Combat system is beyond saving.

[Menriq]

You're definitely right, they could do that. With the caveat that encounter design vs job design has always been relatively balanced, where now the latter is almost weightless.

I'm happy that you're enjoying it, but unfortunately, your personal opinion goes directly against mine here, so where does this leave us?

This gets to the heart of the issue for many developers (not just here). You have different schools of thoughts and both are very valid. The old saying of "If you try to please everyone, you'll please no one" certainly rings here. Having said that, I do think there is some room to try and offer a range. Encounters already kind of do this with the first turn always being the easiest, and then ramping up to the final turn. At the same time, there could be a range of complexity with the jobs. For example, you could have BLM that is complex with SMN as very simple, and then have other jobs fall in the middle. However, going with this route and trying to keep things balanced, the complaint would then become BLM has to "work harder" to get the same output as the SMN who just spams 1-2-3 (for arguments sake). I don't know what the right answer is, but I can certainly see the challenges that can be presented when looking at the whole picture.

[Valence]

This gets to the heart of the issue for many developers (not just here). You have different schools of thoughts and both are very valid. The old saying of "If you try to please everyone, you'll please no one" certainly rings here. Having said that, I do think there is some room to try and offer a range. Encounters already kind of do this with the first turn always being the easiest, and then ramping up to the final turn. At the same time, there could be a range of complexity with the jobs. For example, you could have BLM that is complex with SMN as very simple, and then have other jobs fall in the middle. However, going with this route and trying to keep things balanced, the complaint would then become BLM has to "work harder" to get the same output as the SMN who just spams 1-2-3 (for arguments sake). I don't know what the right answer is, but I can certainly see the challenges that can be presented when looking at the whole picture.

My main problem is that they have made it pretty clear with their direction and playing deaf to all of our feedback that they do not want to care at all about what kept us veterans engaged. The blanket was already decently balanced between both "schools of thought" back then (else I could tell you what I truly want and it would be a fully randomized game where difficulty is based almost exclusively on rpg mechanics, tactics, player agency, resource management and adjusting to chaos and random variables with zero DDR and script based mechanics, and that would be the opposite end of the spectrum). Those days they keep unilaterally pulling the blanket to the other opposite because they clearly have a made a choice and do not want to aim for compromises at all.

The saddest part is that except perhaps for a few lunatics, most disgruntled veterans aren't even asking for a return to "Heavensward or Stormblood classic", because those expansions are over, and have had a good run already. We're just asking for new things that also try to give us a bone to gnaw at, really. Something new within the spirit of the current expansions.

However i'll fight tooth and nail against any attempt to make various degrees of job difficulties, because that's exactly what gave us SMN and as far as I'm concerned this one directly belongs into the trashpile of utter failures that are actually harmful to the game. We need every job being accessible (which is the case today with the exception of BLM for very green players mostly due to badly explained mechanics and obscure tooltips), but all of them also with a decent ceiling for some skill expression and actual rewards beyond "just press your buttons and that's all the job is gonna give you, don't expect for more". Differing job difficulties also generate a problem of damage output balance that is unsolvable in the current model.