The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[Valence]

It's worth noting right off the bat there is a contradiction in your list. You initially stated that the tools would rotate like in PvP, so it starts Drill, on use it turns into Bio Blaster, which turns into Air Anchor then into Chainsaw before going back to drill, however, in point 6 where you give an 'ideal' burst, you start with Drill, oGCDs, then Air Anchor. By my reasoning, that cannot happen. Either that or there is something I am missing.

As to the thing as a whole, you have basically made PvE MCH with the following changes (for ST):
1. 4 step combo with no Battery Generation.
2. Hypercharge generates Battery, presumably to replace the Battery lost from the combo.
3. Rather than alternating Gauss Round and Ricochet, you mainly just use Gauss Round, though I assume Ricochet is still used, it just won't have its cooldown shortened by Heat Blast.
4. Scattergun is now a high potency attack with 50% damage fall off (and a ridiculously strong effect of reducing Reassembles cooldown per enemy hit). I will also assume it has a cooldown since we are basing this off of the PvP kit and you didn't mention otherwise.
5. 2 Turrets, one to debuff the enemy and one to do damage.

I will assume you flubbed the opener when referring to tools and so will assume they work like PvP, with a 15 second cooldown (as you said you can do 1 full rotation a minute) with 2 charges. With Air Anchor being as crucial to burst as it is, I don't see it lining up without having to hold charges and wasting the cooldown. As for the comment on choices to make with the tool. If it is like PvP, you have no choice, you rotate through them getting to the one that gives the most damage when you need it (reassembled Air Anchor in Burst). if they are separate, then you have 2 for AoE and 2 for ST, unless those AoE tools have potencies which allow them to be used in ST, in which case, I now have 4 tools fighting foe the same spot, Air Anchor is Burst starter, Assuming Drill is highest potency, what use do the other 2 have?

As for the Sniper Rifle, a 2 minute cooldown attack, thought people hated those? Even if you wanted to tie it to a resource, it is still a 2 minute cooldown.

Now, regardless of all that. This whole thing was started as an exercise to adapt the PvP kit into a PvE environment. So, what makes your kit more suited to that environment compared to the current PvE set? Why is yours better?



You will be in Black Shift 99% of the time, unless you need movement, making the whole mechanic seem almost pointless. Remember, damage is the aim. In parties, you have healers do do the healing and mitigating (along with Tanks), so that extra 'utility' in White Shift is pointless. In solo play, it might be more interesting, having to balance out White and Black in order to properly keep yourself alive.

Good catch. Oops. You could reorder the list of tools. Also, you'd probably need to rework a little bio and chainsaw to make them stand out more in single target scenari since everything they do is tailored for AoE. After all, it's not like I spent 3 years designing this reply to smooth everything out, it was just musings at best.

You basically missed the whole point behind, and perhaps I should have been less into the gritty details to prevent you to literally get lost in minutiae. I have not just "made pve MCH with the following changes" no. I have introduced a cycle of tools with charges that have to be used in order but can still be delayed or used to fit different situations. They can also be augmented with reassemble. Perhaps the reassemble effects could need some reworks, and tbh they're mostly examples of what I'd find flavorful. I like the idea that if my trash mob in dungeons is fresh out the oven and my bioblaster is coming up, I can reassemble it, help the tank with an AoE slow, and then use FT to capitalize on it. I like that when the pack of mobs is dying I can delay my tools a little and use Rea chainsaw to mow them down. I like that my tools like in pvp are dedicated for specific tasks, which is after all, the whole idea behind something called "tools". In pve, they are all the same flavor and do the same thing.

The fact still remains that you have a limited amount of reassembles to use and you need to make choices into what you want to burn them. Alternatively you can even remove the cycle completely if you want full choice but that would also prove problematic since people would probably try to cram everything into the burst window and be left with literally nothing left to do in terms of multitool for the remaining 50s until next refresh. The cycle is here to keep some constraints and force a certain flow, but its charges also removes it to become incredibly rigid.

Now, thinking about it more, since there is 2 AoE and 2 ST tools in my thing, and 3 reassemble per 120s, you'd rea almost every tool you want to use in both scenari. Perhaps i'd rework them to have Rea adjust some of them for AoE and some for ST. Perhaps Rea Drill becomes a Piercing Drill that gets through the first target and hits everything behind with decreasing damage. Perhaps Rea Anchor makes it AoE. Perhaps basic Bio blaster is worth it even in ST because the dot is short but very strong. Perhaps chainsaw is also worth it in ST because it's not too low potency and it makes the cycle go on. There is plenty of ideas to be worked around that concept, that's the whole core of pvp MCH tools.

Sniper Rifle, you can remove if you want. It's just there because I honestly don't know what to do with it.

I'm just a little frustrated that the only thing you're telling me is that "it's just pve with some changes". I literally made it on purpose to not throw away and discard the whole pve kit and now you complain that I'm not going wild enough?

[Mikey_R]

I'm just a little frustrated that the only thing you're telling me is that "it's just pve with some changes". I literally made it on purpose to not throw away and discard the whole pve kit and now you complain that I'm not going wild enough?

I gave you free reign to take any PvP kit and adapt it into a PvE environment. I placed no constraints on how you done that, I never said you had use the current PvE rotation, you could do whatever you wanted, as long as the spirit of the PvP rotation is still there.

I also never complained that you basically made the PvE kit, I made an observation. The fact you used the PvE rotation as a base means it isn't as bad as you first implied. This whole thing was on the premise that, with slight adjustments, PvP kits would work well in PvE. The fact you started with the PvE rotation goes against the whole idea of the exercise.

You say you want the tools to provide different effects, which is fine, but also know that the ones with the highest damage will be placed into burst windows, so you already have a restriction there. Knowing that you can go through 2 cycles in 2 minutes means you will want to do that, which further restricts when you can use specific tools as you don't want to overcap the charges, otherwise you delay your burst. This assumes the tools are stronger than your basic combo, if they aren't, it becomes even worse.

Ultimately, you aren't going to achieve the same feeling you get in PvP when compared to PvE. The PvP kits are suited for PvP only, trying to fit them into PvE encounters just doesn't work.

[ty_taurus]

I think it goes without saying that PVP kits do not literally translate to PVE very well. We shouldn’t need to establish that because I would imagine those of us familiar with the game can see that without needing an explanation.

What is being said about PVP is that there is room to take inspiration from the PVP kits when designing adjustments for PVE. That doesn’t mean ripping things directly from PVP as they are and zealously refusing to tweak them in any way.

[Valence]

I gave you free reign to take any PvP kit and adapt it into a PvE environment. I placed no constraints on how you done that, I never said you had use the current PvE rotation, you could do whatever you wanted, as long as the spirit of the PvP rotation is still there.

I also never complained that you basically made the PvE kit, I made an observation. The fact you used the PvE rotation as a base means it isn't as bad as you first implied. This whole thing was on the premise that, with slight adjustments, PvP kits would work well in PvE. The fact you started with the PvE rotation goes against the whole idea of the exercise.

You say you want the tools to provide different effects, which is fine, but also know that the ones with the highest damage will be placed into burst windows, so you already have a restriction there. Knowing that you can go through 2 cycles in 2 minutes means you will want to do that, which further restricts when you can use specific tools as you don't want to overcap the charges, otherwise you delay your burst. This assumes the tools are stronger than your basic combo, if they aren't, it becomes even worse.

Ultimately, you aren't going to achieve the same feeling you get in PvP when compared to PvE. The PvP kits are suited for PvP only, trying to fit them into PvE encounters just doesn't work.

Of course there is restrictions? What is a job toolkit if no restrictions?

I'm starting to see that you completely missed the point of everything and your whole agenda was to demonstrate that pvp kits don't directly translate into pve. Well, enjoy the strawman captain obvious, because nobody ever postulated that.

Edit: for real, just respond to ty_taurus that already answered perfectly what was the actual premise about.

[Mikey_R]

Edit: for real, just respond to ty_taurus that already answered perfectly what was the actual premise about.

I planned to as soon as I read it.

I think it goes without saying that PVP kits do not literally translate to PVE very well. We shouldn’t need to establish that because I would imagine those of us familiar with the game can see that without needing an explanation.

What is being said about PVP is that there is room to take inspiration from the PVP kits when designing adjustments for PVE. That doesn’t mean ripping things directly from PVP as they are and zealously refusing to tweak them in any way.

The PvP kits themselves are directly inspired by the PvE kits. So, logically, if you were to take the PvP kits and take inspiration from them to make a PvE kit, logically speaking, you would end up with something that looks similar to the current PvE kits.

The claim then, that the PvP kits have things that the PvE kits could take inspiration from should then be tested. This is why, you start at the PvP kit, take the things out that only apply to PvP, replace with some PvE centred things and make a new kit. Now, if what you come up with is something similar to the PvE kit, then the PvP kit really isn't that inspiring is it?

So aagin, the question is, what is so inspiring about the PvP kits that the PvE kits could learn from?

What PVP does well is job identity. Of course PVP abilities wont translate into PVE, but they should be taking note how they’re able to bring a different feeling in every job

Define Job identity. This one I am curious about. I'm pretty sure people use this term to mean different things, so what does it mean to you and anyone else who wants to answer.

[MagiusNecros]

Define Job identity.

Every job plays the same in PVE. Every job plays differently in PVP down to playstyle, kit and unique effects that only that job class brings. Which goes beyond a raid buff or 2 minute burst or a 5 action Fell Cleave window.

All there is to it. Only PVE job with identity is Blue Mage. And eventually Beastmaster.

[Mikey_R]

Every job plays the same in PVE.

Hard disagree. Monk plays nothing like Paladin, which automatically invalidates what you said. Different roles? Ok, Monk plays differently to Dragoon. Again, instantly invalidates the point.

machinist plays differently to Bard which plays differently to Dancer, Summoner plays differently to Black mage who plays differently to Red Mage.

I could go on, you need to be more specific.

[MagiusNecros]

Hard disagree.

I hard disagree with your hard disagree. All the classes in PVE play similar to a DPS Warrior. But hey whatever mental gymnastics you need to do to sleep at night. All I see is a poor strawman argument.

I answered your question. If the best you can retort is "No you are wrong" without rebuking with facts and reason then you have no argument. And given your response you are set in your ways. Good day to you.

[Rithy255]

Hard disagree. Monk plays nothing like Paladin, which automatically invalidates what you said. Different roles? Ok, Monk plays differently to Dragoon. Again, instantly invalidates the point.

machinist plays differently to Bard which plays differently to Dancer, Summoner plays differently to Black mage who plays differently to Red Mage.

I could go on, you need to be more specific.

When you look at Tank & Healers, they do "play" the same as one another, Tanks generally don't have "interesting rotations" enough to vastly be different a example being DRK Vs PLD, Drk's main differences are that it has high APM (which mind you DRK's being slown down pretty heavily in DT), While PLD has more spam gcd's in general (that you get from your 1, 2, 3), Both aren't very interesting enough in variety while technically being different in reality both are very bland, the argument could be said they're "both tanks!" but that doesn't really matter with FF14 design because tanking is designed to be as bare bones as it can be, anything "unique" about being a tank has been pretty much removed from the game. Personally I think tanks should have way more rotational variety.

I don't really need to debate healers do I? I hope not.

For DPS, I actually agree with you Jobs like Monk vs Dragoon don't play the same, for the most part DPS are fine, Reaper & Summoner I dislike but I'm happy that theirs jobs for beginners (Although with summoner they need more casts per minute), "2 Minute meta" can effect this as we generally have jobs designed around bursts, I do think 2 minute meta hurts variety a bit but doesn't completely remove variety but it does sort of hinder it. I feel as if Melee are pretty "bland" as in theirs no sort of melee that deviates from the standard structure of rotation based jobs, such as having a melee with a lot of proc based gameplay ect. I'll add that I think 2 minute meta is a big reason why jobs feel the same as most jobs work towards that big burst, then cycle on a basic rotation until that big burst, hence why even if a job feels different theirs a lot of similarities to even the most "different" of jobs.

When people mention Job variety (aka jobs are samey, in the sense they don't bring anything unique on the table) I think some people want certain jobs to offer more then just rotation variety, which is another topic for another day, But I feel as the main issue comes in tank and healer design where both roles in general are suffering from having jobs mesh, all being builder spenders or in healers case just being press one button, Cooldowns/support on those jobs are pretty much the same, with small room for differences.

[Sjol]

Define Job identity. This one I am curious about. I'm pretty sure people use this term to mean different things, so what does it mean to you and anyone else who wants to answer.

This wasn't directed at me, but I would love to answer it.

To me, job Identity is multiple things hence the confusion.

* Visual Identity - Does this job look like other jobs? Could you confuse its dress, style, or animations for another job?
* Thematic Identify - When describing this job to another person, (e.g., "Treasure Hunter", "Mage obsessed with destruction"), could it be confused for another job?
* Input Identity - How similar is the sequence of keys I have to press compared to another job? This is somewhat under the player's control, but mostly up to the job designers. Mudra input vs. Hypercharge vs. BRD procs all have different feel in how and when I press things.
* Mechanical Identity - If I were to describe the meters without visuals or names how easily confused could they be to another meter. E.g., meter that starts at 0 and goes to 100 in increases of 5, 10 or 15 based on user actions.

In all the above the sign of distinctness is how specific I can be and there still be confusion. This is our brain's attempt at grouping like things and removing distinctiveness in order to store the information more efficiently.

I think part of the issue is that there are jobs or parts of jobs that have gotten too close for some people in one or more of those areas. That's when they start to blend in their mind and feels same-y. The annoyance for the designers is that different jobs need to be distinct feeling in all those categories, not just one or two. The more jobs there are and the tighter the constraints around balance (more fights to balance around), the harder it becomes to maintain distinctness.