The identity of Pictomancer is being destroyed

[Valence]

Non standard BLM rewarded complexity with higher damage. Non standard PCT arguably awards less complexity with more damage

A pretty apt comparison would simply be with BLM AoE, which is back to ShB Flare spamming and transpose skips in non standard, which offers the most damage output by miles, and proves somewhat easier to play. Non standard BLM completely skips over skills like high blizzard and high fire because they're suboptimal, which is very similar to PCT's hammer being rendered obsolete by a design flaw.

[Wayfinder3]

Yes we have been over this. This is a fundamental disagreement we have

Non standard BLM rewarded complexity with higher damage. Non standard PCT arguably awards less complexity with more damage

That’s something you prefer as in your opinion simplicity is good, in my opinion it’s bad because if you play with more moving parts you should be awarded with higher damage

Going to push back at this, no. Something be complex doenst fundamentally make it good, becuase it’s possible for complexity to loop around into tedium. I’ve never player BLM seriously and and I could care less about their distinct issues with their changes, but I can respect that others hate what happened to it even if I don’t care one way or the other. I just think the idea that something being
complex being better is a very monkey’s paw design principle in the same way simplicity allows for more people to engage. If both are done too much, they create incredibly toxic landscapes and having classes be less complex is always better for the overall health of the game than more complex jobs that lower the skill gap too much.

This is all to say, that it really depends on the case. Pre Shadowbringers SMN was a perfect example of complexity being rewarding but going way too far leading the job to clunky and almost tedious play

[Supersnow845]

Going to push back at this, no. Something be complex doenst fundamentally make it good, becuase it’s possible for complexity to loop around into tedium. I’ve never player BLM seriously and and I could care less about their distinct issues with their changes, but I can respect that others hate what happened to it even if I don’t care one way or the other. I just think the idea that something being
complex being better is a very monkey’s paw design principle in the same way simplicity allows for more people to engage. If both are done too much, they create incredibly toxic landscapes and having classes be less complex is always better for the overall health of the game than more complex jobs that lower the skill gap too much.

This is all to say, that it really depends on the case. Pre Shadowbringers SMN was a perfect example of complexity being rewarding but going way too far leading the job to clunky and almost tedious play

And that’s the thing. You point to old SMN being clunky and unfun to play. That’s entirely your opinion. I couldn’t think of a less interesting class to play than nu SMN and I found old SMN’s complexity to be deep and rewarding (with a few noticeable problems that could be fixed without gutting the class)

Making all classes simpler isn’t inherently more healthy for the game, it’s just an example of a way to hide difference in skill floor and skill ceiling. But in my eyes why have 21 jobs with the same ceiling and floor distribution, there should be options for people who want to optimise a deeper class. And yes I do believe if you put in more effort you should be awarded with more damage. 14 is already designed that classes of lower complexity don’t do so little damage they are unviable. If people want to optimise they should be incentivised to do so

[Wayfinder3]

your point

But that’s kind of the point here as well, it’s your opinion that black mage as it once was is better because it was more complex. The reality is different things appeal to different people and this crusade against simplicity only really matters to the extent that a class becomes unfun to play for an individual.

When we start going around saying things like more complex = more fun as a blanket statement, that’s when I have to intervene to make it known that complexity in this game has been a slippery slope and Black Mage is the poster child for a class that has carried a stigma so negative from its earlier days in HW, that it has been underplayed by comparison to the other casters for years after it. Even if a small vocal minority wants the more complex aspects of a job to be at the forefront of its experience. SE has no incentive to give them that because when classes are too difficult, people just stop playing them which is far worse for them.

So no I don’t think the BLM changes are that important in the grand scheme of things, most of the people morning are complaining before even doing the content with it. At least with the PCT complaints, it’s a more tangible frustration because painting is the class gimmick and the draw and having that neutered is something you’ll recognize immediately as a far more impactful loss in that gameplay experience compared to BlM being slightly more mobile and with faster cast.

At this point, it feels like people complain about this whole point almost because that’s the topic of the day, similar to what we saw with Wuk Lamat as opposed to actually having a dog in this fight in the first place. Granted, I don’t care very much at all about what becomes of BLM specifically, that class is the most toxic thing in the role since Shadowbringers and their players do nothing but whine at any point they aren’t the best thing you could be bringing. So no sympathy will come from me. I don’t care if classes become less complex because ultimately, I’m going to play the game anyway, I’ve played RDM for Years and that class has some nuances but is otherwise extremely straightforward with a fun ceiling to explore that makes it approachable for those who want to try it and Fun for those who want to master it. I think design like that will always be the gold standard imo and it’s clear BLM has always struggled with being approachable.

[Wayfinder3]

Also this idea that you should be rewarded for optimizing a class.

With what? A faster kill time? A high parse on a 3rd party website? Fun?

Idk, anything beyond personal motivation really doesn’t matter that much that we need almost 9 active post talking about the same subjects heck, Kaiten was a bigger loss than what happened to BLM and I’ve never even played that class. I’ll admit that I’m biased though. I simply don’t care out BLM or it’s players, they moaned and groaned until SE made PCT less fun so I think everybody lost here especially with the recent melee buffs. Hopefully the new fight design makes those worth it

[Supersnow845]

snip

The “crusade against simplicity” exists because there is so few complex classes left in the game and they continue to make a concentrated effort to remove that complexity. There is no real incentive for square to try to increase a class’s play rate……because all it does is pull from another class’s play rate. Like let’s say these changes make BLM’s play rate go up, at the same time PCT and SMN’s play rate goes down. What was achieved? Annoying people who liked old BLM? 21 way equal play rate doesn’t benefit the game in any way especially when it requires removal of what people liked about the job because it just means that all jobs are played roughly equally by a playerbase that’s equally ambivalent about all of them. SMN’s play rate already crashed with PCT’s release. How long till SMN is unpopular enough to rework again. Like I can also point to the AST rework, that made AST slightly more popular……..and in exchange made SGE less popular. What was that meant to achieve? What benefit is there to equal play rates if nobody cares how each job actually plays

And I’m not quite sure your point on “hammer is immediately noticeable because painting is PCT’s core gimmick” because that’s exactly the argument that BLM has, enochian is the core of BLM. Removing enochian is basically the equivalent of disincentivising painting, which is exactly what they did to PCT

If you don’t like BLM because of some weird perceived grudge then sure but that’s not an argument either way for whether these changes were actually good or not which it seems like your grudge is blinding you as enochian removal is 100% more impactful than Kaiten whether you think it’s a good change or a bad one

[icicleteeth]

Adding my voice, I don't care much for optimizing for parsing, mained PCT because I love the job and loved how it played (pre 7.2), I'll still play it even if it ends up on the bottom half of dps charts because I love the class (the damage is nice too but that isn't why I play it). I still do the regular pre 7.2 rotation because it feels natural, and a few percentage loss dps compared to a patch ago doesn't on its own bother me, but *knowing* essential pieces of the kit like Hammer is a loss unless used in the buff window just doesn't feel good. Hearing some say that creature parts are also a loss unless you can complete it with Mog/Madeen also just sounds bad.

I was sad to hear nerfs were happening since it's my main but agreed it was too strong so it had to happen to some degree, but the idea of doing more damage by not interacting as much with PCT's core mechanics just doesn't feel like a good (or intended?) change to its gameplay. Even though I will still play the old rotation, I hope the devs reconsider some of the potency changes, not necessarily buff it closer to what it was before, but. I'm just really sad to know the state of Hammer because it was so fun to use

[Wayfinder3]

It’s easy, Black Mage players are really really loud and cry anytime their class isn’t the best. Heck, they’ve invaded a thread about pictomancer to needlessly throw their hat in the ring as the other abundance of post clearly weren’t enough.

That’s my issue, the players whine, they’re extremely entitled. They want the class to be played their way, SE want it played another way, much like the hammer changes, it sucks your job got gutted but it is what it is now. Whining about it in every thread possible isn’t going to do anything.

[Carighan]

That’s my issue, the players whine, they’re extremely entitled. They want the class to be played their way, SE want it played another way, much like the hammer changes, it sucks your job got gutted but it is what it is now. Whining about it in every thread possible isn’t going to do anything.

Eh, it's fair of players to express disappointment. My issue is the lack of nuance.

Like look at this thread, "The identity of Pictomancer is being destroyed". This, in a vacuum, sounds as if Pictomancers just lost all color from their animations, and no longer equip a brush to fight. What it actually is about is that if you don't skip odd-minute hammer, you suffer a 1% loss to damage assuming there's absolutely no situation where you can utilize the flexibility of hammer and it's a pure-uptime fight with essentially no fight mechanics.

Given such "OMG THE SKY IS FAAAAAALLIIIING"-feedback being just about the only one you'll ever see (see the BLM threads, and that's a much bigger change and even then it's utterly unwarranted to contextualize the changes as such) it's really no wonder devs stopped listening to player feedback in MMORPGs - at least about class design - somewhere in mid-DAoC-development. Sony EQ still tried with EQ1. Mythic pretty quickly understood that it's pointless, you just get binary "This class is GOAT!" or "Entirely useless, delete the class" and nothing in-between.

Which has the extra side-effect that if anything ever is problematic in a bad way, that's no longer possible to convey, due to the Boy Who Cried Wolf effect. :<

Still, it's entirely normal to express dislike for stuff you don't like. Not blaming anyone for that, just for the (lack of) expression in giving feedback.

[Valence]

It’s easy, Black Mage players are really really loud and cry anytime their class isn’t the best. Heck, they’ve invaded a thread about pictomancer to needlessly throw their hat in the ring as the other abundance of post clearly weren’t enough.

That’s my issue, the players whine, they’re extremely entitled. They want the class to be played their way, SE want it played another way, much like the hammer changes, it sucks your job got gutted but it is what it is now. Whining about it in every thread possible isn’t going to do anything.

It is what it is now until it's my class that gets reworked.