The future of job design

[Bekuta]

It's very funny to me that the plan to secure the longevity of FFXIV isn't to venture into horizontal progression and make classes more varied, but to instead homogenize everything and just make fights require you to run around more and more.

[Hallarem]

Simplification is the keyword, so they can chase these new players that don't exist and are returners to the game who probably left due to lack of change and just want to see the new tidbits of MSQ storytelling if it was become better.

An MMO should want to make you subscribe for multitude of activities and an open world with said activities. Not send you to "play other games".
They should add job complexity, talents, choices and just straight up turn the open world content into a "expedition" or introduce the expedition in the very first patch of the expansion.

Anyone who wants to know how an actual MMO is supposed to work, go play WoW classic/vanilla in any iteration. From the actual game, to TurtleWoW's private server. I played actual vanilla, and communities are created in open world content, by questing together and meeting later, talking while questing for a long time, grinding, helping.

Not hunt trains and fates. The open world needs to matter, the dungeons need to matter. That is what an MMO is.

[Eraden]

Simplification is the keyword, so they can chase these new players that don't exist and are returners to the game who probably left due to lack of change and just want to see the new tidbits of MSQ storytelling if it was become better.

An MMO should want to make you subscribe for multitude of activities and an open world with said activities. Not send you to "play other games".
They should add job complexity, talents, choices and just straight up turn the open world content into a "expedition" or introduce the expedition in the very first patch of the expansion.

Anyone who wants to know how an actual MMO is supposed to work, go play WoW classic/vanilla in any iteration. From the actual game, to TurtleWoW's private server. I played actual vanilla, and communities are created in open world content, by questing together and meeting later, talking while questing for a long time, grinding, helping.

Not hunt trains and fates. The open world needs to matter, the dungeons need to matter. That is what an MMO is.

Mao agrees. Game right now feels to Mao like is just DDR with little bits open empty spaces in-between. In WoW Mao has all sorts activities in open world to has funs with.

[Voryn]

You WILL do DDR raids until your death with braindead jobs and you WILL like it!!

How are “DDR” mechanics the scapegoat for black mage allegedly needing shorter casts to handle them, and jobs getting easier? Don’t more predictable mechanics make it easier to understand how to maintain uptime as a caster and to have a “correct” rotation as a tank/melee? Like I know when I want to use Sprint to slidecast better as healer or rdm if I know what’s coming up, and I can plan ahead when to use the specific things like Afflatus Misery or Acceleration. I might be misunderstanding what you mean by “DDR.”

My assumption is that if black mage casting getting easier, then it’s maybe for the sake of less predictable/rigid mechanics in the future. But I’ll only believe it when I see it. I’m still of the suspicion that their real intentions for the simplifications are to help worse players do enough damage, or because that’s their easy way of making it simpler to balance the jobs.

[Kazuke_Miso]

How are “DDR” mechanics the scapegoat for black mage allegedly needing shorter casts to handle them, and jobs getting easier? Don’t more predictable mechanics make it easier to understand how to maintain uptime as a caster and to have a “correct” rotation as a tank/melee? Like I know when I want to use Sprint to slidecast better as healer or rdm if I know what’s coming up, and I can plan ahead when to use the specific things like Afflatus Misery or Acceleration. I might be misunderstanding what you mean by “DDR.”

My assumption is that if black mage casting getting easier, then it’s maybe for the sake of less predictable/rigid mechanics in the future. But I’ll only believe it when I see it. I’m still of the suspicion that their real intentions for the simplifications are to help worse players do enough damage, or because that’s their easy way of making it simpler to balance the jobs.

Most of the "busy" mechanics they've implemented are just faster-paced DDR mechanics. The only exception is something like M2S, but there is nothing unique or interesting about dodging a lot of AoEs in a row. I think a lot of players will see through just how creatively bankrupt the team is because it seems like they think the only thing they need to do is to just add a lot of rapid AoEs to dodge.

[Kazuke_Miso]

Looks like they're just doubling down on DDR raids lmao.

[Voryn]

I’m still confused about what a “DDR mechanic” is and how they lead to jobs being made easier. The only endgame raids I’ve done are EW/DT content with only a couple random savages from older expansions, plus UWU, UCOB, and TEA.

This whole time I’m thinking “Dance Dance Revolution” so I’m assuming people are talking about mechanics that are scripted, having specific solutions, and only ask players to move into the right position to resolve them. But mechanics being scripted means it’s easier to do your rotation when you know what to plan around and when things are happening.

[post with examples]

A lot of these are asking for things like fighting adds, or doing some duty-specific actions, or things that have players not be playing their jobs at all (turning into gorillas, O3 and Tender Valley mazes, interacting with objects, driving vehicles, getting trapped and needing to be freed). But some are still just “figure out the right solution and then move to in the right spot” like the Stormblood math boss or the E7 portals so are still DDR? But admittedly some examples are going over my head because of not remembering level 50 or 60 dungeons.

Is anyone able to give a better explanation of DDR and how they think it leads to jobs being made easier? They’re obviously two things that are annoying to people who like the older job designs and older mechanic designs but the correlation between the two doesn’t make sense.

[Absurdity]

Is anyone able to give a better explanation of DDR and how they think it leads to jobs being made easier? They’re obviously two things that are annoying to people who like the older job designs and older mechanic designs but the correlation between the two doesn’t make sense.

You're pretty spot on with your assumption about DDR mechanics.

If I had to add anything it's that the job rotations aren't getting easier because the fights are scripted, but that the devs have made them easier over the last 5 years, with the justification that they increased the frequency and speed at which you need to "stand in the right spot".

It's also not that people necessarily hate resolving mechanics by standing in the safe spot in general, but the devs have essentially reused the same 6 patterns for standing in the right spot for years.
Not only is it nothing but DDR mechanics nowadays, but it is the same DDR mechanics that we have seen over 50 times already, repackaged in a different wrapping paper and with a new shiny bow on top.

[Kazuke_Miso]

It's also not that people necessarily hate resolving mechanics by standing in the safe spot in general, but the devs have essentially reused the same 6 patterns for standing in the right spot for years.
Not only is it nothing but DDR mechanics nowadays, but it is the same DDR mechanics that we have seen over 50 times already, repackaged in a different wrapping paper and with a new shiny bow on top.

Well, their improved encounter design is just to speed up those same 6 patterns apparently.

[Valence]

I’m still confused about what a “DDR mechanic” is and how they lead to jobs being made easier. The only endgame raids I’ve done are EW/DT content with only a couple random savages from older expansions, plus UWU, UCOB, and TEA.

This whole time I’m thinking “Dance Dance Revolution” so I’m assuming people are talking about mechanics that are scripted, having specific solutions, and only ask players to move into the right position to resolve them. But mechanics being scripted means it’s easier to do your rotation when you know what to plan around and when things are happening.

Your definition is mostly spot on.

1) The sheer scale and prevalence of fight mechanics. If you look at when they truly started to be standardized and reproduced for most of the fights, in Stormblood, and watch a fight from that era, you'll probably notice that they're a lot less hectic, and require to run all across a lot less than today.
2) Before ShB, the game used to have an actual battle system, from target boss/mob positioning, flank/rear/front that mattered for tanks, resource management (TP, MP, gauge in SB, etc), team play (support), and pre SB encounters that were in fact, not all based on "stand in the right place or in the safe spot" all the time even if it was a big part of it. There is a gigantic difference between a system where you're constantly asked to dodge and move and run all over, and a system that asks you to move once, than relies on other parts of the battle system to actually challenge the players. Killing adds, managing adds, managing enemy power stacks, managing incoming damage or deaths and playing with a limited pool of resources (MP notably), a lot more plays around buffs and debuffs to deal with that don't necessarily demand to run all over, etc. If anything those days, we mostly find debuffs in savage/ultimate, but used within big jigsaw puzzles.

Take a look at coils for example, I think they're the best way to see how encounter design could feel back then. It was frankly, very, very different. It can also look a little weird or non functional those days since they did interact with parts of the battle content that are long gone by now. And if anything, if it doesn't speak to you, then you'll at least notice the sheer lack of floor geometry telegraphs of back then. To me it felt already closer to an actual rpg.