So how is everyone feeling about Occult Crescent now that it’s been a few days?

[Astronema]

the whole 30 minute job buffs are starting to give me wow paladin blessings PTSD.

[Valence]

The problem with the role action system was they mostly just took abilities we already had and locked them away in a system where you could only pick 5, and some of them felt like they were mandatory, so it never felt like customization. Similarly, the cross-class system before that had "must have" abilities and then a bunch of fluff you could pick if you wanted that never really made much difference. And you had to level the jobs to have access to the abilities, so if you wanted to be a good tank or a good healer you had to level multiple classes. And before that you were directly required to level multiple classes, the job unlock quests originally had requirements like Paladin needed you to be gladiator 30 and conjurer 15 or something. But people didn't like being "forced" to level another class if they just wanted to be a tank.

And if we go all the way back to early 1.0, the game used to be entirely cross-class. Every class was basically freelancer, you could assign pretty much any ability you had learned with any other class. You had set points you were limited by similar to the Blue Mage job in FFXI so you couldn't just equip them all at once. Also there weren't restrictions on what classes could wear what, so mages could wear armor. I think all that led to the meta being everyone just playing as Thaumaturge regardless of what role they were doing.

Partial disagree on what was mandatory. In fact I have seen different setups in content and some actions were not always picked, namely things like manashift or even refresh (because MP stability was already fading in Stormblood by that point). There was also actually smart people not taking Protect on healers for the pitiful defense gain it gave, but unfortunately the community was so dented about protect that you'd get harassed by clueless dungeon runners whenever you wouldn't cast it at the start of a dungeon.

But it never felt like true customization precisely because it never really pushed the intricacies of the system. HW did it best by having those not role based but class adjacent based which made every job a lot more unique, but didn't have the "select your options among many" that SB had, and we could certainly have done with a lot of the utility abilities that were actually cross class back then like Second Wind or Bloodbath, which were not necessarily meta depending on the job so you could have had more wiggle room into choosing what suits your playstyle.

I've always seen the argument that having to level multiple classes to be a "good X or Y" was bad, but is that a bad thing in a game that's literally about leveling multiple classes? Is that a bad thing that someone that actually invests some time gets access to additional perks? It never prevented anybody to play a tank, a healer or whatever not to have leveled their crossclasses. In fact, this was only mandatory for high end raiding. The first extremes I did back then I didn't even have swiftcast as a healer. Someone told me I should consider it, but I've never been removed or anything for not having it. I mean, I could slow raise, it wasn't such a biggie. And that made me actually want to level other classes.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

The Forked Tower Raid is the dumbest shit of all time.

it costs a hefty entry fee.
when its open it is only for like two minutes so people are stuck in fates or CE.

nobody seems to give a shit about it because everyone just want to far atmas.

why is it not just like Bozja where you register for it like Castrum or Dalriada


such bullcrap...

As much as youre right it wouldnt work due to the need of certain phantom jobs inside

[mallleable]

I really want to run Forked Tower, but I don't even want to think about attempting it until the the janky entry method gets fixed.

[Matalaf]

I'm just disappointed that there is no normal version of the FT

[Mawlzy]

I'm just disappointed that there is no normal version of the FT

I imagine a large chunk of the player base feels the same, but apparently when DT launched it cast an invisibility spell on us.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Adding one more thing into the list of what I dislike: The Mythic Idol.

No actually, not the fight. I like the fight. I however dislike their decision to allow up to 72 players participate in the CE without taking care of their technical limitation beforehand. Having some players' randomly assigned markers becoming invisible to your screen because (1)the visibility tied to the character's visibility; (2)too many players in the immediate vicinity then the game starts hiding some players, thus hiding those same AoE markers as well; just feels VERY bad. Maybe they should think about dealing with that technical limitation first before trying to soothe some booboo who may potentially miss out their CE.

[Valence]

Adding one more thing into the list of what I dislike: The Mythic Idol.

No actually, not the fight. I like the fight. I however dislike their decision to allow up to 72 players participate in the CE without taking care of their technical limitation beforehand. Having some players' randomly assigned markers becoming invisible to your screen because (1)the visibility tied to the character's visibility; (2)too many players in the immediate vicinity then the game starts hiding some players, thus hiding those same AoE markers as well; just feels VERY bad. Maybe they should think about dealing with that technical limitation first before trying to soothe some booboo who may potentially miss out their CE.

Honestly there is so much fundamental problems like those in the content that it makes me wonder if they do actually test it before releasing it (because some of those sure as hell shouldn't have gone through), or if the actual reason is that the creative director is named David Goodenough. Budget too small, can't afford delays, just release it. And the sad part is that from what we see from interviews, their devs literally work themselves to death when trying to push a patch live (which is toxic work culture in a nutshell in video game, also called crunching).

[Kisshu]

I imagine a large chunk of the player base feels the same, but apparently when DT launched it cast an invisibility spell on us.

I would say since EW. If you're not into progging fights from Extreme and up, and want something just a slight up from MSQ difficulty, the game has been pretty barren. EW dropped Criterion and Savage, DT Chaotic and now FT, all for seemingly the same target group.
SHB at least gave us the Bozja raids for a bit over MSQ difficulty.

[ForteNightshade]

Partial disagree on what was mandatory. In fact I have seen different setups in content and some actions were not always picked, namely things like manashift or even refresh (because MP stability was already fading in Stormblood by that point). There was also actually smart people not taking Protect on healers for the pitiful defense gain it gave, but unfortunately the community was so dented about protect that you'd get harassed by clueless dungeon runners whenever you wouldn't cast it at the start of a dungeon.

But it never felt like true customization precisely because it never really pushed the intricacies of the system. HW did it best by having those not role based but class adjacent based which made every job a lot more unique, but didn't have the "select your options among many" that SB had, and we could certainly have done with a lot of the utility abilities that were actually cross class back then like Second Wind or Bloodbath, which were not necessarily meta depending on the job so you could have had more wiggle room into choosing what suits your playstyle.

I've always seen the argument that having to level multiple classes to be a "good X or Y" was bad, but is that a bad thing in a game that's literally about leveling multiple classes? Is that a bad thing that someone that actually invests some time gets access to additional perks? It never prevented anybody to play a tank, a healer or whatever not to have leveled their crossclasses. In fact, this was only mandatory for high end raiding. The first extremes I did back then I didn't even have swiftcast as a healer. Someone told me I should consider it, but I've never been removed or anything for not having it. I mean, I could slow raise, it wasn't such a biggie. And that made me actually want to level other classes.

This is a little revisionist history. No one ever dropped Refresh because the Prange didn't really have anything beyond four abilities worth using. Bards also utilized Refresh as a core part of their damage rotation not to simply help healers maintain MP. In fact, that was secondary in higher end content and often led to conflict since you'd have healers spam GCDs heals, especially WHM, only to then complain the Bard wasn't using Refresh for them. Which is likely what contributed to the gradual decline in MP relevance and Refresh altogether.

Likewise, going back to Heavensward and the cross skill system. Tanks really had only one decision to make because Rampart, Provoke, Convalescence, Invigorate and Second Wind were all essentially mandatory. From there you picked some combination of Awareness or Bloodbath. DPS were not any better has you were always choosing Blood for Blood, Internal Release, Second Wind, Bloodbath and Invigorate. Goad was really the only ability swapped on the melee. Prange.

As for leveling other jobs, I have to disagree. Being forced to play a class you may not like isn't fun nor does it encourage people to learn how to play it. We see this even nowadays with leveling and how many people will queue into high level content without a clue what they're doing simply because they need to have all their jobs at max level. The game has never been about leveling multiple classes, but simply providing the option to do so all on one character should you choose. Which is why so many people disliked feeling forced to level other characters.

And in the case of tanks, you were essentially forced to level Gladiator because you needed Provoke. Nowadays you would get kicked for not having Swiftcast in EXs because there's quite literally zero reason not to. Back in ARR days, the game was new and people were still figuring out how to even do things.