The Problem With FFXIV's Dawntrail Expansion

[@PapiKamikaze]

This is exactly what I’ve been saying. Prioritize hardcore content over midcore and casual content is absolutely crazy, since the majority of players don’t raid.

[@Tylendel_]

"majority of players don’t raid" i mean....i hope you have something to back that up.

[@DomainGoat]

They should release the first step of the relic with the release of a new expansion and update it every big patch. This way people have something to do and it keeps people busy. That’s also why the exploration zone should have come earlier. I don’t care for savages.

[@zephy9208]

Same here. Dawntrail forgets the casuals or people who stopped raiding.

[@Jays5.0-x6o]

I need a good group my fc isn’t that deep. I still have to do all the high tier savages

[@dividedbyzero4]

@@zephy9208 more like a problem since endwalker. And shadowbringers kinda. Eureka dropped in 4.25, bozja's actual zone was in 5.35. Endwalker got nothing for an entire expac unless you dont want to play the game (or you're a new player with a lot of old content backlog). Blaming solely dawntrail for this is disingenuous. It's their awful content release schedule and unjustified longer patch cycle.

[@jacobtridef48]

i love savages, but i actually 100% agree with you. the general playerbase NEEDS more things to grind for gear-wise. a relic that gets regularly updated with new forms/steps more often, would be great. now that im done with the savage tier, even im waiting around for stuff like that. cuz i dont rly have a group for Ultis rn sadly

[@Jays5.0-x6o]

@ any chance can ya get me in a party sometime

[@ZessaSnake]

My main issue is that we by now should have had the exploration zone. Just something to jump into and do stuff with other people that is more on the casual side. It's just so much more fun to do all that open world content while the stuff is current and highly active.

[@Raansu]

Bozja was boring fate spamming.

[@randomgenretalk8151]

Yeah and then after 2 months the zone is dead because someone tried to optimize every single step and the others followed because they want the rewards as fast as possible. The same with Bozja and players who did the content later barely find other players to do the content with. The same happen with Island Sactuary, people made spreadsheed everyone want to optimize instead of doing the content slowly and then they complained that it was too short.

[@Irimu_]

As someone that doesn't do savage and ultimate I haven't logged in for like 4 months now. I really would like to play again but as you said I just look at the launcher and ask why I would press play and there just isn't anything. At one point doing dailies or mentor roulette was enough but I just don't feel like doing either of those anymore.

[@pteronura6739]

Sucks for you

[@ryud0]

@@pteronura6739 funny how you seem to be the minority here friend

[@whatthe9706]

I literally do the same exact thing, if it weren't for mods i wouldn't even have the game installed anymore. I don't really care to do dailies anymore either

[@pteronura6739]

@ryud0 ya it sucks there should be more content during these patches, still seeing a healthy amount of people doing content though

[@jaquanepatterson2537]

@@pteronura6739Doesn’t mean there can’t be at least some more, this is a multimillion dollar company, not an indie dev studio.

[@youtousim]

Reasonable takes. A bit of a shame that this type of constructive critique rarely reaches the devs, if not subtitled in japanese.

[@Tawarth13191]

As a phys ranged main, the current balance lowkey scares me. If it weren't for the change that having 2 of the same job stops passive lb gen, I feel like there could have been a pretty good chance that phys ranged is just straight up not taken in FRU

[@thebrave9971]

I think the 1% stat boost is why we didn't see double melee double caster comps in FRU, even though Picto could definitely make that comp work, And would not have the LB gen hit either

[@shiznaztm]

They 110% made that change specifically to prevent double Pictomancer in ultimates. It's a sad state of affairs for job balance.

[@SheonEver]

Yeah it's in a rather shaky place, imo -- I'm not sure why they're seemingly unconcerned about that.

[@IyasuHN2]

You're better off than casters that don't want to play picto.

[@shiznaztm]

@@IyasuHN2 LOL facts

[@ChrisPrice12]

I joined a PF for an M4S reclear on Black Mage. I was told to swap to Picto or leave. I don't even have the job. Went to tell them that. They kicked me WHILE I was typing.

[@riel0563]

Sounds like a trap party.

[@awg229]

This late into the tier, there’s no excuse for that kind of behavior. M4S DPS check is very lax and you should be able to play what you want.

[@ChrisPrice12]

@awg229 Gets better. Was irritated enough to check their logs, PF maker hadn't even cleared the fight.

[@TheUrbanLegend52]

@@ChrisPrice12ain’t that always the best? Had a similar thing with FRU. Got gatekept from the mechanic im trying to prog. Idk if cause my papers show I was a mechanic behind which doesn’t say everything or the fact I wasn’t Picto. Saw the papers after dude kicked me, they didn’t make it to the prog point lol

[@ChrisPrice12]

@@TheUrbanLegend52 How about the PF lead f-ing up powder marks for 6 pulls, leaving then disbanding PF on what was supposed to be an FoF prog?

[@Larke_]

The part where you say you wanna play 14 but dont know what to do really resonated with me, honestly I find the hard content kind of boring, I would do it for the rewards but its too much commitment for something I don't even like that much, so it ends up being frustrating seeing thats almost the only kind of content they are releasing. Im excited for the chaotic raid, hope for more like this

[@Kude1707]

Good points made, I would however suggest not being so dismissive over people hating msq, I get it you're sick of people telling you. Im sick of people complaining about pct but i understand its an issue. Rather than being dismissive you can freely say its not something you are bothered about that way you dont lower the value of your own critique.

[@AzuriteTV]

You know what, fair point. I definitely shouldn't have been so dismissive on the story, even if I didn't want to talk about it I could have approached the subject a lot better and less insensitive, so I'll take the L, apologise and avoid making the same mistake in the future when I want to criticise something, thank you for bringing this to me in a polite manner.

[@Kude1707]

@@AzuriteTV No worries i mean I get it I myself have seen the complaints so many times now it does just make you apathetic towards it.

[@zaryalace7475]

Story is a major issue since this was Yoship's main selling point of why FFXIV stands out compared to othee games.

[@thecrowonyourshoulder]

I think a lot of the frustrations of the content release was because of Endwalker. The relic in Endwalker were so easy to get that it really didn't bled into Dawntrail's lull period like Eureka and Bozja did. I remember back in Endwalker, a lot of people were just going back to Bozja and Eureka to finish up all of their relics between downtime. It was the perfect time to get caught up on a lot of old content. Heck, even Anima and ARR relics had a lot more meat to them compared to Endwalker's relic content design. In other words, if there isn't a relic to chew on; people are just absolutely frustrated with content drought. Its great for newer players since they got a sea of content to catch up on, but people who been going from expansion to expansion are actually lacking a lot more this round due to Endwalker's relic content design. I can forgive it because of COVID, but it doesn't deter from the fact that this would had become a problem not only in Endwalker, but in Dawntrail too. I know there is still grindy content, like getting the bi-color and gathering mounts, but its not a story driven, nor a step by step experience that requires you to work with other players. Its literally just spamming fates, or going in circles with gathering nodes. There really isn't anything keeping someone interested aside from the mounts, which they can buy off the market board if they got loads of gil. There are still things to do, but it feels bare minimum at this current time. I also have to put it out there that a lot of these changes was because of player feedback. People complained about field exploration zones, people complained that skills didn't line up with the party, so were on a 2 min homogenization cycle with every job. And they also complained things were too hard... so casual content is very casual. This has sparked a lot of outrage in the community that earlier this expansion: there was someone complaining the content was too hard on the official forums, and everyone came in and dunked on them because they did NOT want the developers to take that as feedback. So, I hope proper feedback gets to them more better, and not the feed from a minority of players complaining because they refuse to learn, or just don't like a piece of content. I know there is content coming, but what a previous expansion releases can really affect the current one, especially if there is a long wait.

[@25xxfrostxx]

For the normies like me, the DT patch content will be some of the best we've seen once it's all here. Unfortunately, it sucks in the moment. Not a raider? Then you get to wait 9 months from release for 7.2 and something to do. A new player that gets to the DT patch content in 2026 is going to have a great time though.

[@FubukiShiromiya]

“You don’t like the story content good for you” sounds an awful lot like “you don’t like the job balance good for you” Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean it isn’t an issue impacting the health of the game. I’ve cleared the tier and I’m working on fru and the raids are great but the story being terrible has definitely impacted my enjoyment of the game and isn’t something to just dismissively shrug off because you personally don’t care.

[@themorbidkid187]

The story is what it is because it is brand new. Idk why the fk ppl are so butt-hurt over it when it has only just begun and has barely gone anywhere yet. A LOT of beloved games/animes/Tv Shows start off slow then get rly good. Im happy we are not the main character for once, but are instead in the role of helping hand/bodyguard more or less. Hot take, but I still think Stormblood was the best expansion this game ever got, with shadowbringers being the worst, but the game as a whole, by the time we got to endwalker it paid off. Point is, even though I hated Shadowbringers I held out and was worth it later on. You might not like the story so far but give it time, trust the devs to do what they do storywise.

[@Cassandra_Solidor]

What's sad, is your first point was actually being generous. It took five months for 7.1 to drop. They haven't hit the four month release once since announcing it back when EW launched. Not once. And this, for me, is really hurting my enjoyment of the game. Even as someone who does all the Ultimates, and is even taking FRU slow, I also like having reasons to log on besides high end stuff. Like you said, I enjoy the turn your brain off grinds or just doing silly stuff with friends while still meaningfully processing my character (i.e Exploratory zones). Several of said friends have entirely dropped XIV either due to how much they disliked the MSQ, the sheer lack of content boring them or both. Even among my circles that have stayed, all the hype for DT has faded away. Which I find the most damning. Once again, I can only speak anecdotally but I know a fair amount of people who aren't even excited for Chaotic any more because between it taking so long to release and dropping on Christmas, they just don't care. On the whole, DT has just made so many baffling decisions that I honestly think hurts even the good content coming. It's hard to get over general apathy. And that's where I think a number of people are.

[@Tory-JJ]

i heard dawntrail had bad story so I havent bought it as I dont want my memory of ff14 to be "well the story went bad after she stopped overseeing it"... bad writers ruin everything... :/

[@Cassandra_Solidor]

@@Tory-JJ It's obviously subjective but I found Dawntrail's story incredibly boring--to the point I actually dozed off during the early 90 split. A big problem is their approach to culture building feels very high school history class. There's virtually zero real conflict so it's literally going to each NPC who spiels out why they live in huts or make trades. Add to it Wuk Lamat hogging every ounce of scene time she can and it's... a slog to say nothing else. There are genuinely good ideas but they're executed poorly almost every step of the way. But hey, I might be very negative towards the MSQ, however I have friends who did like it. So you might as well.

[@yeahnahmate7]

People over exaggerate wuk so hard lmao, she isn't great but seriously touch grass people

[@mosselyn5081]

@@yeahnahmate7 Wuk is far from the only problem with the DT story, IMO. Even though I can't stand her (I was a Lys hater, too - same dumb bimbo personality), I don't even consider her the main problem with the story. She's just an easy target.

[@Keromimi]

@@yeahnahmate7 People freaked out about Lyse who wasn't nearly as obnoxious because you at least got a break with Hien. There are no breaks on the Wuk train.

[@ItsRikki87]

Honestly, this is the first time in.. Well over my 6 years of playing that I didn't resub. I have gotten to the point now, that I just 'Dont' feel the urge or inspiration even to log in. This expansion didn't hit with me at all. No it has nothing to do with not being the main character for the focus of the story, it doesnt even have to do with Wuk [Even if I think she is a terribly written lead]. Maybe its just because I was so invested in the Zodiark/Hyd arc that this new start of an arc is just.. not grasping me. Im hoping for something great for the next expansion, something that really lights the fuel and starts another great arc but, right now? I just don't see it.

[@cablefeed3738]

Pictomancer is fourth in d p s in savage now ultimate doesn't matter, because if you balance the game around ultimate, you're doing it wrong.

[@rafaelelias2678]

They always done it... they always change jobs for them to fit to the latest savage/ultimate release. They increased the range for all the buffs and stuff in EW after jobs like Reaper, Red Mage, Bard and a few others were weaker if P8S rolled Dog first, then in Anabaseios they made mechs that people have to be all spread out like in P10S-P12SP2. The change for Gunbreaker going from double down to single down mates it obvious it's for ultimate phasing purposes. Why did they make Esuna instant cast? To make TEA easier? It was a very fast cast already. Stuff like this made me lost faith in the devs job design choices.

[@SlinkyRock]

The funniest thing when watching these types of videos will always be how these players who have been playing since ARR are so ready to say things like: "I am not advocating for them to return MP and TP", and "Removing enmity combos and stance dancing was a good thing" but almost in the same breath say: "I don't know how I'd fix it." Do you realize how RPGs work? If there are less attributes and less mechanics and less numbers that players, gear and jobs govern over then HOW are you going to make the game more complex again? Oh yeah, it turns out that all of these things they removed over the years weren't good changes. The implementation of these systems might have sucked at the time, but this community accepted them being straight up deleted instead of worked on. Imagine saying: "There is an extremely abundant amount of content." When a singular FFXIV patch takes more time to be release than two big WoW patches. Has less content than patches of other games, and whatever comes out or is supposed to isn't even anything worth paying the subscription for. Hildibrand was extremely short and you know what I've been reading about it? "Oh, the first quests are usually very short. So that is expected. I guess nothing can be done about it." What a joke.

[@socram3254]

I agree, everytime I bring this up the XIV community jumps on my throat but I believe that janky and complex systems that may or may not create an unbalanced game is what makes RPGs fun, like finding that one meta build in Elden Ring or Interacting with weird stuff like emnty generation, piercing buff etc. The problem is that XIV is an EXTREMELY simple RPG at this point, but the devs still can't balance it properly, it's honestly unnaceptable

[@maythomas4591]

@@socram3254 Eh I half and half agree. I like complex systems and janky mechanics, but It *does* alienate people. One of the big problems in modern gaming is just the whole "X GAME IS BETTER" thing, you just get massive shift from the days were people would learn things and try to understand stuff, to immediately pissing themselves and getting upset when things go wrong leaving a game spitting on it, yelling at it in every single video about it (Even though they dont play said game anymore), no one is willing to just accept failure or confusion and work through it anymore. You add back complex stuff, no ones ever going to bother to learn it and numbers/new subs wont ever grow. Because the current state of gaming is to be braindead. Between that and the strange craving and need for constant content drops that 14 cant satiate for the new dumb ADHD generation, its just a lose lose situation. No matter what happens no one is gonna be happy. Im legit am just convinced the old idea of a mmo is dead at this point, no one wants to take the time to explore, or invest themselves into a world to get lost in, mechanics to discover, learn and master. Nowadays it just "gimme the most simplified thing you can, with the least possibility to fail, every meta guide and detailed walkthrough i can get online, and a daily system so i can just treat the game as a checklist rather than a experience to play"

[@blueray222]

Every time the devs add a new change to how the jobs play, I often think "Wow, that would've been pretty good one or two expansions ago" The last time XIV attempted to add some new measure of mechanical depth was in SB with the job gauges, which is wild to me. Easier DPS options for healers would've been a good idea back when we had stance dancing to provide a skill ceiling in other ways for instance. Making the game easier and easier to play isn't going to eventually stop players from whining, the goalposts will just move along with them for as long as there's something they can do to mess up by their own fault.

[@LordNeltharion]

@@maythomas4591 I mean just to talk about your bit of the "Old Mmos" I think those style also have to do with the tech at the time being so limiting, now you couldn't possibly do it because everything can be searched whether it's because of a passionate player writing up a guide or some clickbate youtuber trying to get some attention there's information in abundance for just about every game out there even for SP games. So while there will be people who try to get into the world and see it for all it's worth it's usually not the main focus and more of a happy accident than something to hunt for. Also for your point of guides meta etc, that has been around since the Early WoW days with Thoughtbot (Now WoWhead) to look up information on quests locations and items. Meta having been in it since things like DPS meters came into account to see the numbers of each Class/Job and thus focus purely on those said classes/jobs as they are simply the best. FFXIV has been good at avoiding it from what I've seen over the past almost 3 years but it seems PCT is really being a thorn in the communities side. Just my thoughts.

[@maythomas4591]

@@LordNeltharion And I think it completely defeats the point of the game constantly hunting and using guides/always going for a meta/parsing others in a party. If you do everything so efficiently, and its all you can care about, then complain when content isnt coming out fast enough, you basically have done it to yourself. I've played MMOs for a very long time, and while I have used guides and tools from time to time, it was to learn more or get me out of a bind. Now a days people just use them by default, only focus on meta, and just sort of optimize the fun out of every game they play. Its like the issue of information/misinformation nowadays as well, people will look for a online source instead of going for their own experiences, i personally feel people are getting to reliant on those things and forgetting the joy of just discovery and self improvement beyond being handed the answers to everything. Just my thoughts, but yeah you bring up some good points.

[@jakeliujakeliu]

Story suck and you pay for it. That is why I’m skipping this expansion until they proof themselves

[@ArceoRenix]

They're not nerfing Picto because its short sighted people dont realize that job design is the future for legacy jobs in 8.0, they're leaving it as it is not to troll. I agree Phys Ranged is basically useless now in a meta standpoint but like. You're being hyperbolic, the game is still beatable with any job. Oh sure it trivializes DPS checks, but thats not the point of fights anymore aside from Ultimates, the point of contention has always been mechanics retention and memory. So why are we still complaining about Picto? Because its too strong and everyone wants their job to be the strongest. Thats a massive oversimplification but thats the end of the argument for most everyone. The outlier is here to stay, and honestly, good, screw the homogenization of DPS, there should always be outliers in an MMO, balancing perfectly is stupid anyways. Harder skill ceiling jobs should be rewarded with better DPS. Picto may be easy to pick up but its not the easiest to master. So please, shut up about Picto, and start pushing the conversation of "why are our jobs not as good as Picto". And before you say anything stupid, they had plenty of opportunity to nerf it, they still havent, so think first before you answer. Also, bro c'mon, no mention of the 2 minute meta..? Thats a worse problem than Picto.

[@IyasuHN2]

You're the one being hyperbolic. As a rdm main I've never wanted my job to be the strongest. A lot of people probably agree it should be black mage. I dont want to be stronger I want to feel like I'm not kneecapping our kill time by playing a job I've enjoyed for 7 years. 8.0 is two years away minimum. Disregarding the entire ranged roster for 2 years is perfectly acceptable? That's a pretty trash take ngl. As a side note the 2 minute meta is a complex topic because it's been good for certain jobs' PF viability but obviously not so good for uniqueness so I'm not quick to demonize it after seeing jobs get excluded for not being a 2m job

[@filipvadas7602]

1. Its a double-edged sword. On one hand, like post-MSQ Endwalker, Dawntrail is healthy for the game in the long run die to the improvements it brings with it to long standing issues. But on the other hand, it means less focus on bringing new content and the continuation of the glacial update schedule. The Chaotic Alliance Raids are definetly a cool idea, but they're basically just an extension of them just IV dripping us content. (Personally I'm waiting for them to update the base Crystal Tower Alliance Raids, as they have NOT aged very well in a lot of places) 2. A big thing I want for 8.0 is a better Job leveling experience. Some Jobs are AWFUL to level and feel incomplete/unfun till Lvl 80-90 God forbid you play Lvl 50-70 content with something like Reaper or Viper, because they blatantly feel really bad with what actions they decide to lock out. And, yeah, I agree that Jobs need to be balanced around actual Job identity and MP being completely irrelevant 90% of the time at this point is a massive issue in design (I mean, let's be honest, aside from a few extreme situations, when did you last actually have to care about having to manage MP?)

[@C.Cer.]

Main issue I have = Bland " Job Gameplay " through excessive homogenization/simplification, forcing players to rely on Content for excitement that has not evolved, but made extremely predictable. From the Dungeon Formats, to Mechanics in MSQ, how the Quests will feel like, the difficulty of Extreme, to the laughable Enrages in Savage... its so predictable it becomes Boring. Make the Jobs fun? and all Content is amplified, start from there. But if Jobs remain this dull? this bland? then yay we rely on Content, but I do not see Square changing it up at this rate.

[@Zoltri]

((Longer Read Warning, sorry kind of a hard topic to explain in a paragraph.)) I think a more interesting side of this is to ask why Picto is overpowered, because it really shines a light on where that power is coming from, and why the job design fundamentally doesn't work in this game. Ultimately, if you go and look at the Parse statistic for the Savage floors, the honest truth is Picto is fine for those fights after other jobs were buffed up, its ahead in rDPS in some encounters, its behind in others, its not an outlier by a note worthy margin at all, but we have a perception because its been ahead of the curve since the launch of the Xpac that its been broken from day 1 and continues to be broken. The truth is in Savage, its fine. But......In FRU its vary clearly broken, so whats the difference? The truth is Picto's whole issue comes down to the muse and motif mechanics. Think of it like this, we have an encounter where the bosses have a phase where they're untargetable for 20 seconds, or theirs an RP transition between mechanics. In higher content they do this a lot, limit cuts, transitions between Ultimate phases, etc. Just looking at DSR, Every single phase has an RP transition. Because of the Motif and Muse system, Picto gains a massive advantage because every 2 minutes, Picto wants 15 seconds of downtime where in a normal encounter they will do Zero damage while every other job is DPSing away to refresh their motif's. That's 12.5% of their uptime every 2 minutes going down the drain to manage and maintain their painting mechanic. But what happens when a fight naturally has constant downtime where no other job gains a meaningful increase to their damage, or can leverage that time to prep for the next uptime window? Picto walks away with like, 3500 potency work of skills charged up, mobility options, and their 2 minute buff prepped and ready to go, which also gives them Star prism for another 1400 damage, all this dps being things they'd normally need to pay for by skilling out on filler DPS buttons, costing them DPS in the moment to gain DPS later, but when we remove the uptime, they lose nothing but gain the same amount. No other job in the game gets this, at most you could point to something like Samurai charging meter, you could point at Samurai's meditate mechanic, there they gain 1140 potency IF they stand still for the full 15 seconds, in comparison, Picto can move multiple times, and still gains arguably 4x as much damage, only needing to find 3 second windows to stand still, not a full 15. A single Living Muse is more potency then Samurai standing still for a full 15 seconds. Personally, I think for the overall health of the game, this justifies the conclusion that Picto needs a mini rework. FFXIV is an extremely rigid game for how it approaches fight and job design, and Picto right now works off such a different metric then the other jobs that it creates an unhealthy dynamic, either A: We design fights going forward with Pictos in mind, meaning we can't have periods where the boss is untargetable, which I think is extremely unhealthy for the game overall, we can't define how we can design encounters just to justify the existence of a single mechanic from a single job. B: We just rework picto to fit into the structure of other jobs so that it can't leverage downtime for additional damage far better then other jobs. C: We Redesign ALL jobs to gain meaningful damage or momentum during downtime mechanics similar to picto, which... Personally I think is kind of silly. Defining all job design again, to work around a single issue. I know also that some people would argue that "We can't remove that, or else Picto won't feel unique! Their whole thing is they're a painter, and they need to paint or it doesn't work!" Which, I'm sorry but that's just wrong. The idea of a painter job can just be interpreted an infinite number of ways, it isn't required they need to do a 3 second cast for 0 dps as they paint something. Like, what if instead, all of the muse's were triggered moments of creative inspiration we get by doing the general gameplay loop, allowing us to build up to our 2 minute burst window where we finish our painting, and then use it and then get charges of all our big powerful buttons to spend during our burst window? Or what if it was about managing paint colors, we do combos related to colors, which spends the paint, but doing each colors rotation adds to a picture we're building over time which lets us magically refuel our paint once we spend our CD to cash in the painting we made and enter our burst phase? Obviously there are not bullet proof ideas, I'm just trying to show how you can imagine countless ways to redesign the idea of a magical Painter DPS while still respecting the fantasy without it being required it clashes with the overall design structure of the game. Finally, I'll just say, the obvious reason why Picto isn't being addressed is companies are extremely scared to nerf things when they're first released and are OP, because it might turn off less engaged players, the perception of you're playing picto, having a good time, and then you hear its nerfed might turn off those players from wanting to continue, even if ultimately, the hardest content they do is Expert Roulette and it has no impact on them. We see this all the time with PvP games where they'll delay resolving an issue for awhile because they don't want to ruin the flavor of the month fun of something new and shiny. That's my little yap about picto, I don't think its a hard problem to fix, but it isn't a problem that can just be nerfed, because the issue isn't numbers, its a fundamental design problem with the job and its relationship with the overall design of the game. They could massively nerf the Motifs damage and boost the filler rotation to fix it as well I guess, but I think that would feel really lame. Ultimately, just do a mini rework and reimagine the job, the downtime painting mechanic isn't required for anything, and its unhealthy for the game for so many reasons.

[@setekh2864]

I knew where the issue was but i never bothered to check numbers on it. "A single Living Muse is more potency then Samurai standing still for a full 15 seconds." this is crazy. I tought sam already had good downtime dps, then i picked up picto to try it out, the first thing that came to my mind after understanding the job was "wens downtime so i can motif?" On my perspective that isnt even a picto issue, is a fight design issue, they should have taken into consideration downtime in a fight and also to how much jobs can, or not in most cases, take advantage of it, which picto definetly do tho i assume that was not the intention when designing the job the only partial solutions i can come up with is somehow linking muse usage/availability to combo gcd casting, generator combo for mog, spender for hammer maybe could work . or if keep mechanics of the job the same as it is now, move potencies around, lower burst dps but higher sustained dps VPR has a somewhat similar scenario but with melee downtime exclusively, on m4s as an solid example, 3 or even 4 Uncoiled usages on Ion Cluster "side-going" is just too much, tho it was an amazing thing to figure out, im doing my own thing non-standart opener and gearset, popping Serpents Ire instead of a uncoil ogcd and being able to Uncoil a fourth time instead of just using basic Snap is solid potency gain on the gcd cast and it lines up perfectly (for me @2.03s) with her coming back into melee range, where i would either hold after one Snap or need a second Snap which would be so close to her coming into range that it would kinda bother me but this same scenario feels so bad on other melee jobs it makes me a bit sad coils being a single ogcd would solve this, just tune potencies, even tho i really enjoy viper as it is i gotta say i had quite a nice time processing your comment mate, cheers!

[@Zoltri]

@@setekh2864 Glad you found it interesting. :) I think a big thing I feel is important to consider with variables like this is the question... "is it worth keeping this mechanic, if now we need to make all future design choices with this in mind?" Like you said, they could've kept Downtime in mind when designing a fight, but is the value of Picto being able to utilize downtime like that worth the trade off of needing to consider all downtime mechanics for all fights going forward in the context of how Picto can leverage it? I personally feel there's so much creative room for them to utilize the idea of downtime in a fight to do non DPS focused mechanics, that overall its just, difficult to justify holding the State Picto is in and potentially needing to forgo or accept all those encounters will be unbalanced.

[@jillymowse8106]

did they not say they were spreading things out though? If the exapnsions are further apart then the patches would be too, yes?

[@mordtea555]

I loved shadowbringers so much because of the story, and the jobs having the right amount of depth and punishment while not being too intimidating for new players. But why was that all changed? Literally because people complained about it. When you as a developer only listen to a vocal part of the community, you literally cannot win. The happy players who get what they want are completely silent. Anyone with an issue with something is WAY more likely to voice their opinion. And as someone who has been playing mmo's for the past 20 or so years, ff14 players complain by far the most, but understandably as a result of the game wanting to suit players of all kinds, which leads to everyone complaining about different things. Why the 2 minute meta? Because people wanted it. Why didn't we get a relic questline in endwalker? Because people didn't want to do exactly the thing that the questline would have you to do, so the solution is to make it be uncapped tomes so the player can do almost any max-lvl content and get it. And i see this same thing with every point you made in this video, changes happen because people complain. Every solution to an issue you brought up would piss off another group of players of a different mindset. And yes, i do wish pictomancer would be nerfed, as i am currently progging FRU as a black mage in party finder, it would be good for the game but again, would piss off people who are progging with or as a pictomancer cause now the dps checks just got a lot harder and you'd have another set of unhappy players...

[@themorbidkid187]

It is exactly as you say. As you loved shadowbringers and the class changes, I absolutely hated it and was the first time since 2.0 I left the game for 2 years because it was so bad imo. Stormblood to this day is still my favorite expansion, had by far the best content and every job had a purpose. Then in Shadowbringers all the jobs were mostly streamlined/dumbed down with many things removed and very little added. That coupled with a lot of the content being made braindead, it in turn killed any of the challenge or fun I was having with the game. They lowered the skill floor so that the more casual audience didn't have to think at all, but it hurt the players who actually enjoyed having to use their brains in content. As you said, whenever they change something to please one group, it will almost always piss off another.

[@Harbinger1998]

I'm just looking at the current savage statistics on FFlogs and can't see any of it supporting your assertions on job balancing. Selfish Viper/Sam/Blm DO do more personal damage than anyone with a raid dps buff, including picto. Picto isn't even top rDps anymore, let alone way out in front overpowered. Machininst does within 2% of the personal dps of a dragoon/monk/ninja, and gets raid mit skills instead of a raid dps buff. Hypothetically, if machinist did the same rDps as a dragoon, and had the extra raid mitigation abilities, why would you ever want a dragoon? Now if you want to make a video about how raid mit skills aren't valuable, and give specific examples, then that's a different avenue to explore. Being brought just for your tp/mp regen skills is no more fun than being brought just for your 1% dmg/hp/heal role buff, and certainly sounds like far worse gameplay design for anyone playing without those tp/mp regens. Picto is OP in FRU, but it's not because of their sustained damage (see savage it's fine these days) but because of how much they can stockpile during the extremely frequent downtimes then burst extra hard, far more than other jobs. They don't seem to need an across the board nerf but rather a redistribution of potency to reduce this advantage. (I don't play picto, it's still lvl 90 for me atm). As for content schedule, I can give my casual perspective. I don't find the need for an exploration zone at the release. (7.0). There is just so much to level that I wouldn't spend much time there anyway. I do however think that by 7.1 (~4.5 months) or 7.15 (~6 months) it would be better to be there. But let's be realistic here; it's not like they are sitting there going "we have all this content done, what order should we release it?" There is a large amount of dev time and manpower allocation that goes into release schedules, and changing that would probably mean more sacrifice than just pushing back the first ultimate 1 patch. In the end, I do agree FF leans towards the over homogenized, simplified roles... but I think you really have to blame yourselves: parse culture and an endless extreme demand on (never achievable) perfect balance. When the lead dev has to beg forgiveness for nerfing a single boss by 1%, meanwhile WoW nerfs bosses by 15-30% and buffs/nerfs classes 10-15% constantly. Why did everything go to 2 minute burst? To make comps more balanced and parses more consistent. Why do tanks not have to drag bosses? Because gunbreakers lost ogcd dps when moving them last xpac. etc. WoW has far more diversity in gameplay and class capability, but this leads to situations where certain classes are just outright better than the others. I don't think the ffxiv community would tolerate this.

[@blueray222]

This definitely doesn't get said enough. Everybody loves to blame the devs for not knowing how to balance the game, but never acknowledge the role that they, the players, have had on this downward spiral by whining about every imperfection about their jobs that could be overcome by putting in more personal effort and finding other ways to compensate. The players and the devs have enabled each other, and now we're looking at the results of many years of this in game now.

[@linah1998]

that's all fine and well but the average player either doesn't know or doesn't care. It sucks big time when you go check party finder and Red Mage or Black Mage are straight up locked out bc people only want Pictos bc they think it's the needed dps or easy clear

[@BlueArremer]

Your condescending attitude towards people who play for the story is unnecessary and undermines your point. Your video isn't about the story? Then stop bringing it up like a bitter, rejected ex.

[@twocatsyelling723]

He's talking about content that keeps people logging in and playing long-term; all the various types of content that keeps people playing, which includes story content. He spends no more time on story than anything else in this vid. You're hyper-focusing on just the story aspect and projecting it on to the video. That's a you problem.

[@piconio]

We are waiting LONGER for LESS content since covid dropped Insanity FF14 is for square enix the same cash cow like genshin impact for hoyoverse is

[@sanguin3]

Moreover, Hoyo actually re-invests those money into their games, while Square does not 💀.

[@IyasuHN2]

​@@sanguin3They're garbage do not compliment that band of thieves.

[@TG-oq2jx]

Square enix " i see i see , ok lets buff picto some more 💪 "

[@Neonras]

Honestly I'm just happy you mentioned machinist more than once, because it's so insulting that as a selfish DPS, were the absolute worst in the entire game, and then get insulted with a flamethrower "buff" when it's practically not even a real ability

[@kita6502]

Im the type that refuses to do ultimate. Ill dive into savage maybe once or twice but overall my schedule prevents me from putting in so much time progging. So i log into dt just to level classes passively and ive found time to do 10 floors per day soloing deep dungeon. Actually finished my hoh solo and will be doing potd and eo solo. But in terms of dt content i loved the alliance raid. The dt storyline was k. Wasnt amazing but i do like the alexander parts. And i do like the dungeons. I will say content is definitely slow but at the same time a lot of people use the game to rp abs have fun with friends anyways

[@noahwagoner7650]

I took a break after 7.05 came back at 7.15 played for like 3.days annnnnd im caught up :/ nothing to do anymore

[@LuminateTheWorld]

if there's nothing for you to do, then play a different game. The end all be all game doesn't exist and never will. If you've done all you want in 14, or any game for that matter, that's not a sign that should be sad. Be happy you can take the time to try something else and feel like you won't be missing out. I'm someone who is still finding things to do in 14. There's still some mounts i want to get (haven't finished the endwalker ex's for example)- i'm progging fru a couple days a week for a few hours, and helping fc members with getting into savage. that being said, mid endwalker, i ended up taking like a 2-3 month break cause at the time, there wasn't anything i wanted to do. That time will come again and i'll go and try something else. There's so many good games out there, mmo/ single player, co-op etc. etc. that you can sink your teeth into. No one ever said that an mmo needs to keep you there forever. I keep seeing people say there's no content for them and i'm like, ok and? There's no content in Wow for me Because i don't enjoy the content it has, nor the asthetic of the game nor it's story. I don't have any connection to the community so even though there's decades of content for me, i don't want to do it. Yet you can find millions of people that are the exact opposite to me.

[@oCcBrutalforce]

Go play Mario kart then

[@madlinkers8595]

​@@LuminateTheWorldthe problem i have with this statement is the sub and the fact you also have to pay for retainers and stuff if you have them a sub can go up to 30$+ so jave a bit of self respect has a customer and complain,cause what you do is corporate white knighting which is shamefull

[@yeahnahmate7]

​@@oCcBrutalforce lmao weird take

[@tooloud3376]

Content wise, I would love to see a field operations/firmament type of style be implemented in overworld zones. The way i imagine it is having one zone in the world, for a period of time, let's say lasting 1-2 major patches where you can either gather/craft/do fates to rebuild certain places in a zone (think allied society quests). For that limited time, doing fates could trigger critical engagements like in bozja, the zone would have a market board and a summoning bell, whatever the currency you would get you could spend it on some system like the kupo of fortune or like the bozja lockboxes. Once the zone was rebuilt we would move to another zone. I certainly don't see SE doing it but imagine this type of content being release 1-2 months before the end of a major patch, giving players something to do while waiting for the next patch. Idk, i would just like to go in a zone and see it being full of activity, some people just there hanging out, others crafting or gathering, others doing fates ... zones are so empty after people are done with msq and theres so much potential in them besides being used for msq

[@Rukia21love]

I dislike the msq, but im not one to swing a sign saying how much i hate it. Yes, i did savage cleared rather quickly and was put in a very bord state. Have the ultimate now to keep me tied up along with the 24 man savage.

[@JustShimothy]

mch needs so much love it's infuriating

[@Kuso_yarou]

Amen

[@its.araragi]

I wanted to level my MCH because it looks fun but then came to my senses and remembered that the devs hate the class so i saved myself a lot of time 😂

[@fl_7912]

lvling up MCH atm, I just want to shoot guns and build robots man...

[@bendonatier]

I said basically throughout all of EW that the two minute meta isn't the problem, and I think picto is the perfect example of it. It and viper are fun jobs that interact with it in two different ways, and are generally well designed, but now people are suddenly complaining about down time and unique strengths of jobs. The funny thing is that it's not even inherently a new problem, EW had the phys ranged question to, but people didn't take it seriously because you needed a good black mage. Now we have two no raise, high damage casters that can take a melee slot, and it's finally clicked in everyone's heads that "Wait if we can bring four jobs that do melee equivalent damage, why wouldn't we? We have healers for Rez, and one of those casters even has an extra party mit to make up for the hp and healing loss if it really maters. For a while it was a question of how much the rez tax was, and we have the answer. RDM and SMN are phys ranged, PCT and BLM are melee. By this logic of utility machinist should be up with the higher tier of job, but they're not because the designers are too worried about a job that has no hard casts or ranged requirement.

[@shiznaztm]

As a Machinist main, we've been suffering since Shadowbringers. There are so many inconsistencies on the job, it's an absolute mess. It feels like two different jobs squished together at this point. Fast silly Wildfire that ping makes you angry at and has 0 synergy with the other half of your kit, the big slow chunky burst that feels nice to press. Can we have some kind of consistency? Any kind of management with our TWO gauges? Did you know single target Hypercharge is better on

[@starbreeze7249]

How do you advertise content like Cosmic Exploration, Beastmaster, the Relic, and think it's acceptable to release them halfway+ through an expansion is beyond me. This game has only gotten more successful, and made more money, yet what do they have to show for it? I can only assume these things will be equally half baked and unfinished. As for job design I personally dislike the whole 2min burst window. I see people say some jobs should be good at sustain, some at burst, some having 3min not 2min windows, and boss phases are built around those strengths/weaknesses. That's all good and well to say but all that would happen is people would pick what's absolute best to fit in, and complain that xyz sucks because the fight is more of a burst fight and they can't take x job into it

[@Hugo-MTX96]

do you want to get rid of job homogenization? Or have really good balance? Pick one.

[@Sebs-FFXIV]

The game does not have either atm, that is the problem, havent had in a long while

[@hugoaltaie9801]

I assure you they are not as mutually exclusive as you think.

[@PlasticArcadia]

@@hugoaltaie9801 you must have misunderstood their statement infact they are very mutually inclusive, but read it again. Its saying to get RID of job homogenization. Maybe a simpler way for YOU to understand what they're saying is, you can't have unique jobs and good job balance, does that sound better, hmmmmm?

[@hugoaltaie9801]

@@PlasticArcadia nah I think they are not mutually exclusive. You can have both to a very good degree Just because you lack creativity, competence and imagination it doesn't make it impossible.

[@celesticer9949]

You can retain Balance without Over-Homogenization / Simplifications. Square have proven to be capable of doing so, even without adding buttons ( that in EW has proven in many jobs to be unnecessary bloat for the sake of feeling to add something ). Hell PCT is the biggest example. It is a easy Job all things considered, no where near as complex as BLM? yet " THE " most busted Job, proving that homogenization in terms of Job Design? doesn't default to quote " have really good balance ". Both aren't mutually exclusive.

[@jalea5298]

I really only log in to keep my med house or run a few dailies with friends. I could level my blue mage, other jobs, try deep dungeoning, level crafters/gatherers, mount collect and more, but those pieces of content are like “side quests” they’re what I can do when I want to take a little break from current content. The thing is, there is no current content.

[@Estheriam]

I still haven’t touched the Shadowbringers or Endwalker Deep Dungeons. Just not content that I enjoy since I just do not enjoy the Leveling process. Both types of Dungeon spam or FATEs. I’d far sooner touch the Criterion dungeons because at least they are fairly fun, but not many runs needed for what I want to grab. But between irl time and money constraints, how mid the Dawntrail’s 7.0 story was compared to previous .0 stories, and the fact that I can chat with my FC on discord instead of in game means as long as 1 FC member stays subbed, we keep our Large house. I’ve played Helldivers 2 more with my FC than I have FFXIV so far.

[@Bismarck9871]

Same i lognin mostly to keep my house funny when a game punishes you for taking a break even yoshi-p say that taking breaks from the game is fine but if you own a house you can't do that or you lose it

[@tylernunes8248]

so there is content in the game for you to do, you just dont wanna do it lol

[@jalea5298]

@@tylernunes8248did you only read half of my comment

[@starscorpia4005]

I still believe they should do relics as they did in arr and hw where you get step one with release and they are something to keep you busy i'd take having to grind fates for all its worth just give me a reason to play if i'm not into endgame content

[@Aeon373]

Here's what I do. New expansion cones out, I buy it then finish msq, get to max level and get decent gear for the time and unsubscribe. Log into my free trail account and play until the end cycle of the expansion then subscribe again and now I have everything available for me.

[@planeswalkerpain8854]

@AzuriteTV Thank you for the beautiful FFXI backround music :)

[@msol930]

bring back range stance like how it was in 3.0 having to dealing cast times to give up your free movement for 10-15%% dmg for all 3 jobs it gives more casual player the option to not use stance to have free movement that would put Mch in the realm of a melee dps and they would have to bring back old wildfire that was able to crit and DH

[@bendonatier]

I'm honestly shocked that we didn't get our criterion on the odd numbered patch. I feel like the even number is for gearing and the odd number is for using that gear. I guess Chaotic took it's place but still.

[@kairesu5847]

I became a raid logger, savage - done , FRU progging (very fun) , other ultimates in PF are almost dead currently. AR is content thats done in a couple hrs , extreme trials are also done within a couple hrs (unless u farm the mount or 99 totems) The dungeons are fine yet i dont see them as "exciting content" anymore due to being it always the same linear style. On the social side, i feel like from almost 200 people maxxed friendlist, some i havent seen in more than a year other dont log on or flatout quit cuz the content is SO thinly spread out (just as blizzard does to keep you subbed :) ) Balancing stuff in FF is off the chart for years by now and i personally do not believe they will ever balance stuff correctly and lets not even talk about the horrible 2min gameplay where i as ast almost ignore all the other cards except king/queen and the dps cards.

[@LuminateTheWorld]

hate to say it, but in regards to friends not logging in, that's called time. there isn't a single person from the original fc i joined that plays anymore. I've had people come and go from my friends list so many times, but i continue to run into new people. some become good friends and we end up doing more then just 14 together, others is just random fc talk here and there. The people you know today may not be the people you know tomorrow. that's just how life in general is, and communities and the people you know in a game isn't any different. It's all people behind the characters you interact with after all. Also- astro main here. idk why you feel that, but the only card i find really useless is the arrow card. Every other card has had it's benefits in all content minus dungeons really. Especially in Fru where i'm using every card i get on the tanks so they survive just a bit easier, thus making my life easier. hard to believe you ignore all cards except the dps ones then talk about progging Fru. seems a bit counterproductive. If you really want to talk about something that needs a hard rework or just removed, synastry is up for the task there.

[@patrickginart1780]

With regards to the content releases taking as long as it does, it's another instance where if Square would invest even some of the money 14 generates back into the game instead of using it to make up for their other games that flop or fund shit nobody asked for like Foamstars, we could theoretically maybe have the team hire more people and either get content out faster or maybe have them develop smaller scale stuff to occupy us in between major patches. Like actual events that are more than just talking to like 3 NPC's and getting a reward

[@CrossaIicious]

It also doesn't help that the community aggressively self censors whenever someone tries to bring this up with the good old "you're not supposed to play every day, even Yoshi has said so!!!". Guess what? I DO want to play every day. I CARE because I LOVE this game and watching stuff like PvP turn into what it is now with bogged down skill sets compared to what we had has taken pretty much my main game modes away.

[@lorebiter]

I might resub once more of the raids and also the solo-friendly content comes out since I like to alternate between them depending whether I'm wanting a challenge or to just relax for a bit. I quickly ran out of anything interesting to do when Dawntrail came out and haven't touched it in months.

[@liger0jps]

you missed one thing that everyone keeps forgetting. SE stated they wont nerf a job again, then double back to buff it. Especially after EW with reaper it came strong then got nerfed then buffed back to be in line with other jobs. Especially after all the backlash they suffered for that. Lets not forget the backlash from P8S when a few jobs was so undertuned that they couldnt clear P8S mainly WAR/MCH/RDM. but maybe im just that 1 DRK sitting in the corner that be like do people forget the past. And the double job lowers lb gain was more less 50/50 half on FRU and the other half for older ultimates. Plus SE really does fail with trying to balance and bring up lower jobs.

[@post-mastersodium3136]

I'm so torn on how I feel about picto. Obviously it's unbalanced, not really trying to touch on that It's one of the most unique jobs we have right now, which I love. And I've seen how the devs react, and hope if they make changes, they don't just turn it into summoner 2.0. obviously it's uniqueness is why it shines extra in ultimate content, over its normal OPness. I just really, really hope they can get it more in line with where it should be, without doing the dumb thing of changing how it plays One other thing that I would find hilarious though, is if they intentionally made picto so OP just because of the original backlash it got, and the idiots who said " I'm going to ban picto from my parties because it doesn't fit what I think ff should be"

[@riel0563]

All roads lead to SMN.

[@Akionobu]

as someone who only does extremes in the scope of harder content, i am excited for the chaotic raid. Reward structure is also already better than it was in endwalker (glamour weapons being a rare drop treasure maps motivate me to run a few maps each week, multiple mounts for nuts and mount tokens) I just wish for something that keeps my attention that justifies my sub. Currently i am busy leveling all my jobs to level 100. Can't wait for the new field exploration and i hope cosmic exploration is fun as well. Im glad the hardcore raiders are eating well with all the extremes, savages, ultimates and chaotics, but the casual/midcore fans are getting breadcrumps at the moment. I don't think DT is a bad expansion, but in terms how content is released makes dawntrail feel lackluster. I hope this opinion changes later in the expansion, but im already dreading 8.0 knowing a lot of content i want to do will simply not be in the game for a year after the new expansion launch. (also did try savage and cleared the first 2 fights, but pf is frustrating with prog liars and I don't want to commit to a static)

[@SheonEver]

WHY would pictomancer do more damage than black mage in the first place? I also find it annoying that viper does a samurai's damage, but retains full mobility, which I thought the lack of was imposed on samurai to justify the big numbers, like how black mage used to be able to do the most, because they were anxiously stuck in their leylines. Whoever's doing the balance now is not doing a very good job, and has arguably created a two-tier job system -- bring and don't bring if possible.

[@Noah-gn2gu]

Wish there was also discussion about how 2 of every jobs' new action slots were wasted on role action buffs, and tanks and healers had 1 action that was just a role-wide animation change and potency buff. Tanks and healers essentially only got 2 job actions for the next 2-3 YEARS. It's unacceptable with how much the subscription costs. Enhanced Rampart on DRK especially just feels like a kick in the face (what self healing am I supposed to be buffing here?). I'd take Enhanced Unmend 2 and 3 over Enhanced Reprisal/Rampart.

[@DarkDyllon]

brain dead take here for the most part. wish we got more, but to add more they need to actually start combining buttons to make it feasible on controller. for example since i'm on controller, i'm playing with 2 hotbars, that's 32 buttons and ALL OF THEM ARE FILLED, but sure, add more buttons to it. but saying "enhanced rampart on drk especially just feels like a kick in the face" buddy, if you're a warrior and you use Rampart specifically for the healing buff along with bloodwhetting you must really re evaluate yourself. that buff isn't for you specifically, it's for the healers healing your sorry non sustain ass, it's literally that simple. (also saying you rather take enhanced unmend over either a longer Reprisal or an enhanced Rampart is such an L take)

[@shiro12okami69]

@@DarkDyllonyeah I’m a Controller player aswell and adding more buttons to jobs is definitely not rly doable to be fair. The game was originally designed for console and hence controller players which means they are very well aware of the situation

[@networknomad5600]

@@DarkDyllonWeird take outta you, considering every other MMO manages to offer way more job updates and significantly more content per expansion than XIV.

[@Noah-gn2gu]

​@@DarkDyllon I play on controller too lmfao. Yes, I get button bloat but they are actively giving us actions behind actions already. Also, traits exist. And traits are good. There are a hundred thousand ways they can add traits. That's why I said I'd rather take Enhanced Unmend 2 and 3. Traits can make gameplay more interesting and make you feel more powerful without changing button bloat. The DRG treatment would also be nice, some basic combos are really aging. "If you're a Warrior and use Rampart specifically for the healing" my man, it doesn't matter if you use it specifically for the healing. It's GOING to overlap with your healing. Let me break it down for you. Tanks' healing is relatively balanced. It's also proportional to the amount of mit you have. WAR has the least mit and the most healing, GNB has the least healing and the most mit. DRK has the second highest healing potential with the second least mit. In otherwords, WAR gains a lot just from that passive buff while GNB doesn't gain all that much. So then DRK should gain a lot right? Except, no. Because the MAJORITY of DRK's self healing is from TBN. And guess what? That scales off HP not potency. And on top of that, Abyssal is a 60 second CD that you *probably* won't ever get in the buff unless you intentionally try. Compare that to Bloodwhetting with an 8s duration and a 24s CD. It's going to fall into that 20s healing buff whether you try or not. So yes, the buff is at least half as efficacious on DRK when DRK needed the buff the most, meanwhile WAR got the most out of it while needing it the least. You're seriously going to argue that such an egregious and biased ani-synergy is excusable? Even so, the point is job identity not balance lol. Having 3 out of 5... having MORE actions be role upgrades than unique changes to the job is just ridiculous. It's inexcusable. You know what we *didn't* need? A healing potency buff at level 94 lol. You know what we did need? More job identity and fantasy. It doesn't matter if it's useless, anything to feel like my job is a unique job instead of role actions. At the very least, they could have made Rampart upgrade into a unique version of itself again, like it used to be. DRK should have been given a 15% Thrill effect instead of a 15% healing increase. There is zero reason or excuse for it to just be "Enhanced Rampart" at level 94 when people pay over $100 a year to be subbed. They can pay to put some thought into it and pay artists to give it a unique animation.

[@DarkDyllon]

@@networknomad5600 I do want more job updates, but concidering I already filled 32 slots (including pot) means I can't realistically add more, I could add the extended hotbar, but I tried it for a bit and by god, is it horrible to combine with double tapping L2 or R2. if they combines some more buttons it would've been fine tbh.

[@hypnotic13371337]

We need to stop buying the expac on release and wait till the last 5 months of release to get it. They keep having all of these "Back of the box" features for the expansion like: New Bozja like, V&C dungeons again, Cosmic explorations, chaotic 24 man raids! But what they DONT advertise about it is that most of this stuff is 6-8+ MONTHS out from LAUNCH. The fact that we know next to nothing about cosmic exploration after it was announced like, what, a year ago at this point? is fucking terrible. We aren't gonna get info on it until like, 3 months before it releases. Which feels like about the time when they ACTUALLY start working on the friggen thing

[@PlatinumzProductionZ]

Actually, they do advertise the content will not be available at the launch of the expansion. The stuff they showcase for the expansion is stuff they'll have released over the entire course of the expansion until the next one. This is not new information for the playerbase.

[@VashimuXIV]

My own feelings mirror a fair bit of yours Azu, obviously not to the same sort of degree as being someone more experienced or with high end raiding, but that sentiment of wanting to play but struggling of things to do is absolutely what I’m feeling myself. My relationship with XIV as of now has been put on the back burner in the past few weeks, not because I am growing unhappy with the game or that I think it’s going in a bad direction, but because I’ve grown more accustomed to playing other games and doing other things than forcing myself to play a game that I still love, but don’t want to treat like a job and just do the same things repeatedly day in and out. I’m not unhappy with Dawntrail, but to say it’s exactly in a great state would just be lying to myself. But I don’t want to beat a dead horse, I will go back and knock more things off my bucket list like achievements and Cloud of Darkness Chaotic once the festive season has died down. I still love XIV, and I always will no matter the case, so I don’t ever want to just completely burn myself out and cancel my sub over an issue in the short term. I still believe in Dawntrail’s future, and I hope it pans out well. Just my two cents.

[@YaddyHyrule]

Man I wish I could find people to do high end duties with lol. Every time I've ever tried to do one, it becomes a teaching session that either ends in 15 minutes with people rage quitting because the mechs are too hard, or it takes so long the duty timer expires and we get booted out. And then I see FFXIV content creators on youtube who near-unanimously say things like "I love doing ultimate content" or their gameplay footage is of them doing DT's high-end EX trial (not named to avoid spoilers for you all out there) or ultimate raids or whatever else. And it's like...where do you guys even come from lol

[@twistydrk]

i've never pf'd ultimates (nor do i want to), but pf EXs are pretty easy to drop in and out off. It takes like 1 lockout in a learning party to clear and then farm parties fill up pretty quickly.

[@YaddyHyrule]

@@twistydrk well, EX's aren't high-end duties lol. except for the one DT trial.

[@twistydrk]

@@YaddyHyrule well i mean all EXs are "high end duties" on the patch they release in lol, its pretty much the same pf experience imo

[@KailithDragon]

just another person thinking final fantasy is the only game they are allowed to play

[@KenwickVenture]

Maybe it's just me but the boss movement thing is really not that big of a deal, not trying to say your experience is wrong it's just more like I would prefer to have more unique mechanics that can only be done by tanks. Maybe it's because tanks are the only ones who can mitigate said mechanic or it has something to do with aggro. I like boss movement don't get me wrong it's just I also don't hold it as highly as some other FF tanks seem to hold it.

[@yarran3511]

I get the story complaints (not a fan of what they did there either) and i am lucky that i started only a year ago so i have content and do some experts after my raiding party fell apart i stopped doing playing for awhile with the new raid i came back. I am doing DRS regulary and enjoy that content alot i did level eureka you know doing "OLD" content and the Raid. My fav DRS community is interested in chaotic so i made sure i am prepared as best as possible without savage. NOW i have hopes for a nice chaotic prog till the new Fieldoperation. And i must say i am lucky i have the older content otherwise i would have stopped playing. The job guide are fair points but i am not a Raider so i can talk about that. I am just happy they gave GNB and DRK some physical resistance to their MITs Healing i can agree Tanking well yeah it feels like all tanks soon will be a WAR in a different color I mean old summoner sounded cool and new Summoner is Braindead... But i am here since the end of EW and beginning of DT what do i know?!

[@Youkesama]

Okay this FF11 music is making me feel nostalgic !! anyway.. I do agree on some of your takes regarding Dawntrail.. but Picto is not the issue and I have to disagree.. get rid of taxing classes and fix summoner and rdm and let them be on bar with picto and bring Storm Blood class balance back please !

[@nopon9992]

It's been so bad that half of the PFs that do FRU beond p2 all log picto(ligth EU) it never been this bad not even when ninja were op. I love the combat content of dawntrial but being outincluded cause of "meta". Sadly even half a year later and it is still this much more overperforming

[@australeo]

My incredibly scorching hot take is that at this point I rather have TP back and I main a MNK. I will be the one getting fucked hard if TP comes back but I prefer to suffer that than having this lukewarm balancing that we have now. It is so sad that Physical Ranged means absolutely nothing now, I've played since ARR as well back when if you had a good BRD in your party it was a god send, I miss that feeling. Even if every now and then I had to type "please play your songs" because I was TP starved and useless, I still take that over this sort of bland party experience we have now. The same goes to Healers having to actually heal and make hard choices to when to DPS, nowadays you rarely have to stop and heal you can just weave one of the 15435115 ogcds every healer has in between you boring little dps filler. Right now the game is just, boring and unrewarding for almost everyone but the top 1%.

[@Draylin41]

Not enough midcore content is a complaint I've heard from a lot of FF14 creators. While I don't think the casual or hardcore communities shouldn't get plenty of content, I feel myself and a ton of other players fall in that middle and have to wait way too long to get the kind of content each expansion that we can really engage with. If anything, they should do more to make sure there's some cool repayable content that has a bit of challenge at the start of the expansion to keep player interest. MSQ and anything related to it has been far too easy for a long time and just makes me feel like I don't deserve the praise the NPCs tend to lob my way. On the flip side, my work schedule is too busy for me to want to commit to Savage or Ultimate raiding every week so there's not a lot of new content that caters to me. I get more out of past expansions than I do out of DT at the moment, spending a lot of my free time learning how to solo Deep Dungeons cause that's something I can do that falls in-between the two extremes.

[@insomniaxd3378]

For your comment on whether mch should be in line with other melee dps. I would argue against this. The reason imo why Mch shouldn't do melee levels of damage is be because it is ranged and has full movement, no need to worry about mechanics that mess with uptime etc. What I would propose is change mch from being selfish and make it bring more utility. Maybe give it a raid buff like other phys range or give it additional raid defensive tools

[@stclaws]

I don't find the lack of lower end content to be a problem right now. As a developer, it is staggeringly difficult to be able to keep the content cycle they had. 3.5 months per major patch is a tiny amount of time in the grand scheme of things, especially to have things polished. The raid series are not that bad to do in the grand scheme of things, but things like the exploration zones are gigantic, and require a good amount of testing and coding for them. I cannot, as a developer blame them on the time to make or timing on when things release. The only way it would make sense is if they massively expanded the teams, both development and QA, to account for it, but that balloons the costs of the game. Shareholders will not allow a game to massively increase costs without showing verifiable proof that they will get a return on it, and not just speculation that they will.

[@NabsterHax]

I think honestly most people are still feeling the effects of EW having no exploration zone and generally less new battle content as they were prioritising updates to the old dungeons and such. DT is set to have both an exploration zone and limited job on top of what we got in EW. We are getting more content this expansion, it's just still not here yet, unfortunately.

[@rizzy9000]

picto being highest dps is not the issue tho it really doesnt matter wat job is overpowered, but i do agree a weaker job like mch/smn shud get buffed asap to be closer to overpowered jobs, the main issue with ff14 is the lack of meaningful/fun repeatable content aka grindy content that u can do to work on something like glamours/relic/emotes/mounts/hairstyles etc. what ff14 really need right now is more content like the chaotic alliance raid and criterion dungeons, the devs should focus on making more of those type of content on frequent basis or give exploration zone earlier to get ppl invested in it, ff14 needs quantity over quality atm

[@MadamePianissima]

What people complain about "LE CLUNKY" are actually complaining about soul.

[@TobinatorTx]

Patches take too long that is painfully true! Can nothing but agree. Dawntrail story was kinda mid ngl, but if you look a bit closer then Dawntrail might become the very best expansion! With all the content we gonna get it beats out every single other expansion already. The Chaotic giving new best in slot is also huuuge! Never had anything like that. My opinion is still that the field exploration zone shouldve been released with 7.1. That will probably be the content taking up most of the time, so releasing it early wouldve been the correct decision. Also personally i think Picto is completely fine now. In full uptime fights it is in line with the other jobs now and gets dethroned in sone fights, too. Picto is just heavily profiting from downtime. Ultimates tend to have a lot of downtime, so naturally Picto is busted there. However i think that Picto cannot simply be nerfed. Potency nerfs would just make it a mediocre job in full uptime fights. Picto cant be nerfed without going at its uniqueness, which would in turn "destroy" the job unfortunately. Finding the time to do the paintings is its identity and it so happens that it gives Picto an edge during downtime. What i could see the devs do tho is give other dps a dedicated downtime tool. Again if they just potency buff the other jobs picto will be in line with them in ultimates, but Picto will be behind in full uptime fights... The problem is way more complicated this time. Everyone wants unique job design, Picto is what you get when the devs give you unique job design! Now people scream for homogenization again. I dont get it.

[@jkelleyk]

@@TobinatorTx it’s because it will always be impossible to please everyone, and the minority always speaks the loudest, I personally think Pictomancer is in a fine spot and love how it plays, the only thing I would do is knock somewhere between 100-300 off the Living Muse abilities and Mog of the Ages/Retribution of the Madeen While also buffing classes like SMN/BLM/MCH that are being wholly denied entrance to raids over just bringing a second melee or 2nd Pictomancer despite LB generation hit

[@TobinatorTx]

@@jkelleyk i completely agree with you. Maybe nerf the raidbuff to 3% instead of keeping it at 5%. Picto is the best designed job since ages

[@NabsterHax]

Picto is not fine now. It just breaks the difficulty balancing of the ultimate. If you have a Picto, you can clear DPS checks even if one of your players is AFK and that makes a big difference when it means you can survive a death vs one mistake ending your pull, which is what happens if you don't run a Picto. I agree with you that they'll have to get creative with solutions to balance it appropriately, though. But it really can't stay like it is or every ultimate from here on will be horribly unbalanced by Picto's presence.

[@TobinatorTx]

@NabsterHax my group is overkilling p1 in FRU and has to hold damage and yes i play picto, but having one member afk and be fine is very overexaggerated. We struggle with p1 enrage if a tank takes a damage down. If it is a dps then we will actually enrage unless the dps runs into the wall to get rid of the damage down. Having played this game for 10 years now i know exactly what will happen. Picto will never get nerfed (as was already stated by the devs) instead they will keep buffing all other jobs and next expansion Picto's unique design gets axed completely and it gets homogenized to be in line with everything else.

[@NabsterHax]

@@TobinatorTx Meanwhile, if you aren't running Picto, any mistake is pretty much GG. Being able to clear enrage whilst making a mistake even as severe as a DPS death is a MAJOR advantage in prog. It's fine if they buff all the other jobs up to Picto's level, because then they when they balance the ultimates around groups that aren't running Picto, having a Picto won't break the difficulty.

[@Shadow_Ronin200]

My main issue with tanking is the fact that you are pretty much a dps with high defences i mean where's the boss management that a tank should have like your a tank your supposed to take charge and control the fight not just sit around waiting for the next mechanic too come up i mean its a blue role not one of these red beta roles that starts crying because they die to a mech

[@CressLive]

if you give mch the same dmg as a melee you will just take 3 mch because they do the same damage but don't suffer from disconnecting from bosses, this was the issue back when boss hitboxes were much smaller and ranged jobs did a lot of damage so they had to tax the ranged jobs for the fact that they can stand out at the wall and still have uptime. maybe not a big deal now that boss hitboxes are huge but why play a melee when you can do equal or more damage on a ranged job

[@Ratikal_]

Great rant about boss positioning. If you want some of that magic back, try PotD or HoH solo. The later floors require a lot of situational and positional awareness. Don't bother with EO. It's the same kind of slop being released today.

[@The_vataru_guy]

Hard disagree with the MCH thing. I'm a MCH/BRD main and Machinist shouldn't ever deal the same amount of damage as melee or casters. That's a wrong take, that seemingly has been parroted way too much by the community lately. Machinist as a job, indeed is a selfish DPS, however it doesn't share aspects of other roles that would justify it dealing damage as high as them. MCH doesn't have to fight for the uptime the way melees do. Machinist doesn't have positional requirements. Machinist doesn't have casts that are present in most of the casters. Machinist doesn't have a damage buff that needs to be fed by your teammates to bring your rdps up. Machinist doesn't have any proc-RNG in their kit, and also provides crit/dh on demand with reassemble. Lastly, MCH has a very straight forward rotation, that can be learned by heart and repeated every pull just the same. Once you learn how to optimize the number of your 600p tools and gauge management leading to 100 battery queens in your team's buff, you're golden. If we suddenly bring MCH to a level of a Samurai or Black Mage, that's just bad design and the consequences will be terrible for everyone. Does MCH, or phys ranged in general, need help? That's for sure, but saying that it needs to deal the same amount of damage as other jobs, while putting 25% of the effort into it's gameplay is just wrong and we should really stop repeating this whole thing. MCH shines in uncoordinated scenarios and brings quite nice value when played with people that are not on top of their game. Personally I had many situations when I didn't enrage Savage fights and Ultimate phases only because I was a MCH and not my trusty Bard, cause the dps players I played with, would not feed the two minute buffs of my musician. Let's not forget about the Dismantle's value as well. MCH needs either a rework or proper buff, to make it in line with other jobs, but saying it needs to deal the same damage as melee or casters is delusional and kind of throws the whole conversation about the job design out the window. It proves that the person has no idea what would be good for the game in general. All that being said, I do believe that SE needs to address the issue of phys ranged. What I would personally want to see, is their fight design ideology being changed. Let's implement mechs that only phys ranged can do actively. Let's say mechs that require players to kite certain enemies while still keeping up the uptime, something among these lines. What I love about my MCH and BRD is that I have total freedom of dealing damage in combat. Why couldn't we play into this strength a little bit more? We already have them trying that in the current alliance raid, on the third boss. Let's focus on that. If not, just bring the numbers slightly up. Althought, I do believe that Bard is in a pretty good spot all things considered. @edit Typos

[@LuminNox]

MCH used to have a raid buff and had a stance that turned it into a caster in HW. I miss those days sometimes. They could also easily give it the pvp treatment and make its GCDs casts that can still be used while moving but at a slower movemen speed. That way it needs to position itself and that would justify getting dps on par with melees to a certain degree.

[@The_vataru_guy]

@@LuminNox That would be really interesting, I'd be down to see the "PVP movement".

[@luniers4629]

Also if you want SE to take note of what you think should happen, they don't go on KZbin. post the transcribe on the forums.

[@shukuffxi]

>laughs in FFXI. That's what the faded NPC in Jeuno who's like "DRK... DRG... SAM..." It's the format of the jobs no one wanted to invite to a party and started their own but could never get the other jobs lol. Also the whole DRG PUP BST and so on. But XI had niche areas for all of them too. XIV is just every class being essentially identical except for WF progressing barely. Come to think of it the utility in XI for DPS jobs was often game changing based on what you're doing. You have non-tank DRK working as main tank and support him in crazy ways so you can drain TP from the boss so it can't do devastating TP moves while being the only melee DPS. BSTs could hold ads or apply rare debuffs that stacked with other stuff that normally nothing stacked with. In XIV... it's all the same: do your rotation, use utility at scripted times.

[@mosselyn5081]

You know, I pulled up this video expecting that most of what you talked about wouldn't be relevant to me as someone who does not do high end content, but, wow, I agreed with everything you said! Very relevant across a wide range of players and play styles. I hope that Square breaks out of this stale mold they have for what they release and when they do it because from what I can see, it's not working very well ATM.

[@Ennasalin]

The only thing PCT did was to show how awful the game design was and how old-fashioned/ rigid the previous jobs were. PCT design is how every class/ role should be. Able to adapt and perform well regardless of type of content. Savage, EX, normal, or Ultimates which PCT absolutely delivers.

[@AutoAlligator]

I don't understand why job balance patches are so few and far between. It is not difficult to increase/decrease potencies or cooldowns which is pretty much all job balancing seems to be. Did they just fire all the play-testers after the launch of DT? (Tbh they should have been fired releasing Picto as clearly untested as it was). The difficulty is not with the quality of the content but the incredibly slow rate at which it is released. The inability to capitalise on the very successful release of DT is a rookie mistake and while quality content does take time to produce one would imagine SE has the resources to do so in a timely fashion. It all just looks a bit amateurish.

[@DarkDyllon]

the other issue is that they're doing all the testing INTERNALLY instead of involving the community in this. why not make a PTS for some changes, say "this will have the changes, play around with it in current content and see how it performs" then by that data adjust it, try again for a week orso. but the real reason they don't do this is because that would put more people out of a job, since then the job balancing teams would become completely irrelevant within 3-4 weeks tops.

[@kraidy117]

Even tho I've been having a ton of fun with the gameplay content so far, more then I did with SHB and Endwalker at the same timeframe(even if I think 5.0 and 6.0 where better written), I still really agree with this video. The content draught between 5.2 and 5.3 showed that their content schedule needed to change, and the fact that it didn't but they made the wait longer with Endwalker is a very bad call. Nothing to say on PCT that hasn't already been said.

[@6-1-1]

I agreed with this take so much. I love field operations so much and when i first did Bozja day 1 of release, it was the best content i have done in ffxiv and i met so many great ppl because of that content. So someone who loved old school mmos, this type of content made me love FFXIV. I cant wait for the new Field operations but im kinda frustrated i gotta wait so long still....

[@ohdoggy]

What most people don't get is that this is first and foremost a final Fantasy game thats in an mmo format, its not a mmo with ff skins, the really issue here is that everyone moans and slats their opinions on here, on discussion boards and where ever else someone might want to listen and yoshi hears you, but ff used to just make a good game, with a good story, you either liked it or you didn't, now they try to cater to as much of the player base as possible and its impossible to make someone happy without upsetting another in this world, this is akin too reading harry Potter or lord of the rings and after finishing a chapter, you think you can tell the authors how they should right their books, the simple fact remains though, this game is designed to milk people of subs and there is a hell of a lot more casuals than folks like in this vid, go play a solo ff and come back, remind yourself what these games are actually about and not what you think they should be about

[@black-velvet98]

I want the try the Chaotic Raid for the rewards, but I hope it's not as bad as Savage...I've done some EX from time to time, but Savage is not something I enjoy or am good at.

[@Wastingsometimehere]

The answer to why the focus is the way it is has a lot to do with who is the most vocal on social media and forums. Manly MSQ players and high end raiders.

[@nyappynen]

An honest question - why are people ignoring the fact that picto is not top dps on any fight outside of M2S when it comes to full uptime since 7.1 release? It is thousands of logs, blm and pct are very close to each other in all metrics and other jobs are higher dps on average. People were crying to fix it, and in all uptime situations it performs similarly to the job it competes for its slot with but people tend to ignore that data, and balancing a job based on exactly one fight that most people will never do makes very little sense, especially when there are clears without it from week 1.

[@baaldagon1755]

because otherwise they can't complain and rant about how much of a problem it is

[@Khalith]

I love msq and gameplay. I do savage (cleared everything on content since I started savage in stormblood) and FRU is my first ultimate. The gameplay and encounter design are fun but I fond the story lacking. For pct, I recall reading about how it needed to spend gcd’s doing no damage. I actually thought pct would launch underpowered, struggling during movement phases and unable to cast their absurdly long cast time stuff. Bro I was completely and utterly 100% wrong about that.

[@theazuredemon4854]

I'm actually wanting you to make a Dark Knight rework discussion, where you go over what you think DOES work for Dark Knight currently and how it can be improved, and what DOESN'T work which requires an expansion level re-work that might somehow also requires a mid-expansion require if there is not enough time to implement all of the changes such a rework requires. But other than that Leveling experience sucks because you're only allowed to start having WAY after level 50 and that is depending on the job, or can just do A Realm Reborn content only as a Samurai because ever since Kaiten got removed Samurai has lost a LOT of its burst damage, and I'm sick and tired of spamming Shinten and pretending it's Kenki "management" when it might as well be called the "don't overcap your Shinten" gauge... Don't even get me started on Dragoons losing a jump skill because the developers set a VERY dangerous precedent going forward with Dragoon...

[@WillofGreed]

what is it people want nerfed about pcto tho cuz most just say "its too strong" (who havnt played the class) so they cant give an actual answer over what you feel would need to change (Hammer shouldnt be 100% CDH, either 100% crit, 100% DH , or none at all but defo not both)

[@LuminNox]

They need potency nerfs in general. What makes picto so strong is that it absolutely loves downtime. When there's down time in a fight you can time your paints for that to then have all your high potency attacks back up. No other job can really do that and this is a reason why picto carries so hard in FRU. On top of that it also does really well in uptime fights even though this should be its weakness. This savage tier most fights are (almost) full uptime and picto is still one of the best jobs to bring. So overall - dps wise - picto feels like it's 2 tiers above any other job and that's just not good for balancing and that's why people want it to be nerfed.

[@akridx5712]

Same, as healer main and MCH main. I feel slighted as all hell. Least I also main WAR and RDM. Hope nothing bad happens to em. But WAR has been too good for too long, they prolly gonna F it up sooner or later.

[@cowless]

Pshhh, I love picto, no problems here lmao Jokes aside though i have no problem if they nerf picto. I just like how it plays and also i like it because I'm an artist irl. So whatever balance they need to do I'm all for it.

[@MayonakaMiracle]

I'll say I've definitely been feeling the issue with content as a more of a midcore player. I love the dungeons in DT and the raids are overall a step above what we received with EW but It feels like I've been spinning my wheets a lot which in one sense has been nice since it's allowed me to expand my horizons and clear two older ultimates and the previous expac's savage tiers but that also feels like me desperately trying to find anything exciting to do.

[@chelsthegameruiner8669]

I'm worried about the chaotic alliance raid activity because of this recent fixation on a "meta." I'm locked in with Machinist, and I already know I'm probably gonna have to deal with players saying I should play Bard or Dancer (Bard I'll play but I despise Dancer). I'm not a meta chasing beast like the high end groups who salivate over numbers and probably use third party tools to tell them mechanics. I just play to have fun, not to make the game into a chore like Destiny 2

[@LittleSparklingStars]

Picto broke meta so hard. If you have sge whm vpr mch suddenly you gotta pot p1 in FRU. While with a picto buff comp, you have to hold dps for cooldowns.

[@maybayV2]

No ones gonna care what you play outside of FRU.

[@luniers4629]

I never understood why scholar got expedient. Should have been an upgrade for Bard. also bard has dismantle and tactician. So them doing more dmg than a dragoon would not be great, but close it would be nice. I don't play it, but I know many love it. They need to take away the heal from Pictomancer. It should be special to Redmage and summoner. Tank stance needs to be changed into an active spell.

[@NoBody-hw6se]

The lack of positioning for bosses is so real. Tanking is imo the most boring role in the current meta. Healing is stressful at least to heal the party, and DPS is obviously the main focus and fun. Tanking is either completely brain-dead or...semi-braindead.

[@devxved]

Black mage will live on my friends. Our machinist brothers and sisters will get their day too.

[@DarkDyllon]

it's funny how they repeated the same mistake they made in Stormblood, they made some jobs so much worse than their counterparts that the community on mass has decided to exclude them. on Light DC in FRU, Picto is outright locked in now, with MCH and BLM being completely excluded, if a party accepts a single melee, that melee won't be Viper either, since Viper is dogshit in P1 and P2 of FRU due to all the downtime. the only reason why BRD and DNC are still seeing a spot in PF is because they made a change in 7.1 to passive LB generation, so taking 2 picto's will make you miss LB's, which was literally done so that they don't have to nerf picto and can push the problem further back.

[@luckystarlight]

Personally I am sick to death of the party finder. With the new chaotic alliance raid, i groaned seeing it would be in the raid finder. Yet another bullshit where we have to sit in party finder and idk.... craft.... for an hour until it fills. So tired of it.

[@bolladragon]

The problem is pictomancer's not actually overpowered in raw math, current fight design just plays too well with PCT's ability to stack bursts during moments no one else can during downtime. Fight design is also the reason Physical Range is suffering, too. The fundamental advantage of always being able to do damage even melee jobs can't reach or casters can't cast hasn't been an advantage in the vast majority of combat instances with so many wall bosses. Conversely, Machinist is absolutely cracked in Deep Dungeon content.

[@eternalinsignia]

This is FALSE. Picto has been known even in savage is freaking strong. They basically bring what other caster cannot give without any downside. FFlogs basically show this. Picto just head apart from SMN and RDM. Their RDPS is the same with BLM RDPS (BLM does not have buff mind you) which basically unacceptable. Now why in savage people not bitching ? Because even though Picto is strong, the content can be cleared with any job. There is no difference between bringin picto and SMN as the timing of different only mere 1 minute max. Now FRU is other beast. Each phase basically has their own enrage. Without picto, you will need to pot to even clear p1 or p2. Now that is the problem.

[@LordPlagus777]

That "good for you" towards people who don't like the story is so passive aggressive and just dismisses a huge issue people are finding with a part of the game that's as valuable as any other. if not even more so. People get a special pass to absolutely disrespect people who have problems with the writing.

[@networknomad5600]

The writing is garbage, anyone who likes this shit deserves a fucked up game.

[@Bwooke]

i personally really liked the story, it was a breath of fresh air, a nice reprieve from the doom and gloom a bit. i still don't know what it was people had issues with, beyond hearing "i didn't like how it wasn't about *me* the main character" which im not saying everyone thinks, but ive heard a number of times.

[@yeahnahmate7]

Touch grass

[@TheLastWatchmen]

he sounded super feminine, can't stand that type of approach

[@cizzymac]

It seems you're allowed to complain about anything wrong with the game except the terrible MSQ. "Good for you." Yes, it is "good for me", because I'm not the one making a video complaining about everything else about the game.

[@dorrianbrooks9408]

I honestly haven't felt the need to play after beating the MSQ in 7.0. I enjoyed the Arcadion, and I LOVE the Scholar goodies we got at lvl 100, but Im just not interested in doing hard content. I used to play a lot, but I was a casual at the end of the day, and the lack of anything to do outside of savage stuff is kind of a turn off. I cant even find true enjoyment in leveling other classes solely because I dont like the DPS queues, and, like you mentioned, Tanks are glorified melee DPS with more responsibilities and I prefer ranged(usually magical) classes/jobs. I haven't logged in for so long that I've been debating on canceling my subscription.

[@RaineSage074]

I do agree with you on PCT and ultimate, but savage it's #5, it's the boost of damage they get because of downtime that makes them strong. but continuous fights it seems fine now. and nerfing picto would make it on par with SMN and below RDM where they both bring more to the table utilitywise than PCT so that would also not work. if you look at the savage numbers now I think PCT is in the right spot. it's just the way the job is designed compared to ultimates with downtime that it is in the current situation. I do agree that some things on PCT just dont make sense like the heal on Star Prism that's usually not even utilized and the raidbuff they have could also just be your personal leylines like BLM have. I also agree with you on the MCH thing that it shuold be higher.

[@stormynight100]

Agreed, actual rDPS is balanced for PCT on vast majority of content which has full uptime. Support is where it has too much. Drop the ‘flavour’ heal on star prism, remove the spreadable shield(should never have been given it) and reduce raid buff to 3% while increasing basic spell potency slightly to compensate. On ultimates that is a design issue to address, nerfing one job across the board to fix it would be a mistake.

[@RaineSage074]

@@stormynight100 I agree with that, i wouldn't even be mad if they removed the raidbuff either. And like you said they can't really nerf a class because it's "broken in ultimates" without shafting it for the other content.

[@moowilliams731]

the long pauses between your takes, is hard to listen to in the long run, at first i thought it was a ongoing gag, but it's a way you speak, you have some good points, but gaarsh, it's hard to listen to.

[@nikos4817]

Hi Azurite love your content, thanks for making this I've been screaming it since DT launched. Picto fails like every single game dev 101 principle.