Picto makes the game less fun

[RheyIdol]

Hi, I've been playing 14 since 2.0, I love this game so much. Since I started, the one job I've been more passionate about than nay other is Black Mage. It's a wonderful job, ridiculously fun to play and extremely rewarding when done well. However, through the years a negative stigma has built up around the class because many of the people who attempt to play it are unable to effectively contribute with it. Which is to say, going into DT it was already a bit rough for Black Mages to find people willing to take them. And then 7.0 dropped. And Along comes Pictomancer.

Honestly, I have tried since launch to wrap my head around the balance decisions regarding this Job, and I simply cannot. Was the intention to phase out Black Mage altogether? Because In case it hasn't been brought to your immediate attention, the class outperforms black mage on every level and requires substantially less effort to utilize. Is this intentional? Because it feels awful to see pictomancers outperforming me when they play worse and have worse gear but mathematically it doesn't matter because they will do more damage anyway, IN ADDITION to providing buffs to the party.

Now, pretty much every time I boot up the game I have to hear some meme teasing me for not swapping to picto over black mage. I feel like the solution is simple, why does black mage not simply do more damage than picto? Its harder to play, has no raid buffs, less mobility, and a stricter rotation. Not to mention its just always been in that role, its singular function is to do the most damage. So why now has a support class usurped that role?

I am out here for two things; 1.To give my honest feedback. Picto has made this game less fun to play as someone who loves black mage and wants that to be their job, and more difficult to find a space in the community since I now have to not only justify my playing Black Mage but I have to also outperform every other picto which simply becomes impossible after a certain point. 2. I am BEGGING for ANY information here, that can help me understand why these balances choices are the way they are, and hopefully some assurance that there is an awareness of this problem which, admittedly, only matters to a small portion of the player base, but i know I'm not the only black mage that feels this way. I want everyone to be able to have fun and have equal opportunity to play the game; Pictomancer does not accommodate for this in the current meta.

Also, I didn't want to post on here at all but it's the only place I could find that maybe would have a slimmest chance of someone who might be able to do something about this travesty. I'm sure there's gunna be some ridiculous comments too but I'm just so beyond done. Literally begging Yoshi-P and the devs here, please don't let Black Mage just become obsolete.

[Erit]

I would say it's just "shiny new syndrome" but then they decided to buff other jobs rather than nerfing Pictomancer shortly after release when it was even more wildly out of line, which further reinforces my pet conspiracy theory that job design in this game is running afoul of office politics.

[nguyentri11]

It's simply a balance issue and the devs are too afraid of the backlash from nerfing the popular and new job so they're once again opting to buff every other job. And because they chose the route that's not as easy as simply nerfing 1 job they're probably going to take a few more balance patches to get it somewhat right.

[ovIm]

It's simply a balance issue and the devs are too afraid of the backlash from nerfing the popular and new job so they're once again opting to buff every other job. And because they chose the route that's not as easy as simply nerfing 1 job they're probably going to take a few more balance patches to get it somewhat right.

I kinda doubt it really. If they were so afraid from backlash from nerfing a popular and new job, they would not have ignored the feedback and removed a core gameplay element from Viper.

From what I see the job design team is simply playing favorites with classes. Picto is the shiny nice FOTM and needs to be babied, its their golden poster child.

[Tunda]

1.5 GCD do more damage than 2.87 GCD job
what a joke balance in this game

more utility and more sustain

is there a testing phase in FFXIV development cycle?

[nguyentri11]

I kinda doubt it really. If they were so afraid from backlash from nerfing a popular and new job, they would not have ignored the feedback and removed a core gameplay element from Viper.

From what I see the job design team is simply playing favorites with classes. Picto is the shiny nice FOTM and needs to be babied, its their golden poster child.

"With the release of 7.0, however, we noticed that the DPS of the new job Pictomancer clearly stood out from the other classes. We could have nerfed Pictomancer before the raid, but since many people liked playing it so much, we decided to bring the DPS of the other classes into line with that of Pictomancer."
Interview it came from - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...n_savage_tier/

They have a track record of this with RPR being released in EW. It was substantially stronger than the other melee in the 1st tier and after a few balance patches it became slightly behind them after they buffed the other jobs instead of nerfing RPR.

[LilimoLimomo]

Now, pretty much every time I boot up the game I have to hear some meme teasing me for not swapping to picto over black mage.

There will always be myopic kiddos who fall into the elitist mindset of thinking that damage output is the be-all and end-all of playing FF14; these players have forgotten that playing a game is about having fun. Do you enjoy BLM more than PCT? Then play BLM, have a good time, and let the chatter of folks with misaligned priorities wash off your back.

An MMO is healthier when there are classes that can be played easily and classes that offer more of a challenge; that way, players who are looking for different levels of challenge with their core class can all play the same content together. I can easily do more damage when I play Summoner compared to Black Mage, but most of the time I don't find Summoner engaging; Black Mage requires so much more from me, and because of that I perform worse, but I find it so much more engaging and rewarding to play. Being able to deal more damage doesn't matter if you're having less fun doing it.

None of this is to say that balance is entirely unimportant; there is most certainly a balance to strike. But I don't necessarily think that more challenging jobs should have better damage output than easier jobs. The most important thing is that all jobs are viable, and that different difficulties of jobs are available so that people with different tastes can all play together.

[Tunda]

"With the release of 7.0, however, we noticed that the DPS of the new job Pictomancer clearly stood out from the other classes. We could have nerfed Pictomancer before the raid, but since many people liked playing it so much, we decided to bring the DPS of the other classes into line with that of Pictomancer."
Interview it came from - https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...n_savage_tier/

They have a track record of this with RPR being released in EW. It was substantially stronger than the other melee in the 1st tier and after a few balance patches it became slightly behind them after they buffed the other jobs instead of nerfing RPR.

so why they didn't give Viper a chance to be gold shine like picto?

I see only counter argument in the argument it self

[nguyentri11]

so why they didn't give Viper a chance to be gold shine like picto?

I see only counter argument in the argument it self

Because that wasn't their intention at all. They're not good at initial balance of jobs with each expansion and PCT ended up being stronger than other jobs which wasn't intentional. Then they didn't want to nerf it so they buffed other jobs instead. I don't think there was anywhere in the interview where they said "they wanted x job to shine".

[OliverQ]

so why they didn't give Viper a chance to be gold shine like picto?

I see only counter argument in the argument it self

They kinda did. VPR is the top DPS right now in most fights, and it's the easiest melee to play.