The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[WaxSw]

Can you define job complexity? What would make a job complex? Does complexity not disappear once you have a certain level of mastery in that job?

No. Regardless of how intuitive or easy something may be percieved by an experienced individual, there is always a degree of objective complexity left. Someone that has mastered math may find an operation like an integration trivial from their perspective but even under that perspective they can easily identify that said integration is several leagues ahead of complexity when compared to a sum and even under their perspective they still may find some problems that, while being able to solve them, they find hard to do, engaging and complex.

On a game complexity is one of the wheels of the player growth and engagement. Its a constant supply of intrinsic (and extrinsic if properly designed) rewards that encourages them to find new approaches to an already known situation and dive deeper in the game's systems

[Zadood]

If CBU3 couldn't add anything meaningful skill outside of 2 min burst window.

Then why not shorten the period between burst window, like from 2 min to 1 min burst window?

So which means,
120s CD skill action became 60s CD,
60s CD skill action became 30s CD,
30s CD skill action became 15s CD,
45s CD skill action became 22.5s CD

It won't help a lot, but it at least ease the pain of current 2 min burst window design.
Not to meantion, 1 min burst window is much more easier to recover from screwed up and misplay.

[OgruMogru]

Does complexity not disappear once you have a certain level of mastery in that job?

Does an elaborate piece of classical music turn into twinkle twinkle little star if you listen to it enough?

[Mikey_R]

As someone gains knowledge of something, they may choose to reorder things on the complexity spectrum. Something that initially had the appearance of, say, "depth", might turn out to be quite shallow on further investigation, and vice versa.

Significantly relabeling which chunk of the spectrum is "simple" vs. "complex" is probably more akin to losing a sense of perspective.

So, more knowledge shifts your perspective on what it means for something to be complex, one way or the other. Which is the crux of what I was saying, admittedly, focusing more on the more knowledge means things will be perceived to be less complex rather than the potential it might be more, but I would say the former is a more likely scenario when put into the context of FFXIV.

I think you're misunderstanding what people want. I don't think people want complexity that remains just as complex forever, because that's not possible. I think what people are looking for is complexity that grants repeatable engagement. Little things you can tweak here and there for each fight that makes you think, even after playing that job for years.

Things can remain engaging even after you build muscle memory of it after all.

I've seen many people claim they want job complexity regardless of the encounter. The majority of what I say is in direct response to that. As you said, things cannot stay complex forever, this is why it is important to not forget about encounter design and how your job's kit relates to it.

No. Regardless of how intuitive or easy something may be percieved by an experienced individual, there is always a degree of objective complexity left. Someone that has mastered math may find an operation like an integration trivial from their perspective but even under that perspective they can easily identify that said integration is several leagues ahead of complexity when compared to a sum and even under their perspective they still may find some problems that, while being able to solve them, they find hard to do, engaging and complex.

On a game complexity is one of the wheels of the player growth and engagement. Its a constant supply of intrinsic (and extrinsic if properly designed) rewards that encourages them to find new approaches to an already known situation and dive deeper in the game's systems

Yes, objectively, you can define a range of complexity for a given item, however, how the person perceives the complexity is just as important as that determines where in that objectivity range that person in particular subjectively sees the complexity. As that person gains knowledge, their perspective of where this line lies shifts based on that knowledge. We are still inside the objective range, but perspectives have shifted. In FFXIV terms, there is only so many ways you can approach a job and, after a bit of playing around, you will find everything basically fits into place and yes, this is true of past expansions as well. With only a limited number of options, it doesn't take long for you to test out everything and pick the best option.

Again, to reiterate, you cannot design a complex job without taking into account encounter design, despite what some people might suggest.

Does an elaborate piece of classical music turn into twinkle twinkle little star if you listen to it enough?

That is a bad analogy as you are not the one performing the song. You are gaining no knowledge or extra mastery just by listening. A better example would be, assuming you start at zero knowledge, would more knowledge and mastery not help you to play that classical piece more easily?

[Lyth]

'Complexity' is a self-congratulatory feelycraft word as far as discussions about this game is concerned. Mutual agreement can be the byproduct of objective findings, but can arise just as easily as folie à deux.

Fight design is scripted to the point that you generally learn what you're doing on a GCD-by-GCD basis by the end of prog. There's very little that this game involves in the realm of on-the-fly decision-making. You're solving a chess position to which all the remaining possible moves have already been well mapped out.

I think that it's worth talking about making jobs more engaging to play, but I think the direction needs to be around creating uncertainty and variability. I'm interested in seeing what comes of these hotbar 'layers' (i.e. action swaps) in the future, and it may be that adding more context-dependent hotbar swaps may lead to more on-the-fly decision making. I think there's been a strong push to make pulls more predictable that dates back to Stormblood. Part of that is a reflection of players wanting to achieve the 'perfect' run and not tolerating any variance that might ruin that. I would much rather every pull feel unique in its optimizations.

[Silhart]

I think you're misunderstanding what people want. I don't think people want complexity that remains just as complex forever, because that's not possible. I think what people are looking for is complexity that grants repeatable engagement. Little things you can tweak here and there for each fight that makes you think, even after playing that job for years.

Things can remain engaging even after you build muscle memory of it after all.

Agreed with this 10000%. I'm not sure where people get this idea that complex gameplay suddenly stops becoming fun once you've mastered it. One of my favourite jobs in another MMORPG is one whose core rotation has not changed in 8 years, yet it's as enjoyable today as it was back then. Having different things to tweak for each fight definitely helps a lot, but honestly, sometimes just being able to play a job I took great effort to learn is reward enough for me. That job provides me with enough intrinsic enjoyment I could fight the same boss for years and never get bored.

I wish I could say the same for literally any of the jobs in FF14. I understand these massive job changes happen partly because the devs don't want people to get bored of doing the same rotation for years on end--I truly get it, but I wish they'd understand that killing off chunks of job gameplay I've grown to love is going to make me not want to play (see: MNKs and BLMs freaking out about possibly losing Optimal Drift and Non-Standard respectively). Of all the possible avenues for change, they happened upon the one that leaves us with less than what we had before. Thank you CBU3 very cool

[rawker]

BLM is the closest I can think off where its rotation evolved gracefully.

[OgruMogru]

That is a bad analogy as you are not the one performing the song. You are gaining no knowledge or extra mastery just by listening. A better example would be, assuming you start at zero knowledge, would more knowledge and mastery not help you to play that classical piece more easily?

Whether it's familiarity as a listener or familiarity as a performer the thing you are becoming familiar with has not changed and it doesn't suddenly devolve into something lesser just because you've become more familiar with it.

"Does complexity not disappear once you have a certain level of mastery in that job?"

Likewise job complexity would not "disappear" once you have attained a level of mastery, you just....learned how to do it.

[Zadood]

'Complexity' is a self-congratulatory feelycraft word as far as discussions about this game is concerned. Mutual agreement can be the byproduct of objective findings, but can arise just as easily as folie à deux.

Fight design is scripted to the point that you generally learn what you're doing on a GCD-by-GCD basis by the end of prog. There's very little that this game involves in the realm of on-the-fly decision-making. You're solving a chess position to which all the remaining possible moves have already been well mapped out.

I think that it's worth talking about making jobs more engaging to play, but I think the direction needs to be around creating uncertainty and variability. I'm interested in seeing what comes of these hotbar 'layers' (i.e. action swaps) in the future, and it may be that adding more context-dependent hotbar swaps may lead to more on-the-fly decision making. I think there's been a strong push to make pulls more predictable that dates back to Stormblood. Part of that is a reflection of players wanting to achieve the 'perfect' run and not tolerating any variance that might ruin that. I would much rather every pull feel unique in its optimizations.

The reason why player want to "optimize" their run in dungeon and want get it quickly done because...

FFXIV is not a fun game to play in general. And that's precisely the reason why a lot content is heavily reliant on reward to stay relevant.

And now you might asking "If game is not fun for them to play, then why they keep playing it at all?"

Well the answer is, if you are a player that love MMORPG genre, but ALMOST every single MMORPG in the said genre is riddled with P2W, LootBox, Gacha, BattlePass predatory monetization.

What option you still have left in this otherwise what they so-called a "free market"?

[Lyth]

?

Not talking about dungeon content. I'm talking about optimization runs in Savage content.

That's part of the reason why things like Crit variance are progressively designed out of the game, because you reset if you're unlucky. I think a degree of variability and resultant run-specific optimization is important, and even necessary to keep things interesting. As things stand, when you've spent enough time in a fight, you know all your GCDs in advance from memory. That predictability is what's holding back gameplay more than anything else.