More Transparency for Job Design Decisions

[Rozeee]

In light of the recent reactions to the job trailer and general controversies regarding jobs in the past, I'd like it if we had more transparency regarding the job changes in the future. Attempt have been made in the past with things such as patch notes having an extra section, but it is not enough and decisions made are inconsistent with their reasoning.

For example, in 6.1 SAM's AoE ability Tenka Goken was changed from a targeted cone to a circle, citing ease of use and inconsistency within the job. I am presuming they're referring to things such as Guren (a line aoe) and Fuko (circle aoe). In contrast, RPR has the same issue with Plentiful Harvest (a line aoe) and their 123 aoe combo.

In 6.21 pre-rework PLD was underperforming in raid settings, as it has difficulty in outputting damage during burst windows due to being a sustained DPS job and their advantage of maintaining uptime is lessened. To alleviate this, PLD has been reworked. In patch 6.28 and 6.4, BLM's potency and enochian has been buffed due to it being a sustain job and underperforming when compared to other DPS jobs, why did PLD get reworked and not BLM. Did they not have the same issue?

The wording of the page I listed is also very lackluster. It does not explain why the changes are made, only the purpose of the change. For example, "To improve defense against damage over time effects, a healing over time effect has been added to Shake It Off.". Why did it need to be improved in the first place? Is shake it off not meant to be weak against DoTs just like divine veil? How come divine veil not get the same treatment?

To be clear, I am not advocating for any of these changes to materialize. Simply asking for the reasoning why this is so inconsistent. Job design decisions are always controversial, therefore any changes should have strong reasoning coupled to them.

JP translation below done with DeepL. I've replaced some terms for ease of reading, but the tone is probably too aggressive due to it being automatically translated.

[Rozeee]

ジョブ・デザインの決定に関するさらなる透明性

ジョブトレーラーに対する最近の反応や、過去のジョブに関する一般的な論争を考慮すると、今後ジョブチェンジに関してもっと透明性があればいいと思います。パッチノートに余分なセクションがあるなど、過去に試みがなされてきましたが、十分ではありませんし、決定がその理由と矛盾しています。

例えば、6.1で侍のAoEアビリティ「天下御免」は、使いやすさとジョブ内の矛盾を理由に、ターゲットされた円錐から円に変更された。これは、「グレン」（線状のアオイ）や「フーコ」（円状のアオイ）などを指していると思われる。対照的に、リーパーは「豊穣の収穫」（ラインアオイ）とその123アオイコンボに同じ問題を抱えている。

リワーク前の6.21では、ナイトはレイドでのパフォーマンスが低かった。持続的なDPSジョブであるため、バーストウィンドウ中にダメージを出力することが難しく、アップタイムを維持する利点が少なくなっていたからだ。これを緩和するために、ナイトは作り直された。パッチ6.28と6.4では、黒魔の効力とエノキアンがバフされましたが、これは黒魔がサステインジョブであり、他のDPSジョブと比較したときに劣っていたためです。彼らは同じ問題を抱えていなかったのでしょうか？

私が挙げたページの文言も非常に不十分です。なぜ変更されたのかが説明されておらず、変更の目的だけが書かれている。例えば、「時間経過効果によるダメージに対する防御力を向上させるため、時間経過効果による回復がShake It Offに追加されました。そもそも、なぜ改善する必要があったのでしょうか？シェイク・イット・オフはディヴァイン・ヴェールのようにDoTに弱いという意味ではないのか？どうしてディヴァイン・ベールが同じ扱いを受けないのか？

はっきり言って、私はこれらの変更の実現を主張しているわけではない。単に、なぜこのように矛盾しているのか、その理由を尋ねているだけである。それゆえ、どのような変更であれ、その変更には強力な理由が伴うべきなのです。

JPの翻訳はDeepLで行いました。読みやすくするためにいくつかの用語を置き換えたが、自動翻訳されたため口調が攻撃的すぎるだろう。　

[Jeeqbit]

in 6.1 SAM's AoE ability Tenka Goken was changed from a targeted cone to a circle, citing ease of use and inconsistency within the job. I am presuming they're referring to things such as Guren (a line aoe) and Fuko (circle aoe). In contrast, RPR has the same issue with Plentiful Harvest (a line aoe) and their 123 aoe combo.

I remember at the time of the change, one of SAM's lower level abilities was still a cone but upgraded to a circle... which was real confusing when I was synced down.

why did PLD get reworked and not BLM. Did they not have the same issue?

I think it was the scale of the issue. PLD was struggling more with damage compared to other tanks even after several buffs, whereas BLM has just always been known as a high-DPS job.

Obviously this was a general problem with DoT-based jobs so they are addressing it on an expansion level by replacing rotation DoTs with a Dragon Kick > Bootshine type system or a symbol-type system to make multiple combos relevant still.

a healing over time effect has been added to Shake It Off.". Why did it need to be improved in the first place? Is shake it off not meant to be weak against DoTs just like divine veil?

Probably to match the general healing effect of Divine Veil which was added in EW.

How come divine veil not get the same treatment?

Questions like this are why so many things have been homogenized.

JP translation below done with DeepL.

If they just speak Japanese they'd probably read the Japanese forum. They don't like posting the same content in two language's forums though so I'd suggest not doing that.

[Rozeee]

Probably to match the general healing effect of Divine Veil which was added in EW.
Questions like this are why so many things have been homogenized.

If they just speak Japanese they'd probably read the Japanese forum. They don't like posting the same content in two language's forums though so I'd suggest not doing that.

Shake already healed the party just like veil did. They were functionally equivalent. Again, I am not advocating for these changes, just wondering the rationale behind it. Citing "because their aoe is inconsistent" doesn't work when another job have this issue. A reasoning such as "we'd like to differentiate it from RPR" would be more tolerable.

I know that they prefer separating forums based on the language, but I'd rather break forum convention and get slightly higher chances of this being read than not doing anything. I feel like EN feedback is barely considered but that's another topic.

I think it was the scale of the issue. PLD was struggling more with damage compared to other tanks even after several buffs, whereas BLM has just always been known as a high-DPS job.

Yes, PLD suffered more from this issue, but i do not see why it warranted a rework rather than continual potency adjustments. I would take several more patch cycles and maintenance days rather than practically deleting a job. Old PLD is the hardest tank by far and fits the bill for the "high dps, difficult job" niche that BLM had. If DoTs did not interact well with downtime then they should fix the issue rather than removing the DoT.

[Post]

Lol at old PLD being the 'hardest tank by far' not because I disagree but because I might agree. It's like how RDM is considered way harder than SMN not because it was made harder but just because the bar has been lowered that much. RDM effectively plays the same as it did in 4.0 just with a longer sword combo now, just like PLD basically just got a longer spell phase from 4.0 onwards until 6.x, but all the other tanks were just 'press button every minute' by 6.x
PLD, the job that had one combo and one AoE damage action every 25 seconds in ARR.

I also agree with the sentiment. I like that they're trying, but I feel like I don't understand how they've come to these decisions because I can't see what they're seeing, I can only play the game and note similarities between jobs, especially in the tank/ healer roles.

It also feels like the easy they tiptoe around job design gameplay and direction is like they're trying to hide it because they don't want people to notice it or they want people to think it's not important. It's in stark contrast to how patch notes and live letters used to spend a lot more time and up front discussing how the jobs were playing, like right after the new features of a patch and now that stuff is buried away on another webpage.

[Jeeqbit]

I never found PLD the hardest before, tbh, but I was super used to it because it was my main. But it had a bit of jank to get used to.

Before that, I found GNB the hardest (just because it could be a little distracting). Now I find that PLD has been made kinda similar to GNB, except it was more janky because of the Atonements. They improved those a little, but hopefully they'll function better and fit into the rotation better in 7.0.

I also agree with the sentiment. I like that they're trying, but I feel like I don't understand how they've come to these decisions because I can't see what they're seeing, I can only play the game and note similarities between jobs, especially in the tank/ healer roles.

They have provided their philosophy in keynotes and live letters prior to each expansion (the philosophy that they don't want players having to track 10 different tiny status effects) and that they want the jobs to be more comfortable to play.

Changes don't usually seem unexpected by players who have been pointing out the issue they are addressing either. For example, PLD's issues were frequently talked about by players so the lack of explanation is mainly an issue if you weren't seeing the discussions happening amongst the community. Tank buffs or ranged physical buffs in EW were also frequently talked about amongst the community prior to them happening.

If you see similarities between jobs, maybe it's because whenever there is a difference, someone complains "well that job doesn't have what the other job has" so SE addresses it (like with the Shake It Off-Divine Veil example). Before tank mitigation was made more the same, they had issues like "physical-only" mit with parry, blocks and physical defense on a lot of major cooldowns and the fix made them all the same.

[MisterNublet]

I could only guess the reason why BLM didn't get the same treatment as PLD. Which is that it is easier to keep buffing BLM until they're the top of the dps charts since they're a "selfish job" and they're suppose to be at the top of the meter. (Second reason being its Yoshi-P's job and he doesn't want the 2 min meta taint on his favorite child either.)

You can't really keep buffing PLD or some baldy will get angry WAR isn't the best tank at everything.

[Zarkovitch]

Atleast they putting the reason on the note patchs compare to before. Silent radio was great. Yall forgot they have like 5 or 6 battle designers for a lot jobs.

[Post]

Believe me, we're keenly aware

[OliviaLugria]

Because yoshi didn't want to change black mage because it's his job.