Everyone's fun is valuable.

[enhasa]

I lurk a lot but don't really post here. I really feel for all the people discussing BLM because I also played the job a ton in ENW. I fell off in DT because the job didn't feel good at all, but I've been optimistic and tried to accept the job as it is. I manage to have decent fun with it in 7.1. Trouble is, I see the LL demo and it feels like that openmindedness has blown up in my face.

I'm going to ramble a lot here, but what troubles me the most about discussing the game is the people who jump down your throat for daring to voice negative opinions as if it's not valid unless they're the ones with negative things to say. And I agree, it gets grating when people do it in excess and ignore context just to be aimlessly negative- but I feel like after years of odd indecisive, unpopular changes, changes that seem to be catered not to high end raiders, not to new players, not to casual players who couldn't care what a rotation is- but the kind of guy who wants to smoothly clear Savage without getting upset about a job's weaknesses inconveniencing them at all..... What am I supposed to voice but my frustrations?

I look for the silver lining every expansion! I play the main story, I grind the side stuff, I chill and idle with my friends at the FC house, I mash Bozja and FATEs and all that other stuff, I play the game! I like playing the game!

Yet still, I get a lot of rude comments from people calling me a tryhard or that I should take a break because I'm burnt out, or other weird, mean and unfounded assumptions about me. I started playing proper in StB and fell in love with the game. I won't go into every job I played because this is the DPS section but it bothers me watching how much jobs have been pared down in terms of personality and pushback in favor of "we've given you a shiny new capstone ability! it doesn't have anything to do with your gauges or anything but it looks pretty and does a lot of damage, so please press it every 2 minutes!"

When I bring this up, I feel like I just get maligned a lot in a way that feels very frustrating and alienating. I don't think I'm being overdramatic. I think it's okay if people like the current state of the game. But I don't think my wants are terribly selfish or narrow-sighted! I feel like it's important to voice them because positivity is pretty common! Despite the buzz, people have a lot of positive things to say! I don't feel a need to add to that pile. I want to offer criticism and praise from a perspective that makes sense to me.

[enhasa]

But I think what upsets me more than any of what I said above- the absolute worst of it all... Sometimes you'll see people mention things like "accessibility". Like, "ah, I'm glad they made (job) more accessible with these changes." I can't stand that talking point at all because it's a huge insult to everyone dealing with the hurdles that disability can present to enjoyable gaming.

Is it accessibility to grant free movement during TCJ? Is it accessibility to remove the Enochian timer? Is it accessibility to whittle Machinist down to the very basics while still requiring you to hit buttons quickly?

No! My friends with cerebral palsy, with visual/auditory impairments, who get migraines looking at the gfx update- they are not aided by these things. Those changes offer convenience, not access. They make it easier for those who can already get in the door, but do not open it for anyone. I bring this up to say- I think so much of the ongoing discussion about DPS design(and job design as a whole, but I feel it most directly affects DPS) has gone in a way I think is really ugly, and it's not because of people having negative things to say about the game.

It is almost entirely because of people refusing to genuinely entertain and empathize with people's frustrations, and it has to change if things are going to get better.

[Voryn]

I feel like after years of odd indecisive, unpopular changes, changes that seem to be catered not to high end raiders, not to new players, not to casual players who couldn\\'t care what a rotation is- but the kind of guy who wants to smoothly clear Savage without getting upset about a job\\'s weaknesses inconveniencing them at all.....

it bothers me watching how much jobs have been pared down in terms of personality and pushback in favor of "we\\'ve given you a shiny new capstone ability! it doesn\\'t have anything to do with your gauges or anything but it looks pretty and does a lot of damage, so please press it every 2 minutes!"

These types of changes feel like they may be a deliberate lowering of the skill floor to improve new players’ performance. A new button that just gets pressed every two minutes is something that players can’t get wrong, and then gives some consistent damage output to people who aren’t good at the game yet. Like how every minute, WAR, DRK, and PLD have their “you can use big attacks a few times in a row now” abilities as long as the player just doesn’t completely forget that they exist (GNB’s version is different because it’s on a two minute cooldown lol). A lot of damage is in places where the player can’t do it “wrong” unless they actually just forget about it entirely.

So the new player trying Savage is more easily doing some things for their job correctly and hopefully doing an okay amount of damage, and this way of designing jobs comes at the expense of those of us who want jobs that are more interesting to learn and play. Alternatively, maybe the devs want to avoid having the “filler” of our rotation to be really necessary to make a job function, since every job needs to work in ultimates where there may be a lot of downtime between burst windows. Either way, it definitely is can be frustrating when something we enjoy playing with is taken away with nothing fun added to make up for it.

But I think what upsets me more than any of what I said above- the absolute worst of it all... Sometimes you\\'ll see people mention things like "accessibility". Like, "ah, I\\'m glad they made (job) more accessible with these changes." I can\\'t stand that talking point at all because it\\'s a huge insult to everyone dealing with the hurdles that disability can present to enjoyable gaming.

”Accessibility” has seemingly evolved into a positive-sounding way of saying “doable for people who are unwilling to learn or are incapable of learning.” And when we don’t know each person’s situation then they all sound like the first group all claiming to be in the second group.

[Carighan]

Trying to be constructive around what the devs showed, I guess what I could say is that from there perspective the situation will be like this:

"For optimal damage, you do XYZ anyways, and never rub up against mechanic A. We're removing A to ensure that even without reading The Balance, a newcomer can get closed to XYZ, while for you, factually nothing changes."

I bet that's how it works. That's not an uncommon sentiment, and importantly not always a bad one. Game design is after all not done when you can't add anything any more, but when you cannot take anything away any more. Hence, say, GW2 just dropped roles nearly entirely, since in other games numbers show people want to always play DPS anyways. It's that same kind of thought process. I don't agree with it, but I can sort-of assume how the devs got there. It's the same with the Nastrond charges: If they know the top-end players are going to be fitting it all into burst anyways, then removing 2/3 Nastrond charges raises the skill floor performance without affecting the skill ceiling performance. And it feels most changes in recent years are aimed at doing that. They seem to be happy with where skilled players perform, but not where unskilled ones do. Which to a degree makes sense if we look at how much faster, complex and involved fights have become, the encounter designers are probably asking the job designer(s) to do this so they got more room to play with.

I don't like it, but I can sort-of see the reason behind it. I just wish they'd remove the dozens of near-pointless button bloat buttons from all the jobs instead. If your Astral phase is mentally no more involved than just pressing the same Fire IV button X times until OOM would be, then why not remove all the extra buttons at 0 loss of depth, but keep in-theory interesting mechanics like the Enochian timer or so around? Evolve the job into something interested around its cyclical nature, clearly the "big nuke go boom"-part does not and never has worked out. A paintbrush outdoes those fireballs.

[Valence]

Interesting points on accessibility, I definitely agree and don't have much to add.

[enhasa]

I don't like it, but I can sort-of see the reason behind it. I just wish they'd remove the dozens of near-pointless button bloat buttons from all the jobs instead. If your Astral phase is mentally no more involved than just pressing the same Fire IV button X times until OOM would be, then why not remove all the extra buttons at 0 loss of depth, but keep in-theory interesting mechanics like the Enochian timer or so around?

Exactly, like... I understand them culling huton upkeep, the writing was on the wall since they added hrj for recovery. The job has shifted in its function to the point where it has a lot for the average player to juggle even without huton. I do miss Huton upkeep but I am willing to accept a new future for the job as the core of it is still intact(dear god i miss ogcd ninjutsu tho)

The trouble is that KZMT is not yet an exciting enough replacement. Instead of just making it offer a potency boost, why not make it so consuming it refunds a little ninjutsu cooldown? or some other resource? or make it boost the damage on Fuma Shuriken for movement reasons as well as keeping it stocked for your TCJ! or just... any effect other than "you get more damage every 3 hits". I think KZMT has potential to be MORE interesting than Huton was, but not if they don't allow it to be!

[Riusvell]

But I think what upsets me more than any of what I said above- the absolute worst of it all... Sometimes you'll see people mention things like "accessibility". Like, "ah, I'm glad they made (job) more accessible with these changes." I can't stand that talking point at all because it's a huge insult to everyone dealing with the hurdles that disability can present to enjoyable gaming.

Is it accessibility to grant free movement during TCJ? Is it accessibility to remove the Enochian timer? Is it accessibility to whittle Machinist down to the very basics while still requiring you to hit buttons quickly?

No! My friends with cerebral palsy, with visual/auditory impairments, who get migraines looking at the gfx update- they are not aided by these things. Those changes offer convenience, not access. They make it easier for those who can already get in the door, but do not open it for anyone. I bring this up to say- I think so much of the ongoing discussion about DPS design(and job design as a whole, but I feel it most directly affects DPS) has gone in a way I think is really ugly, and it's not because of people having negative things to say about the game.

It is almost entirely because of people refusing to genuinely entertain and empathize with people's frustrations, and it has to change if things are going to get better.

While in my last two posts I've stated I didn't want to post more on the forums nor on the situation, you are right that many use the accessibility thing in bad faith.
I have a dopamine deficit, ADHD. It may not be a physical disability, which I do also have! But that aside, the changes to many jobs over time have significantly made the game feel more hostile and inaccessible to me.
I've suffered losing so many jobs that actually kept me engaged and enjoying the game. Which is what many of these changes sadly also hurt, the fact that they make the content less engaging as while the fights may be fun... the job I play also has to add something to the mix. As me getting bored during a fight would lead to me making mistakes, which isn't fun to me or anyone who has to do these fights with me.

Though going back on the physical disability for a moment, I have a physical disability affecting my joints. Which mostly flares up with repetitive motions (mainly single button spam) during gaming. Reducing jobs to almost being a single button gameplay experience would make the game even more unplayable. It's like accessibility is a complex thing but going at it at such a generalised approach means it ends up making things even less accessible for a portion of people. Most of us, who are disabled in some way do try to find methods and ways to make things work though.

And that's not going without saying that engagement should die for the sake of accessibility either. Because it does genuinely feel like my fun isn't exactly valued as highly with these upcoming changes, despite finally making the switch I wanted to back in Endwalker and beginning of Dawntrail, having finally found a job that I enjoyed playing again after the changes that made Summoner completely unplayable to me back in Endwalker. With the 7.1 changes finally adding in some fluidity back that 7.0 took away.

[Carighan]

What'd be good for you is if devs were to make the "filler GCD combo", the thing you mindlessly press anyways, auto-firing like in GW2 if you aren't actively using something else instead? I always thought that's a kinda neat thing, if you're not busy pressing anything else, you get a sort of "fancy-looking" autoattack on all jobs, even casters and ranged and all.

[Jeeqbit]

I fell off in DT because the job didn't feel good at all, but I've been optimistic and tried to accept the job as it is.

Personally, I felt it was perfect in DT but that's because I only BLM casually. Quite honestly, dealing with MP ticks and remembering Sharpcast was a rough edge with everything else going on at level 90, as someone that didn't play it regularly, so it made it work for someone just casually switching back to the job after ages.

I was glad to see the timer didn't go in 7.0. That was the part that worried me and when I saw it still there I was relieved. Same in 7.1. So seeing it gone after feeling reassured that they were keeping it is sad.

what troubles me the most about discussing the game is the people who jump down your throat for daring to voice negative opinions as if it's not valid unless they're the ones with negative things to say.

Well firstly, they don't know your intentions and motivations in many cases, unless they know you personally. So they have to work on assumptions about you.

When someone is negative about the game, in many cases it comes across universal - you only ever see them say negative things over the period of time you've observed them, so it comes across that they are just a depressive person and don't try to see positives in anything they do. That may not be the case, but first impressions count for a lot.

changes that seem to be catered not to high end raiders, not to new players, not to casual players who couldn't care what a rotation is

They are catered to new, returning and casual players and I actually do believe they help them to do the rotation better and run into less struggles.

The problem is that when those "new, returning and casual players" become "regular players", they start to get bored and find the rotations become boring, especially if there isn't something else that's really engaging, such as when they get bored of repeating the same content for months.

Also, although a rotation should be easy to grasp, they also need to feel like there are things to master about it. It's just also important to be able to articulate a light at the end of the tunnel of what it is you need to master. For example, with Triple Tiad, I quite clearly need to understand what the numbers on each side of the card mean, the ways they interact and the circumstances in which they interact. This is almost immediately obvious from the first game, yet you can go months or years without fully understanding them, especially rules like Plus and Same.

I think the issue in the distant past was a lot of things in FFXIV weren't nearly that intuitive, and unless they were as thorough as me, they weren't ever going to comb through and articulate it properly, especially when they have a busy life. But after those things were removed, they kept going despite that it was now at a point where new players routinely came to understand their rotation by max level.

I get a lot of rude comments from people calling me a tryhard

Personally, I wouldn't take offense to that since I basically am, in the sense that I'm not limited in my ability to play by work/family/other major distractions. The game probably will work for that ultra casual player just returning for a week or two to do MSQ, if we're honest. The point is really that the game should work for tryhards as well (as in have some goodies for them as well to enhance how sophisticated their gameplay is).