Your Hopes and Ideas for the Battle System Changes in FFXIV 8.0

[remiff]

Hello,

I know this is a topic that has been debated countless times, and no matter what is said, the developers don’t seem to truly listen to the community.
If they did, the jobs wouldn’t be in the state they’re in right now.

But a little copium never hurts, and I hope the developers will one day be more transparent with the FFXIV community regarding the direction they want to take with jobs in 8.0.
This could include conducting a proper survey to determine what players would enjoy, though it’s not hard to foresee that we’ll most likely be disappointed given the current policies of the development team.

My question is: what type of changes to the combat system are you personally hoping for?

- Would you like to see the abolition of burst windows every 120 seconds?

- A return of synergies between jobs and roles like during the Stormblood era?

- An individual rework of each role? For instance, reducing superfluous healing spells in the healer toolkit while increasing the number of DPS actions?

- Shortening a very large amount of GCDs from 2.5s to 1.5s to make the battle system a little bit faster?

These are just simple examples, but feel free to share your opinions on the battle system you’d like to see in 8.0, while keeping in mind that this is purely imaginary.

[mallleable]

Physical ranged rework. Make walking casts a thing, and make it the marksmanship role where "aiming" to deal damage is their thing. IMHO, this should have happened earlier.

Also rework the low level experience for a lot of jobs.

[Hallarem]

A whole rework of how jobs work and interact with the pve content. I want to be a tank, not a dps

[Jeeqbit]

I'm not hoping for anything necessarily, but I think there is a good opportunity to use skill trees as a way to let people choose their playstyle (rotation complexity for example).

I hope they consider the 120s burst window feedback though. It would be easier to just scrap burst windows at least party-wide ones, so that individual rotations can differ in duration. They could just make all rotatons have stuff ready for, say, 6 mins, about the middle of a fight when they do their routine add dps checks. That way some rotations could repeat 1 min, 1.5 min, 2 min or 3 min allowing jobs to be less uniform.

I would like to see the roles made distinct again like in ARR and Heavensward (so tanks can't carry all the healing on their own and cooldown management matters more), but they won't do it because they believe players must grow as they level and this is one of the main ways they make them grow.

I do not think shortening the GCD makes any sense because this game has off-GCD abilities and mechanics to do between the GCD. It's also just not going to happen because new and returning players are always a big factor.

[GTK0HLK]

I don't really got a Horse in this Race.

If we went down to class fantasy basics, kinda like pvp has, but more expanded and attuned to overall PvE.

The jobs will still be somewhat homogenized to some general Overarching roles, beliefs, or Positives and Negatives.

There is no avoiding it. If there are no Taxes, some cost will be spent elsewhere.
[Thus a roundabout way to ending up with people wanting some roles more than others, some classes more than others. some jobs more than others.]

For Me, it would practically be forgetting what we feel the job is today.
So that it can be reborn anew in a form that better fits the original class fantasy within the old/new restrictions they set.

It also has to deal with any potential future plans they have.

While I feel like jobs aren't necessary to release every expansion. Just like Races aren't required as well.

Some players feel it is mandatory.
(even though the ever important, yet also tiring, scapegoating, strawman, Point about Resource Allocation Arises.)

For Example Sakes.
Say they Decide they will only ever have a max of 6 jobs per class role.

So like 6 Tanks, 6 Healers, 6 Melee, 6 Ranged, 6 Caster.

Each Role will need to be further/actively divided into Archetypes/Playstyles that allow difference, growth, and the ability to adher to some sort of Job/Class Fantasy that doesn't ruin any future development of it.

For Example Tanks Being Currently more Dps Vs Sustain. [Despite many players dislike of the balance forcing some jobs to be disliked compared to others in their same role. or a Job that is near perfect being gimped by the need of balance or the fact they are strictly the best damage/survivability/utility/party/etc.]
They could further Split, or create a new category within their role. How ever that looks like I couldn't tell or imagine what would fit best with the current divide.

[They might just throw it all away, or try to salvage as much of what Currently exists to improve in the direction 8.0 sets.]

Healers had Pure, Shield, Hybrid. Now Just Pure/Shield.

Melee have their Maiming/Striking/Scouting Divides. with each dps having difference between them. but similar to their other counterparts.

Ranged has the most unknown but mixed/undefined balance. With MCH being SelfDps/Party, and Bard and Dancer fully being into the whole party dynamic.

Casting has their odd mix of Quick Casts and Longcasts. With Twists.
Though The odd mix of Res being held in the QuickCast side, and Utility and Self Dps being Lopsided in the LongCast Side.
(Would a Remake resolve the Developers past gripes about Ressing being on any jobs asides healers. or will be have some jobs have Res ability in the future. Even if some casters have theirs removed.)
What would the Third Type in Casters be.

of course this large Example is based on the idea of 6 Jobs per Role, 3 Unknown Basic Concepts in Each Role Dictating Gameplay/Direction, With Class/Job Fantasy and Feel filling in the void.
[This doesn't mean, some jobs can offer things that exist in other roles. but the basic idea the could possibly follow, or adjacently follow. before they get hands on and finetune.]

It all depends on what they truly mean with all that they've actually told us.(which is almost nothing but some amount of speculation bait.)

[ryouma17]

they need to take the combo plugin and make it a part of the game button bloat has been a problem for a long time and will only get worse

blackmage has been in need of a rework since heavensward time to make this a priority

not directly related to combat however the non story ARR dungeons are in serious need of a rework specially dzmael that place has been horrible since it was first added, removing the enemies ability to knock us off the cliff after the first boss did not fix the core issues with that dungeon


EDIT: i thought dragoon and astrologian was supposed to be getting a rework this expansion when is this coming are they gonna wait for the final patch? i've heard no news on this since it was first announced months before dawntrail even released

[Shougun]

If I explain it it'll be a wall, one day walk, so uh in short- class fantasy does describe the desire well. We have terrible roleplay, imo, and we need it back direly (imo lol).


Game did 'just okay' on roleplay before but as we move on it's less and less RPG and just PG (playing game, no r).

[Mikey_R]

My question is: what type of changes to the combat system are you personally hoping for?

- Would you like to see the abolition of burst windows every 120 seconds?

- A return of synergies between jobs and roles like during the Stormblood era?

- An individual rework of each role? For instance, reducing superfluous healing spells in the healer toolkit while increasing the number of DPS actions?

- Shortening a very large amount of GCDs from 2.5s to 1.5s to make the battle system a little bit faster?

Quickly going through these:

- Yes, this is the main gripe for many players.

- No, this leads to certain jobs being under/overpowered dependant on party makeup.

- Just jobs in general.

- No. You can make a job that is faster, but don't make it universal.

To expand on some points, starting with the 2 minute meta. By getting rid of it completely, you stop the need to have every job be a burst job that bursts every 2 minutes, it also means you do not need to keep designing things that fit into that 2 minute time window, like high potency attacks. Instead, you can then focus on making jobs more unique in how they burst, or not. More sustained DPS so their burst window doesn't register much on a DPS curve, high burst jobs where the sustained damage is low, but they burst really high, jobs than can have a more flexible burst window, longer windows, shorter windows etc. Jobs can really come into their own here. The main problem that might arise is fight pacing. With more downtime, a fight might favour one job over another, just like the situation with Pictomancer and FRU.

We also do not need to get rid of raid buffs entirely, Bard's can maintain a damage buff with 100% uptime, Dancers can maintain Standard Finish. Raid buffs that can be kept up 100% of the time are fine, as they do not enforce a specific buff window you want to line up your burst with, but you can also make maintaining this buff a core part of the job itself. But it doesn't have to stop there. Things like Monk's Brotherhood and Reaper's Arcane Circle can also be used as another type of raid buff. Just remove the damage portion and this still allows other members of your party to contribute to your own damage. This could even be extended to a debuff to increase damage.

Going onto synergies, if we are looking at things like the damage resists (slashing/piercing etc.), You can either design a job assuming it is always going to have it, which leaves it underpowered when that debuff isn't there, or, you tune it when the buff isn't there, which makes it overpowered when the buff IS there. You could, in theory, stick it somewhere in the middle, there has to bee a sweet spot after all, but you also have to remember you are potentially fighting for that spot from another DPS, who might not have that issue. Then there is slashing specifically, Paladin and Dark Knight have magic attacks, which do not benefit from the slashing debuff, so how do you balance those with Warrior and Gunbreaker where everything would benefit from slashing. It is more variables that really don't contribute to a jobs enjoyment.

With the removal of the 2 minute meta, every job should undergo changes, whether they are small changes or more drastic, it doesn't matter. For example, re-imagining Monk as a more sustained DPS that has short burst phases based on Perfect Balance and not Riddle of Fire or Brotherhood's damage increases, the idea here being, with short, more flexible burst windows, you have more choice as to when you burst and so you are adapting to each fight, much like a martial artist would adapt every time they fight. I have actually been playing around with this concept in my head for a while and have done a rough google doc outlining my idea. It is mainly just to get it out of my head so I don't know if I would even release it, but it can be a fun thought experiment to re-design a job based on some sot of environment you have crafted.

For GCD speed, it is worth noting that currently, the quickest any GCD that has a variable GCD timer can go is 1.5 seconds. Some have an issue with 1.5 seconds just to single weave, which is mainly highlighted by Machinist, but it could also pose a problem for Reapers, maybe even Viper if you stack enough Skill Speed. That said, there are quite a few oGCDs that jobs have to juggle to fill in the time between the GCD. so you don't really feel it. Could more jobs across the roles be quicker, for example, a faster GCD tank? Sure, but a universal shortening of the GCD just wouldn't go down well I don't think.

[AnnRam]

Uhhmm.

Removing more currents skills and add traits instead.
Remove all the dots from healers and give them a skill that heals+shield(every one does the same now)
-MP removed because its giving lots of anxiety to our casual player base.
-Item level/materia removed since gearing was always pointless.

[Derio]

PVP seems to have it right.
A re-evaluation of tank and healer dps rotations needs to happen.
An aoe balance pass for all jobs needs to happen as well.
The early game kits needs to be improved vastly. There is no reason some jobs dont get an AOE ability until lvl 45.

However this is extreme copium and I'm pretty sure they will launch 2 new jobs, lightly touch the existing jobs and focus on removing button bloat in 8.0 instead of actually adjusting/reworking jobs.