Bring difficulty back to job rotations, not just boss mechanics.

[Zoreth]

It feels like the challenge has shifted away from the jobs themselves and into the boss fights. Many fights have become memory games: memorize the pattern, follow the cues, and you’ll be fine.

I think it would be much more engaging if:

Jobs themselves were challenging and meaningful to play, requiring real skill, resource management, and decision-making.

Boss mechanics were still interesting, but not the main source of difficulty.

Players could feel rewarded for mastering their rotation and reacting intelligently.

We need a balance tho. I dont think we want the job-design back from Heavensward.(That was maby a bit to hard and we dont need insane dps checks in Savage).

[Nyastra]

It feels like the challenge has shifted away from the jobs themselves and into the boss fights. Many fights have become memory games: memorize the pattern, follow the cues, and you’ll be fine.

I think it would be much more engaging if:

Jobs themselves were challenging and meaningful to play, requiring real skill, resource management, and decision-making.

Boss mechanics were still interesting, but not the main source of difficulty.

Players could feel rewarded for mastering their rotation and reacting intelligently.

We need a balance tho. I dont think we want the job-design back from Heavensward.(That was maby a bit to hard and we dont need insane dps checks in Savage).

I hear you but, a lot of players have a hard time just pressing buttons as it is.

[Jeeqbit]

If they do this I think they will make it optional because they have said they aim the game's normal difficulty to work for members of their marketing team that never played the game previously (so most likely they are button mashing).

[Zoreth]

A deep and interesting system can also bring new players in. Not all players want brain dead relax content. SE need to be brave and try making the game more interesting again.

[Nyastra]

A deep and interesting system can also bring new players in. Not all players want brain dead relax content. SE need to be brave and try making the game more interesting again.

We can go in circles with this argument as much as we want. “SE needs to be brave and make the game more interesting again.” What’s interesting to you isn’t necessarily interesting to everyone else, and vice versa. I understand where you’re coming from — wanting something more intricate — but realistically, the chances of that happening are slim. It would alienate a large portion of the player base, even more than it already has.

[Valence]

If people still have any huff of copium whether 8.0 is actually deliver on its promise to make jobs fun, unique and engaging again, they should really think and reconsider. 7.2 is supposedly their new creative and fun encounter design, and it's only been doubling down on DDR and mechanics related checks, and little else. They even further demolished jobs in 7.2 like BLM or DRG to accomodate. Jobs are just there to keep people's fingers occupied while doing so, and check if they can multitask properly when mechanics happen.

Without encounters not offering a single bit of actual RPG combat gameplay, and the devs continuing blindly into this new action game design, who in their right mind can even think that reworked jobs will suddenly gain any player agency and intricacies to play around if the encounter design can't even interact with jobs in the first place? The only way we'd get anything interesting would require them to reinvent their encounter design, so do you really think they'll do this once more after saying they'd do it for 7.2?

If they do this I think they will make it optional because they have said they aim the game's normal difficulty to work for members of their marketing team that never played the game previously (so most likely they are button mashing).

Well, are they designing their game for actual MMO players or just bob from accounting? Not that I hate bob from accounting mind you, but I find the thought puzzling, to say the least.

We can go in circles with this argument as much as we want. “SE needs to be brave and make the game more interesting again.” What’s interesting to you isn’t necessarily interesting to everyone else, and vice versa. I understand where you’re coming from — wanting something more intricate — but realistically, the chances of that happening are slim. It would alienate a large portion of the player base, even more than it already has.

What about the part of the playerbase that has been alienated when they watered down everything? It's suddenly okay because it doesn't affect you I bet?

[Nyastra]

If people still have any huff of copium whether 8.0 is actually deliver on its promise to make jobs fun, unique and engaging again, they should really think and reconsider. 7.2 is supposedly their new creative and fun encounter design, and it's only been doubling down on DDR and mechanics related checks, and little else. They even further demolished jobs in 7.2 like BLM or DRG to accomodate. Jobs are just there to keep people's fingers occupied while doing so, and check if they can multitask properly when mechanics happen.

Without encounters not offering a single bit of actual RPG combat gameplay, and the devs continuing blindly into this new action game design, who in their right mind can even think that reworked jobs will suddenly gain any player agency and intricacies to play around if the encounter design can't even interact with jobs in the first place? The only way we'd get anything interesting would require them to reinvent their encounter design, so do you really think they'll do this once more after saying they'd do it for 7.2?



Well, are they designing their game for actual MMO players or just bob from accounting? Not that I hate bob from accounting mind you, but I find the thought puzzling, to say the least.



What about the part of the playerbase that has been alienated when they watered down everything? It's suddenly okay because it doesn't affect you I bet?

Not sure why you’re taking my statement as a personal attack, but go off.

I get wanting more complexity, and I love a bit of it as much as the next person, but here’s the reality: if SE did that, it wouldn’t just satisfy a few players. It would make the game worse for the vast majority, because not everyone plays to struggle. With the current state of affairs that's not something they can afford. I’m not saying your point is invalid, I’m saying the consequences of actually implementing it are why it’s not happening.

[Supersnow845]

Not sure why you’re taking my statement as a personal attack, but go off.

I get wanting more complexity, and I love a bit of it as much as the next person, but here’s the reality: if SE did that, it wouldn’t just satisfy a few players. It would make the game worse for the vast majority, because not everyone plays to struggle. With the current state of affairs that's not something they can afford. I’m not saying your point is invalid, I’m saying the consequences of actually implementing it are why it’s not happening.

The thing is they have shown that the current design ISNT sustainable because when everything is on the encounter the minute to minute gameplay of anything even a fraction below your skill level is boring so content has a tiny shelf life.

Their patch cycle is simply too long to sustain the “easy jobs hard encounters” mantra because each piece of content only has an enjoyable difficulty range for a narrow range of players and everyone else sorta tolerates it based on how good the reward structure is (which since 14 doesn’t have chase items is by and large terrible). There is a reason people focus so hard on rewards in modern 14 and its because by and large people are looking to basically be forced to do content because it isn’t enjoyable minute to minute and “rewards” kinda paper over that problem

Making the minute to minute gameplay of ALL content more granular for ALL players is about the only way you can increase shelf life at this point

[Nyastra]

The thing is they have shown that the current design ISNT sustainable because when everything is on the encounter the minute to minute gameplay of anything even a fraction below your skill level is boring so content has a tiny shelf life.

Their patch cycle is simply too long to sustain the “easy jobs hard encounters” mantra because each piece of content only has an enjoyable difficulty range for a narrow range of players and everyone else sorta tolerates it based on how good the reward structure is (which since 14 doesn’t have chase items is by and large terrible). There is a reason people focus so hard on rewards in modern 14 and its because by and large people are looking to basically be forced to do content because it isn’t enjoyable minute to minute and “rewards” kinda paper over that problem

Making the minute to minute gameplay of ALL content more granular for ALL players is about the only way you can increase shelf life at this point

Yeah I get the point about content longevity, and you’re not wrong that there’s a skill ceiling and that some encounters are only engaging for a narrow range of players. But the solution isn’t as simple as making everything granular for all players. That would drastically increase the barrier for the majority, who just want to log in, play, and enjoy the content without spending hours optimizing every action. There’s a reason SE balances around the broadest segment of their player base: they have millions of players with wildly different skill levels and playstyles. Granular content for all might extend shelf life for some, but it risks alienating most, and that’s not a trade-off they can make lightly. And just note that I said "lightly" not "can't". But, what else they can do about it however, I do not have the answer and I'm not sure that they even have that answer themselves.

[Supersnow845]

Yeah I get the point about content longevity, and you’re not wrong that there’s a skill ceiling and that some encounters are only engaging for a narrow range of players. But the solution isn’t as simple as making everything granular for all players. That would drastically increase the barrier for the majority, who just want to log in, play, and enjoy the content without spending hours optimizing every action. There’s a reason SE balances around the broadest segment of their player base: they have millions of players with wildly different skill levels and playstyles. Granular content for all might extend shelf life for some, but it risks alienating most, and that’s not a trade-off they can make lightly. And just note that I said "lightly" not "can't". But, what else they can do about it however, I do not have the answer and I'm not sure that they even have that answer themselves.

Granular content would make skill floors lower, not higher. That’s why there was such a dichotomy in response to DT’s battle content over EW’s. Anyone who was above the skill floor for EW’s content liked the DT changes because at least some more stuff was happening, anyone below the skill floor hated the changes because the encounters now present hard floors for them

So the current design only works where there is a floor SOMEWHERE. If you make it too low you bore anyone above it, if you make it too high you exclude too many people. EW did the former and DT you could argue is doing the latter.

That’s why granular difficulty surrounding the jobs is the better design. You SHOULD be able to clear everything below extreme spamming cure 1. But if you have more than 3 brain cells and know that’s the least efficient thing you could possibly do then your job should present a ceiling you can willingly interact with up to your comfort level. Putting the granular difficulty into the job basically bakes quantum into every fight without them actually having to balance quantum into every fight. And it removes hard floors on encounters they raised to pander to people bored to tears by EW