Revert these upcoming BLM changes IMMEDIATELY

[Carighan]

It doesn't matter if Sally's been a BLM main for half a decade and has some criticism, but otherwise loves her job. Little Timmy struggles with his timers and thinks they suck, so they clearly need to rip them off so he can have fun.

You know, from the exposure to game and in particular MMO design I've had, the actual reason is essentially the opposite. There's a side-benefit of making the job perform better when someone not adept at it plays it, but the core +1 for the change will be that as Sally is so good and so experienced at BLM, for her the timer has lost all meaning: She never rubs up against it. Hence it can be removed at 0 loss of gameplay, a side benefit is that Timmy now performs better and finds the job easier to pick up.

(Of course the BLM changes also include cast time reductions and those break that mold of their usual type of change, f'me I got no clue why those happen - but what I said explains changes such as the Enochian timer of the 2 lost charges of Nastrond on DRG, and is a rather common sentiment in MMORPG design. Wish I could tell you where I stand on it personally, I hate losing systems - I'd rather lose bloated button setups - but I can also sorta see where the design perspective takes its logic from, board game design is a lot like that.)

[ValerisDalmasca]

I've been playing since PS3 beta (this account only since HW) and I have never really been active on the forums. The recently shown BLM rework made me want to finally add to the discussion.

I think it's vital for the developers to step forward and clearly communicate what they want out of the game. Because at this point what they say and what they do are in clear conflict, which is causing the playerbase to lose trust and creates resentment. I feel that at this point most of the goodwill they built is running out.

We have at least 4 jobs per role to play with. It's fine for different jobs to appeal to different people. I, for example, don't enjoy procs. So I don't play red mage, dancer, or bard much (am forcing myself with bard through 7.2 out of challenge to see if my mind changes on it). But I still have black mage, summoner, pictomancer and machinist to play with within that role. And mechanics have become so symmetrical that in most fights being a melee dps or not hardly changes anything anymore outside of greeding the odd gcd.

So do the developers want all jobs within a role to be just flavours of the same? Won't that completely tank interest in new jobs coming in the future? And if not, then what explains these changes over the years? Is it because simpler, homogenized jobs = easier to maintain? Isn't that a self-inflicted issue though, with the developers needing to add abilities every expansion? Other mmos don't do this as a hard fast rule, classes get adjustments if they need them, not just because. Maybe it's time to actually lock down the kits of each job, and refine those kits instead of doing reworks just for the sake of keeping them fresh, or attracting them to people who wouldn't play them otherwise when they already have a core identity and playerbase (which is reinforced by game design with its restrictive gearing encouraging people to stick to one job for a long time).

I played Black Mage in a hard environment (anabaseios savage) for the first time in 6.4. It was a challenge, but I got through it and learned so much. It felt satisfying to actually go through all of the superchain theories without dropping my casts. Now I don't feel like I'll ever have that feeling again with these changes. I played it on the 7.0 extremes and already felt it lost some of that spark. And now? It is insane to me that Red Mage, once thought to be the easiest caster, barely got changed over the years and could now unironically be the hardest one. How is that not a failure of design? And if 8.0 changes will shake everything up (which for the record I have no hopes for anymore) why bother changing things now? Because if these black mage changes are not indicative of 8.0, then you're just changing it for a year for no reason, and if they are, then you're telling us it's going to get even worse than it is now?

[ValerisDalmasca]

I just don't understand how these things get decided and approved at CBU3. For half a decade now me (and a sizeable portion of the playerbase) have been increasingly more baffled by taken decisions and the lack of clear communication is frankly making us lose our patience with this product. I'll never forget how it took 2 full patch cycles to fix a 100% reproducible gamebreaking bug introduced with the pvp rework that was added with CC (bards/machinists casting getting heavy'd by an astro would force-disconnect them from the game). The response is too slow, too disconnected, and often times tonedeaf. Other live service games will rush changes to answer playerbase wants (not asking for crunch, but the devs shouldn't have had to work on ARR flying on their own time, hire more ppl), and yet with CBU3 it only happens if they have bad publicity in game journalism websites. Isn't that in itself not a statement that the devs don't care about the playerbase???

Enough with the half-answers, enough with the ambiguity, enough with the "please look forward to it"s. We had a 10 year old plan presented to us where nothing of substance was put on the table outside of pure client-side fluff (graphical overhaul). What do the devs want to do with the part that matters - the game? State your purpose or you'll see your core playerbase slowly leave until all you're left with are people who don't care they're playing a mmorpg. And maybe you'll be happy with that if they bring in money, but you HAVE to know this won't last. The people who want to be here for THE GAME will stick with THE GAME as long as it delivers. The ones that aren't will jump ship for anything else.

[PyurBlue]

Adding another voice to the disapproval of BLM changes. No enochian? Sub GCD cast times? Why? If I could I'd go back to EW BLM.