The Evolved combat is needed

[Malthir]

The game has really been suffering over the years from severaly issues, 2 of the big ones are going to be somewhat solved.

1. Slow combat and intro to classes at low level. The 2.5s GCD made it really had for new players to get into this game, most MMO's have a 1.5s GCD, also not having you full rotation until very very late into the game was horrible and being level sync'd 80% of the time felt so horrible, having the new system aim to give full rotation by level 50 is a good step in the right direction.

2. 2m Meta The 2m meta has been the scurge of this game, it was a mistake for them to lean into it as hard as they did in stormblood, it's good to see this is being broken, will lead to more options for unique class mechanics later down the line instead of forcing everyone into a builder burst system. Take Astrologian, was the card game abit over the top originally, maybe, but was it fun, absolutely, didn't work with the 2m meta so they yeeted it and made it a press to buff button ruining the uniqueness of the class. All Drk players look back fondly on heavenward Drk, it was un optimal as hell didn't play well with the 2m meta, do you know what else it was, immensly fun to play.

3. Changing the tanks Off tank and main tank being brought back is great, and by the sounds of it we are going to start seeing abilities that debuff bosses again, like the old, Drk passage on Drks blinding the enemy etc. At the moment tanks feel disjointed and basically just blue DPS.

What I would truely love to see next is the FF14 team lift the LOTRO fellowship manoeuvre system and make that the limit break system. For those not aware the LOTRO fellowship manoeuvre system was a system in the game lord of the rings online where when the enemy is in a stun/stagger state, either through a specific trigger of a mechinc in the fight, a random chance, and one fo the classes that can forcfully put the enemy in this state. When they are in this state every one in the party choices between 4 buttons, red, green, blue, yellow. If everyone presses red, big damage attack, blue mana back, green health, but there was combos like 2 red, 2 blue that did a different attack etc. This would really be good for the limit break system imo to make the whole party feel involved in it and now just a button you know press if you're melee DPS or the healer when things go to crap.

While I agree with some of the people who are negative about the new evolved system in that it looks like it will simplify the jobs. I would argue that, that's exactly what is needed, not because the jobs are currrently too complex, but because of how overbearing 2m meta has been on design over the last few expacs, a big sweeping change was needed. Small incrememental tweaks wouldn't do it, you need to wipe it right back down, go simple break the 2m meta, have a place to build from IMO.

I've been really hard on Dawntrail I quit as soon as I finished MSQ, came back for next patch quit again cause story sucked, I was fully in for not coming back, however the evolved combat fixes a large chunk of the issues in the game. Now if only they would change the movement to have a character hit boxes that interacts with the ground instead of having you character be plane that slides along the surface they would be even further into fixing the games issues (it's not 1990 anymore, this type of movement system is beyond dated)