GNB feedback.

[Zairava]

Anyway 2 jobs confirmed for 8.0 chain sickle tank with mystic knight inspired elemental infusions and barriers. second job is a phys ranged that juggles darts, bombs and wakka pain balls. It will also use a whip for a melee combo and mobility.

Maaan it's been so long since I've had a tank class or spec in an mmo that uses multiple different elements, yes please. Chain sickle would be weird though. Surprise multi weapon options for jobs announcement clearly imminent :b

After yoship being assertively against having blitzball anything in this game it would be hysterical if they actually decided to add that as a job. Imagine playing slots mid fight just to get a good attack reels

[Reginald_Cain]

yeah Gunbreaker wasn't super janky but it was different enough in it's flow that people got attached to its flavor. especially since it went without major changes like this for several patches.
Some things about old dark i miss like soul survior and the skill speed off blood weapon when it was a timer and not 5 then 3 charges. I love new living dead and our 4 flavors of getsuga tensho (Shadowbringer, flood of shadow, edge of shadow and disesteem aka sephiroth larp attack)

[Mikey_R]

I'm going to hide replies to specific people, just to prevent the post from getting too long.

Rithy:

1. PLD while having the highest support/utility doesn't make it that far ahead, sorry but cover isn't even apart of the equation it's a niche skill that will maybe get a use once in a blue moon, Passage of arms while nice is still very much only useful in situations where party members are actively behind you (in high end not a lot due to how mechs work) Intervention Does not get extra mitigation it gets equal to holy sheltron mitigation IF you have rampart/guardian it's kind of a odd point to make, like yeah PLD can mit for a extra 10% instead of 20% but gnb can just mit 30% and provide a excog without rampart/Nebula, 2 charges of holy sheltron/intervention (which is holy sheltron for a friend) gauge is a actual benefit to the job other then when passage is good its good.

2. Depends how its designed DRK could obviously put skills onto the MT and punish players, so your point about them being OT doesn't seem correct, which is weak reasoning to be against the premise

3. Mudras for gunbreaker would make it unironically unique compared to how any tank plays, though I don't think they suggested that, I think by jobs being the same DPS-wise its fine if a Tank has a somewhat similar system to a DPS, like I would find it very fun if there was a RNG based rotation similar to how DNC feels on a tank, what makes jobs stale and boring is that they have very samey rotations in the same category.

4. To be fair im not 100% sure on what changes for what warrior they've suggested would look like but I think most things to me seem exciting then current warrior, though I'd at least have to see it first and how it work before I have a strong opinion on it, either way I appreciate the idea of a unique direction to take warrior.

Games framework is a buzzword, PLD having more or better support/utility options doesn't break the games frame work, nor does "mudras for GNB" The games framework should also change sometimes, while we haven't seen big changes in a long time so its likely realistic to expect nothing changing anytime soon but at the same time lets not pretend anything they said was out of this world, your acting like they're asking for TP and cleric stance back lol.

1. Your comments about Cover and Passage just show that adding more 'support' doesn't matter, so why would you want to design a tank around having more of it? As for Intervention/Holy Sheltron, it was specifically talking about using both in quick succession. Yes, Heart of Corundum is powerful, however, you cannot use it on yourself and someone else in quick succession, which is why I only bought up Dark Knight and compared it to Oblation, so you didn't address what I said at all.

2. Have reprisals as MT, ok, what about when they are OT, well, add an action that still allows the use, even when OT. You are literally adding in a button to solve an issue. That proves the initial implementation had flaws, and you wanted to fix them, so why not just improve the initial implementation rather than adding a band aid fix.

3. This wasn't meant to be a comment for or against it, it was more a bit of tongue in cheek about how many players will call things the same (despite them not being the same) then cry out homogenisation, SE have no creativity etc. Which I hoped my caveat that I didn't necessarily agree with what I said should have given that impression.

4. From what I can gather, 1 combo, a few extra buttons between 5-15 seconds and that is it (ignoring the other things that all tanks get like defensives and utility etc.). There wouldn't be any beast gauge to manage, no damage buff, not even Inner Release, just, every button is damage. Which is ironic considering one complaint people have is everything is damage and what was suggested looks like, everything is damage. I haven't read further than this post at the time of writing this, but more info would be needed to potentially clarify in more detail what was meant.

Carighan:

I'm going to assume you have comparatively little knowledge of other MMORPGs, yes?

I have never hidden the fact that FFXIV is the only MMO I have played. However, I do hear things from others about other MMOs and, as long as it sounds logically reasonable, I can use that and compare it to FFXIV and how such a thing might work in FFXIV.

Hence why you instantly lock up when you read something like "damage tank", "That cannot possibly work!", or why a tank that dodges instead of reducing damage seems impossible to you? But let me assure you, it's not only possible, it is actively working. Both in past and in present MMORPGs. It doesn't even take much imagination to consider how these would work in FFXIV.

Then tell me. Rather than just berate. However, bear in mind we had what I consider a 'damage tank' with Warrior in HW and that, along with a variety of other things, made it really unbalanced. So I really would be interested to know how you envision these things to be added.

In particular:
Paladins does not have any meaningful amounts of "more support", particularly so because they don't actually perform support. How many GCDs do you spend on healing, shielding and rezzing again as a Paladin? Do you weave songs like a DAoC Albion Paladin for mixed group buffs? Do you swap out of tank mode to provide HoTs and rezz people like a TBC bear druid? Do you move negative effects on partymembers to yourself like a GW2 Guardian?

And that's how I feel reading all of your comments, tbh. You seem to completely either lack knowledge of, imagination for or trust of anything that isn't the current FFXIV set of class design. But the entire criticism is that this class design is very, very, very bad, even comparing non-successful past MMOs, nevermind successful ones. It's understandable how we got to where we are, sure. The intention the devs have for it is also easy to see. But it's not good, that is the point!

I do not have time to look into specific jobs here, however, how do these fit in around the rest of the game? Are there periods in your rotations that allow you to have the time to do these things, how strict are DPS checks, how much damage do tanks do relative to DPS etc. It isn't just a simple case of adding them into FFXIV and expecting them to work, you need to know how they would be implemented, how would that affect how the jobs play etc.

(also as Rithy says Mudras would actually be interesting on a tank, in particular if they're for the defensive stuff so you have to plan ahead)

Just to copy my response to that from Rithy:

This wasn't meant to be a comment for or against it, it was more a bit of tongue in cheek about how many players will call things the same (despite them not being the same) then cry out homogenisation, SE have no creativity etc. Which I hoped my caveat that I didn't necessarily agree with what I said should have given that impression.

[Carighan]

Yeah sorry I should sound less snide but I get annoyed by how much FFXIV-y the community seems to be in general, never considering that the existing patterns of FFXIV might be inherently bad in any way shape or form. Don't get me wrong, tons of things this game does are good - it's why I play it - but we see other MMOs do the smart thing and:

• Look at what works in FFXIV.
• Look at what doesn't work in FFXIV.
• Copy the former, at the same time cutting away the latter.

For a very recent example, look at how first GW2 took big inspiration from FFXIV's housing, and then WoW a while later looking at the current state of housing here and specifically copied the parts that worked while changing what doesn't work.

And that's good. That's what you are supposed to do as a long-running game. Why personally trial&error everything if others did all that work for you, take the solutions they've shown you to work.

And in particular in class design, FFXIV is absolutely rock bottom of MMORPGs. For a reason, they intentionally decided to forego even designing classes in favor of opening as much design space as possible for the encounters. It's where "FFXIV raids are more like ballet" comes from, which is what originally drew me here.

But years down the line, as the classes roster expands (for no reason, there's more than enough space among the existing classes for mechanics and ideas) and the classes individually pad more and more skills onto already overloaded hotbars, it's obvious how the system is falling apart and breaking at the seams.

This is usually countered by making classes have specific gameplay niches in either balance (they're better or worse at something) or performance (they do wildly different things to produce the same effect), in turn allowing minimization of class skill breadth because each skill performs comparatively deep functions in the class, and also allowing more classes/specs (depends on game) because they can do the exact same thing so long as they do it in really different ways.

More specifically in regards to tank gameplay, the idea is to give tank either niches in where they are best/worst (this is where concepts as an anti-magic tank or a sponge tank come in) or how they tank. That is, all tanks have a certain amount of mitigation, but they do wildly different things to produce it, not just press equivalent CDs for equivalent effect.

[Carighan]

(2/2, char limit)

So the "damage tank" I mentioned isn't a tank that deals more damage, it's a tank that tanks through dealing damage. Warrior would be easy-ish to adapt here, because they already show some elements of old Blood DK tanks in WoW, which were a damage tank.
One easy way would be to instead of having more healing, allow Warriors to stack shields on themselves through ~all damage they deal. CDs would not directly provide damage reduction, but alter, augment or hasten the stacking of these shields so they can be focused as needed, while support tools would temporarily redirect, transfer or copy these shields.
However as all of these shields are ultimately based on hitting the enemy and hitting it as hard as can be, well, "damage tank".

Meanwhile if a Paladin gets their mitigation from helping others, in whatever way that might end up happening, "support tank". Say there's lots of procs and damage augments to promote actively (even casted!) healing, maybe even rezzing, buffing damage and mitigation of others, etc, but in turn those lower mitigation skill CDs on the Paladin, which are very strong but on suspiciously long CDs so yes you're in fact expected to be an active support player to get reasonable mitigation skill CDs.
And maybe as yet a third mitigation style, Gunbreakers play a pre-programming game (compare many board games) where they load specific shells in a sequence into their gun and can only expend them in that order, their mitigation skills being specific shells (that might in turn have a CD!) they "tack onto" skills triggering continuation where continuation's effect is now based on the shell expended not the skill triggering it. Before a burst you might want to load 3+ shells in advance to not waste time, but then again, you need to predict whether the second or third continuation needs to give you that 40% damage reduction. Or you keep shell counts low to be adaptable, but then you waste time during a burst or movement window.

[Zairava]

I don't know if I'd say it's bottom barrel but in terms of individuality oh my god yes it is.

Other mmos might feel worse to play generally speaking but at least they're classes actually have distinct features from one another in forms that aren't "this deals damage" or "this deals damage but *every minute or two*"

Like yeah I enjoy the hell out of current patch GNB but that doesn't change how absolutely shallow differences in mechanics, if any, are between jobs. The water doesn't go above my ankles.

[Carighan]

Oh yeah I should have been more specific in that line, I mean class design and in particular as a design space, so how classes compare to and differentiate from each other.

[Mikey_R]

Yeah sorry I should sound less snide but I get annoyed by how much FFXIV-y the community seems to be in general, never considering that the existing patterns of FFXIV might be inherently bad in any way shape or form. Don't get me wrong, tons of things this game does are good - it's why I play it - but we see other MMOs do the smart thing and:

• Look at what works in FFXIV.
• Look at what doesn't work in FFXIV.
• Copy the former, at the same time cutting away the latter.

For a very recent example, look at how first GW2 took big inspiration from FFXIV's housing, and then WoW a while later looking at the current state of housing here and specifically copied the parts that worked while changing what doesn't work.

And that's good. That's what you are supposed to do as a long-running game. Why personally trial&error everything if others did all that work for you, take the solutions they've shown you to work.

And in particular in class design, FFXIV is absolutely rock bottom of MMORPGs. For a reason, they intentionally decided to forego even designing classes in favor of opening as much design space as possible for the encounters. It's where "FFXIV raids are more like ballet" comes from, which is what originally drew me here.

But years down the line, as the classes roster expands (for no reason, there's more than enough space among the existing classes for mechanics and ideas) and the classes individually pad more and more skills onto already overloaded hotbars, it's obvious how the system is falling apart and breaking at the seams.

This is usually countered by making classes have specific gameplay niches in either balance (they're better or worse at something) or performance (they do wildly different things to produce the same effect), in turn allowing minimization of class skill breadth because each skill performs comparatively deep functions in the class, and also allowing more classes/specs (depends on game) because they can do the exact same thing so long as they do it in really different ways.

More specifically in regards to tank gameplay, the idea is to give tank either niches in where they are best/worst (this is where concepts as an anti-magic tank or a sponge tank come in) or how they tank. That is, all tanks have a certain amount of mitigation, but they do wildly different things to produce it, not just press equivalent CDs for equivalent effect.

Just to point out the obvious, of course the FFXIV Community is going to be 'FFXIV-ified'. It would likely bet the same if you were to visit the ither MMO forums and that they would be 'MMO-ified' to their specific game. But we also have to be aware that someone suggesting ideas, from say Wow, to put into FFXIV, without adjusting it to fit FFXIV's battle style could also be seen as someone who is trying to WoW-ify the game, aka, making the game something it isn't.

I'm not someone who thinks the game is perfect, far from it, even when talking encounters and jobs. I will criticise the 2 minute meta and have shared complaints about interject and Low Blow not seeing much use in most content, in each case thinking what I see as the pros and cons of each one. For example, to destroy the 2 minute meta, I would go nuclear on it and get rid of all temporary damage raid buffs, in return, allow jobs to play to their own rhythms, have different length bursts, have bursts be different strengths, have the more sustained jobs that only get slightly more damage in a burst phase, or the spiky DPS that bursts hard and fast. Have them be flexible in their rotation or have some be stricter. I don't think many of these ideas could be used if any temporary buff windows continue to exist. For the stuns/interrupts, rather than then stopping attacks outright, they can change properties of attacks. Rather than a raidwide hitting once, it could do half damage with the other half coming out as a bleed, turn that circle AoE into a doughnut etc. this is to help the tank control the damage and try and tailor the fights for the group.

There is an argument to be made that the defensives are different, yes, they all have a 40% mitigation, but Paladin is by far the best at just hard reducing damage and Gunbreaker gives extra health for increased survivability, however, Dark Knight and Warrior just reduce damage by 40%, with them both giving different flavours of healing after the hit. No, they do not have a different cooldown time, but then again, to my knowledge, FFXIV does damage in fights differently to a game like WoW, where WoW seems to be higher, more sustained damage into the tank whereas FFXIV is low damage until mechanics/tank busters. Just this alone is enough to heavily swing how defensives should be handled.

Going to your Death Knight example, having a shield on everything you do is all about reducing that constant high damage you intake, but how would that work in FFXIV's combat? Use a GCD, get a shield, it then either gets used up on the next boss attack, so you don't stack them, or, it stays healthy and you make yourself immortal and take no damage. You could have it so that you build up shields and have to use something to 'activate' them, but isn't that similar to Paladin's Oath Gauge? I also notice you said 'Old Blood Death Knight', I did try looking up some things, which, of course, bought up current Blood Death Knight, but I couldn't see anything that had shields on all GCDs, just auto attacks, (40% shield based on the damage you do IIRC). However, why was it changed? Wow is famous for having certain specs be strong, so, was this considered too strong? If so, should FFXIV follow that as an example if even WoW ditched the concept?

With the Paladin example, it might be that having all that support and healing is really helpful in WoW, but how useful is it in FFXIV? We already know from past experience that FFXIV players will do what they can to get as much damage out as possible, even if it means using defensives to do so. If it is also reducing the cooldown on the bigger defensives, then we run into, how does this play out in combat? Again, FFXIV damage from bosses is spiky, so reducing a cooldown doesn't help unless you purposefully made it longer to force the support to happen.

With Gunbreaker, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. Get it wrong, you die, especially if we are loading cartridges over 20 seconds ahead of time (base GCD of 2.5 seconds takes 22.5 seconds to complete 3, 3 step combos). Again, it might be an idea if the damage was more sustained, but it isn't, so reliable defensives is much preferred.

And, to come full circle, you say I am too FFXIV brained, whereas I am seeing you as someone coming in and WoW-ifying the game, making it something it isn't. We can take things from other games, but it has to be adapted to the FFXIV gamestyle and not just a lazy copy and paste job.

[Carighan]

And, to come full circle, you say I am too FFXIV brained, whereas I am seeing you as someone coming in and WoW-ifying the game, making it something it isn't. We can take things from other games, but it has to be adapted to the FFXIV gamestyle and not just a lazy copy and paste job.

Not to be complicated about this, but it's been >13 years since I played WoW, and it represents under a third of my total MMORPG gaming time with its 8 years. I've played so many MMOs since I started with M59 back in the days; I'm saying that all other MMOs get this at least fundamentally right, except FFXIV. And it's again easy to see how they got here, they just need to now realize they're in a dead end conceptually. This system they got here isn't tenable. On a very very very basic level, hence why everyone else doesn't do this.

And some in fact did! They didn't get class-vs-encounter design right from the get-go, they had to change things. You mention WoW, it went for hyper-homogenization in favor of fight-complexity at one point. Got rid of it again, since it didn't work out. The one game that is somewhaaaat similar is GW2, but from a very different angle: GW2 homogenized buffs/debuffs/effects instead of classes, so that all sources of +damage are the exact same buff (Might), so naturally it doesn't matter which class can give you might, only that they do. And to further facilitate this, they overloaded ~every skill, between skill and trait and runes often causing 3-5 effects with a single ability. This is also a form of hyper-homogenization because it means all buffs/debuffs are usually covered just by ~any setup spamming things. But it's also a tiny bit smarter, because it allows classes to feel different, despite the net-result still being homogenous. Still, yeah it's the most homogenized after FFXIV I'd say. EQ2 also did some degree of further homogenization, but then reverted it even back in testing. Vanguard was entirely opposite, going absolutely wild with classes and failed hard, so maybe you can go too far the other route, of course (still, Blood Mage and Rogue were fantastic ideas).

And that's kinda the point: FFXIV needs to look to other MMOs why certain things didn't work, for nobody else. And while sure, hey, maybe 10th time the charm. Chances are, it's not. :P

[Kishin12345]

[QUOTE=Carighan;6782003]Yeah sorry I should sound less snide but I get annoyed by how much FFXIV-y the community seems to be in general, never considering that the existing patterns of FFXIV might be inherently bad in any way shape or form. Don't get me wrong, tons of things this game does are good - it's why I play it - but we see other MMOs do the smart thing and:

• Look at what works in FFXIV.
• Look at what doesn't work in FFXIV.
• Copy the former, at the same time cutting away the latter.

But it is ffxiv we're playing. I wouldn't want them to copy job design from other MMOs. It should stay true to ffxiv. If I wanted other job design i would just play a different MMO.
I for my part want more of what they recently did rather than starting weird experiments with evasion tanks or drk sacrificing hp to deal damage or a dps tank or whatever. I want classes to be balanced.
I dont want a meta to be formed where 5 or 6 jobs are the obvious better choice. I want damage output per role be almost equal, so you can play your favorite job without facing discrimination or getting locked out of groups.
For me tanks right now are probably in the best spot they've ever been in.