DT Job Reworks - Unconfident Developers and Poor Communication

[Carighan]

If you don't mind my asking, when did you start playing? I don't ask from a gatekeepy perspective--I'm actually really curious, because I think it influences people's perception of the history of these jobs.

Beginning of Shadowbringers. I had the game since mid-Stormblood, but never got into it at the time because I was still playing GW2 back then. Then when my guild there went mostly inactive I picked up FFXIV again which had just released ShB anyways. And yeah you're right, from all I can read this was much more unique in the past, like most MMORPGs the devs eventually homogenize based on the player-desire to play whatever they want in high-end content which requires tight balancing which naturally erodes class identities.

I should note that I've ... seen some designs. I started MMO gaming back in 1999 with some M59, and since then have always had an MMO as my filler game of choice, EQ1 then DAoC then WoW then GW2 and now FFXIV. FFXIV unique does very little with its jobs, however it's not the most homogenized game I have played (that'd be GW2, for entirely different mechanical reasons than here though). And in itself it's not a bad thing, but it requires a careful balance if identity of gameplay feel to pull of mechanical homogenization and lack of gameplay identity but still giving lore identity and making moment-to-moment play feel unique. GW2 kinda could do this at first, it did however fall apart later on. WoW struggled hard with this at some point around late WotLK and early Cataclysm, and later overcame it somewhat.

If I had to guess, FFXIV already has a very strong visual identity, so ideally they'd lean heavily into animations and visuals to promote a different feel while keeping the underlying mechanics to be mostly similar.

[elioaiko]

The dev team needs a seperate combat design team period blank.

They're clearly out of creativity and it's been showing since ShB. The fact they had have a dedicated lead for each role is shocking.

They need fresh eyes on the jobs bc they clearly are throwing darts at a board atp.

[Tunda]

how Throne and liberty fixes their combat system in 9 months after release and we have to stick with this system since endwalker?

Is developer in this game this lazy? or Koreans are just better with combat system?

[Carighan]

how Throne and liberty fixes their combat system in 9 months after release and we have to stick with this system since endwalker?

You raise a good point, no matter how bad things are, we can take solace that few other MMORPGs are as botched as T&L. /toast

[jonimated]

I get this sinking feeling that Dawntrail has the potential to be FFXIV's "Shadowlands" if something drastic doesn't change. As in a not insignificant portion of the player base is going to come to the conclusion during the next 2 years that FFXIV is simply not for them anymore, and honestly that feels bad.

I mean what is an RPG that has uninteresting combat and a mid story? Ask WoW players circa 2020 - 2022.

[Carighan]

I get this sinking feeling that Dawntrail has the potential to be FFXIV's "Shadowlands" if something drastic doesn't change. As in a not insignificant portion of the player base is going to come to the conclusion during the next 2 years that FFXIV is simply not for them anymore, and honestly that feels bad.

I mean what is an RPG that has uninteresting combat and a mid story? Ask WoW players circa 2020 - 2022.

Really? Because in WoW that was more an issue of it capping off a steady decline in production quality and a steadily more idiotic story, and then this weird slingshotting on class design. That came to a head in Shadowlands, but the individual problems were all not only around before, but partially actually worse before.

With Shadowlands, it was the thing tha the players as a joke predicted the story beats, meant to be "Hey at least the story isn't this stupid!" and then they go and do exactly that. But gameplay wise, WoW had been at far worse points. And better points. And everything in between. Keep in mind the age of WoW ~2020 already. And just how many iterations everything had gone through.

That's maybe actually the problem here, in FFXIV: We haven't had that yet. Even their "reworks" were mostly rather benign. The only total rework so far was really Summoner. Everything else kept many of the overall elements, it just shuffled things around, merged, split and restructured. Maybe what FFXIV in fact needs is more willingness to actually go and break stuff. WoW had by the time of Shadowlands gone through... five talent systems? FFXIV never even had one!

[CKNovel]

I don't think you can compare Shadowlands and Dawntrail especially on the very first major patch.
Endwalker combat system has flaws and seems barebone but isn't that bad.

This isn't about deflecting criticism, just that a lot of people are throwing exagerations around as if this was the end of XIV.

Maybe what FFXIV in fact needs is more willingness to actually go and break stuff. WoW had by the time of Shadowlands gone through... five talent systems? FFXIV never even had one!

You sure you want them to break stuff? Just look at healers whining when Bloodwhetting steps out of the line.
I agree with you and we should have things that feels powerful but we have a "nooooo my perfect and balanced trinityyyy" community.

[ovIm]

how Throne and liberty fixes their combat system in 9 months after release and we have to stick with this system since endwalker?

Is developer in this game this lazy? or Koreans are just better with combat system?

FFXIV adheres to a very rigid development cycle, and the Devs really don't want to step out of it.
Additionally, the current plan is to adjust content first (which we are supposed to see starting in 7.2), and then pull the classes up later on.
So, our first "fix" is scheduled to come on roughly 6 months, give or take (considering 4 months per major patch). Now, if they are successful with this endeavor or not, that remains to be seen, and personally, I am going to remain skeptical until I see the results.

As for the main topic - i do agree with W00by here, its a point I have made in the past as well. It really feels like Square Enix is definitely not confident in their product, nor their playerbase.

[Alice9]

The fact that they were so eager to change Viper, received tons of feedback not just saying "please don't touch this specific aspect of the job" but rather to leave the job alone yet still did anyway, and on savage release nonetheless- says more about the team's confidence than any words ever could. This just confirms how poor of a decision it was. If this was just an incident isolated to Viper, it would be easy to mark it off, but unfortunately, we are seeing similar things all across the board.

I would've dropped the job immediately if I didn't already make plans to play it for this tier and I am almost certainly not playing Viper going forward. If I knew this was coming, I wouldn't have even bothered getting Viper to level 100. This current iteration is an insult to everyone who took the 'effort' learning the job properly in the month that we were allowed. There is no style, and any substance that was there has been obliterated. Because there is such a lack of substance to the job now, if it didn't do as much damage as it did, the number of people playing the job right now would halve. The best thing they can do is revert the changes, and acknowledge their hastiness.

If this is the design philosophy they have toward jobs, then everyone should be worried, if they aren't already. Please listen to job feedback from those that actually play the jobs.

[jonimated]

Really? Because in WoW that was more an issue of it capping off a steady decline in production quality and a steadily more idiotic story, and then this weird slingshotting on class design. That came to a head in Shadowlands, but the individual problems were all not only around before, but partially actually worse before.

With Shadowlands, it was the thing tha the players as a joke predicted the story beats, meant to be "Hey at least the story isn't this stupid!" and then they go and do exactly that. But gameplay wise, WoW had been at far worse points. And better points. And everything in between. Keep in mind the age of WoW ~2020 already. And just how many iterations everything had gone through.

That's maybe actually the problem here, in FFXIV: We haven't had that yet. Even their "reworks" were mostly rather benign. The only total rework so far was really Summoner. Everything else kept many of the overall elements, it just shuffled things around, merged, split and restructured. Maybe what FFXIV in fact needs is more willingness to actually go and break stuff. WoW had by the time of Shadowlands gone through... five talent systems? FFXIV never even had one!

This is all true. I meant more the game becoming something the players no longer want to play, as opposed to the literal problems which plagued Shadowlands. Could have worded it better.

Job design in current Dawntrail is arguably the most boring simplistic it's every been. 90% of jobs have completely become "follow the flashing lights". Which is a strange inconsistency when you consider the DT encounter design is some of the best it's ever been. It feels like the job design and combat design folks are not only working in separate rooms, but are in completely separate building with no communication at all.

Endwalker had a similar issue with it's job design, and inarguably significantly worse encounter design, but the Shadowbringers/Endwalker story was so good I think players were able to look past it. Now with the story being as divisive as it is, if the game also isn't fun to play what does it have left? I just think there is a real potential for a lot of players to look at Dawntrail and consider that FFXIV just isn't a game for them anymore, since it doesn't have any of the strong pillars which held up previous expansions. There's nothing to fall back on.