Please Share Updates on 8.0 Job Design

[MisterNublet]

Isn't asking about 8.0 job design a bold move when we're still waiting to see new encounter design?

I have some bad news for you then...

[ty_taurus]

My personal observation has been that earlier content focused more on tactics and respecting mechanics, and later content focuses more on mobility, dexterity, and awareness. The latter works better with more simplified rotations and combat (what we have now), while the former allows players more opportunity to babysit their UI and take advantage of procs and situational skills (what we used to have/what Bards largely still have relative to other classes).

Think about the style of boss fights in, say, World of Darkness back in the day compared to today's Jeuno: The First Walk. In the former we had people needing to focus on specific tasks, mechanics that would wipe the raid if not respected, etc. Today we have dodge, memorize and dodge, run run run dodge.

At any rate, I don't believe you can radically change every job and then just believe it'll all mesh well with all the content without running into problems. Much of that content has been balanced under the current class design.

A few things... First, you're using the term "radically," but how have you come to the conclusion that any solution that resolves the issue of job identity and gameplay can only be described as "radical?" You've written off all possible solutions as extreme before there's even been an attempt to change jobs. It's not helpful to say that there's no solution to a problem when you don't even try.

But even if that was the case, the "oh well, we're stuck this way" is not good enough of a response to the real issues of job gameplay being medicore. It's not going to bring me back. it's not going to bring back others who have left. And it's not going to keep the people who are on their way out the door because of this issue. What players value most in XIV differs. Not everyone cares about job gameplay as much as someone like me, and that's fine. We all prioritize different things, and for many, it wouldn't really matter if jobs were completely gutted into oblivion. As long as the fights look cool, have good music, and have a satisfying story, you could literally do anything to their favorite job and they'll deal with it. But that's not everyone. Rather than abandoning a chunk of your players, would it not be a better alternative to find a middle ground? Or do you truly believe that middle ground is impossible?

Of course, up to this point, the design team has clearly not cared at all about the quality of their own game's job design, so expecting them to suddenly care is foolish. It's really just about whether or not Yoshi P's determination to regain player trust is genuine or fake. Which is really what I'm trying to determine myself here. If his words are genuine, then I want to see a real response and real change. If they're fake and shallow PR hot air, then it doesn't really matter anyway.

[Gyson]

A few things... First, you're using the term "radically," but how have you come to the conclusion that any solution that resolves the issue of job identity and gameplay can only be described as "radical?" You've written off all possible solutions as extreme before there's even been an attempt to change jobs. It's not helpful to say that there's no solution to a problem when you don't even try.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but in the context of my points I'd define a shift from the current class design back to something akin to what we had in ARR and Heavensward as a radical change. As I said, I think if people are expecting that to happen they're going to be disappointed.

And I don't see the changes in class design over the years as "not caring about the quality of their own game's job design". That's hardly fair to claim. The developers simply had their own ideas of what worked best for the game and those ideas differed from yours. You can argue that difference drove you away from the game, but that's different than painting them as a group of developers who don't care about the work they're doing on this game. They're not going to "suddenly care" because they've likely always cared. Whether they care or not isn't defined by whether the design matches the direction you want them to go. Your argument seems to be that Yoshi P is either genuine or full of hot air based on whether the results put a smile on your face. I don't recall him standing on a stage, citing your name, and promising to make you happy specifically, though. Going by your comments, you are definitely setting yourself up for disappointment.

[ty_taurus]

Sorry if it wasn't clear, but in the context of my points I'd define a shift from the current class design back to something akin to what we had in ARR and Heavensward as a radical change. As I said, I think if people are expecting that to happen they're going to be disappointed.

And I don't see the changes in class design over the years as "not caring about the quality of their own game's job design". That's hardly fair to claim. The developers simply had their own ideas of what worked best for the game and those ideas differed from yours. You can argue that difference drove you away from the game, but that's different than painting them as a group of developers who don't care about the work they're doing on this game. They're not going to "suddenly care" because they've likely always cared. Whether they care or not isn't defined by whether the design matches the direction you want them to go. Your argument seems to be that Yoshi P is either genuine or full of hot air based on whether the results put a smile on your face. I don't recall him standing on a stage, citing your name, and promising to make you happy specifically, though. Going by your comments, you are definitely setting yourself up for disappointment.

I don't really understand how I can set myself up for disappointment when I have virtually no expectations for the future of this game at this time. I'm here simply to do the only thing I can do before I completely give up and never look back, because I'd rather be proven wrong. What I talk about is based on what is possible, and what needs to be done to regain trust from those who have been continuously ignored and let down by the ongoing design philosophy.

I'm not convinced that the designers care at all about job design in this game other than having it be good enough and left alone. I say this because we have continued to see sloppy execution of even basic design changes that shouldn't be pushed, yet are. Like the sloppy potency and MP adjustments to white mage DOTs in 6.1, where Aero II and Dia had the exact same potency, only Dia's MP cost increased. Or how Macrocosmos' potency was not updated with the launch of DT. Or how Pictomancer's nerf botched the numbers of their hammer phase. These are things that would never get pushed by a team that cared enough to properly balance test and quality control their adjustments before pushing.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Man, if they cared they at all in recent times, they wouldn't let that SCH & SMN pet potency trait stay bugged since 7.0 launch even after its report to 7.2, much less have the audacity to literally wrote lodestone note that essentially amounts to "Yeah uh we made a mistake so now their potencies are nerfed unintentionally but y'know what it'll be fine to just leave them for another 1.5 months when we'll fix it together during 7.2 implementation lol. Less work for us." (paraphrased) in lodestone page lol.

Just corpo doing corpo garbo. Nothing more.

[NaoSen]

“Can’t” is a really strong word to use especially given the example you’re citing. On the topic of Pictomancer’s identity… To my knowledge the issue is that the combat design team failed to perform one of the most basic steps in launching adjustments, which is quality control. It seems that there was no math done or basic numbers testing to preserve the integrity of the rotation which can happen to any job if the pushed changes are sloppy. If Samurai needed a nerf, and they reduced the potency of Higanbana such that the combined total potency was lower than Midare’s, that would impact the integrity of Samurai’s rotation, and that’s what essentially happened with Picto’s painting, to my knowledge. If they had taken the time to quality check their pushes, there would be no issue. And that kind of proves to me that my previous assumption is correct. They are cutting corners with job design at every step, both with identity and with balance. Job quality seems to be a very low priority to CBU3.

Additionally, I don’t think Pictomancer having a ln advantage in Ultimates is a bad thing. The degree of Picto’s power was, but some jobs having downtime advantages is really not an issue. It’s okay for some jobs to thrive better in certain environments as long as all jobs get a chance to shine somewhere and are viable otherwise. That makes the job system more interesting. Identity should not be sacrificed for balance, because what good is balance if the game isn’t enjoyable?

Pictomancer was the closest thing to a "Specialist Job" so to say in recent memory and a good example for why damage numbers need to line up to keep the masses happy.

There were many YouTube videos, reddit posts, forum post, discord discussions where people didn't even know that the vastly higher damage graph only applied to downtime fights. People upset about a job doing so much damage who didn't even engage in the content that it was doing the damage in or have the ability to understand where it applied. The part about it not being top damage in savage didn't even matter, just that ultimate number.

Then of course you had PF's where the job got locked in for FRU due to how good it was so actually causing a lockout for caster role entirely for those who don't play the job.

Regarding the nerf I know the rotation could have been maintained with a smarter nerf, I remember being in the balance discord where they mathed out a different nerf balance to maintain the rotation it currently had being optimal before maintenance even ended. I ended up dropping the job because it didn't feel the same to me anymore and settled on monk.

To make a system where all the jobs have an identity while not causing player outrage that is still compatible with the last 14 years or more's content really doesn't seem realistic, at least not with the designers we currently have.

[Valence]

I don't really understand how I can set myself up for disappointment when I have virtually no expectations for the future of this game at this time. I'm here simply to do the only thing I can do before I completely give up and never look back, because I'd rather be proven wrong. What I talk about is based on what is possible, and what needs to be done to regain trust from those who have been continuously ignored and let down by the ongoing design philosophy.

I'm not convinced that the designers care at all about job design in this game other than having it be good enough and left alone. I say this because we have continued to see sloppy execution of even basic design changes that shouldn't be pushed, yet are. Like the sloppy potency and MP adjustments to white mage DOTs in 6.1, where Aero II and Dia had the exact same potency, only Dia's MP cost increased. Or how Macrocosmos' potency was not updated with the launch of DT. Or how Pictomancer's nerf botched the numbers of their hammer phase. These are things that would never get pushed by a team that cared enough to properly balance test and quality control their adjustments before pushing.

I agree, but I do think they don't care and decided to cut their losses with their veterans, and gave us a nice quarantine zone in pvp for those of us who enjoy it.
I do dare them to prove me wrong for 8.0 though, and I do hope they listen to you.

[ty_taurus]

I agree, but I do think they don't care and decided to cut their losses with their veterans, and gave us a nice quarantine zone in pvp for those of us who enjoy it.
I do dare them to prove me wrong for 8.0 though, and I do hope they listen to you.

I appreciate it. I won’t be active for a long time so I imagine the thread won’t last too long, but I hope this is something the community management team has taken notice of before then. Even if nothing comes of it, I would like to know that the design team is aware of how important some communication and transparency is. I believe a lot of people want to know what’s going on with job design before the last 30 days of Dawntrail.

It’s not just veterans, though. Plenty of newer players from after Stormblood have criticized job design as well. It’s those of us that value class design in MMOs as one of—if not the most important quality of gameplay.

[Mecia]

Theres no way in hell theyre going to revert DT changes to BLM. Essentially gutting its (and casting as a whole) mechanical identity in favor of encounters, so i get the feeling when they talk about job identity, its purely visual or similar actions.

[Valence]

I appreciate it. I won’t be active for a long time so I imagine the thread won’t last too long, but I hope this is something the community management team has taken notice of before then. Even if nothing comes of it, I would like to know that the design team is aware of how important some communication and transparency is. I believe a lot of people want to know what’s going on with job design before the last 30 days of Dawntrail.

It’s not just veterans, though. Plenty of newer players from after Stormblood have criticized job design as well. It’s those of us that value class design in MMOs as one of—if not the most important quality of gameplay.

But how many of those new players are up in arms against the true root of the problem, which is full steam trying to turn the game into a twitchy action game? I feel like every time this gets mentioned it just displays the unbridgeable gap between the two generations, and even among vets there is a lot that don't see the problem.