DT Job Reworks - Unconfident Developers and Poor Communication

[KoS_Jooken]

I know people are gushing over the Tsubame changes for Samurai, but I want to point out how they threw a dart with a blindfold for this too.

Kaiten being removed and not replaced while also not providing a sufficient reason (They provided multiple reasons that never made any sense). The guaranteed crit being slapped on, being too weak especially for a job that relies on being selfish, then changed how crit buffs functioned immediately to try and shift the backlash away (It wasn't enough and potencies were constantly being updated in a slow, reactionary manner).

AOEs being changed to all circles being the reason (So as to not confuse players) to change Tenka Goken. The radius was also too small that it caused the very problems it was meant to fix.

Tsubame being tied to Meikyo out of nowhere and being thought of as a good idea.

The Kenki bar being completely useless now (It's been stripped multiple times, but Kaiten was the last thing that gave it any meaning). Kenki costs being changed across the board to reduce it's impact on decision making. Also, Seigan being removed only for part of it's function being moved to Third Eye.

They have also changed course from their reasoning for getting rid of the Hagakure rotation. They noted that they want us to have powerful, big hits with the Iaijutsu. Well, over time they have siphoned that power and constantly lowered the potency of the largest hitters and put them on the general rotation, the main offenders being Hakaze, Jinpu, and Shifu. The class fantasy for the job has been a big talking point in JP in particular and is causing some discussion asking what their identity is at this point.

Speaking of potency changes, you can look at an archive and see that they have nerfed and essentially reverted their change multiple times on numerous skills and abilities. This in itself is not really alarming, but alongside major changes it kind of tells you they don't really have a grasp of the jobs at all because they make so many. There's been several cases of the community making a better rotation than whatever they playtested/intended.

I'd also like to note this has nothing to do with how strong the job is and I'm just pointing out that they have absolutely no direction with their changes. This doesn't cover everything notable and I am just going off the top of my head. At this point I'm praying they don't touch the job any further with their "reworks", for all the garbage they have done, the recent change is acceptable but I'd be a fool to believe this will be the end of it. Additionally I really hope every job gets their voices heard, because with this interview I don't think any of us are.

[Zarkovitch]

It's so weird back in other expansion they nerfed freaking class with no mercy. It might be because EW reaper nerf they decide not to do on newer classes. Picto will be dominant Job this expansion even with the buffs of other classes. Now let's talk about Ninja being weakest melee and the most busiest of the melees getting destroy by VPR on RDPS. Now that's a issue need to be address and getting fix.

[jonimated]

FFXIV job design has been a victim of death by a thousand cuts. Throughout the updates and expansions every edge, every point of pushback, has been whittled away little by little to eventually become what we have now.

"It's fine we can get rid of Darkside. It's used on the same abilities every time anyway."
"We can remove Monk positionals. Nothing will really change."
"It's ok to get rid of Kaiten. It's just Samurai Darkside, and we got rid of that ages ago. It will still be totally the same."
"We can just remove enmity management, right? It's just a needless hurdle."
"Do we really need jobs to have any sort of gauge management? What if we just had 1 ability that used gauge so players didn't need to think about it."
"Sure we can remove Noxious Gnash. It's just a useless management tool anyway."

Any one of these changes in a vacuum to a single job may have been fine. It's the process of making these types of changes multiple times for every job over the course of several expansions which has lead us to job design we have now. Sanded down every edge into just blunt boring stumps. And realistically if making a change is "not going to change the job that much" then why even make the change in the first place? As someone above stated as well for some jobs, like Samurai and Dark Knight, it has also had the unintended side effect of stripping away job identity.

We are at a point where for most jobs (and even tanks for that matter) you can accurately sim an entire fight down to the GCD. And I don't mean using theoretical numbers and average proc chances. I mean if you know the "when" and the "how long" for downtime you can predict with 100% accuracy which GCD you will be pressing at minute 6 second 24. You will also know exactly how much resource you have at the time, have already spent, and will have and spent over the duration of the fight.

I can only speak for myself in this but I find this to be so unbelievably boring. If FFXIV allowed for proper cast sequence macros most jobs could assign an entire 10 minute fight to a single button. Great video game design.

The devs, and Yoshi-P, don't even really seem to realize anything is wrong. There's no signs of a course correction at all. Changes they have made in this very expansion reinforce that.

[Valence]

I can only speak for myself in this but I find this to be so unbelievably boring. If FFXIV allowed for proper cast sequence macros most jobs could assign an entire 10 minute fight to a single button. Great video game design.

The devs, and Yoshi-P, don't even really seem to realize anything is wrong. There's no signs of a course correction at all. Changes they have made in this very expansion reinforce that.

They're happy with the game in challenging content being about rehearsing a rigid script. Whether your rotation can be adjusted or not, in fine, it will always remain something that can be macroed in one single button provided encounter scripting remains static, or provided your job doesn't have any rng mechanics.