The problem with Tripling Down on Shadowbringers Job Design

[Mikey_R]

1. Like you completely blew off the fact that aravell mentioned the similarity of NIN’s damage profile to MNK’s and then even backed up her point by pointing out that DNC also shares a similar profile.

2. However the buttons you regularly press don’t consititute the jobs feeling too similar for no other reason than they aren’t identical. I happen to find 2 jobs that have a 90 second, a 60 second personal, a 120 group buff that benefits themselves and an active dump of your almost identically generated gauge to be too similar, especially since they are both melee

3. I won’t even mention you blow off healers every time they are bought up despite having no logical argument for why they are so similar

1. Maybe the point I was making wasn't quite explained correctly. they originally said NIN and MNK are the same, I mentioned DNC, they said, no, DNC doesn't fit, then listed a few criteria. I showed that DNC pretty much does fit that criteria. So, why is it they wanted to exclude DNC from that list? Maybe it is because jobs are more than just broad strokes.

2. Assuming we are still talking about NIN and MNK, they both have different combo structures and generate gauge differently. Ninja also has overhead on their gauge where MNK (currently) does not. Again, most jobs have a 60 second personal, most jobs have a 120 raid buff, most jobs have a gauge. However, there is a reason I like playing Monk and generally do not like playing Ninja.

3. I'm basically agreeing that every healer plays very similarly. However, the original blanket statement of 'all jobs play the same' isn't true. The fact we can single out healers from the rest as being an issue means we are looking into things with more nuance than just broad strokes. The next step is looking at healers and seeing how they can make them different. As an example, Sage and Scholar both treat shields differently. Sage's shields can be turned into a heal after being applied and even Haima/Panhaima heal if they aren't used up completely. Scholar cannot do that. What Scholar can do is turn the shield into pure healing and forgo the mitigation completely. Maybe they should focus more on that. At the end of the day though, there is only so many ways you can restore HP and there will be overlap. That means, it is down to the rest of the kit and how everything interacts with each other in order to make them feel more unique. This then goes back to'Fell Cleave spam' Yes, on the surface, they are the same, but how they interact with the rest of the kit is what matters and that is what makes them more unique.

[Aravell]

Maybe the point I was making wasn't quite explained correctly. they originally said NIN and MNK are the same, I mentioned DNC, they said, no, DNC doesn't fit, then listed a few criteria. I showed that DNC pretty much does fit that criteria. So, why is it they wanted to exclude DNC from that list? Maybe it is because jobs are more than just broad strokes.

I pointed out that DNC doesn't fit the criteria that I set. They don't have a 60s personal damage buff, they don't have a 90s that they use on CD and they most certainly do not fill the same niche.

You're very much painting in much broader strokes than me to try and prove your point while glossing over mine.

[Supersnow845]

You’ve kinda just proved my point here 2 ways

“Almost all jobs have a 60 second and a 120 second”. Why? There is no reason they need to have those and there is no reason they all need to generate the same (ie just be a CD a press). You are ignoring the fact that “broad strokes” still forms the foundation of the job and a lot of what you end up pressing. Multiple jobs with personal 60’s group 120’s, copy pasted gauges and barrel stabiliser style CD’s tend to become repetitive. Can you pick nuances between them……yes. Does it really make the jobs not excessively similar…….no

The other way is the fact that you’ve still missed my point on healer design. Specifically in your example of ET vs Pepsis. You never press either of these skills. This is where your “broad strokes similar, nuance different” argument falls apart to me. A lot of the examples you draw from are niche optimisation or niche skills that rarely play into anything. Can you say “SGE breaks shields to heal SCH consumes the shield before it goes out to heal” and be 100% objectively correct……..yes. Does it make literally any difference to how the two jobs actually play……..no

Nuances aren’t as important as the core foundations of the jobs as that forms the majority of what you are doing. A better SGE SCH comparison would be kerechole/SS or embrace kardia. When you look at their broad strokes design they are similar

I pointed out that DNC doesn't fit the criteria that I set. They don't have a 60s personal damage buff, they don't have a 90s that they use on CD and they most certainly do not fill the same niche.

You're very much painting in much broader strokes than me to try and prove your point while glossing over mine.

Sorry that might have been me co-opting your point

[Zairava]

Oh yes, Blood Weapon. Which adds a whopping two ogcd's. One for merely using it and the other for the just enough MP for another edge.

And WAR's damage buff which takes barebones brainpower to maintain. Infuriate you only use outside of burst windows if you would otherwise overcap.

What glorious difference of nuances. One ability that adds about as much flavor as a quarter teaspoon of salt on a chicken with no other seasoning or spice on it and another that barely keeps you awake.

[Mikey_R]

I pointed out that DNC doesn't fit the criteria that I set. They don't have a 60s personal damage buff, they don't have a 90s that they use on CD and they most certainly do not fill the same niche.

You're very much painting in much broader strokes than me to try and prove your point while glossing over mine.

So why is it your criteria stopped at that point to not include Dancer? Why do you not then take into account other factors, like the NIN and MNK have different combo structures? How about the fact they have different considerations before burst? how about during burst? Downtime, gap closing etc.

I only made that comparison to mainly prove a point and that point is, you get different results depending on what criteria you are using to judge things. I can just as easily paint with a finer brush to point out the differences that then makes your brush look broad by comparison. The question then is, what size brush do we use to compare.

[Mikey_R]

You’ve kinda just proved my point here 2 ways

“Almost all jobs have a 60 second and a 120 second”. Why? There is no reason they need to have those and there is no reason they all need to generate the same (ie just be a CD a press). You are ignoring the fact that “broad strokes” still forms the foundation of the job and a lot of what you end up pressing. Multiple jobs with personal 60’s group 120’s, copy pasted gauges and barrel stabiliser style CD’s tend to become repetitive. Can you pick nuances between them……yes. Does it really make the jobs not excessively similar…….no

And this broad stroke is a job design issue and not a job identity issue.

The other way is the fact that you’ve still missed my point on healer design. Specifically in your example of ET vs Pepsis. You never press either of these skills. This is where your “broad strokes similar, nuance different” argument falls apart to me. A lot of the examples you draw from are niche optimisation or niche skills that rarely play into anything. Can you say “SGE breaks shields to heal SCH consumes the shield before it goes out to heal” and be 100% objectively correct……..yes. Does it make literally any difference to how the two jobs actually play……..no

That's more down to encounter design and how the damage comes out rather than a job identity issue. You said that they are different, it just means damage profiles from encounters do not support the 2 types of healing in order for their unique variances to matter.

[Zairava]

That's more down to encounter design and how the damage comes out rather than a job identity issue. You said that they are different, it just means damage profiles from encounters do not support the 2 types of healing in order for their unique variances to matter.

Sure but there's glaring examples of Shield healers stepping into the shoes of Pure Healing healers and vice versa.

Sacred Soil and Kerachole give a regen, Protraction is eHP and a heal for that amount. (it's worth noting that the eHP isn't a shield, it's a HP boost), Taurachole having a sizeable heal + the mit it provides. Neutral Sect on AST

I'm sure healer mains can make this argument far better than I ever can, but the glaring issue is there.

A key point here is rather than it exclusively being an encounter design issue there is absolutely a healer-wide job design issue. The fact shield healers can have such potent heals in tandem with the most potent on-demand type of damage mitigation is the reason why they are so much stronger than the Pure Healers. The issue is that both encounter design doesn't dish enough healing output for pure healers to be a necessity in groups where 2 healers are generally required, and that they are increasingly making the barrier between the two types of healers smaller, which obviously will favor shield healers more.

[Aravell]

So why is it your criteria stopped at that point to not include Dancer? Why do you not then take into account other factors, like the NIN and MNK have different combo structures? How about the fact they have different considerations before burst? how about during burst? Downtime, gap closing etc.

I only made that comparison to mainly prove a point and that point is, you get different results depending on what criteria you are using to judge things. I can just as easily paint with a finer brush to point out the differences that then makes your brush look broad by comparison. The question then is, what size brush do we use to compare.

So what exactly is your point here? Are you saying that I'm not allowed to point out blatant similarities between jobs because you can wield a bigger brush than me? I don't see your point at all.

[Dhalya]

I am very disappointed with the direction they are taking the game in terms of job design vs. fight design difficulty and engagement.

Job design should be THE ONE that is most engaging and has high skill ceiling. This way every player is engaged in gameplay even in casual content or grinding. What they are doing is dumbing down the jobs to levels where you fall asleep in dungeons, while making the savage fights harder and harder with body checks, memory games, one shots and no way of recovery.

I completely stopped doing roulettes as I can't bear the 123 simulator on all melees including tanks, or 111 simulator on healers. Sure, in a very difficult fight like TOP or P12S I still struggle to execute perfect rotation and I am engaged a lot. But that's not enough since I only do this content for 10% of my game time and the rest feels super boring.

From the live letter it seems that they are going even more into that direction, possibly making many jobs just 1112 and oGCD weaving copies of each other. The encounters in turn will have to be really exceptional to compensate...

The other MMO I played, Aion-classic, truly not a good game content wise, but the combat is very engaging.
Every class feels different with unique things it can do and what it can optimize like normal attacks timing, dispel timing, aggro/mana/cc/pet management etc.
Sure, you can just mash your buttons and clear most of PVE content, but if you want - there are so many things to improve in. I really miss that possibility here.

[Valence]

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?

But what is "being inspired by" exactly? How do you define this inspiration between pvp and pve kits? We both can play at this little game.

That's pure sophistry you've been doing since the beginning and you know it. You know what people mean, your strategy is just to derail everything into meaningless minutiae that completely misses the bigger picture.

As for the last paragraph, this is the problem with people at the moment. They have blurred the lines so much that everything looks the same. However, the miss the nuance associated with each individual thing that makes them unique. This is what I am trying to make people see. These things are not the same and they all have different considerations applied to each one. There is only so much you can do to make things feel distinct when everyone is looking at things from such a broad perspective. get in there, take in the nuance.

We could tell you that two inner release type bursts feel the same, you'd still come up and tell us "akshtually, the GCD used in both don't have the same potency so they're technically very different!"

You're being constantly disingenuous and missing the point on purpose.