The slow decline of FFXIV, a summary.

[ForsakenRoe]

I am not asking a player who says 'this game is trash!' why they think that way. I'm no developer, but I can imagine no one wants to hear advice from anyone who talks like that.
If you tell me the self healing kits that all the dps and tanks have now have broken the holy trinity, and thrown off the class dependency, then I have something to understand about the pain points.

Yeh, slight problem with that: Saying something like that also gets thrown out by the whiteknights. People have been saying since Endwalker that Tanks have been too strong in their selfhealing capabilities, and that it's encroaching on the other facets of the Trinity (mainly the Healer side). Lots of WARs have stopped by to mention that they are having fun being strong, and that whatever solution SE comes up with for Healers, it must NOT affect WAR in any way, as that'd detract from their fun. This, of course, conveniently ignores the facts that A: their fun (being an unkillable selfhealing machine) is predicated on the Healer not having fun (because the job of 'keep Tank alive' has been taken from that Healer and given to the Tank), and B: that the WAR's current source of fun (being an unkillable selfhealing machine) was not originally a part of WAR's fun profile in previous expansions

Back to the matter at hand, though: Players can suggest the most incredible ideas. The devs are only one team, and their ideas might end up getting into a bit of an echo-chamber of self-convincing, when they're the only people who are listening to themselves about Job Design (especially for Healers, given that there's no dedicated Healer designer on the team). But that's the problem: for some players, SE can do no wrong. The designs that SE comes up with, are the only way that said Job could have been designed. There could be an idea for a WHM Job design that inspires world peace in the real world, and each use of Benediction cures one person IRL of Cancer. There'd still be whiteknights on the forums, saying 'no this is a terrible design', because it's not from the minds at SE

To the example above, with the Tanks: SE has designed Bloodwhetting. They then, instead of addressing it being ridiculous in dungeons, left it as it was for 2+ years. As such, WARs now believe that the selfhealing power it provides is their 'normal', a part of the 'WAR identity'. So now, because it's been that way for a while, it can't be changed without massive pushback. People will not be able to see a different vision for WAR design, beyond what SE have ascribed to it (that being, press Fell Cleave and selfheal a lot). That's kinda fine, for a job like WAR, because for the most part, most people who are playing WAR, enjoy WAR. Some, like me, preferred an older version such as 4.1 WAR (the best WAR, fight me), but since I don't like current WAR, I simply don't play it.

Let's contrast though: Healers, specifically WHM. There's a lot of discussion around WHM being a little... lacking, in terms of what it can offer the party compared to an AST. It has HPS throughput, sure, but after the HPS requirements of the fight are met, it has much less it can offer compared to AST. AST has two sources of raidwide mitigation (CU/Sun Sign), WHM has one. WHM's Divine Aura can be applied once, AST can re-apply Neutral Sect multiple times in the duration. As such, when a Mit check (the bread and butter of testing a Healer's skill in this game) comes along, WHM comes up lacking compared to AST, and this lack of 'versatility' means that the cohealer loses part of their versatility, to patch the hole that AST could have patched with a CU.

But coming full circle, this is the issue: WHM has less mitigation. It lost Stoneskin2 and Protect for various reasons. For years, SE has tried to paint it into this corner of 'its a Pure Healer', and so now, a lot of players think that it cannot have readily accessible mitigations such as Stoneskin, because 'its a Pure Healer'. What SE has designed the job to be, is the only way it 'can' be, for some players. And the same applies with all of the Healers, and their damage kits: now that we've had the 'one nuke one DOT' design for the damage kits of Healers for 5+ years, there's loud pushback from some players, against ANY attempt to suggest that 'hey could we maybe have one more damage button to press'.

An example I like to use is this: 'on WHM, reduce Dia to 12s duration, and add Water as a 15s CD GCD'. Even those two changes, small as they are, cross the line for some players

[ZephyrMenodora]

Anyone noticed that for some reason white knights forum start date is always either like 5 days ago or 50 years ago

Not that forum state dates mean anything (like I’m a legacy player) but has anyone ever seen a white knight who’s forum start date was like 2019

I mean half the OPs for bait threads are accounts that have no history due to them being alts of banned accounts. What is this point even getting at?

[Red-thunder]

Then I, frankly, have no idea what your argument even is. That people can also post good things about the game? No one is stopping them from that, you were just complaining about the number of posts criticizing the game.

Probably fanboys who watched the latest content creator vid and got mad and have to swoop in to defend m'lady Yoshi P's honor

[Zarkovitch]

Does the game dying no. Does the lost interest of veteran players, yes, But guess what newcomers are still playing it. Only Flaw on this expansion outside the story being not good is the relic grind should be release ages ago. I already accept what they are doing and believe me, it wont change it. It coming from guy from east coast who experience ARR days to right now. I miss my east coast server and complexety of each roles, but guess what, I accept my expectation of the game. To be casual as friendly and easier to the devs so they can make fun things on hard content when they release it.

[Red-thunder]

I mean half the OPs for bait threads are accounts that have no history due to them being alts of banned accounts. What is this point even getting at?

Just for you Mr. Lawyer:

[ZephyrMenodora]

Just for you Mr. Lawyer:

Oh how I know you wish that were true.
But alas, there are far more important things in life than you.
I know this message will make you feel blue,
Come again when you can come up with something new.

[Red-thunder]

Haha Zephyr always eats the bait

[ZephyrMenodora]

Haha Zephyr always eats the bait

Bait, me asks? You chose to reply to me,
Seeking my attention, repeatedly.
I know this response will fill your heart with glee,
Cry not too much, back to work I flee.

[ovIm]

B: that the WAR's current source of fun (being an unkillable selfhealing machine) was not originally a part of WAR's fun profile in previous expansions

Slight correction here: the defensives of WAR were always defined by their self healing capabilities fueled by their damage output, even back in 2.0. Their tank stance worked different in a way that facilitated self healing as opposed to direct mitigation, sometimes more, sometimes less - but generally it was taking more damage, and then also healing that up by themselves. But doing damage and healing itself through said damage was the core of the WAR gameplay in ARR and HW. Taking damage and healing back up was very much part of the fun of playing warrior well, it was just much harder to get there compared to today.

That identity had been previously weakened a few times (like with the removal of bloodbath, or when all tank stances became the same skill), and as we all know, CS3 are prone to overcorrecting issues they notice, which is why we are where we are now.
IMHO, the self healing/mitigation capabilities of the tanks, while strong, are not the big core of the issue - its that tanks can heal their teammates with enough potency that it is sufficient to negate the lax incoming damage in most instances, which begs the question "why, Square?" (Bloodwhetting/Nascent is a special case cause it procs per target hit with no upper cap, effectively making it a braindead bene every 25s in an AoE scenario - that does need to be adjusted).
Tanks should not be able to heal others as well as they can at the moment. Thats a healers job.

[ForsakenRoe]

Slight correction here: the defensives of WAR were always defined by their self healing capabilities fueled by their damage output, even back in 2.0.

I should have clarified: Previously, WAR was a killable selfhealing machine. Now, WAR is an unkillable selfhealing machine

Previous WAR was not as big an issue as it is now, because it had to sacrifice a use of Fell Cleave, to use Inner Beast for healing/damage. It had to dip into Defiance (-25% damage unless they use Unchained, which also used to cost a Fell Cleave in HW) to use Equilibrium to heal. They had Bloodbath, but like old Nascent before EW, its healing capabilities directly correlated to the damage you dealt during its effect.

Now, you don't have to worry about 'when' you press BW, as it heals for a flat 400p per enemy hit, even if your hit does 1 damage