DPS Simplification - Just do Ultimates!

[Connor]

Hi Yoshi-P how has your day been?

He is bemused and shook to the core about people having problems with the game

[NegativeS]

[Connor]

TBH, I don't think anyone disagrees that all roles feel absolutely terrible to play in casual content, and that job design needs to be made more fun. I frankly have no input to give healers or tanks because I don't play them in content I care about to have any nuanced insight on those jobs or roles, but I understand their issues, and that it stems from terrible job and content design philosophy. I can just tell you that no sensible human being who engages with the game in any meaningful capacity disagrees with this take on healers (or any other role). I am also not going to pretend that your feedback with respect to healer design is pointless. I am just saying that it is probably more useful to have all this feedback be in GD because DPS sub-forums is just ignored and neglected so nothing you say here will reach whoever it is you are trying to reach. Refer to the several dozen threads bashing SAM changes that Yoshida pretends just doesn't exist at all.

If there was a way I recategorise the thread into a different sub forum I’d do it myself, but if such a thing is possible I sadly have no idea how to do it lol. I thought dps roles made the most sense at the time but I’m not keeping it there just to be difficult; I just have no idea how to change it lol. I think GM’s can do it under certain circumstances so maybe one of them can put it where it should go rather than where I put it. I mean, I’m not denying that general discussion does make the most sense on reflection lol. I guess I just figured ‘dps = dps role subforum’ even though the topic was actually broader, so it should’ve been in general to reflect that

[Aco505]

Sadly, the simplification of jobs also affects Ultimates. It's still content that provides interesting ways to play or optimize jobs but when complexity keeps being removed from them, not even Ultimates can fix the issue.

[Galvuu]

snip

I'm sorry, but this post just doesn't make sense (and seems to fundamentally miss a crucial point of the healer woes). Ultimates cannot fix the issue that afflicts dps (and tanks)- if the role is very homogeneous, swapping between job A and job B on an Ultimate will result in a similar experience. This is even more true of tanks than it is of dps, you can literally go into TOP and clear as WAR and then go as DRK and it's mostly the same (invul cd forcing an earlier tank swap p5 aside). I don't think I've ever heard of people proposing Ultimates as a panacea for role/job homogeneity, because it fundamentally doesn't change the problem at all. Even the "wanna press more than 1 button" line doesn't make sense, because while you can play through a lot of content just doing 1-2-3 s dps and clear, you don't have to and are absolutely rewarded for not doing so (you clear much faster, and in a more engaging and fun way too).

The (very wrong) reason why people tell healers to play Ultimate stems from a completely different issue- that the primary role healers serve (to heal) is barely necessary in a large portion of the content. To exacerbate that issue, the only alternative they have is spamming 1 (with a 2 every 30s). They have no other option. Both of these are issues that dps (and tanks) do not have. You can do more than spam 1 as dps (and be rewarded for it). Your primary task (doing damage) is always desirable- to the point that, if it's possible to safely cut a healer or a tank for a dps, it's immediately optimal to do so.
To make it worse, this issue with healing being superfluous is tightly tied to encounter design (good healing is often reactive and somewhat random, which clashes with the typical scripted encounter design XIV has had for years now) and tank design (their absurd levels of self-healing are part of why healers are not necessary). These issues are much deeper and complicated and do not afflict dps. And, in fact, Ultimate does, in a way, mitigate them a bit (you definitely need to heal and mitigate more in an Ultimate than a dungeon).
Now, of course healers also suffer from homogeneity problems. But this is the least of their worries, because their whole role is both incapable of shining through what they're meant to do, what they're meant to do is incredibly boring with no alternative and is much harder to fix. One should add that healers being fundamentally different is also much more difficult to balance (they should still try, of course, but look at P3S to see what happens if you're not careful).

There's a lot wrong with XIV- with casual content being poorly designed (they could return to the Alex lenient dps checks for normal mode, and add small unscripted healing checks to engage the healers), with the horrendous leveling experience and low level gameplay (probably the biggest issue with the dps role) and with the homogeneity of most roles. But just posting some incendiary lines that are detached from these problems doesn't strike me as very fruitful.

Fwiw, the healer problems are literally an order of magnitude harsher than the dps or tank ones. I'm a dps main, but if I had to bite the bullet for one expansion to have healers somewhat improved, I'd willingly do it. The healer role is on life support right now.

[Connor]

snip.

I think you might have accidentally the last paragraph where I noted that the post was ironic (like as a genuine mistake not as a catty sarcastic comment). As in, it wasn’t intended to reflect my actual opinions but (tried to) offered an over exaggerated reflection of the opposite. It was terribly put together and only made sense to me, but other people have elaborated on the issues enough that I’m satisfied they’ve made the point where I couldn’t. As for the profanity honestly I find it strange that it’s even allowed, I guess either GMs haven’t noticed or let it slide because I tried to point out I wasn’t literally telling dps players to ‘fuck off’, just going way too far with trying to make a point.

Whether players themselves are treating ultimates as a ‘remedy’ to job design issues is one thing, but the unfortunate truth is that the developers themselves do. It’s still the only time they’ve ever actually acknowledged the healer issues; by telling them to play ultimates. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for anyone to ask for something to be fun in all content.

Lastly, I feel like saying ‘dps have no issues’ whatsoever with things like spamming 1 and diminished role value is a maybe little dismissive. Isn’t Summoner a prime example of the first, with physical ranged dps perfect examples of the second?
I appreciate the point that healers have it the worst, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that encounter design has no effect on DPS when they’re constantly being given mitigation and healing they don’t really need to use in the majority of content in place of more interesting and developed rotations / abilities / etc. And while it’s true that those abilities may be very valuable in ultimates, that doesn’t really help the fact that there’s so little use for them in general content. Plus, that’s not going into the issue of ranged physical dps existing basically only for a 1% role bonus and buffing during 120-sec window which is its own issue lol

[Myon88]

I can confirm that some jobs got gutted too badly for ultimates to be a panacea.

Despite barely playing the game this expansion, I got roped in by some friends to do TOP on summoner. We cleared in a leisurely ~2 weeks, but more importantly, despite being rusty I think I made less than 10 unforced errors total over the entire course of progression.

It's practically impossible to make a mistake on that job. I was so unencumbered I was the one doing all the manual marking in p5 (not a 3rd party tool fan). Let me tell you, it's so funny watching other jobs fighting for their life executing their burst window on run omega, while I'm just pressing my one gcd over and over.

[KageTokage]

"Just do harder content" will never be a good defense/argument as long as we're forced to do the easier content to grind tomestones and what not.

[HikariKurosawa]

"Just do harder content" will never be a good defense/argument as long as we're forced to do the easier content to grind tomestones and what not.

Why should all content be hard? I like easier content being easier because I can relax and focus entirely on learning my job's abilities and how they work together. It should be easier for people who don't play games to be challenged. You know what is for people who want a challenge in their gaming experience? extremes, criterion, savages, and ultimates. The higher you go up, the harder the challenge becomes.

[Reinha]

Why should all content be hard? I like easier content being easier because I can relax and focus entirely on learning my job's abilities and how they work together. It should be easier for people who don't play games to be challenged. You know what is for people who want a challenge in their gaming experience? extremes, criterion, savages, and ultimates. The higher you go up, the harder the challenge becomes.

I think the point was not that easy content shouldn't exist, but that interesting job abilities that work together should exist on all jobs so you would still have something to learn in easy content no matter the job you play.