BLM Changes Are Fantastic. The timers were so annoying. Thanks FFXIV team ! :)

[Wayfinder3]

“Dont look anywhere just assume everyone is enjoying it”

Your in game vibe check is even less reliable than checking the listening posts

he's not wrong though, it's no suprise the same few faces including yourself frequently visit the OF and comment on almost every single thread pertaining to jobs. it's not an insult but it does show you and people like you are for more invested in the jobs being a certain way and expressing that vocally than most players. It's true i know many people who feel like you that voice a similar sentiment in silence but i also know some people who are ambivalent, or simply don't care.

[Supersnow845]

Nobody denied that there is people that enjoyed the changes. It was the fact that the other person went straight to “the complaints are a vocal minority if you go in game you’ll see most people enjoy it”.

Like that’s purely a vibe based check. There is like and dislike around it. When I said check the listening posts I don’t mean I’ve gotten high on my own supply reading my own posts and acting like I’m an arbiter of the forums who dictates popular opinion, I mean the other listening posts. You can ignore me

[Wayfinder3]

Nobody denied that there is people that enjoyed the changes. It was the fact that the other person went straight to “the complaints are a vocal minority if you go in game you’ll see most people enjoy it”.

Like that’s purely a vibe based check. There is like and dislike around it. When I said check the listening posts I don’t mean I’ve gotten high on my own supply reading my own posts and acting like I’m an arbiter of the forums who dictates popular opinion, I mean the other listening posts. You can ignore me

I mean again, it’s purely vibe check based but then so is your frustration here, again the amount of people that come here screeching about the classes changes is likely not even 10% of the player base that would consider themselves affected by the change. If SE changed everything every time someone on the forums yelled loud enough, the game would fall apart

[Supersnow845]

I mean again, it’s purely vibe check based but then so is your frustration here, again the amount of people that come here screeching about the classes changes is likely not even 10% of the player base that would consider themselves affected by the change. If SE changed everything every time someone on the forums yelled loud enough, the game would fall apart

That’s why I said check the listening postS (emphasis on plurality). The game would fall apart if every suggestion on the forums was taken on board but you cannot tell me that there was any extensive sentiment being pro these changes in EN or JP before they were implemented and this was anything besides square continuing their endless “if a class is less popular then rework it and then rework the class that became less popular because people meta chased the last classes reworked”

Like even the JP listening posts didn’t want this prior to the change. Opinions have swung around some but you shouldn’t implement a change few people wanted and then retroactively use some positive responses to it to justify it

I mean even a vast majority of the after change feedback was full of people going “I didn’t play it before but now it doesn’t feel so scary”, so that shows they didn’t really have skin in the game for the design of BLM and if they only tried it because they don’t find it daunting anymore how long are they going to stick with it? Will these people dump it in 7.3 when they buff PCT again

[Averax]

I don't mind the timers being gone but something else needed to be done to adjust the rotation. The rotation is still designed around the timers existing and so a lot of things just don't make a lot of sense anymore.

Fire phase feels boring and flat and too long, might feel better if Paradox and Fire 3 also contributed to Flare Star (and had mana costs/increased mana costs to compensate). Frost phase feels like it just exists to exist, would like some pizazz in there

Paradox in general just kind of...exists? It's a cool ability and i like it but it doesn't feel like it's doing anything important.

[Aysin]

I mean again, it’s purely vibe check based but then so is your frustration here, again the amount of people that come here screeching about the classes changes is likely not even 10% of the player base that would consider themselves affected by the change. If SE changed everything every time someone on the forums yelled loud enough, the game would fall apart

I don't understand, so if people come into the forums to voice their discontent it should be ignored because in your opinion it isn't the majority of the player base? Even though there is no way to gauge the voice of the entire player base, and a lot of these discussions are based on group discussions in what you called "bubbles" that are purely "vibes". The concept of the silent customer is foreign to you it seems, you know the ones who have an opinion but don't voice it in this case it's not there for people to see on an open platform. There are plenty who dislike the change but continue to play the class because that's what they want, and there are also plenty who switched without saying anything.

I read some of the other language forums, and looked into the discussion on discord, this is not a popular change to existing BLM players, and people are only still playing it because it's strong. There a far fewer people who saw the changes and decided to actually engage to BLM after changes, and for the most part it doesn't seem like they are ready to commit to it entirely. Those are perspectives from my "bubbles".

JP forum is the only place where I kind of see a very even split of people liking and disliking some or all the changes. But if you use them as the standard, is 50% success a good thing?

No matter how you discuss this topic everyone is sharing their points from their own personal "vibes" and "bubbles" because there is no way to gauge "everyone's" feedback, not even SE can do that. The only thing we can do is share our experiences.

[Wayfinder3]

I don't understand, so if people come into the forums to voice their discontent it should be ignored because in your opinion it isn't the majority of the player base? Even though there is no way to gauge the voice of the entire player base, and a lot of these discussions are based on group discussions in what you called "bubbles" that are purely "vibes". The concept of the silent customer is foreign to you it seems, you know the ones who have an opinion but don't voice it in this case it's not there for people to see on an open platform. There are plenty who dislike the change but continue to play the class because that's what they want, and there are also plenty who switched without saying anything.

I read some of the other language forums, and looked into the discussion on discord, this is not a popular change to existing BLM players, and people are only still playing it because it's strong. There a far fewer people who saw the changes and decided to actually engage to BLM after changes, and for the most part it doesn't seem like they are ready to commit to it entirely. Those are perspectives from my "bubbles".

JP forum is the only place where I kind of see a very even split of people liking and disliking some or all the changes. But if you use them as the standard, is 50% success a good thing?

No matter how you discuss this topic everyone is sharing their points from their own personal "vibes" and "bubbles" because there is no way to gauge "everyone's" feedback, not even SE can do that. The only thing we can do is share our experiences.

Yes, SE needs to make changes based off their internal data and resources, they can take the forums into consideration but ultimately, their goal is to justify the development time spent on a job and if people are playing that job, sometimes that means the people looking for a complex experience lose out. Look at white mage, this class is not very complex at all but it’s still played so consistently in all facets of content that it satisfies the resources put into. This is in contrast to something like BLM which struggles to retain players over the years beyond its diehard fans. That’s probably why the class literally changes so many facets of its design every expansion, same with MNK, it’s always been played much less than DRG NIN and eventually the newer options also ended up being more popular, so SE changed it.

[Wayfinder3]

Yes, SE needs to make changes based off their internal data and resources, they can take the forums into consideration but ultimately, their goal is to justify the development time spent on a job and if people are playing that job, sometimes that means the people looking for a complex experience lose out. Look at white mage, this class is not very complex at all but it’s still played so consistently in all facets of content that it satisfies the resources put into. This is in contrast to something like BLM which struggles to retain players over the years beyond its diehard fans. That’s probably why the class literally changes so many facets of its design every expansion, same with MNK, it’s always been played much less than DRG NIN and eventually the newer options also ended up being more popular, so SE changed it.

SMN is also another job that people complain about to no end but it’s numbers are always so consistently good compared to the other options that it shows the greater player base doesn’t really care how complex or how much depth the job has, if it’s fun to them, they’ll play it. Wanting these nuances is reasonable but people here need it understand it is not in the devs best interest to create a skill gap amongst their players than what already exist. Making classes more complex and difficult would just make doing content even harder. I think classes don’t need to be more complex, they need to be more rewarding and incentive understanding their mechanics. A class like SMN doesn’t have a lot of this but a job like SAM and RDM do. There are ways for them to add more to the gameplay experience but making the classes harder to engage with due to a perceived need for complexity is a recipe for frustration when players realize they can’t kill the boss cause other players aren’t playing their class right. And if SE balanced DPS checks around the average player, we’d have another wicked Thunder scenario where that fight basically had no check if they balanced fights around not optimizing class performance. So good players would be rewarded with easy DPS checks and bad players who don’t vibe with the complex rotations just get screwed. It’s just not necessary for the game to be fun and SE’s job is to make the game fun for as many people as possible. Sometimes that means people get screwed over.

[Supersnow845]

How is SMN a good example of this. If anything SMN is an example of this design philosophy being a futile circle. Square saw that old SMN was unpopular and they changed it fundamentally to satisfy the idea that jobs shouldn’t have significant skill gaps. And its playerbase rose………until a new option came around in PCT and SMN’s playerbase collapsed again. Now that BLM got a massive increase to its power vs its complexity SMN has gotten even less popular. So what was the point of the rework? Because SMN’s popularity collapsed back to where it was before the rework and you can argue that it wasn’t even actually SMN’s fault, rather the caster balance moving around it. RDM’s current meta position is basically the same, it did nothing and suddenly became the most popular caster as SMN and PCT crashed and burned around it because of balancing changes.

How long till BLM’s playerbase collapses again because they buff SMN because SMN is the current red hooded step child? Balancing on player numbers is a futile circle that just destroys job design for the benefit of people who don’t care about job design, they just chase the meta

And let’s say that a 7.3 buff to either SMN or PCT or both changes the play meta of the 4 casters again then what? Do we change BLM again, do we buff it again and destroy RDM’s playerbase? Like genuinely where does this type of balancing end

[Aysin]

SMN is also another job that people complain -

I disagree, because every time a simplification change has happened it has been synonymous with an increase in power, so you can't justify simplification as a success metric when the high damage is one of the strongest factors people use to make the switch. This was true for SMN in EW, where is dealt competitive damage, it was true pre 7.2 for PCT where the damage exceeded all others, and now it's true for BLM where it sits atop the rankings. Now that SMN isn't dealing competitive damage, it is not played nearly as much despite being the simplest.

Another factor ahead of simplicity is utility, and this is why RDM (along with it doing more damage of course) who despite being a bit more complex especially this tier, still has a far higher use rate than SMN, who is on the same level as MCH (which is incredibly low on usage, output and utility). Along with NIN who's simplicity does not justify it's utility vs all other melee. There is massive historical evidence of people flocking to trends such as a fresh class or high damage which is why PCT still has a pretty high use rate, as well as BLM for current patch and of course VPR. And there is consistent evidence supporting people abandoning simple jobs if they do not offer the damage, which is the real reward the majority of people are after. You may disagree but the evidence is there.

All these changes have done for 7.2 is make BLM the flavor of the month and if the dynamic shifts, people will drop it again. It happened from the end of EW to the start of DT, it can happen again in the future. You bringing up SMN as the example is contrary to your point because it is the prime example of how the player base will abandon a class even if it is the most accessible.

I'm not saying classes need to be excessively complex here however, but small hurdles in the handling of the job's playstyle goes a long way into investing in the reward factor when playing a job. In my opinion every job should have some hurdles, as in more than 1, so that when the player overcomes these, they feel a bit accomplished especially so when it results in things like clearing fights, or high damage.

But now we have a problem of SE seeing the changes to classes with simplification as a success not understanding which factor actually plays in the use rate which misleads them into further simplifying other jobs, and now we're in a spiral of every job going on the chopping block for simplification changes in the hopes they increase play rates. SE should not make these changes in order to incentivize people to play a job, as now we're coinciding with lowering actual creative design in order to keep things in an accessible state. Setting aside the 2 new jobs, what happened to a lot of the existing jobs for the expansion update? They might have gotten 1 more action or so, most likely in the form of a transformation of an existing button.