As of shadowbringers, there have been many, many complaints about the direction job design has gone. Elements of it was present back in Stormblood but at the current moment in time the forums have much more redesign suggestions than any well designed game should have.
The complaints boil down to the following
1. Excessive homogenisation
Players accept that new players need accessible jobs to learn- this is the general outlook classes have: They aren't full jobs, but they are a good introduction to the various roles and duties. But when classes of 2.0 put full jobs to shame in terms of how fun they could be just by analysing what options were available should send clear signs something is very wrong.
Demolishing core gameplay styles, actions, spells, abilities etc to make many jobs play and feel almost identically even at level 80 has been extremely poorly received by the community and left many citing boredom or struggling to pick a main job.
A short list of playstyle homogenisation:
DRK and WAR- These two both have attacks that burn 50 gauge, a button to press to get a damage up boost and a gameplay style revolving around spamming the 50 gauge attacks every 90 seconds for high damage. Their dps kits are barely discernable
Healers- All 3 healers function in terms of basic healing, dps kit and essential actions identically for no discernable reason.
Ranged support and job gauge: All 3 have a party wide damage down and lackluster damge up support whereas previously it was all unique. The damage buffs are also insignificant enough a parser is required to see it.
Some unnneccessary homogenised buttons:
20% tank defence- Shadowskin, Rampart, Foresight all shoved into rampart
Stunning actions- Low blow, Brutal swing, Leg sweep, Arm shot (I think there's more but that's all I can remember off the top of my head)
Debuff removal- Esuna, Exalted detriment, Leeches
Mp restore- Shroud of saints, Aetherflow (Yes, really, it did 20% for 1 Aetherflow gauge) Luminiferous Aether
2. New skills keep being older removed skills under different name
Nobody likes a removed skill unless it was detrimental to the playstyle or completely useless such as RDM's aoe bind and Monk's elemental tackles.
But when important or fun skills are scrapped only to be readded later either the same or upgraded with a passive trait that wouldnt warrant its removal in the first place, its both insulting and unneccesary.
Examples:
WHM's capstone Temperance is Divine seal but with a damage down upgrade.
NIN capstone Bunshin functions exactly the same as Duality, just activated based on gauge now and with charges (charges which could have been added as normal upgrades)
MNK has many removed and readded skills. Forbidden Chakra is actually Steel Peak but has the worse effect of shutting down monk's stacks.
3. Mechanically, too many types of actions or effects have been removed or weakened and this is causing problems
Can anybody remember when we used to get standalone dots, stat reducers, mp/tp restore and similar utility, execution attacks, Crowd Control and enmity control buttons? Many players can and these changes were designed to make the game more accessible
They were also fun and useful in dungeons and in the open world in the case of executions and enmity control, and in the case of bosses, dots and enmity control were part of the challenge and filled gaps on the skill list.
Now, the community does understand why the enmity changes were made- to make it easier to tank large groups of mobs and bosses during intense healing periods. But all that was required was adjusting the enmity numbers a little, not scrapping entire actions.
Removal of dots, buffs and debuffs also brought down a lot of raid utility options. Nowadays we barely have raid utility that is visible without a parser which is not right. People don't feel like they are helping if they can't feel a difference, and if a 3rd party addon is required then its clearly not notiacble enough. 1% for the average player is not a buff its an illusion.
This is now causing problems in job design, we have Sch and Ast without their previous kits and lore causing a healer shortage. Dark knight has turned into Warrior lite and is far from its heavensward high skill high reward debuffing. Bard is now a damage buffer that doesn't actually seem to do anything, Monk still sits alone in the corner being clunky and lacking utility, Warrior is still fell cleaving and lacks anything unique that isn't generic tank buffs. Machinist has a very base breaking revamp, some like it, some hate how spammy it feels.
Continue reading...
The complaints boil down to the following
1. Excessive homogenisation
Players accept that new players need accessible jobs to learn- this is the general outlook classes have: They aren't full jobs, but they are a good introduction to the various roles and duties. But when classes of 2.0 put full jobs to shame in terms of how fun they could be just by analysing what options were available should send clear signs something is very wrong.
Demolishing core gameplay styles, actions, spells, abilities etc to make many jobs play and feel almost identically even at level 80 has been extremely poorly received by the community and left many citing boredom or struggling to pick a main job.
A short list of playstyle homogenisation:
DRK and WAR- These two both have attacks that burn 50 gauge, a button to press to get a damage up boost and a gameplay style revolving around spamming the 50 gauge attacks every 90 seconds for high damage. Their dps kits are barely discernable
Healers- All 3 healers function in terms of basic healing, dps kit and essential actions identically for no discernable reason.
Ranged support and job gauge: All 3 have a party wide damage down and lackluster damge up support whereas previously it was all unique. The damage buffs are also insignificant enough a parser is required to see it.
Some unnneccessary homogenised buttons:
20% tank defence- Shadowskin, Rampart, Foresight all shoved into rampart
Stunning actions- Low blow, Brutal swing, Leg sweep, Arm shot (I think there's more but that's all I can remember off the top of my head)
Debuff removal- Esuna, Exalted detriment, Leeches
Mp restore- Shroud of saints, Aetherflow (Yes, really, it did 20% for 1 Aetherflow gauge) Luminiferous Aether
2. New skills keep being older removed skills under different name
Nobody likes a removed skill unless it was detrimental to the playstyle or completely useless such as RDM's aoe bind and Monk's elemental tackles.
But when important or fun skills are scrapped only to be readded later either the same or upgraded with a passive trait that wouldnt warrant its removal in the first place, its both insulting and unneccesary.
Examples:
WHM's capstone Temperance is Divine seal but with a damage down upgrade.
NIN capstone Bunshin functions exactly the same as Duality, just activated based on gauge now and with charges (charges which could have been added as normal upgrades)
MNK has many removed and readded skills. Forbidden Chakra is actually Steel Peak but has the worse effect of shutting down monk's stacks.
3. Mechanically, too many types of actions or effects have been removed or weakened and this is causing problems
Can anybody remember when we used to get standalone dots, stat reducers, mp/tp restore and similar utility, execution attacks, Crowd Control and enmity control buttons? Many players can and these changes were designed to make the game more accessible
They were also fun and useful in dungeons and in the open world in the case of executions and enmity control, and in the case of bosses, dots and enmity control were part of the challenge and filled gaps on the skill list.
Now, the community does understand why the enmity changes were made- to make it easier to tank large groups of mobs and bosses during intense healing periods. But all that was required was adjusting the enmity numbers a little, not scrapping entire actions.
Removal of dots, buffs and debuffs also brought down a lot of raid utility options. Nowadays we barely have raid utility that is visible without a parser which is not right. People don't feel like they are helping if they can't feel a difference, and if a 3rd party addon is required then its clearly not notiacble enough. 1% for the average player is not a buff its an illusion.
This is now causing problems in job design, we have Sch and Ast without their previous kits and lore causing a healer shortage. Dark knight has turned into Warrior lite and is far from its heavensward high skill high reward debuffing. Bard is now a damage buffer that doesn't actually seem to do anything, Monk still sits alone in the corner being clunky and lacking utility, Warrior is still fell cleaving and lacks anything unique that isn't generic tank buffs. Machinist has a very base breaking revamp, some like it, some hate how spammy it feels.
Continue reading...