I missed when XIV gave me any amount of passion.

[NwYuki]

The game been slowly moving towards making players feel "stress free" since 6.0, numbers of classes rework and or altered.

Sam: Kenki Management, Gone
DRG: Positional Interrupting your combo, Gone
NIN: TCJ/Huton timer, Gone
MNK: Original Combo Strings, Gone
SMN: ... sigh :/
BLM: Enochian Dropped, Despair Cast Dropped, 9 insta casts in a row.
RDM: More and more buttons for movement, and less casting.
BRD: 30s dot timer/songs, Gone
GNB: bolide meme, Gone
DRK: Carve and Spit/Abyssal Drain timers Combined.
All healers: Longer Cast times on your damage abilities, Gone.

I understand the desire to make things more user friendly and appealing for newer players, but back then the arguments would be okay... you have say MCH or WAR or WHM all relatively easy to pick up and learn classes.

As the game expands you now have RPR/VPR/PIC, but the "reworks/changes" can suddenly comes in and altered anything you might once love. Sometime no warning, besides in your patch notes after waiting for the completed version.

XIV isn't a cozy game, at least not to me. There's always options, do you want to go the easy route or do you want some spicy challenge? No one will have the energy to constantly do Savage/Ultimate constantly, some people are shy/scared.
there's.... always an options, If XIV's difficulty is heading towards "play a specific type of content" and not "play anything you want". Then I wish to know what is the point of producing different classes, for all of them to just FEEL the exact same.

The only possible differences I can do currently is randomizing where I place my 1 2 3 combo on every classes, and go oops I pressed the wrong button.
BLM was the final class that HAD that stress point, even after despair cast time and multiple insta casts is introduced. The class still had it's identity, it's own flare.

I love xiv I genuinely do, I wish the dev team can read this and really seriously relay it. don't let us wait until 8.0, address it tell us what is going on, your plans, decisions.
Even letting the players try and test it out for you, tell you where you could go. Get your community together and let them help, Is a MMO game... make us engage more.

[Crafoutis]

I'm content that I get to pay attention to the fights now instead of my bars. Definitely makes playing with controller a joy, and the simplification of the classes has only made it so all classes are within my reach now on controller.

That said: I'm also a big dumb dumb unga bunga action game player so me no prefer target/hotbar control methods, FFXIV is the only target/hotbar MMO I truly enjoy aside from Everquest 1, but I can't play Everquest 1 out of the box with a controller. If I had may way (which I don't advocate, this game is this game and it should be itself, not something else), the game would play like Monster Hunter, with dodge rolls, blocking, etc.

I respect your voice and that you miss the complication, but I just wanted to add my own opinion that I have more fun now than I did then, and it's why I continue to stay subscribed instead of unsubbing between patches. (I only play like a month per quarter). Simple class mechanics let me fight the boss. Complicated class mechanics make me feel like I'm fighting myself.

[Azurarok]

Also Controller player here. Every job in the game had been within my reach and none of the simplifications made in the last 5 years were needed to make the experience any better.

[Crafoutis]

Glad they were within your reach before the changes! I'm still glad the classes have been simplified as they are now within /my/ reach too, so I can enjoy them as well.

[Azurarok]

Ultimately it's on the devs for not being able to find better solutions for increasing accessibility without destroying job identities and lowering skill ceilings, but I'll just say that feeling left out because it's difficult isn't really that different from a game getting too simplified to be fun. In either case a player isn't able to enjoy it.

The job system used to cater to people with different tastes so the game could include more people. The simplifications don't expand that range, it only narrows or shifts the audience.

[MicahZerrshia]

Glad they were within your reach before the changes! I'm still glad the classes have been simplified as they are now within /my/ reach too, so I can enjoy them as well.

Great for you, but not all classes need to be simplified because you didn't find each and every single job accessible. That is the problem. It's not all about you. This sort of mentality, on either side, is just entitled. We can have some that are easy and some that are not so all types of players have a selection of classes that they can enjoy.

[NwYuki]

I agree, I think that XIV is a game that is for everybody and is why I fell in love with this game.
All I want bottom line, is drawing a final point where there is "difficult class" and "simpler class" or "slightly difficult class" for players to pick.
Do you want to tackle X content with X class? that's all.

I love the recent casual dungeon/raid content pushing difficulty slightly further than it used to, it may not be much but that is something I appreciate.
Is just right now I genuinely am not feeling like I am changing my playstyle between the existing 21 classes.

There's more that contributes to me starting to lose interest with the game, but if there are players who is happy with this. Then I will simply tell myself is okay, I'll just turn towards other things in life.
a lot of my friends already stopped playing and I'm mentally ready at this point.

I've cleared savage when I was still clicking on my hotbar, done ultimates, cleared all deep dungeons, got to crystal multiple seasons, made countless friends, conducted several hunt trains and spawn multiple s ranks, gave away upwards to 200-400mil worth of gil and items to the public, have a amazing drippy plushie with me irl and many more.

[Supersnow845]

I don’t like all 21 classes being so accessible because it removes any sort of replayability to content because there is little to no enjoyment out of trying something different because it’s not actually different

If I change classes I want to be presented with a unique set of challenges, instead I’m presented with the same job but in a different colour of paint

Where is the excitement of swapping classes and having all of them accessible to you if they are accessible because they all play the same. Like at that point you basically want job glams

[NwYuki]

I am really sorry snow :/ I think the state of healers and tanks has been so god awful for so long now, and you know just pointing out "tanks shouldn't have so much mits and healing" to current players is like a sin lol.

I really dislike how healing now is more of a "ugh... okay I guess", Players clearing literal ultimates without healers, yes it may be a absolute minority of players but to see that's been happening for years now and still is. Is incredibly disheartening
Cleric stance, Aggro control, Prepull mundane things. Is clunky but it is charming and unique, instead of just numbers big haha fun.
Astro used to have diurnal and nocturnal stances, Scholar used to need to pick between fairies... where is all of that? SMN used to have 3 distinct characteristics of summons: ifrit, garuda, titan. Countless uniqueness all gone

now you go between all said classes they just... have a different visuals going on. I guess you like seeing the numbers? idk what the appeal of it is, which is why I hated how one note MCH is and now every classes feel like MCH.
I want a player to tell me without pulling out spreadsheeted rotations and numbers, tell me what is different about the classes as they are.
I want players who genuinely love the class without they numbers to back them up to justify they level of joy.

FFXVI may be a singleplayer game, thing is you have the choice to control the level of difficulty you wish to place upon you. countless may choose to blow up everything on sight, but there are those who will go out of they way to showcase the combat to it's fullest.
FFXIV had that.

[Valence]

Hot take but I stand by my words: having easy classes "on wheels" and harder/more complex classes is epitome to what we see already between ranged and melee(+blm/pct) in terms of balancing and damage output. It is always used by either the devs or the player base to justify that because a job is harder and requires more effort, then it should do more damage.

The better solution is accessible jobs with higher ceilings for the players that want to go beyond just using the core of their class or pressing random buttons. The ones that usually get frustrated by such a system are the ones in the middle (like a lot that we have seen on those forums), that do detest the idea of someone performing better than them and being aware that they do not have the ability to fully master a class with a more advanced ceiling.