DT Job Reworks - Unconfident Developers and Poor Communication

[Tunda]

If Mr. Yoshi didn't acknowledge the issue how I as a player have faith in upcoming changes?

[Ramiee]

If you don't agree with that statement, why not give examples? I have obviously either forgotten something, or there might be something from a job I don't know as well as others, so there is more behind the gameplay than what is presented that could give the player agency in what they do.

BLM in Endwalker had two ways to play Standard and Non-standard relating to how you'd use your leylines. There was a marginal difference in damage but still most of the time standard was optimal, but depending on the fight and how movement was non-standard fire lines allowed you as a player to place your lines to do the most high damaging spells you can do depending on the boss mechanics and raid buffs. This was erased by the Devs because it was 2% better than standard fire lines (if you had good crit.)
This was player agency in the game during the expansion that made everyone a homogenised nothingness.

[Willemdarke]

Lack of vision, confidence and "throwing things at the wall to see what sticks" might as well have been the tagline for the whole expansion. Not just job design either, when in a recent interview Yoshida said he's not surprised the story was poorly received and previously during fanfest said they have no concrete plans for the future of the story and it will depend on player feedback.

Back to jobs, the lack of vision really shines in the changes to Dancer, minimal as they are, yet impactful in all the worst ways.

In DT almost all jobs were changed to provide a free use of their resource spender, instead of simply giving the resource (eg. RDM's Manafication, RPR's Plentiful Harvest). A simple, yet great change to avoid frustration due to overcapping and wasting resources.

In the very same patch, they make Dancer's Tillana give 50 gauge... Something it never did before... During DNC's burst window... When they are literally swimming in endless gauge due to party members using their own abilities gives DNC 10 gauge a pop... WHY??

In DT, Dancer has so many mandatory GCD abilities that must be fit within the burst window. You have no time to do your standard combo (aka fishing for oGCD feather procs), slowing down how the job feels to play, due to less oGCDs being used. Top that with the Tillana change it makes the job feel way more rigid, as ideally I'd delay Tillana until after a couple of Saber Dances when my gauge is very low.

From free flowing and fast paced RNG job to rigid and a bit slower... Dancer -_-

This wouldn't have happened if the people designing jobs talked to each other, as clearly someone on the team figured out the issue for RDM, RPR, etc, but somehow the guy designing DNC had no clue about it.

At the moment the whole game feels like there's no grand vision or plan for the future. Every dev is just doing whatever independently, while the manager is traveling the world giving interviews.

[Ramiee]

Lack of vision, confidence and "throwing things at the wall to see what sticks" might as well have been the tagline for the whole expansion. Not just job design either, when in a recent interview Yoshida said he's not surprised the story was poorly received and previously during fanfest said they have no concrete plans for the future of the story and it will depend on player feedback.

Also to add to this we are getting:

New Firmament/Restoration
New C&V dungeons
Eureka 3
Deep dungeon 4
Beastmaster

To me this seems like it will also be throwing stuff at a wall. Last expansion had zero replayable content so they have thrown at us all of this. I am really not confident this will all be at the same quality, the new ultimate raid isn't projected to be coming out until 2025 so developing all of these systems seems like they will have ones that are rushed. I do hope I'm wrong about this but this is the gut feeling I have right now.

DDs and V&C are already incredibly formulaic already I can only imagine how they're going to streamline it for the purpose of working on the other content longer. I really hope beastmaster doesn't just end up as physical blue mage and is an actual pet job.

[remiff]

Also to add to this we are getting:

New Firmament/Restoration
New C&V dungeons
Eureka 3
Deep dungeon 4
Beastmaster

To me this seems like it will also be throwing stuff at a wall. Last expansion had zero replayable content so they have thrown at us all of this. I am really not confident this will all be at the same quality, the new ultimate raid isn't projected to be coming out until 2025 so developing all of these systems seems like they will have ones that are rushed. I do hope I'm wrong about this but this is the gut feeling I have right now.

DDs and V&C are already incredibly formulaic already I can only imagine how they're going to streamline it for the purpose of working on the other content longer. I really hope beastmaster doesn't just end up as physical blue mage and is an actual pet job.

This is not an excuse.

Look at the Stormblood expansion—it brought as much content as Dawntrail, and yet every job underwent major changes compared to Heavensward, with plenty of new features and content.

It's also the expansion where Ultimate Raids were introduced.
We had four Eureka maps plus the Baldesion Arsenal, which is arguably the most substantial content in the game.
We saw the release of Blue Mage, the restoration of Doma, the Heaven-on-High, and we still had "hard" mode dungeons.

Providing a lot of PvE content is not an excuse for sloppy job changes, especially when most of these changes are just upgrades or reskins that seem to come out of nowhere, like Solar Bahamut, or spells that make rotations rigid, like Black Mage's Flarestar.
Then there are abilities that force you to use your raid buffs without the ability to delay them if you have a duplicate job in a standard instance, such as the follow-up after Embolden or Searing Light—powerful spells that can't be adjusted in such situations.
These are simply thoughtless changes that people just don't like.

The devs messed up most of the job changes for 7.0.
The only jobs that were somewhat well-thought-out are the Viper and Pictomancer, although even they have some minor oddities in their rotations.
However, the lack of communication from the developers and the minimal changes made to the jobs are simply unjustifiable, even if they plan to address them in 8.0.

And don't forget that the patch cycle has increased from an average of 3.5 months to 4.5 months compared to the past.

It may seem trivial, but that represent 17.5 months in the past, and now 22.5 months with the current cycle.
So, if we round it off with the waiting time before the release of an expansion, we can clearly say that the waiting period has increased from 2 years to 2 years and 6 months.

[Ramiee]

This is not an excuse.

Trust me I'm the last person making excuses for CBU3, I'm just worried that they'll make it an excuse for themselves.
Endwalker and the start of Dawntrail have left a very bad taste in my mouth.

[remiff]

Trust me I'm the last person making excuses for CBU3, I'm just worried that they'll make it an excuse for themselves.
Endwalker and the start of Dawntrail have left a very bad taste in my mouth.

That's how many players feel, don't worry.

[mallleable]

It's generally why I'm kind of obsessed with the job deign ideas explored in PVP. They are solutions developed internally so all I have to do as a player leaving feedback is say 'these ideas that you came up with are great,' and maybe offer pointers as to which specific ideas might translate best over to PVE.

[Raikai]

Also to add to this we are getting:

New Firmament/Restoration
New C&V dungeons
Eureka 3
Deep dungeon 4
Beastmaster

To me this seems like it will also be throwing stuff at a wall. Last expansion had zero replayable content so they have thrown at us all of this. I am really not confident this will all be at the same quality, the new ultimate raid isn't projected to be coming out until 2025 so developing all of these systems seems like they will have ones that are rushed. I do hope I'm wrong about this but this is the gut feeling I have right now.

DDs and V&C are already incredibly formulaic already I can only imagine how they're going to streamline it for the purpose of working on the other content longer. I really hope beastmaster doesn't just end up as physical blue mage and is an actual pet job.

One thing that bothers me GREATLY is the pacing of the content distribution. The beginning of the expansion is kinda barren, and I feel that x.05 should add in something meaningful like a Deep Dungeon or the first iteration of the Field Operation.

[ForsakenRoe]

Back to jobs, the lack of vision really shines in the changes to Dancer, minimal as they are, yet impactful in all the worst ways.

In DT almost all jobs were changed to provide a free use of their resource spender, instead of simply giving the resource (eg. RDM's Manafication, RPR's Plentiful Harvest). A simple, yet great change to avoid frustration due to overcapping and wasting resources.

In the very same patch, they make Dancer's Tillana give 50 gauge... Something it never did before... During DNC's burst window... When they are literally swimming in endless gauge due to party members using their own abilities gives DNC 10 gauge a pop... WHY??

DNC is the poster child of 'the devs didn't talk to each other' it feels like. In this expansion, we got a system that allows actions that are 'only useable after X other action' to replace one another on the hotbars to consolidate buttons a bit (eg, HighJump > Mirage Dive, or Ikishoten > Zanshin). We also got certain actions that grant gauge changed to grant a buff that allows a free cast of the gauge spender, to reduce overcap issues (eg Hypercharged on MCH, Ideal Host on RPR).

But on DNC:

Technical Step turns into Tillana, you can't separate the two

Tillana grants 50 gauge, during Tech Step when you're already drowning in gauge, and so it's super easy to generate 50 gauge and overcap within the 2 GCDs (spending gauge to get low, waiting for that GCD, then pressing Tillana and waiting for that GCD). Also, the ONLY thing that Esprit can be spent on is Saber Dance, so the excuse that'd apply to something like NIN (where you can choose to spend on Bhav, Frog or Bunshin) doesn't work here

Fan Dance 4 can only be used after Flourish, you cannot combine the two

Starfall Dance can only be used after Devilment, you cannot combine the two

Last Dance can only be used after Standard Step/Finishing Move, you cannot combine the two

Closed Position is still jank as hell to swap from one player to another (requiring a press to 'deactivate it' and then another to place on someone else), I wish it worked like Kardia (instant transfer, 5s CD)


But the biggest crime for DNC in my opinion is with Finishing Move. I get that they wanted to make it so your second Standard Step fits into the burst window easier, but this move removes 40% of the DANCING, from DANCER. You go from 4 Standard Steps and a Tech Step per 2mins, to just two Standard Steps and a Tech Step. Who asked for the Dancer to do Dance Steps less often? That's the thing that sets them apart from other jobs in terms of gameplay! It'd be like if NIN got a change that means 'press Kassatsu, it turns into Hyosho, press again to instantly use Hyosho at the cost of one Mudra Charge'. You'd be pressing Ninjutsu less, that detracts from the aesthetic/identity of the job

The only jobs that were somewhat well-thought-out are the Viper and Pictomancer, although even they have some minor oddities in their rotations.

'Render Hammer' doesn't replace 'paint Hammer onto your gauge, when tf am I going to paint another hammer without rendering the one I currently have on my gauge first?

Same could be said of Mog of the Ages replacing Creature Motif but there might be some wild opti I'm not aware of for that one

Comet doesn't replace Holy when you're in Subractive Spectrum, but you cannot use Holy while in Subtractive so why have the option there and greyed out?

Same applies for Fire/Aero/Water > Stone/Ice/Thunder, if I can't use FAW while in Subtractive why can't I just combine the two buttons?

Star Prism can only be used after Starry Muse, but the two cannot be combined. At least with Rainbow Drip you can hardcast it so there's a reason for it to be separate

I'm guessing the reason here is, if they combined some of the stuff that would make sense to combine on PCT, the job would have like 12 buttons (and another like 8 for role actions/sprint/potion/LB) and people would point at it and laugh and say 'haha look at the dumbo job with so few buttons'