worse job design.

[Moqi]

I do not have any hope that they'll ever be able to make jobs interesting again unless there is a overhaul of the dev team at this point. Especially for healers, which they obviously don't care about at all. Leveling used to be fun, when you learned new skills that changed how you play, but it's been the same stuff for the past 20 (soon 30) levels.

Last time I took a 7 years break, let's see how long this lasts. Current story arc is done, so it's a perfect drop off point.

[Malthir]

The problem for me isn't just the combat system, they threw too many eggs in the MSQ basket, for example ARR we had way more dungeons than any expac and they weren't all tied to the MSQ, now every dungeon is MSQ based. The sense of world is reduced by this IMO.

Also I disagree that the issue is making things easier for casuals, it's not. it's laziness from the dev team. For example, tanks used to have like 2 or 3 ogcd buffs, now most have close to 10. They reduced weaponskills and abilities to reduce button "bloat", but the issue was never buttons to press. The issue is the number of OGCD buffs that should have been brought into weapon and ability skill combos for each class so that you spend your time pressing multiple buttons and engaging with you class mechanic, not just 1,2,3 to build a meter, then your press you 4 damage buffs press your 3 meter moves, and then rinse and repeat every 2m. Most of the buttons you press are buffs the rest of the time you press the same 3 buttons, it's dull and clearly only implemented because it's easier to balance by just slapping on a move that gives +20% mit or dmg etc, than to actually develop mechanic that you constantly engage with. I would argue even WoW now has better class fantasy, cause even though their classes are super homogenised, you at least constantly interact with the class features, you don't just sit there pressing 1 for 2m, all because the devs balance their game around world first spreadsheet players.

[BruceMaxwell]

I mean if people aren't liking the direction the game is going in then I would advise you to find something else to play. As harshly as you may take what I said it's true, why stay in a abusive relationship if you know you're just keep getting hurt but, you have the option to get out of said abusive relationship. If when you go to the log-in screen and you feel genuine frustration before you even get the character screen I think at that point its time to walk away.

[Rekh]

Those new aoe dots for healers will really improve that role.

[Calysto]

I don't think it appeals to any kind of player ; its most likely an excuse so SE can spend the least time/money on it (yes, I know that's how capitalism works, but they are milking it too much).

We have to wait 3 years for an expansion that give us new copy/pasted jobs and add little beside new animations and a whole new "press every 2 mn" action.
It seems we can't ask for more because 'now that game has too many <jobs>'(can replace with <equipment> with the last races problems), yet they won't get resources even when the game is making bank.
While Sure, the "core" of the game would certainly require a lot training for new people, graphical assets can easily be hired or outsourced ; and fresh gameplay inputs could probably come from other teams or even the community via polls.

Even the MSQ which is supposed to be the main draw of the game is getting stale , if not story-wise, because most CS have no dynamism ; half of them are 3 people talking with another 3 in the background.
If the WoL has to speak, it's always the same emote with a fade-up to black.
If it's asking for WoL advice, it change at most one sentence directly after, then back to whatever with no impact beyond that.
A villain, better let them monologue while they destroy/use whatever plot device or ally is not needed anymore
A fight ? well, better unsheathe your weapons and use your plot crystal while it's the villain turn to watch.

TL;DR : The board of directors probably created account so their player feedback is "less money out, more money in" ; the devs are busy whit FF16 and probably other projects.

[Jeeqbit]

I don't think it appeals to any kind of player

Summoner popularity and Lucky Bancho stats say otherwise...
"The number of active characters is approximately 1.18 million, an increase of 70,000 from the previous version (1.11 million)"
Not to mention all the people I talked to in and out of the game who are perfectly fine with the battle system now and prefer it, and who seem excited for Dawntrail.

its most likely an excuse so SE can spend the least time/money on it

It's not that. They have been perfectly open with us the whole time. They said in the latest live letters they are trying to make the rotations "comfortable" for their players. Going back to Stormblood they added the gauges because they felt tracking status effects was too complicated and the truth is that made many jobs amount to "gauge spending".

To be honest, what a lot of people viewed as job difficulty in the past was really just janky design, such as one ability being able to overwrite another if used too soon, which is increasingly being protected against. So I can see where SE is coming from when saying this.

We have to wait 3 years for an expansion that give us new copy/pasted jobs and add little beside new animations and a whole new "press every 2 mn" action.

But if the job is functionally different in any way, people will say "well it has X ability, why can't I have it?" For example, look at people celebrating White Mage getting a gap closer. Why are they celebrating that they have been homogenized? Look at people celebrating when Paladin got a gap closer, also homogenization. Look at people celebrating Divine Veil proccing automatically, Warrior not needing to spend gauge on a gap closer, Paladin's rotation being changed to be like GNB being celebrated. One job has less DPS than another, so it gets balanced in a patch. Homogenization gets celebrated when it specifically happens, but then in general it gets attacked. So what is SE supposed to do with that?

Homogenize, obviously.

It seems we can't ask for more because 'now that game has too many <jobs>'

Well that is probably also a factor. It's hard to really balance jobs when there are so many without simply making a lot of them the same as eachother.

While Sure, the "core" of the game would certainly require a lot training for new people, graphical assets can easily be hired or outsourced ; and fresh gameplay inputs could probably come from other teams or even the community via polls.

If you look at their recruitment, they are always recruiting in Japan. If you look at the credits, they grow every expansion. They have made blog posts about how they are training people. I even remember Soken making one about the people he was training - I think at the time we didn't know how important that was, because he was fighting something.

Even the MSQ which is supposed to be the main draw of the game is getting stale , if not story-wise, because most CS have no dynamism ; half of them are 3 people talking with another 3 in the background.

Well that is common in patches. We should see about the expansion.

the devs are busy whit FF16 and probably other projects.

I remember them saying the FF16 team was disbanded except for a very small team that remained to handle DLC, but most of the team wasn't needed anymore because all the major engine and gameplay and UI work was done years ago, it was just adding some more quests/battles for DLC.

Used to be the same with mentors, whenever you saw the icon you just knew the person was going to be toxic and not know what they were talking about.

Mentors are just veteran players. Veteran players in any MMORPG I've played are usually toxic, not deliberately, but because they know the most efficient way to do things and struggle to go back to doing it the "slow, clueless" way that new players do it. In any case, the mentors I meet in duties are usually good and I can rely on them to know things usually. Except trade mentors, because you never know when they are just sprouts.