Picto makes the game less fun

[Carighan]

I personally want them to move away from 2 min burst and I agree with what you are saying in the post.

But I don't do savage and this whole burst was designed for savage so...i got nothing.

And I mean, it's not like it was done without reason. Before it, whether your job had bursts that aligned with the rest of the group or not was as massive decisionmaker in whether you were useful to be in a savage raid or were excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low.

That being said, in particular M1S and M2S show the devs willing to rather err significantly on the side of avoidance checks than damage checks, so maybe that would not be a problem any more as even the least fitting combat job would still do significantly more damage than is needed. Still, at a higher level of progging, people would rather take a slightly less mobile and less performant job with a 60s damage cycle (hence it aligns every time) than a better one that has a 70/80/90/whatever damage cycle (hence it only aligns every few times, not always). The former has more effective damage output in an organized group.

That's what the devs would say, anyways. "Nothing was actually changed", as prog groups already sligned everything to a steady, concerted, burst window. Hence they just formalized what was already happening. IMO they massively underestimated how it feels to have every job we aligned around this, however.

IMO, a soft solution could be to build jobs around a 120s burst window, but in a heterogenous way. Take Paladins as an example, they have a 60s cycle. This is different from the 120s cycle of many jobs like Dancer or the 2:1 of Red Mages or so, but fine as it means they align every time. But does it stop there? Yes it does, and there's no reason for it to. How about:

* A 30s cycle?
* Or even a 15s cycle! Every 6th GCD is your "burst". Your burst would of course be benign, your overall damage much higher, but you align every time so in an 8man prog scenario your overall contribution is identical to other people.
* On the opposite side, a 240s cycle? Your damage would be lower in-between, in particular at the 120s/360s/etc marks, but your burst would be spectacular.
* Or even "no" cycle, you have a steady combat system without any CDs or abilities to save up at all, just a huge branching flow of GCDs and dependent Continuation-style oGCDs that take up 12-24 buttons and a bunch of defensive and mobility cooldowns on top of that.

These could all be balanced so that when placed in an 8 minute fight, they perform the same as a 120s-cycle job, but they would feel utterly different.

[Lyth]

This runs much deeper than just a two-minute meta problem, and there are jobs with heavier burst that can coexist with consistent DPS just fine. Most jobs with big burst windows require uptime to build up the resources required to burst. This reduces the advantage that you gain from downtime and scales back the strength of your opening burst.

PCT's design completely ignores this in how muses are set up. If you want an equivalently absurd design choice, you might as well make RPR to gain full Soul Gauge with every use of Soul Sow, including out of combat. If you want to balance PCT's damage output, force the job to build up to its burst through actual uptime like everyone else. With PCT you have a 25 APM job that does the majority of its damage over a few button presses on a fixed timer, with no uptime requirement to build up that burst. Why were we surprised that this is broken?

The devs can talk all they want about not wanting to upset PCT's popularity, but what they should really worry about is losing the players who don't enjoy playing PCT and would prefer to play another caster. Upward balance on its own simply does not work, and poor role balance will drive players out of the game in the long run.

[Namir]

I barely post but I just came back to the game after not playing since Stormblood. I was running a lv 65 dungeon recently and got paired with a PCT. The PCT was absolutely destroying me in DPS while being able to attack from a distance and not having to dodge all the AOEs from the pack of mobs. But that wasn’t the issue, things were dying so incredibly, ridiculously fast, that it actually made the dungeon less fun for me and I’m hoping I don’t get paired with another one any time soon. So, to support the title of this thread, from the perspective of gameplay outside of savage content; which I enjoy a lot, yes, PCT makes the game less fun for me.

[Altera]

I am very disappointed by the lack of player feedback engagement on the Balance issue in DT.
I have been a BLM since 1.0 and never ever thought I would consider quitting the game as I have enjoyed BLM every expansion except this one.
It really sucks doing all the effort to maximise my damage output, only to see PCT just easily outperform with way less effort.

I really want a response from the Devs on this very soon. If they will change BLM to make it be where it should be and play better rather than the janky feeling it has now, specially FlareStar. It feels like just less worthless spell after Scathe

[GoatOfWar]

I am very disappointed by the lack of player feedback engagement on the Balance issue in DT.

That's because the online world is filled with weirdo's who think working harder for less is a conscious choice.
People who coincidentally, usually play the easiest classes in videogames.

[Grumblecakes]

And I mean, it's not like it was done without reason. Before it, whether your job had bursts that aligned with the rest of the group or not was as massive decisionmaker in whether you were useful to be in a savage raid or were excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low.

That being said, in particular M1S and M2S show the devs willing to rather err significantly on the side of avoidance checks than damage checks, so maybe that would not be a problem any more as even the least fitting combat job would still do significantly more damage than is needed. Still, at a higher level of progging, people would rather take a slightly less mobile and less performant job with a 60s damage cycle (hence it aligns every time) than a better one that has a 70/80/90/whatever damage cycle (hence it only aligns every few times, not always). The former has more effective damage output in an organized group.

That's what the devs would say, anyways. "Nothing was actually changed", as prog groups already sligned everything to a steady, concerted, burst window. Hence they just formalized what was already happening. IMO they massively underestimated how it feels to have every job we aligned around this, however.

IMO, a soft solution could be to build jobs around a 120s burst window, but in a heterogenous way. Take Paladins as an example, they have a 60s cycle. This is different from the 120s cycle of many jobs like Dancer or the 2:1 of Red Mages or so, but fine as it means they align every time. But does it stop there? Yes it does, and there's no reason for it to. How about:

* A 30s cycle?
* Or even a 15s cycle! Every 6th GCD is your "burst". Your burst would of course be benign, your overall damage much higher, but you align every time so in an 8man prog scenario your overall contribution is identical to other people.
* On the opposite side, a 240s cycle? Your damage would be lower in-between, in particular at the 120s/360s/etc marks, but your burst would be spectacular.
* Or even "no" cycle, you have a steady combat system without any CDs or abilities to save up at all, just a huge branching flow of GCDs and dependent Continuation-style oGCDs that take up 12-24 buttons and a bunch of defensive and mobility cooldowns on top of that.

These could all be balanced so that when placed in an 8 minute fight, they perform the same as a 120s-cycle job, but they would feel utterly different.

This is informative thank you. I am a newer player as I started shortly after EW launch so I don't fully know the history of why things are the way they are and what they were prior. I wonder if they can implement any sort of cha.ge like this or have they painted themselves (no pun intended with PCT lol) into a corner with encounter and job design? I enjoy combat in the game but as someone who has levelled everything to 100, there def is a homogenization going on.

[Valence]

Excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low? I beg you pardon? On what hell of a datacenter did you play to have jobs be actually excluded due to raid burst mismatch?

The only single time I've seen jobs excluded in my raid life (since SB) has always been in log runs of all things. And not even consistently, quite the contrary.

[PercibelTheren]

Excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low? I beg you pardon? On what hell of a datacenter did you play to have jobs be actually excluded due to raid burst mismatch?

The only single time I've seen jobs excluded in my raid life (since SB) has always been in log runs of all things. And not even consistently, quite the contrary.

I haven't seen jobs exluded due to raid burst mismatch but Machinist was locked out of PF quite a bit in Endwalker.

[Ramiee]

Excluded for most prog fights when gear was still low? I beg you pardon? On what hell of a datacenter did you play to have jobs be actually excluded due to raid burst mismatch?

The only single time I've seen jobs excluded in my raid life (since SB) has always been in log runs of all things. And not even consistently, quite the contrary.

Happened with MCH in EW and if memory serves me right PLD in HW and AST kinda in early HW (but this was more due to people being really bad at it.)

[Lyth]

PF can be strict about raid comp for the first week or so if there's a more prominent DPS check, which we haven't really seen since Abyssos. It makes sense, really. If you're down to that last percent on enrage, then why would you bother taking a raise caster? PCT is such a safe bet.