PLD slight "rework" (yet another)

[Carighan]

Neither of you make a good point about Goring Blade as a DoT.

There would be no thought if it's a 30s DoT, either. Now you use it every 60s. Then you'd use it every 30s. Wow. Many thought. Such deep. So complexity. Wow.

[Supersnow845]

Neither of you make a good point about Goring Blade as a DoT.

There would be no thought if it's a 30s DoT, either. Now you use it every 60s. Then you'd use it every 30s. Wow. Many thought. Such deep. So complexity. Wow.

I mean is it so wrong to see it as a flavour thing. To gore something means to pierce or wound something inducing it to bleed. That feels way more like a DOT than just a flat 700 potency damage.

[Nivarea]

There would be no thought if it's a 30s DoT, either. Now you use it every 60s. Then you'd use it every 30s. Wow. Many thought. Such deep. So complexity. Wow.

While yes, it would not be much, it's still something to pay a bit of attention. It's not a lot, but it's still better than just pushing the glowy button every 60s.
Note that I didn't put a recast timer on Goring Blade, meaning you would have to check the dot duration and not wait for the button to lit up like a christmas tree.

Also, with this kind of reasoning, you end up going all the way to simplify everything.
In a vacum, almost any button is not complicated to push and no mecanics is complex, at all. It's the fact that you add them together that create an harmony, a rotation and, in the end, the complexity you mentionned.
My idea is not to make PLD complex, this would require a total rework and a change in the job design philosophy of SE. Still I still try to make it a bit more involved, and yes, having a DoT to manage on top of the rest of the rotation is still a tiny bit of complexity back. Not much, I agree. But still something more to care and something you can optimize with phases change and multiple targets.

I would love to see job design changes. I've played since Heavensward, and I do think that overall Stormblood had the best balancing of involving rotations without too much punishment. HW was too punishing, even if it made the job design really varied and in depht, and since ShB, job design has become less and less punishing over time to the point that you don't really have friction points anymore nowadays (and those that remains are usually ironed out), which are necessary to create a fulfilling sentiment when you push the skill ceiling - which is too low as of now imo.
I'm not holding too much breath for that, and while I have some hopes for 8.0 to at least make jobs more unique, I do not think they will make them much more complex, if at all.

That last bit was a bit of a rant on a tengent topic, sorry for that.

[Burmecia]

Removal:

Shield Bash

How to say "dont even look at the deep dungeon's direction" without saying it.

Anyway, I just want action change expanded. I'm old already, neuropathy all over my left hand. Buttons turning into other buttons would be super helpfun, even if it was just one change.
But that isn't even just PLD problem. PLD is just, well, my job of choice.

suggested holy circle/spirit change seems alright
goring being dot again would be alright
just take damage away from gap-closer
i want stormblood cover back, too
dunno how effective regen of divine veil would be but i guess more is more

[Carighan]

Also, with this kind of reasoning, you end up going all the way to simplify everything.
In a vacum, almost any button is not complicated to push and no mecanics is complex, at all.

Of course, but if your only reason for having "complexity" is the 100% depth-less complexity that needs 24 hotbar buttons to achieve what other games manage with just, say, their dodge alone (even MMORPGs, look at GW2), then I would say your concept is so flawed you might as well remove it all.

That's not a sensible type of complexity. Because it adds no depth. You're still pushing a 100% static rotation, but you're doing it with 24 buttons in arcane combinations of order, but you could still write that entire order down from combat start to combat finish, knowing a particular fight. It can be fun to do individual elements of this in individual situations, of course. But that's mostly for supportive jobs, like Astros timing their Horoscope, Earthly Star or Macrocosmos so the healing goes off on its own at just the right moment. It can work for damage, but it's tricky there because you want to optimize your damage output, and hence whenever possible, make it as boring, flat and static as can be, as that ensures optimal output. It's why procs, random gains or losses of resources, or conflicting pseudo-random-chaos is so important in ~all games for damage dealing situations.

Really not a fan of such design. It's a trap many RPGs fall into, and it always makes all of its class- and RPG-mechanics so pointless. And it's not like plenty evidence from long-running MMOs don't exist about what does or does not work. And even quite diverse ones, after all WoW, FFXIV and GW2 for three simple examples don't at all share their underlying design paradigms. But in particular WoW explores so many intricacies of procs and randomness, it's easy to take input from it. While GW2 shows why unification of buffs and debuffs is cool, but very difficult to pull off right, despite how good an idea it is. Or why, more pertinent to this discussion, removing the tanking and healing aspects of MMORPG design is such an issue, although we can see that from FFXIV here too, of course.

I dunno, the point about making it a DoT for flavor reasons for example is sensible. "Goring" blade. Doesn't sound like a single hit. But trying to add gameplay complexity via having to manually track and reapply a DoT is only sensible if it replaces some other pointless complexity with this pointless complexity.

It's also why I'm fully with you on aggressively removing abilities and/or merging them. The fact we got so many buttons that add very little complexity and 0 depth is just pointless, when so many wouldn't need to exist.

Although, while I'm all for merging Holy, I'd keep Shield Bash insofar that Paladin would have a trait that "upgrades" interject to it (so it's also an interrupt against enemy that cannot be stunned), mostly for flavor reasons as like you say, it does ~nothing right now.

[Espon]

They're not going to give back damage over time abilities unless they raise the buff and debuff cap. One of the biggest issues right now is buffs and debuffs getting knocked off, especially in 24-man and field operation content, hence why so many jobs have had them removed.

[Brandr]

Though OP had good ideas, unfortunately I don't think it works in FFXIV for a couple of reasons:

- Game's system hates new debuffs.
- Since they decided to change Goring Blade into a power attack, they won't go back every into being a DoT. Sorry, just forget it. I have never seen an instance where a dev, any dev, went back on their decision.
- The job is already more complex than it ever was. Adding more complexity to a popular starter job is a no-go, specially a job which is the staple of all other jobs, the famous " Human Fighter" trope.

[Carighan]

I mean if I press Goring Blade every second combo, that's no more brain engaging than what we have right now, sorry. That's not an alternative combo pathway, that's just a longer just as static combo (1-2-3 -> Atonement x3 -> Holy -> 1-2-3 -> Goring, static, repeat ad absurdum).

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

[Rithy255]

I mean if I press Goring Blade every second combo, that's no more brain engaging than what we have right now, sorry. That's not an alternative combo pathway, that's just a longer just as static combo (1-2-3 -> Atonement x3 -> Holy -> 1-2-3 -> Goring, static, repeat ad absurdum).

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

Why i mentioned procs, but having a core fundamental fun rotation that isn't just 1, 2, 3 spam ontop of that would be the best solution.

[AmiableApkallu]

That's kinda my point with many of these ideas. They don't change the actual problem, they just paint a new color over the symptoms. If you want to fix this, you need to introduce procs and randomization, at least given the current framework. In theory there are alternatives, but that'd require extremely extensive reworks.

Static rotations are ultimately a consequence of static encounter timelines. Adding procs and randomness to a job/class merely papers over that fact, and it wouldn't make any sort of aesthetic or thematic sense in many cases.

I'd rather encounters be more random and dynamic.