Thread: Please Share Updates on 8.0 Job Design

Originally Posted by Alahard

A little late to this response, but

1) WoW did a lot of simplification. Then they went back to more complicated/unique designed, and everyone preferred it that way.
2) We have at least 4 jobs a role. You can make 1 hard, 2 in the middle, and keep one dumb. You don't need to go to 10/10 difficulty for every job.

Edit ->

This is the same issue I saw in the early healerstrike thread. Basically 2 groups formed -> 1) we want more engaging gameplay for x reason , and 2) I dont want healers to be harder for x reason

Its like you had to be on one side or the other. Guys, we have 4 of them. You can make at least 1 of them satisfy the first group.
I know im way oversimplifying the healer thread, but it's not all or nothing. We can have a healer do more than glare spam, and have another only glare spam.

Thing is, group 1 was never against having a more simple healer. Virtually everyone who has actively been against the current direction of healers has agreed that white mage can still be forgiving, accessible, easy to understand, but also be interesting and have options in elements of mastery let players interested in skill expression push just a little further.

Something many in this community don’t seem to acknowledge is that fun and difficulty are not the same. You can have things that are easy but still fun. You can also have things that are boring but also very difficult. That goes for fun and difficult as well as things that are easy and boring. Healer design suffers from being the later. Why can’t white mage be fun and easy? Why does it have to be boring and easy?

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Thing is, group 1 was never against having a more simple healer. Virtually everyone who has actively been against the current direction of healers has agreed that white mage can still be forgiving, accessible, easy to understand, but also be interesting and have options in elements of mastery let players interested in skill expression push just a little further.

Something many in this community don’t seem to acknowledge is that fun and difficulty are not the same. You can have things that are easy but still fun. You can also have things that are boring but also very difficult. That goes for fun and difficult as well as things that are easy and boring. Healer design suffers from being the later. Why can’t white mage be fun and easy? Why does it have to be boring and easy?

I get you. And as I said, I was oversimplifying that thread significantly.

The point of my statement was a large chunk of the community went all fire and brimstone when a group stated that they were currently unhappy with the overall place and design for healers, and were for some reason upset that even a mention was a signal for square to " ruin the healer situation" in their eyes. And then both sides ended up arguing for how long?

I do agree that there is some fun in the current healer design. A also agree there is a lot of boring elements in the healer design. But when approached with the reasonable take of " maybe change 1 or 2 of them and slightly change the healing situation overall" was thrown out in favor of throwing fire and brimstone. Just the slight mention that " maybe making all healers dps rotation the same maybe wasn't the best idea" can spawn 10 additional pages on that thread of people attacking eachother. Asking for more uses for the core healing gcds, another 10 pages of attacks.

Accessible skill floors, deeper skill ceilings all across the board.

I think Square follows a strict formula of;

- Make sure player cannot die or player might lose interest into the game.
- Make sure player cannot make mistakes or player might lose interest into the game.
- Make sure enemies react slowly and offer low resistance or player might lose interest into the game.

So now we get homogenized classes, nothing new, every class having same spells just named differently. Like why all 4 tanks have invulnerability? Why they have same defenses? Some have a bit more which is negligible. The only thing tanks distinguish themselves is the ability for one to solo things very easily while others (e.g. dark knight / gnb) will have a harder time or almost impossible.

The 2 minute cooldown meta is getting really boring. Healers have low amount of damage spells and bloated with healing spells. Dps also got more survive ability these days. Removal of some abilities and hole process of making the classes mega easy for everyone is what led to this boring thing. Devs just don't care, most of them think this is a good thing. If the game caters for you, then it means you won't ever quit as dark souls experience isn't there. But they don't realize that this creates another layer of issue where people get "meh" feeling and want to quit.

The copium that 8.0 will be better is a pure definition of insanity.

Edit: Just look at their other released games and you will see what I'm talking about. Same formula, same world design,etc.

It’s less about expecting 8.0 to be better and more about calling their bluff. Do they actually want our trust back or not? Listening to criticism, being transparent, and trying to find better solutions is how they can do that for job design. If they can’t manage that then these talks about regaining trust are just empty promises.

Some people here are good at making themselves angry wow.

Otherwise, even if they could I don't think this would be a good idea. We're probably more than a year away from 8.0, and announcing anything would mean locking in place for the general public the current idea. And these designs are iterative, especially if you plan on shaking up the formula, there is a phase of back and forth, of testing, to see what sticks and what doesn't. It's not just "let's follow that and see what happens". (Exception would be DT I think because most jobs are basically EW+).

Originally Posted by Sekundessounet

Some people here are good at making themselves angry wow.

Otherwise, even if they could I don't think this would be a good idea. We're probably more than a year away from 8.0, and announcing anything would mean locking in place for the general public the current idea. And these designs are iterative, especially if you plan on shaking up the formula, there is a phase of back and forth, of testing, to see what sticks and what doesn't. It's not just "let's follow that and see what happens". (Exception would be DT I think because most jobs are basically EW+).

What are you referring to by “making themselves angry?”

Regardless, I don’t think being transparent means locking in a design choice now. Much like the graphics update or anything that has yet to be released, it would come with the caveat that anything mentioned isn’t final and is subject to change. Moreover, I imagine any information discussed at this stage would likely be more about communicating a direction. I also chose to bring this up now rather than later for a few reasons.

First, we just had a live letter where Yoshi P stated that they want to regain the trust of plays and be more responsive to feedback. This was likely a response to Forked Tower more than anything, but the game isn’t declining because of just Forked Tower. There are multiple issues where quality has been sacrificed, and it’s affected players. Job design is one of those big categories. Additionally, X.3 tends to be the patch where we know development of jobs has at least begun. It’s where we get hints to one of the new jobs. They need to know that job design is something we want to know about early so they are able to share their ideas for the direction of jobs as soon as possible. Give me a reason to want to return.

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

What are you referring to by “making themselves angry?”

Regardless, I don’t think being transparent means locking in a design choice now. Much like the graphics update or anything that has yet to be released, it would come with the caveat that anything mentioned isn’t final and is subject to change. Moreover, I imagine any information discussed at this stage would likely be more about communicating a direction. I also chose to bring this up now rather than later for a few reasons.

First, we just had a live letter where Yoshi P stated that they want to regain the trust of plays and be more responsive to feedback. This was likely a response to Forked Tower more than anything, but the game isn’t declining because of just Forked Tower. There are multiple issues where quality has been sacrificed, and it’s affected players. Job design is one of those big categories. Additionally, X.3 tends to be the patch where we know development of jobs has at least begun. It’s where we get hints to one of the new jobs. They need to know that job design is something we want to know about early so they are able to share their ideas for the direction of jobs as soon as possible. Give me a reason to want to return.

For people making themselves angry, people imagining wild statements and then getting angry over the imaginary wild statements.

I see your point on a personal level, but communication on this scale and to such a crowd doesn't work in that framework sadly. Even if you indicate it is "subject to change" (as they often do tbh), you'll get people talking about this specific idea, maybe for some getting hyped up for that. But then if game dev happens and you end up going in a totally different direction, you create unnecessary disappointment. And then you also give gas to randos spamming discussion with "they obviously don't know what they're doing since they changed course compared to what they announced".
If you compare to the graphics update, sure there were changes and feedback after announcement, but you can also notice that they had a clear direction in mind before announcing it, and every change keeps it in that direction too in the end.

Like you say I think they're aware that job design is something people look forward too, but that's probably for around 7.4 and the next FanFest, not earlier.

Originally Posted by Sekundessounet

For people making themselves angry, people imagining wild statements and then getting angry over the imaginary wild statements.

I see your point on a personal level, but communication on this scale and to such a crowd doesn't work in that framework sadly. Even if you indicate it is "subject to change" (as they often do tbh), you'll get people talking about this specific idea, maybe for some getting hyped up for that. But then if game dev happens and you end up going in a totally different direction, you create unnecessary disappointment. And then you also give gas to randos spamming discussion with "they obviously don't know what they're doing since they changed course compared to what they announced".
If you compare to the graphics update, sure there were changes and feedback after announcement, but you can also notice that they had a clear direction in mind before announcing it, and every change keeps it in that direction too in the end.

Like you say I think they're aware that job design is something people look forward too, but that's probably for around 7.4 and the next FanFest, not earlier.

Regardless, my concern is that job information will be handled like it has been in the past: radio silence until the last possible second when it’s far too late to take any feedback (assuming they’d be willing to take feedback that is). Whether it’s 7.3 or 7.4, talking about this now has the possibility (even if very small) to convince them to actually talk about jobs rather than hide every detail until October of 2026.

Still, if restoring job identity is actually going to be a part of 8.0 design, that implies change greater than “a new finisher and some animation upgrades” for every job. That could very well mean discussion and planning starts earlier than usual to give them time to revamp jobs. Honestly, one of the things I want to know about more than anything else is what do they consider the identity of each job to be? A set of slides going over what they believe the identity of each job to be would be a huge win.

Since I talked about Sage, I’ll use that as an example. Based on the identity it was described as having, and the identity it has in PVP, I would argue that Sage’s identity should match the following descriptions:
- A healer with a more aggressive play style; more DPS options than other healers — feels like a mini DPS. This will be expanded on.
- Main healing style should be through Kardia and Eukrasia. These should be a Sage’s go-to methods of healing and will be expanded upon; other heals should feel secondary for unexpected or tighter healing situations.
- Sacrifices utility for additional damage.

Bullet points like that would be enough.