Evolved mode concerns

[Hanzz96]

I don't know if team synergy will be going away. There seems to be a lot of potential for certain jobs complimenting each other really well, even without raid buffs. It seems like the new jobs are going to have a lot of different strengths and weaknesses which I imagine will play into things. I guess we'll see. We'll probably need to see more of the job reworks to tell.

That said, I'm not going to miss the 2 minute meta at all.

I think its very easy to say you won't miss the 2 minute meta if you didn't really interact with it outside of roulettes and normal which is the way I feel a lot of more casual players are leaning. Which is fine I'm not attacking any casual players or anything but in high end content there was definitely something very satisfying and rewarding when your raid buffs lined up and burst synergised well and in unison. It rewarded playing as team, the payment off was a juicy burst window where you could easily shave 10% off the boss.

Its okay to throw around not missing the meta but there needs to be something to replace the rewards you got for playing as a coordinated unit in this co-op game.

[Argantaelle]

I share your concerns. Coordinating buffs with a team and assigning 2-min bursts to do re-openers in unison was fun and made a player feel that they were rewarded for being a part of a team (a very important feeling for any MMO). After watching the Evolved preview, I have a feeling that Bard just vomits 10s buffs like EW SMN mindlessly vomits regen in its phoenix phase. It's not coordinated gameplay; it's something else. SE just deleted a huge part of coordinated gameplay without giving anything in return.

The other thing that concerns me is the power of memes and hype. "Glare mage," "2-min meta," "innovating," and "homogenization" just turned into buzzwords devoid of any substance. If SE relies on it in making decisions, well, even players who are ecstatic right now will be unhappy when the fresh coat of paint is gone. Because the complexity of jobs (and it's not equal to the amount of buttons to press) shows even the most casual of players that there are heights they can master if they wish, there are roads to explore, there are ways to... evolve.

I don't want to be all doom and gloom, but unfortunately SE's modus operandi doesn't instill confidence that they'll listen (or will listen only to those who scream the loudest).

P.S. I started to play this game when WoW simplified my main class rotation (among other reasons). Back then FFXIV used to have long rotations with lots of buttons to press; even tanks had 3 combos and had to stance dance. I liked that kind of playstyle; I still enjoy it, even if it diminishes with every expansion since SB. It's kind of funny how the tables have turned.

[Reimmi]

I'm glad to see raid buffs gone and i hope they never come back
However i am a bit concerned at how bard looks like a clone of summoner, i hope that either means summoner is completely different now, or bard just isn't finished yet

[AlliciaCapulet]

Jobs truly looks easier (hopefully we're mistaken) and I'm quite concerned about the PF thing between MT and OT as well. But I'm grateful they will get rid of procs, and about songs: I know the feeling of align everything perfectly, but song flexibility sounds better imo.

Healers went through being splitted too. The most annoying part is when the option to allow "Only one of each role" is active, so you can't join as SCH if a SAG is already there. I suppose that will be the same for the tank, you won't be able to enter as a WAR if another WAR, GNB or DRK is already there, but except of that, this doesn't change many things. Most of the content is clearable with 2 "pure healer" or 2 "pure shields", it just needs more coordination from the healers. I suppose that we'll still be able to clear things with 2 "OT" or 2 "MT" jobs.

For me, those "sub role" should just dissapear, but yeah, I guess that tanks will now join the club.

[Yuella]

I'm glad managing dots is gone. I hate it when I see dots at 15 seconds, then a mechanic comes up that I had to focus on, and suddenly I forgot to refresh dots.

[Miradelle]

I'm glad managing dots is gone. I hate it when I see dots at 15 seconds, then a mechanic comes up that I had to focus on, and suddenly I forgot to refresh dots.

We are doomed.

[Budew]

Not the bard haters frothing at the mouth to finally play EW summoner in the correct category.

Just chiming in to say I agree with OP. Maybe if more bard mains speak out, SE might listen... but their track record does not spark confidence. I mentioned in the DPS forums, but I support bard getting a major shake-up (whether it's by changing how songs work or something to replace DoT management, etc.), but completely redefining a job's identity isn't really a shake-up- it's removing the job altogether. Obviously evolved bard is still a work-in-progress, but the fact that they chose to showcase this version to thousands in order to generate hype is concerning. It makes me feel like they're already confident in their idea to take bard in the same direction as EW summoner, and the positive feedback from the general playerbase will only reinforce that.

For a playerbase that claims to want truly unique jobs, I wish more people would advocate for jobs to stay distinct and support ones they don't personally play. Right now, it feels like a lot of people are excited a job they dislike is being changed to cater to them. At fanfest, the person behind me yelled out that they were "finally excited to try bard in 8.0." I'm going to try to stay optimistic and that Berlin or Tokyo fan fest will showcase something entirely different from what we've seen at Anaheim. (Or maybe media tour will make SE add procs last minute, just like how DT media tour bard was different from release bard).

[LunaFaelyn]

Thank you to the OP. All I saw after the dev stream was people happy about enhanced mode. I felt like I was in the minority by being heartbroken over bard and white mage. I am still not over what they did to summoner but at least I could play it with my brain turned off. But I didn't want all jobs to be like that.

Ranged Main for over 9 years. I have seen the jobs change very much in that time and to see bard go down the route of summoner, made my heart drop. Not only were the procs gone from that dev stream, so were the "DoTs". They called them dots but they worked more like machinist wildfire. If you watched closely, they applied them and then 3 seconds later they burst and disappeared from the enemy bar. Dia was also missing from White mage so, I truly feel like they want to get rid of DoTs all together. I enjoyed managing them and getting that iron jaws off right before the boss dissapeared or went untargetable.
I disliked seeing that you could only use certain skills while under certain songs. Is everything AoE now or is the rotaion going to be as akward as machinist? you have to use all the songs to get army's to come back up and they made it sound like army's was the AoE skills. Minuet is single target and Mage's is "DoT".
I wanted more freedom and the 2 minute meta gone. Enhanced jobs feel like less freedom. Are we supposed to just waste heals or barriers because we want buttons to push? What are Astro cards going to be if damage buffs are gone? Just as hollow as bard songs? I already missed Foe Requiem when they took it from bard and now we lost battle voice as well. Even if we play in Reborn mode, are the songs still going to regen, barrier and movement speed? Probably, so at least I can hold onto them for when they might be useful istead of wasting them just to be able to use skills.
I am really scared to see what is going to happen to healers, casters, and the other PhysRanged after the dev panel.

[Valence]

I share your concerns. Coordinating buffs with a team and assigning 2-min bursts to do re-openers in unison was fun and made a player feel that they were rewarded for being a part of a team (a very important feeling for any MMO). After watching the Evolved preview, I have a feeling that Bard just vomits 10s buffs like EW SMN mindlessly vomits regen in its phoenix phase. It's not coordinated gameplay; it's something else. SE just deleted a huge part of coordinated gameplay without giving anything in return.

Having raided a lot as BRD among other jobs, I honestly think people completely overexaggerate the amount of "team coordination" required to play within raid buffs. It's always just been about "press your 2min buff on cd, rince and repeat". The only caveat where it could matter a little more was when you had to take into account boss downtime that messed with buff timings, that's about it. In short, it was just "play your INDIVIDUAL rotation perfectly and don't drift" more than anything.

Now that being said, I would really hate to see the buffs from the actual buffer jobs like BRD and DNC go (I've already made my peace about MCH... rest in peace). Especially if they actually become more freeform due to the Evolved model actually. Imagine being able to play Radiant a bit like you want and move it around? Suddenly you'd have crazy considerations for team coordination, a bit like the best raid buff that has ever graced this game, namely Foe's Requiem. Rest in peace as well.

[Sarantserel]

I'll echo what others have said here. The shift to a 2min meta had a net negative impact on the game, but the solution was not to get rid of raid buffs. With them gone, I feel that even for people that want to stick to Reborn, they will lose an aspect of skill expression. As a RDM, an entire aspect of the job is making sure you have a combo stored for the burst window and making sure you time your combos in a way that you can get 2 Resolutions under buffs, and if I have an AST in the party, then I often hold on to Prefulgence and Vice of Thorns until I received the Spear. And going all the way back to when Trick Attack was 1min, I'd make sure I had my melee combo saved for that.

Speaking of, the way ShB handled buffs wasn't perfect, but IMO it beats both the 2min meta AND getting rid of raid buffs outright. Having buff CDs distributed between different timings (60s, 90s, 120s, 180s), opened the door for more dynamic rotations depending on your party composition.

I also worry that while the Evolved jobs give some more Aesthetic uniqueness to jobs, they're killing the gameplay uniqueness. I'll compare ShB DRG to what they showed so far of Evolved DRG (since I feel DRG has been having a slow death of identity since EW):

Back in ShB, DRG stood out compared to other DPS with:
-Having 2 branching combo paths that wanted to alternate between (and that you'd have to adjust in fights with 2 targets like TEA)
-Having 3 buffs with different CDs (Lance Charge, Dragon Sight and Battle Littany at 90s, 120s and 180s respectively)
-Life of the Dragon and mainly, how it interacted with DRG's 3 buffs, where you held or rushed it depending on your buff CDs
-Raiden Thrust needing you to land the last positional of Wheeling Thrust/Fang and Claw

Evolved DRG has:
-GCDs/oGCDs locked behind Positionals
-Sky High

Maybe Evolved DRG "looks" more like a DRG since it has several jumps in its rotation, but it lost a lot of gameplay identity. The branching combos became spamming the 1 button, there's no more managing Life of the Dragon timing, all your buffs are gone. It just gained back the mechanic of gaining a stronger ability from landing a positional. And Sky High, but unless they tweak it from its PvP version, Sky High is a "do nothing for 4s" button that just looks cool.

Similarly, BRD is losing its defining DoT management and procs just for utility buffs on songs. And heck, SMN went from a complex job with a VERY unique playstyle in ShB to one of the job with the least Gameplay depth in the entire game, with barely any room for optimisation, but because it "looked" more like a SMN, people praised it.