Evolved mode has zero failure states

[CidHeiral]

Agreed with OP, the overhauled jobs need to force you to make decisions, which would include the wrong decision that has negative effects. Doing a big push for job identity isn't going to accomplish anything if at the end of it all the jobs are still just mindlessly going through the motions. Making something unique doesn't automatically make it fun and engaging.

[Turtledeluxe]

The problem is that in 99% of casual content it hardly matters. We need way more than a Sky High.

Even for most non-raidlogging Savage players, most of the content you do isn't going to require you to think about Sky High too much.

I think Sky High is a good start but holy if that's the ONLY thing Dragoon has going for it things are not looking good.

Didn't see this post but just want to clarify, this is a different argument from the thread itself. "For casual content it doesn't matter", that's a persistent and seemingly deliberate creative choice by the game director to treat normal content as "story mode". As far as not needing it in casual content, I disagree that there will never be cases where Sky High will impact a run. As far as rotational failures...are we referring to the way the game was 10 years ago or are we referring to DT? BRD songs don't exactly punish you in their current form compared to the new stack timer and its other failure points are mainly dps loss. I think across all jobs with the button loss, loss of things like DoTs/Procs, loss of two minute meta, we will certainly see a reduction of some failure points, but they won't absolutely cease to exist. I also think if we were at the point where DoTs were literally peak skill expression, that's a sad and desperate state of affairs to begin with and it's not an Evolved issue, it's a game designer issue.

Ultimately, it makes it hard to navigate these discussions because it's a conflation of all of the game's problems historically which makes it way more nuanced than extreme, absolute assertions allow for. Some of these problems were pre existing and covered in healer strike thread, meta threads, tank threads, and so on and so forth. They just existed in a "pre Evolved" context.

[Starrya]

Preach said something on a video that stuck with me. Characters in MOBAs usually have only four buttons to ever press, yet they're some of the most deep characters you'll ever master in any kind of game, and it's because how variable each and every situation within the game is.

I think we can hope for some interesting ideas that haven't really been in the game before, and we can look forward to, at the very least, everyone having to relearn their jobs at the beginning of the expansion. Ignoring that most of the variable situations in mobas come from the fact that they are a PvP game, they also tend to be willing to let their characters do stuff that is just not even remotely imaginable in FF14. There's no way we are getting a character who moves like Fanny, or a SMN who actually has to control an army of summons like Chen when we are fighting to the death over whether a job can have a harder skill floor than pressing 1 over and over again.

[Absurdity]

I don't think anybody is referring to Dawntrail when talking about "rotational failure" or "failure points" in job gameplay. They're usually not referring to Endwalker either and only in rare cases to Shadowbringers.
Because all of the last three expansions have one thing in common, the removal of exactly that potential to "play wrong".

Where the major gripe with evolved jobs comes from is that they seemingly follow the exact same path, potentially going even further in that direction by removing the last vestiges of "failure points".
Promoting a design of just going through the same 3 step filler ad nauseum while pressing every other button whenever it's ready.

If there isn't some major shakeup then the new job "design" looks to be so devoid of thought that you could potentially outsource your job gameplay to a gaming keyboard macro.

[Starrya]

I don't think anybody is referring to Dawntrail when talking about "rotational failure" or "failure points" in job gameplay. They're usually not referring to Endwalker either and only in rare cases to Shadowbringers.
Because all of the last three expansions have one thing in common, the removal of exactly that potential to "play wrong".

Where the major gripe with evolved jobs comes from is that they seemingly follow the exact same path, potentially going even further in that direction by removing the last vestiges of "failure points".
Promoting a design of just going through the same 3 step filler ad nauseum while pressing every other button whenever it's ready.

If there isn't some major shakeup then the new job "design" looks to be so devoid of thought that you could potentially outsource your job gameplay to a gaming keyboard macro.

This. 100% this. The only reason to put half the resources into revamping battle content that it appears they are is to course-correct. Thus, it is quite confusing to see that job reworks appear to be going in the same direction as the last 3 expansions.

[Turtledeluxe]

I don't see how its the same direction. Its more like a fork in the road. How do these new job gimmicks seem like the same? That seems completely disingenuous to say. How is BRD same direction if its buffs are different? However yes, I do see some homogeny in the gauges and the flow of the jobs. That doesn't make me want a static rotation, or DoTS, or whatever, if that is what is being implied here. This is why I am not a fan of topics like this bc OP is nonspecific and there's nothing concrete to agree with. I'm ok with Evolved criticism that improves Evolved, but what rotational failure are you talking about exactly. I did not play when Gordias was current and many others didn't either. So how would you, for example, make Evolved BRD songs more punishing than what it is (overcapping), or is this essentially Reborn propaganda.

[Reimmi]

Preach said something on a video that stuck with me. Characters in MOBAs usually have only four buttons to ever press, yet they're some of the most deep characters you'll ever master in any kind of game, and it's because how variable each and every situation within the game is. If all goes well, evolved jobs may enable them to create true emergent combat design, which would completely change how XIV is played.

Now, you may be thinking: "But they said you can still clear using ARR mode." to which I'd answer: You'll still be able to push buttons, but your rotation may literally become impossible to do as you know it today just by nature of whatever fight you're on.

Am I being maybe a bit too hopeful? Sure, I can accept that... but I also think we've seen way too little of the system and how it'll interact with the game to be making complete judgements on what will happen.

But what do I know...

I'm also willing to give them a chance considering how their goal is to evolve the game
even if things dont work out, at least it'll be different. Which is what i wanted after 6 years of shadowbringers in a row lol

[Starrya]

I don't see how its the same direction. Its more like a fork in the road. How do these new job gimmicks seem like the same? That seems completely disingenuous to say. How is BRD same direction if its buffs are different? However yes, I do see some homogeny in the gauges and the flow of the jobs. That doesn't make me want a static rotation, or DoTS, or whatever, if that is what is being implied here. This is why I am not a fan of topics like this bc OP is nonspecific and there's nothing concrete to agree with. I'm ok with Evolved criticism that improves Evolved, but what rotational failure are you talking about exactly. I did not play when Gordias was current and many others didn't either. So how would you, for example, make Evolved BRD songs more punishing than what it is (overcapping), or is this essentially Reborn propaganda.

This seems like a sincere question, so here is my sincere answer. It's not about whether new BRD looks like it plays the same as or differently from old BRD. It's about the job looking like its floor and ceiling have both been lowered. The more macro things you could mess up as current bard include the following:

-Misalignment of buffs
-Letting DoTs drop before using Iron Jaws
-driftng oGCDs
-Losing straight shot/refulgent arrow proks
-Not using all 3 songs to get the full buff for radiant finale¹
-Missing big GCDs (resonant arrow, radiant encore, apex arrow, blast arrow) during buffs²
-Overcapping bloodletter/heartbreak shot³
-Overcapping apex arrow⁴
-Not using Nature's Minne or Troubadour at times that would be beneficial⁵

After looking at evolved BRD, here's what it looks like it has been replaced with:

-Using Hawk's eye on a low damage GCD (if this is even possible to do)
-Interrupting thrum
-Not using light gauge to spend radiant finale/encore before cycling songs again¹
-Not using all the GCDs and oGCDs of each song before it ends²
-Overcapping wanderer's volley or pitch perfect³
-Overcapping Performance Gauge⁴
-Using songs in an order or at a timing that renders their additional benefits useless⁵

I have added superscript to the stuff that is basically the same. What we are left with for evolved BRD is pressing an oGCD before thrum and casting thrum. What we are missing is party coordination, DoT management, oGCD management, and prok management. I'll assume that party coordination of buffs is being made up for by improved encounter design. I'll also assume that the changed encounter design makes it so that casting thrum is a considerably higher commitment than it would be now. Using Hawk's eye correctly once per minute isn't as hard as managing both sidewinder and empyreal arrow, and either prok or DoT management is simply lost. Even with the most generous assumptions I can give, BRD is down by about two pieces of job difficulty that are simply not made up for anywhere, and for each assumption that doesn't pan out, they are down an additional one, up to four.

[Jeeqbit]

Preach said something on a video that stuck with me. Characters in MOBAs usually have only four buttons to ever press, yet they're some of the most deep characters you'll ever master in any kind of game, and it's because how variable each and every situation within the game is. If all goes well, evolved jobs may enable them to create true emergent combat design, which would completely change how XIV is played.

Well they won't have to design it around burst windows and thus uptime during burst windows isn't needed. Moreover, the uptime isn't urgently needed off-cooldown if everything is designed to be stallable and not expire, which seems the case. Likewise, healers being able to build up damage from healing further allows them to design a fight that isn't about attacking 100% of the time.

I think they need something more interesting though, like elemental types so that for example, ice mage might be a useful thing in some fights and you might decide to change jobs due to their elemental contribution that could deliver slightly higher damage when a boss is weak to it

It might also be cool to have elemental interactions in the fight itself like turning a fire bridge cold, putting the fire out with a wind attack, etc. Just something to replace everything they've removed over the years.

I have thought about one element temporarily making the boss weak to another element but this would effectively be like bringing back physical damage types.

[Azurarok]

I'm also willing to give them a chance considering how their goal is to evolve the game
even if things dont work out, at least it'll be different. Which is what i wanted after 6 years of shadowbringers in a row lol

is it really that different from ShB when the direction so far still looks like "we will remove even more points of friction and depth from job gameplay because it doesn't work great with our DDR fights"