We Need To Talk About Job Design in FFXIV (ft.

[@owenjurk3]

As a melee dps main i just wish there was a little pling or ding when you hit a positional, theres no feedback if youre in a obscure position, it would actively encourage more dps to hit their positionals too

[@sharlayanforum]

🤔 ya know I've never thought about this but it would be nice. Some immediate feedback on hitting or missing a positional would create incentive and definitely make you more immediately aware of spots where you're missing out on free potency.

[@LS-cp2to]

Not to self report, but I use a mod to change the colour of the damage when I hit a positional. It does so much for moment-to-moment feedback/gameplay. Serves like no purpose other than feeling good. 100% with you here.

[@owenjurk3]

@@LS-cp2to 👀 may need to peep

[@OnlyBlix]

I really dislike sounds that make you aware you're playing a game, if that makes sense. I'd rather they changed the actual sound of the attack to make it "feel" like you're hitting harder.

[@hockey1973]

Something like that would have to be a toggle though. Some folks would be driven mad by the constant pinging IMO.

[@cutejustice]

I truly don’t think we need new jobs atm. I would prefer the team gives 100% of their attention to the current jobs to improve their identity and then introduce new jobs. If this expansion proved anything it’s that, even with 2 new jobs, it’s still difficult to overlook all the flaws of the prior classes.

[@sharlayanforum]

There's definitely some merit to that sentiment! I think, though, that having no new job on an expansion release would not go over very well for the developers. However, like we said, I really do think that we will probably only see one new job per expansion from now on, with a higher focus on creating more meaningful choices and identities for the jobs already present.

[@Canned_Corn_isgood]

They need to figure it out before the game goes stale. Never thought i'd say that, but my god am I bored with the jobs :(.

[@sharlayanforum]

I think some of the jobs feel great, most of them feel okay, and some of them feel actively bad. Almost all of them could be made to feel better, though, for sure.

[@Sweetwaterdream]

I've played the game all the way back through the jank of the job/subjob system of FFXI all the way through to FFXIV's current iteration (including FFXIV 1.0 for a number of months but before they introduced the jobs to that version). I am a career tank and for me the real hey day of the role was during 3.0 and 4.0 where tank stance dancing was the norm and it was genuinely quite interesting balancing defence and offensive stances (particularly with WAR and DRK although PLD kind of suffered a little but but was still perfectly viable but had to optimise being close to the enemy as much as possible under sword stance). The change that felt the worst for me was the simplification and streamlining of the tank and healer roles from 5.0. They did this with the promise of more interesting battle mechanics to make up for the simplification but I haven't felt or seen either so far and the additions to tanks in 6.0 and 7.0 were even more powerful defencive CDs (so we can be even more invincible) and another button or two to the offensive rotation (or revision of the rotation in the case of PLD). Hate management and defence/offense management effectively disappeared and I dont feel the battle mechanics have gotten more interesting. Job simplification helps encourage more people to take the role but once you get to the upper end, I dont feel there is any "moments of glory" for tanks...I just feel like I am a subpar dps that hold the mobs attention, absorb tank busters and provide some party defensives. Even things like cover got nerfed so that it wasnt really any fun to use anymore (I LOVED Hallowed ground + Cover (before the Cover nerf) on main tank...one of the unique things to bring PLD for) along with rarely needing to interrupt anything (Shield bash is still so incredibly pointless) or do anything else other than hit the mob like a wet noodle (compared to DPS) and shield the party. Fun is slowly being sapped from the role in the name of balance. While balance is great...I just feel like there isn't any excitement in the tank role anymore.

[@sharlayanforum]

Yeah, i think that changes to tanks in this game, specifically, have probably been overall net positives. However, we haven't been given any really unique and interesting tank mechanics that take advantage of those changes in any way. If they aren't going to leverage the changes to things like damage stance removal and aggro simplification, then they need to make those systems more interesting again.

[@scullzomben]

19:09 This is what I have been saying. I got pretty tired of people saying the level 100 dungeons were "soooo much harder" this time around. Once people got even the slightest bit of gear it has all been trivialized again.

[@sharlayanforum]

I think the 100 dungeons, and even the dungeon from 91-100, are slightly more interesting than the previous ones, but they certainly aren't any harder than others once you understand them.

[@talimpalim]

Reminds me of my run today with a warrior tank, I checked his gear after: savage raider. I know War heals themself, ofc, but this one was not in need of a healer 😂 I healed them ONCE and prob wasn't needed either. Great gear but damn, didn't know that was possible to that rate

[@jannemakela8107]

Biggest thing holding a Job design back is raid design. They decided to build every single extreme, savage and ultimate behind the same design: DPS check. When the raids have DPS check, it automatically force devs to make jobs on par DPS wise and that is the only deciding factor if Job is good or bad. They could make some jobs have more interesting skills like giving paladin more party shields and heals or make GNB ultimate dmg dealer, but ofc the GNB is going to be number one pick every single time bcs it has more DPS. Its just dumb when in the game with holy trinity tanks and healers are compared trough their dmg and not how they fill their specific role. Hard to say how DPS jobs could be made more interesting. Maybe have some pseudo tank/healer Jobs? I dont know.

[@sharlayanforum]

It's a tough nut to crack. I think that what I'd like to see depends on role... For tanks, I'd like to see more engaging mechanics in fights. Requiring a lot of cooldown coordination and fight knowledge while working closely with your co-tank to make sure everyone survives is the only way to make the role more engaging. Things like someone taking the Susanoo sword while the other tank had to hold ads, block projectiles, or soak some other mechanics come to mind as a good fit here. For Healers, I'd like to see the DPS rotation made into an actual rotation, not just 1 or 2 buttons, that feeds into your ability to heal. Things like landing combos increasing your gauge to spend on oGCD heals come to mind. This would create a sense of value in the dps rotations while still empowering players and still allowing them to hit GCD heals in panic moments. For DPS, I think burst windows and positionals just need changes for Melees. Everyone bursting at the same time feels boring and samey, and positionals having no real benefit outside of invisible potency boosts and zero visual/auditory feedback to the player make the main mDPS mechanic feel lost.

[@jannemakela8107]

@@sharlayanforum ive had exact same idea with healers, not having dps rotation is weird when every other job has it.

[@tyhjyys]

you hit the nail on the head

[@cftncfjlphgfb]

Yaaay, saw the collab on vit's channel earlier, so im excited for this one

[@sharlayanforum]

I appreciate you checking them both out!

[@GimmeTOKYO]

Two of my fave newer XIV content creators? Time to get some good food and sit down and watch❤

[@sharlayanforum]

@@GimmeTOKYO we're men of the people. 😎

[@ragingmonkey4592]

I definitely think they need to go more horizontal in job design and gearing. The thing that happens every time I pick up FFXIV is that I get nostalgic and just want to play FFXI. It happens to all of my friends who have played FFXI and I think the reason for this is the lack of actual choice. Most of us have stopped playing FFXI because of Odyssey/Sortie daily grind not feeling good anymore and being extremely time consuming. In FFXIV everything feels too safe and limited for the sake of balance/3 role DF system. I feel like we will not get any sort of super interesting job designs until we do away with the 3 role system hyper balance and 2 min burst design. I see that some of the jobs have abilities that seem to kinda cross roles, but they're limited to being sort of lack luster lest they upset the balance. The 2 min burst design is cool as it makes all things fall under buffs, but then becomes limiting once you've "filled the burst window" like they have now on most jobs. I would personally rather things be unbalanced if it brings us more interesting jobs.

[@sharlayanforum]

There definitely merits to both sides. Having stuff be super balanced is good because it truly means that you can just play whatever job you identify with the most. However, it does mean that everything feels sort of similar to keep that balance in check. I hope we land somewhere between total chaotic balance where things are actively shunned because of their performance and where we are now.

[@knockoutbat]

insane take: I don't think Yoshi-P fundamentally understands how to make gameplay feel like Final Fantasy. I see this in XIV and XVI. The gameplay he comes up with is absolutely solid, with room for improvement, but it's not Final Fantasy-y enough. The set dressing, the humor, the characters, the style, that's all Final Fantasy, but there's a bit of a lack of choices to make other than which ability are you using second, which is third, repeat. I think Pictomancer is the most successful job that feels very open to making choices and having options, and being able to account for that strategy feels good. Anyway when is puppetmaster

[@sharlayanforum]

I think there's definitely some merit to that idea, though I don't think it's that Yoshi-P and crew don't know *how* to make the game feel more FF, but that they don't know how to make it feel more FF *in a way that works in an mmo frame and that people will enjoy.* it's an uphill battle, but I feel that we're, at the very least, moving in the right direction. Puppetmaster when indeed, probably right after I die, knowing my luck.

[@SubduedRadical]

30:30 - I don't get the SMN hate. It's the only DPS Job in the game I really enjoy. I dabble in RDM and want to get better at it, but it's just so hard to actually track with the UI unless you smack the Job gauge in the middle of the screen. SMN is the one DPS Job in the game I like since there's little to track and the rotation is a closed loop that's easy to keep your place in. It's more like playing an ARPG like Zelda games or something where you aren't constantly looking at your hotbars at CDs or gauges or debuff/buff timers. You just can play the game. That's so fun to me and I wish there were more Jobs like it. The only other similar ones are Healers (Healer main here) and PLD, specifically, which also has a modular rotation like SMN, though you still have to monitor FoF/Req CDs. I don't want to say you guys have bad takes...but some of you guys' takes I...don't like. XD Like 33:20 he says Tanks and Healers are boring, but they're what I like. That said: I 100% agree the pure/barrier Healer split has been an utter failure and needs to be revoked. AST is half a barrier healer with Collective and Neutral Sect, so WHM is the only one that's left out in the cold at this point. And it happens to be the most played healer in the game, meaning when it can't do that, it means lots of parties are waiting one a barrier healer. It's just dumb. It's not like they even need a LOT, just 1 more party mit for AST and 3 for WHM would get them close to SGE. THAT SAID: I will say I don't play SCH much anymore, but it's because I hate Energy Drain optimization. Most players who really get into healers say SCH is the only one that's still complex enough to keep them going. So if you made the changes you suggest, it would kill a lot of healers as a role in this game. I...really think you guys need to talk to more people with more viewpoints, because some of your takes are...out there. Your DPS takes are probably fine, as I suspect you guys are DPS mains, but you REALLY need to talk to Tank/Healer mains about Tanks/Healers.

[@sharlayanforum]

It's interesting that you say that because i think that most people who talk about the game outside of the game itself would agree that the healer and tank roles are boring right now and that Summoner probably needs some more interesting things to happen in its kit. I get that you enjoy them, but similarly to how you don't like our takes, I think a lot of people wouldn't like yours. We aren't asserting that we have some sort of heightened insight and have the correct opinions when we make these videos, just stating that we have an opinion. I think most healer mains would say the role needs more to do. I think most tank mains would say the role needs more to do. I think most DPS mains would say that the role is mostly okay - with the exception of Summoner which needs more to do. A take you don't like isn't always a bad take, and I appreciate that you said that.

[@kos-mos1127]

@@sharlayanforumSummoner was screwed up in Dawntrial because they added a reskin Bahamut. They should have added Leviathan, Ramuh and Shiva became that would have had a more impact on the rotation.

[@Qkochan3]

SMN hate is perfect and makes perfect sense; it was a job that was intricate, complex, and rewarding to play with actual damage that was turned into the training wheels job for people who don't actually like mmo's or for baby's first mmo. you hit the nail on the head, it is a job where you turn your brain off, and kind of pay attention to whether the boss does in then out, or out then in, shiva pattern. this kind of job would have actually been fine, IF they put it on a new job like PCT instead of repackaging an actually engaging job into the boring crap job it is now. SMN hate makes perfect sense, sorry to all SMN mains who mained the job for almost a decade only for it to turn into the glue eating job it is now.

[@kos-mos1127]

@@Qkochan3 Summoner hate makes no sense. Old Summoner was a poor mans WoW Warlock with barely functioning mechanics. To call old summoner crap would be a compliment, that job was a piece of sh*t. I am not sorry for all the SMN mains who mained the job for years only for it to turn into a real summoner.

[@talimpalim]

I really hope we can have... I don't know, one class like summoner and the rest gets dragged out of this simplification. All to easy, nothing to think about, even if I lvled all Healers and Astro has the most stuff to do, I enjoy WHM the most. Jobdesign and how the abilities feel like are great, so for me that is a simple job that feels great, that is totally fine! BUT well, we have nothing to do? There is no challenge, unless all partymembers mess up. I was in a dungeon where I don't needed to heal once. Not once. Only in boss fight after an aoe. Caster wise I play RDM because it has a great tempo, it's not difficult but has enough variation. SMN is prob the only class I will never touch again after their rework. I tried it, but like Viper (sorry viper mains, it is the best example) you have no reward for playing good, u just press your shiny button, gets boring very fast. Like I said, it's OK to have easier classes, but all of them getting simplified again and again is horrible imo

[@JimmyPageTV]

Or heck, even maybe couple it with a controller vibration for direct hits? Personally i think that would be cool, as a toggle of course.

[@brob797]

I think it’d be pretty cool if our job stones evolved and our current jobs all got upgraded. Like how gladiator becomes paladin and could become something else. Would be an interesting way to incorporate a level squish too

[@SokiHime]

Boss design and job design are intrinsically tied. If jobs have more interesting tools, boss mechanics can be more varied and interesting.

[@sharlayanforum]

Absolutely! I think encounter design is markedly improved this go around, so we're moving in the right direction!

[@VizerPS]

the job design is hopefully at its lowest. but on a completely different note, taking time to look at the zones and listen to the music reminds you that ffxiv is a game so full of character and potential the dawntrail zones all look amazing. this is the rare MMO where content creators still use the game world as a pleasant backdrop for their videos. here's hoping squeenix realizes that for the next 10 years of ffxiv to be good, the job design quality needs to match the world's. and for that matter, the world should have more reason to be engaged with

[@sharlayanforum]

100% agreed! XIV has a world that beats the breaks off of every other MMO setting I've played, and the music is so in a league of its own that I don't even need to justify it. I think that we're heading into a bright future with XIV. I honestly believe that after Shadowbringers, when modern class design really crystalized, the devs saw the feedback and have been working on it quietly ever since. Doing something like overhauling 19-21 jobs is no small task, especially since in MMO development you're already working on the next thing before the current thing is current. I think that this expansion is a sort of "leveling" moment, where the devs are trying to set up the basic bones of each Job, which I will say, all feel very, very strong. In 8.0, I hope we see meat added to all of those bones.

[@drayman101]

The one thing I would do to rework AST would be reworking Neutral Sect back into being a toggle button (similar to how it was in ShB, when I started playing), into a SGE's-Eukrasia-like "augment" to your heals that swaps their effects into being more focused on regens or shields/mitigation, in this way it would be more aligned with SGE to being a more of a mitigation focused healer to complement WHM the way that SGE complements SCH. I think no matter what they do to try to make the game feel fresh, some section of the playerbase won't like it, so they need to keep the required gameplay (MSQ, dungeons, etc) the same, at least for the next expac, and experiment in side content more, while doubling down on the stuff people liked in the previous iterations of it. Then bit by bit, starting in 8.0, take the positive and negative feedback from the side content into account and implement it into the required content where possible, and doing it again (and to greater effect) in 9.0. They've been doing this to some extent for many years now, but I think they need to try to innovate more with the content that the majority of the playerbase doesn't come back to the game for.

[@sharlayanforum]

I agree! I think the place to start with innovation is always content that you're not required to do. Things like Eureka/Bozja/the New Field Ops zone, Savage, Ultimate, V/C dungeons, etc should always have the most experimental mechanics because they exist in the spectrum from mid-core to hardcore content that people seek out, while the MSQ, dungeons, trials, etc. are all required to progress story, so they should be filled with more "standard" mechanics. As experimental stuff finds its footing and success, integrate it into the "main" content cycle and let it rip.

[@SubduedRadical]

24:00 - "What if everyone was a DPS" - This would be the absolute worst idea possible, and I hate it every time anyone mentions it, you aren't the first. Some of us like playing Healers/Tanks and not DPS, so "everyone's a DPS Job" doesn't work. I tried GW2 and the lack of the Trinity actually put me off. Everyone being a DPS was boring, bland, and annoying, so I didn't bother sticking with it for that reason. (Yes yes, I know at high levels they adopted it in some expansion, but it wasn't baseline, so hated it). Specs could be interesting, but I'm not sure how it would work well, especially since they removed AST's stances (which KINDA were specs...)

[@sharlayanforum]

I don't necessarily think that it's a good idea either, that's why I discussed reasons I don't think it would work immediately.

[@MahalGC]

I think the role that's currently suffering the most is Physical Ranged, people don't wanna play them because they do less damage than the other dps roles but you still need them for the extra 1% in high end content so someone is kinda forced to play one in the early days of a tier, until later down the line where people are getting their gear and succefully reclearing, so you can instead get 2 casters for the ranged spots and be fine. Hopefully in 8.0 they can also revamp the scheme of damage so everyone does roughly the same damage but instead the big difference is utility, so it doesn't feel like you *have to* to play a specific role for your static and instead have more flexibility.

[@sharlayanforum]

Phys Ranged definitely needs some love! I'd like to see them lean more into the support aspects of Dancer and give Machinist some extra utilities. I get that it's supposed to be "the selfish phys ranged" but I think that identity is sort of lame when the other two jobs have so much extra stuff. Unless it just did SUBSTANTIALLY more damage it isn't worth it.

[@juliusthompson4794]

I had similar thoughts on the materia system. I kind of think they need to take advantage of that. Take some of the materia from ff7 and make news ones. Could be as simple as a special materia slot in the weapon. Like a double slash materia that modifies your auto-attack or a reflect materia that has a chance to proc whenever you use a defensive skill.

[@sharlayanforum]

It would be a fun way to add customization to Jobs! Design 10 or 12 materia that interact with the kit in some way but only give us 6 or 8 slots, so we have to choose which way we want to specialize.

[@juliusthompson4794]

@sharlayanforum yea. I really like that idea. I think having that many viable materia options would help make some individuality with our job builds. Maybe if you place multiple of the same materia it ups the proc rate, but you lose out on other potential options, or even materia that modifies certain abilities that we already have.

[@washingmachinedoesntneedme4947]

One thing i want them to do is duty roulettes based on expansion. I hate having to level by doing duty roulettes that almost always are arr content.

[@sharlayanforum]

You can do a limited leveling roulette!

[@Spyda1409]

I feel as if the game needs a horizontal progression now, I might get some kickback but I would add talent tree's. But the tree's would be more of a QoL type thing and not things that affect damage or a jobs core rotation. Some ideas for melee dps talent tree's you could give a second sprint charge, another second wind charge, reduce the CD on your defensive by 30sec, give a passive 5% run speed increase, make bloodbath do double healing etc. I wouldn't do talent trees like WoW where you get new damaging abilities or increase damage for other ones. Everyone will min/max it and have the one which does the most damage and then everyone will feel obligated to use it.

[@sharlayanforum]

Agreed! I think having some modifications to skills that are meaningful and maybe one or two new skills for each job is the patch going forward.

[@KhumiSunguard]

I think a level squish would be nice since you can distribute cool abilities lower down the progression, a big problem is that classes feel so underdeveloped while leveling, its completely backwards, the job fundamentals should be earlier in the leveling path, a rotation should feel "complete" by the time you reach current level 50-60 and then onwards it adds more complexity or flavor. It also sucks theres little utility besides "defensive", it would be easier to add more stuff if dispels, interrupts, CC, movement abilities, etc were in the game and actually mattered. Also they need to make job abilities that arent "you press X button twice now" or "New icon and SFX" and thats all you get all expansion. SE needs to start taking risks, a safe boring job isnt worth it, id rather have more chaotic design even if it means some jobs are unbalanced for good or for bad. It doesnt help they kill the only unique jobs that are left, rip paladin.

[@sharlayanforum]

I definitely think that if we don't get some kind of horizontal progression, we'll see a stat/level squish in 8.0. I would love to see the leverage of utilities that exist in the game more in content. Casters have sleep, melee/pranged jobs have stuns and interrupts and slows, tanks have interrupts, stuns, and slows, and yet NONE of these mechanics are utilized outside of very niche and specific examples. Why not have a raid boss with an interruptable buff? Why not have a raid boss that summons ads that have to be slept? Why not have mechanics that require slowing/binding an enemy to make sure an AoE goes off away from the party?

[@cftncfjlphgfb]

Idk, I dont feel a lot of jank with sch fairy. It used to be really bad, but i havent had a problem with it for a while

[@sharlayanforum]

@cftncfjlphgfb it's definitely WAY better than it used to be. It's totally possible that i just don't care much for it. I know a lot of people play and enjoy Scholar, so they can't all be wrong!

[@Khemrikhara]

If you press a fairy ability and then Dissipation immediately after, the ability is simply not used, but still put on cooldown. Yes, if you know about it you can avoid it, but it simply should not happen. Not to mention pressing Fey Illumination and the actual mitigation coming out anywhere from 1-3 seconds later. Getting used to jank does not mean jank doesn't exist.

[@SquallNoctisGUX]

Ngl letting jobs spec into things like heals and tank stuff would actually piss me off more cause it’ll be basically treating every job like blu…….. A job that’s still not a real job, a job I wanted to main this entire time in 14 and a job that the team clearly don’t give a shit about and I think that’d be the thing to finally make me drop 14 lol 🥴 but I said before them moving away from the job and merit system of 11 would cause some issues and I feel they’re finally coming ahead now that we’re lv 100 cause some jobs like mnk and drk to me feel like they have trouble finding their identity (felt mnk was perfect in Endwalker) while Drk Gnb and War all feel similar and better or worse variations of each other

[@sharlayanforum]

That's fair! I think my version of a merit or skil tree system would be less about giving jobs capabilities that they didn't have before and more about making those capabilities customizable. So like the example I gave in the video, Red Mage being able to make Vercure, a skill they already have, AoE but it heals for less. Or like Paladin being able to cast Holy Sheltron on others but it's less effective, White Mage can cast Thin Air on others but it only reduces MP cost by 50%, things like that. More utility and customization, not really giving every job every tool. You can choose to take it or not and offer multiple different options to customize the kits in a way that you find most beneficial for the content you're doing. Imagine if Upheaval and Orogeny on Warrior were technically the same skill, but instead of having both, I had to choose if I wanted a higher-power single target button or a lower damage AoE button. One is obviously better for raiding, and one is better for dungeons. I think the straight giving jobs tools that don't have them would be a fast way to basically travel back in time to when we had cross-class actions... which was a very uncool time.

[@SquallNoctisGUX]

@@sharlayanforum yeah the examples I think are great that was in the video but I wasn’t entirely sure if you meant just for those jobs specifically already in those roles or not cause as an 11 player myself the freedom of that game job system and allowing us to have build diversity is one of the biggest things I loved about 11 so in most cases when that topic comes up it usually goes the “Damn I wish 14 had 11’s job system” route LOL but I do think if we have a merit like system that focuses on the job itself could lead to that potentially. I also feel that jobs need to lean more into what makes em unique, I think Mnk was at its best with the previous expansion, drk was OBVIOUSLY at its best during HW and I think it should’ve leaned more in the magic tank route even more so if it meant sacrificing hp for more damage with blood weapon giving said hp back, also Gnb in pvp being able to junction from other jobs is such a great unique idea that Idek why it’s not in the pve portion of the game, there’s definitely some stuff from ninja and dancer I miss from 11 as well I won’t lie there but I also feel like a lot of what I want requires a revamp of the combat and that’s a tall order with the potential of alienating the 14 exclusive fans especially since I think the limited job system should be deleted but that means making Blu and Bst actual jobs in the game and there’s just no way in hell I can see them being jobs in this game currently without completely dismantling the balance and meta of the game so it might actually be best for me to wait til 8.0 news to come about 🤔

[@sharlayanforum]

@SquallNoctisGUX yeah, I think the limited job system is okay on its face. I would've loved to see BLU and BST be full jobs, I was a BLU main in XI for many years, but I don't know how those jobs would work in the traditional "holy trinity" that 14 uses as jobs that sort of intentionally break the mold. It'll be interesting to see what 8.0 brings, but I'm hoping for some very refined and distinct flavor for each job

[@SquallNoctisGUX]

@@sharlayanforum yeah I can’t see them working in 14 currently but I think it was better off never happening to begin with given how blu alone was treated, it’s basically their bastard child they shove into a corner when company comes over…….. And company is always over lmao but I do wish we’ll see something pretty drastic come 8.0 I feel like we’re missing so much

[@IWLGaming]

So I truly started in DT and have played a few things into the 50s and 60s but really only 3 or 4 job into the 90s and 100. I started the game knowing I wanted to do high end raiding (progging m4s!) So I'm not the best to talk about long term game mechanics. BUT! One thing worth considering is the new player experience. I've been saying it since before I played 14: this game won't die because of a bad expansion and a mass exodus, it will die because it can't bring in new players. The MSQ is the single biggest barrier to entry with this game. I tell friends all the time NOT to play it unless they want to buy a skip or spend 500 hours in single player before they can start working on current content. "The old content is still good!" Yeah but no one is progging the eden raids and by the time you got a group you could be halfway through EW. The only solution I can come up with that they MIGHT do is to give 1 story skip per account with each expansion. (They're never going to shorten the msq) so that loops back into making the jobs TOO complex. I understand that as long term players it gets boring when the next 10 levels aren't game changers but that has to be balanced with new player experience. I dont have a solution to this or even an idea really, just something that I think is worth keeping in mind.

[@sharlayanforum]

Absolutely! I sort of made reference to this towards the end when I said "The ideas I have for the health of player expression are probably bad for the overall health of the game" or whatever exactly my words were. There's a ton of things that I really enjoy, personally, that I know for a fact would cause MASSIVE problems for this game if they introduced them, or re-introduced them in some cases, in modern XIV. The new player experience is definitely brutal and the MSQ only gets to be more and more of an issue with each expansion. They'll definitely need to do something about it soon, or they're going to start having serious problems bringing people in. The only "easy" solution I could see would be to just make the free trial cover all content except the current expansion, and then extend it every time a new expansion is released. This way people see it as a value proposition and can tackle it all the way up to the current content without incurring fees.

[@christopherbailey3547]

Everything you said implies that the goal of a new player is simply to reach endgame, which isn’t the case for everyone. This game is a journey rather than destination kind of game. Story is apart of that. I personally wouldn’t enjoy an MMo I can breeze through in a week and reach endgame, what is the point of playing.

[@IWLGaming]

​@christopherbailey3547 and yet you'll still get more people by giving them the choice. I didn't say mandatory story skip, and you can always do what I'm doing and make an alt to do the story

[@IWLGaming]

​@sharlayanforum thats a really interesting idea actually! I still think there's a good chunk of people that would like to get to current content right away but being able to get lots of playtime for no monetary investment might encourage retention long enough to get there

[@oblonghas]

SMN was fun at lvl 60 in HW. I havent played it since, but I havent heard any nice things about it at lvl 100

[@Ravemaster620]

Late comment but I swear, I don't hear people talking enough about macros for gap closers. Doing it MNK and NIN is so fun to do, being able to greed a GCD and then just dash to your partner at the last second is so good for optimisation. Having a mouse over macro for MNK is a god send too for last minute adjustments (looking at you M2S and TOP)

[@sharlayanforum]

Movement skills are fun

[@matthewfraley4427]

I pretty much only play scholar. But what i think about scholar is that it's a pretty well designed and fun job. I think the pet could be a little more involved in your gameplay, instead of only being basically a smart heal. I would like if every second broil or art of war you casted would build a stack, up to 3, that caused your next aetherflow heal to also shield for a percentage of healing done. Maybe 40% per stack or something. Or you could spend those stacks to cause biolysis to apply to one extra target near your current target per stack, so 4 total targets. I would also love it if the fairy gauge heal was an instant heal that used 50 gauge instead of a heal over time. It's not super effective how is it now, and its kind of annoying to turn on and off. I think those two changes, plus making the fairy more involved, would make scholar so much more enjoyable for me. More interaction with your damaging spells and healing spells interplaying with each other, and a simpler fairy gauge to make comboing those dps spells your main filler focus, without adding any more buttons to press. I'm sure a lot of other jobs could implement similar combos, especially the healers. Scholar is super fun as it is, but needs a bit more interplay imo.

[@sharlayanforum]

Yeah, I think an easy thing that they could do for Healers to make the connectivity between DPS and Healing more integral is to make their DPS buttons an actual combo where the finisher grants stacks or builds gauge that can be spent on healing abilities. The system of WHM having Lilies that are spent on heals to cast a powerful damaging spell after 3 is a cool way to connect healing into damage, but I want the opposite connection to exist as well.

[@matthewfraley4427]

​@sharlayanforum Exactly. Thse concepts are already in the game in one way or another. Also, I want more than one spell, or a better spell, to spend fairy gauge on. It just feels like an afterthought at this point. Nice video bud

[@talimpalim]

Oh I like your ideas. I played scholar the most as healer, even if I dislike their technology fairy, angel design (pick one pls) but interesting take on the abilies

[@ghosteeniesmith6219]

As an Astrologian and Bard main since stormblood, I will agree they are easier accessible to entry. I forgive SE a bit for the astro cards having more specifics than only damage up to either melee or ranged. I miss the secondary stats differences. Today I still see the spear card (snowflake icon) as crit bonus increase for bards, and ninjas. Also, I miss the shield buff nocturnal sect as I love applying assists before a damaging ability happens. slightly forgive at 58 and above level 80 for bringing some of shield use back. I hate getting mentor roulettes less than 58 as they are very low engaging and easy to fall asleep to. The MSQ should remain a requirement for high level duties as story is a huge part of a game that the player pays money for. However, even with their rework ARR and some heavenswards feel slow and outdated. I still like ffxiv battle system as a whole compared to their big mmo rpg counter part of wow, especially when wow gets back to the top of the hill of their uphill battle.

[@Mister5597]

"What if everybody was a DPS?" well take a look at Guild Wars 2, they did that at launch and then on the first expansion introduced specs that where specialized at healing and then eventually rebalanced the game into having healing and buffing roles. I think what FFXIV could do is introduce per role per expansion skill choice, like imagine if they introduced for the next expansion something where they give you 6 skills to choose from where you can only pick 2 and is only usable on that expansion and on that specific role you are playing. So like for Healers there could be: - DOT - Direct Damage - Barrier Skill - Pure Heal - Mobility skill - Mitigation skill And then you could pick 2 of them, so with White Mage/Astro you could pick the barrier skill, and Scholar/Sage could pick the Pure Heal skill if you like you needed the extra healing. Or if you are playing dungeon and feel like you don't need any utility you could pick the extra damage skills. So you could pick something that could patch a hole in your job or double up on what makes your job strong. This is just a brief example and hopefully the devs could introduce things that are very interesting, and something that brings a bit of customization for the player without overwhelming their own workload for future expansions.

[@sharlayanforum]

Yeah, I think a system like this is sort of what i was imaging when I explained the Merit Point system in XI and how it would translate. Maybe we get two groups, where one is bonuses to the jobs existing kit, and then the other group is new skills or answers to problems the job has, but we can only pick 2 or 3 of each group.

[@Mister5597]

@@sharlayanforum Yeah, I think FFXIV could go in that direction of introducing alternative picks for specific skills that is only available for that expansion. Thinking about how World of Warcraft does things its quite insane on the amount of skills are based on traits chosen in each specialization making it quite a workload burden on the developers, and now they introduced hero talent on top of all that. In Guild Wars 2 the devs already gave up on new specs and are now only focusing on like a new weapon for each profession, weapons only having between 3-5 skills (or 18 for one of the professions). I think in GW2 they are already taken smaller steps in class changes, though I'm pretty sure the dev team is significantly smaller than FFXIV or WOW.

[@mismismism]

Personally, I think they should move to making each job in a role have specific strengths and weaknesses that are very distinct and push maining a role, maybe guve a big leveling buff to jobs in the same role for each that is levelled or something. And then make content that strongly favors different ones, so that as long as the spread of mechanics has about the same amount favoring each of the jobs, they would still technically be balanced without effectively being the same. I think the homogenization issue is really down to the idea that all jobs have to be able to do all content at the same level instead of how jobs work in mainline games where one boss may be weaker to casters, or susceptible to ailments, or buffs allow you to exploit a certain phase or something so you are meant to switch up your comp fight to fight. And I think raideide damage buffs ahould go, because they force all the jobs to have the same timings and basically all the the jobs except BLM are burst jobs now. If they all didn't need to sync up, they could have very different feeling rotations and a lot wouldn't have this feeling of "What can they even add?" since they wouldn't need to fit this 2 minute burst, filler, minor burst, filler formula.

[@sharlayanforum]

I think the removal of ALL raid Buffs might be tough, but removing the utter dependence on all of them landing in the 2 minute window would be a massive refresh to the game. I think we could achieve a lot by reducing the number of raid wide buffs and varying their timers. Maybe make one job have one that's up really often for less damage gain, and another have one that only comes up once a fight but is a huge damage gain. This would lead to a lot more choice and optimization of where to place these, which would intrinsicly change how those jobs wanted to rotate their skills.

[@mismismism]

@@sharlayanforum I would make damage buffs only extend to like 1 other party member for jobs like phys ranged, AST, etc. I feel like the cons outweigh the pros because either the raid wide buff would need to be so weak it's not worth cramming everything into, or it's strong and jobs that can capitalize dominate so we end up where we are now where everything has been changed into a burst job with the same window. I would prefer the jobs to be self reliant for their damage so what they can do for rotations isn't shackled by needing to match another job, let alone the entire party. It's hard because even for a one time thing, it could cause a similar situation that was brought up with DRG and RPR in that ultimate where the jobs would still be forced to be designed to fit into that window or they would still be at a disadvantage vs jobs that can fully capitalize on that window. To me, the only raid wide damage buff should be like BRD where the goal is that the buff is constantly up nonstop if they're playing optimally so they still have to keep it up but it doesn't actually affect what the other jobs timings and play styles need to be. I'd much rather have the jobs feel very different to play than have some buffs that cause the stale feeling we have currently.

[@sharlayanforum]

​@mismismism I hear ya, and I agree to a certain extent, I just think that removing ALL buffs is a bit extreme. Having buffs isn't really the issue, its the fact that they ALL come up at 120 seconds and they ALL last 20 seconds. This forces everyone to play around that window. If we had buff windows every 30-45-60-75-90 etc with smaller amounts of benefits, it would change how each job plays fundamentally to try and fit high-value skills into those different windows, but since you obviously can't fit everything into them and also do an optimal rotation, you'd have to pick and choose which to prioritize. Like, imagine if you had an optimal burst timing "priority" system depending on which buffs your group brought in. As an example, if Reaper can burst super effectively every 90s, and Ninja had a buff/debuff that landed on 90s windows, then Reaper would always want to burst with Ninja for its biggest skills, While Samurai could have a 120 seconds window and land with Scholar or something. Add onto that changing jobs personal buff windows away from all being 2 min/20 sec. Each job now plays radically differently, bursts at different times, and only ever "meets up" with the others at different intervals, which would be massive party-wide burst opportunities. It's not perfect, but it's a lot more interesting than the current setup.| Jobs like Dragoon (previously) and Reaper (currently) having to ramp into their burst isn't really an issue in a world where the strict "Everyone hits everything at 2 minutes" isn't enforced. Being gauge negative becomes a lot smaller of a problem if you have SOMEONE hitting a buff when you enter double enshroud, it's just because it doesn't line up well now that it's a problem.

[@mismismism]

@@sharlayanforum I get you, I'd still personally just see them done with but I'd be much happier with a solution like yours than what it is currently. I think ultimately, it's such a hard thing to balance and design around. Like they can't just add something to a job that's interesting or different, or changes up their timings because they have to worry about them syncing up with the others, if they split up the burst windows, they have to make sure all the jobs can sync up with others roughly the same amount, etc. It just seems like such a balance and design nightmare to me that makes the job of giving the jobs more identity and new skills so much more difficult.

[@sharlayanforum]

@mismismism Definitely! It'll be really interesting to see how they chose to tackle the issues in 8.0. The promise of new and renewed identity I think has a lot of people on edge because it means that either the jobs themselves are going to change dramatically OR the burst meta is going to be shifted and allow more room for jobs to express their skills at different timings. Either would be a welcome change, but I definitely know which I would prefer.

[@toychristopher]

They need to increase the range of Holy to 40 yalms

[@sharlayanforum]

Holiest of Holys

[@Forsakei]

I think a level reset is in order.

[@sharlayanforum]

It'll be interesting to see what they end up doing. I really think that we'll get 1 of 2 options. A mastery system with horizontal progression OR A level squish that resets a lot of content, probably resetting 100 down to 50, and 60 being the new cap in 8.0

[@Gonglor]

It's really weird to see VPR and PCT get straight up better versions of tools other jobs have.

[@sharlayanforum]

*Enshroud leaves the chat*

[@washingmachinedoesntneedme4947]

Healers need to be reworked to become something that is half dps half healing.

[@sharlayanforum]

I'd love to see Healers with actual DPS combos

[@justintilton6857]

Cannoner from ffta2

[@TCChavez]

There needs to be a middle ground between homogenization and uniqueness because they cant be to unique to be alienated like hw or too ultra homogeneous like shb - ew

[@sharlayanforum]

Absolutely! Like I said about Dark Knight, I LOVED the design of DRK in HW, but I know for a fact that if they introduced it today, a job like that would be recieved VERY poorly by a lot of players. However, if they took that basic idea and modernized it, created an "in-between" of what it used to be and what it is now, I think we'd have an absolute banger on our hands.

[@TCChavez]

@@sharlayanforum im dreading leveling dark knight, lol its my final job after pld and smn/sch…it needs a rework and mch as well since damn removing gauss barrel ruined the job

[@sharlayanforum]

I think bringing back some kind of Heat mechanic could be fun depending on how it is implemented. It was a fun loop, albeit not that much more engaging than current.

[@Qkochan3]

i think that middle ground youre talking about is called Stormblood. Stormblood was a PERFECT balance (i miss monk) between uniqueness and homogenization. i really dont care what anyone says about the story, the gameplay of that expansion PEAKED and the game has been considerably worse ever since.

[@TCChavez]

@@Qkochan3 exactly, sb was perfect and they need to also block out crybabies who was against it

[@sadmiqoxiv]

Imagine if positional attacks actually did something positive other than force positioning. Oh wait they did, they allowed dragoons to execute two extra combos... and it was removed and automatically applies because casual players couldn't do it. They have to stop dumbing the game down to the level of pre-schoolers and realize that people that PLAY the game, want to be challenged. The challenge doesn't have to be hard, but it has to be better than letting the job play itself on auto-pilot.

[@sharlayanforum]

I think that there's merit to both sides. Games that want to be successful have to appeal to everyone, especially a casual base, because that's going to be the majority, like it or not. However, a system like positionals is the exact kind of system that should reward skilled players for hitting them consistently while not punishing those who miss them. I think the difference just being potency is boring, but the difference being "if you don't hit these all perfectly you lose access to skills" is a bit punishing. I'm not sure where to land in the middle, but it probably does need to be somewhere in the middle. It would be interesting if there was some kind of "focus" mechanic where you maintained a damage buff as long as you hit positionals, and if you failed one it would reduce the time on the buff or remove a stack of it or something. Of course, this is just potency, but it's a more interesting version of the system that exists now that is immediately more engaging and provides feedback to players.

[@braixendelphox4051]

I don't know if many people would agree with my opinion but I play as BLM and I think the class just has too many spells now. I don't have any room on my spell bars and i think there needs to be a complete rework.

[@sharlayanforum]

@braixendelphox4051 i think a lot of Jobs have too many buttons right now. I'm willing to bet a big part of the overhaul in 8.0 will be pruning and adjusting button bloat.

[@braixendelphox4051]

@@sharlayanforum I really hope so

[@rexcyjones9416]

i just wish if we getting to next expac, all jobs would just have some job class rebirth like going back to lvl1 but an upgraded version of the job, or new weapon type and maybe shuffle some roles to make the entire experience fresh and unique. I'd be so happy to have a dual wielding axe warrior and maybe a tank Monk and Dragoon, then a FF16 inspired melee summoner, with spell slinging Gunbreaker and a summoner type Machinis (instead of shooting a gun, its just casting and summoning turets or robots)

[@sharlayanforum]

I think that something similar to this is probably what we should see. Some kind of "Mastery" system where things shake up for the job and make it play differently.

[@rexcyjones9416]

@@sharlayanforum i hope FF14 goes out and beyond from existing jobs of the IP and create a new one for just this game so they wont be too limited on options, that is if SE allows them lol.

[@sharlayanforum]

@@rexcyjones9416 Yoshi-P has already stated that all jobs coming to the game from this point forward will be unique to 14 outside of limited jobs. We may see things named after jobs that have existed, like Sage, but they will be similar in name only.

[@raptorking3678]

I just want them to give me FF11 Blue Mage in FF14 lol

[@sharlayanforum]

-cries in dual weild battle Mage fantasy-

[@xxomega702buzzalini8]

I'd like to correct you on the 75 Era. It was not peak it was just we were 75 for 8 years and gear was your progression. Gear that I may add had 0.5% drop rate once a week. As to talk about merits, day 1 the player base found out the best spread and it locked you in on categories on weapon types. as you can only max out 2 weapon and had 4 points for parry or blocking skill. Changing jobs meant you had to change your merits to apply to weapons. Back than merits were 10,000 each when we got 200-400 exp a monster @ 2-3 mins a kill it took a lot of time. While 14 already locks you in on playstyle if you want to get the most out of jobs. 11 was bad from players not geared to doing the wrong thing on your job constantly. In 11 we can tell if you had the wrong gear and or refused to gear change while in combat to do the best for the situation. In 11 currently for your job as a melee you need a Hybrid set that is a mix of damage and defense, a TP set that makes dps output 1st and kills survivability. a WS set for when you weaponskill but you also have many weapon skills that can be str based or magic damage and you needed a gearset for each. As a Warrior my gearset had over 300 pieces of gear for one job to function. Be careful what you wish for.

[@sharlayanforum]

I'm familiar with all of this. I say that the 75 era was peak because that was when the game was at its max popularity. Once Abyssea started increasing level caps and making changes to XP, people started leaving the game in droves. Yes, there was always an "optimal" merit point build because they were raw stat increases and ability gains, which is not a system I'm necessarily advocating for, just something in a similar vein that allows us to customize our experience with these jobs a lot more. Gearswapping in XI was just a part of the game, and still is, especially with how much easier .lua's make the process and automate everything for you. This game doesn't have complexity like that present in the gear system, so introducing a smaller or more modern version of that customizability into the jobs themselves is ultimately my desire.

[@xxomega702buzzalini8]

@@sharlayanforum I just hope they come up with something to compliment the gameplay or have player expression and creativity. I just don't want to be pigeon holed into meta or out like the player base of XI had.

[@sharlayanforum]

Yeah, unfortunately choice often leads to a meta emerging. I think the only way to avoid it is to make every choice have serious benefits and drawbacks

[@remi3246]

I don't quite understand how you guys can go from "oh tanks are all so same-y" to "just make all healers do the same thing" in like two sentences?

[@sharlayanforum]

Howdy! I think the sentiment there is that the distinction between shield Healers and pure Healers is a completely arbitrary one, and not one that serves any purpose other than to make them "different" without actually making them unique in any way. If all the Healers had at least some capabilities to shield and apply regen then they could focus on making them more distinct through actual gameplay design and not just through what tools they have access to. I don't think anyone would have a problem with SGE/SCH having more shields and WHM/AST having more regen, but making that be the feature that defines what makes them different while literally everything else is the same is boring. Tanks are very much the same. WAR and DRK are very much the "spam a button in a window" tanks while GNB and PLD are more "cycle throw this phase with distinct buttons in it." This is atleast some level of distinction between the two gameplay styles, but again, it could be made MORE distinct through better design of the actual kits and less focus on the tools they have access to. By bringing the basic tool kits in line with eachother, with some variance of course, and then focusing more on the damage rotation and how it interacts with those capabilities, both roles could be made more distinct and vastly more interesting.

[@remi3246]

@@sharlayanforum As a healer player i really do not agree with this because that's what makes the healers in the game distinct - to your war/drk vs gnb/pld argument I would say that this already exists in both the healer roles as whm is the lily using gcd healer where ast is the super busy ogcd healer and for shield sge is the lossless i shit out healing and mitigation healer where sch needs to actively think about every resource they use. All of them have a slightly differing set of abilities which makes them unique in a way that tanks are specifically not. All tanks have the same mit tools on the same cd with the exception of two having a shield for a party mit and two having a magic mit (and maybe like the invuln cd) but when you compare this to the healers difference you can see that their big cooldowns aren’t just one’s a shield and one’s mit, they have their mit buttons, really impactful healing or shield buttons that are extremely effective in different specific situations like panhaima and seraphism for example - both can be used for multi hits but panhaima shines in repeat hits whereas seraphism shield lasts 30 seconds which lets you cover multiple hits with a greater distance between. Shield healers already have so many pure healing tools, especially with the new 100 abilities making it so you can even losslessly heal the whole party from 1 hp to max on sge for example although needing to invest more cds than a whm would. Pure healers also have limited mit (temp/ neutral and less limited CU) and shield (temp/ neutral) abilities. In my opinion both should remain limited as this leaves room for different job identities. There's a reason why sge/ sch comps in fights that have only huge mit checks and not a lot of extended heal checks is so busted and if they made pure healers also able to mit the way shield healers can then the fight design would need to drastically change which would leave currently already power crept old content like ALL the ultimates in an even worse state. What's more one of you literally said at 32:56 that tank and healer both feel very samey and that they should lean into it more with healers when saying himself that he doesn't even play healers so I just don't know if this is the best place to come from when criticising job design and then recommending an entire part of the trinity to be made to play more similarly to each other to the point where they are all able to "do it all". But hey, that’s just a biassed opinion of someone who thinks that the fairy is one of the most engaging parts of sch’s kit and one of the few things left in the game that actively forces me to engage my last brain cell.

[@sharlayanforum]

​@@remi3246 That's all fair! I think that perspective is totally reasonable and valid, especially as someone who is by no means a healer main. Its also important to remember that when I or any other CC put out a video like this, its discussion of my own opinion, and I'm certainly not trying to tell people that enjoying something I do not is wrong or that my opinion is guided and enlightened by some heightened level of insight. I'm just a guy. I think it's important to remember though that criticism of something is not reliant on having totally encapsulating knowledge on it, and even if I did have that experience, I could still just not agree with the viewpoint of another person with as much or more experience than me. I mostly main melee DPS jobs, and I have plenty of criticisms of many of them, but if someone with less, more, or equal experience as me on them had a different set of criticisms I don't think I would attempt to invalidate them, but instead try to see why that criticism might exist. I'm more than willing to admit that maybe I don't see the full utility and capabilities of the healer tools in the game since I don't play the role in high-end content, and if your explanation in your comment is the general sentiment of the community, then I will openly admit that I am mistaken in that regard. I still believe that the healer role feels boring - if not for the reasons I listed in the video - then for the reason that everything they do that isn't hitting their healing and mitigation tools is exceptionally uninteresting and uninspired. I'd like to see the two parts of healing in this game - Healing and dealing damage - be more instrinsicly linked and more interesting. This is why I mostly play Sage, as its the closest job to fulfilling that design, for me. Yes, tanks are also boring. They have an arbitrary differentiation in the same way that Healers do, in my opinion. When we say "I wish they would lean into it" I think we mean to say that if we're going to have tanks all have the same tools, then just give them all the same tools and start making them play differently *outside* of those tools, which is similar to the stance I have on healers. These roles either need to all be drastically different in the tools that they bring to the table - at the risk of making certain jobs invalid in content, OR they need to lean fully into giving them universal tools and differentiating them through distinct gameplay design outside of these tools.

[@tinyblackmage]

As MMORPG, FF14 is failing so hard. Don’t get me wrong, the story up till EndWalker is great, one of the best, but in terms of RPG elements, the game has removed so many elements and homogenised things that it just feels like an arcade game now Jobs all feel and play the same with just different effects. Stats does not matter when all you chase is iLvl, no way customise skillsets. Character development is just boring af. Even the boss fights feel so bloody repetitive, again feels like an rhythm game than an RPG. Itemisation sucks so bad, every gear is replaced in 3 months, there are NO aspirational, long term goal gear that lasts for years. Even ultimate gear is just flashy shit. It’s gonna die if nothing is done, the game is wayyyy too simplified and dumbed down. YoshiP keeps making wrong decision, he needs to pass the baton to someone else to helm the game. Homogenising and systems and gameplay elements in name of BALANCE is stupid.

[@sharlayanforum]

I think that there's merit to parts of this and idealism in other parts. We all want expression, that's undeniably true. Introducing more choices and "RPG-elements" would be an overall net positive... if it didn't sacrifice the strengths that XIV has currently. Those strengths being that every job is easy to understand at a basic level, and that all of them perform well enough to do 99% of the content in this game. If we can find a way to keep those things true and add layers on top, I'm all for trying literally anything. That's a tough sell, though, and a series of questions the devs must have been agonizing over for years at this point. I know "homogenization" is like the ultimate XIV dogwhistle, but i really think that people overblow how serious it is. If things were how they were in HW, and entire jobs were just... literally unplayable in content because they didn't work right or were completely and utterly outclassed, people would be lighting their subs on fire to make it change. The best course lies somewhere in the middle, and hopefully we can find that soon.

[@tanhongyi7180]

Part of why jobs are getting stale is because the devs themselves DO NOT PLAY ON THE SAME LEVEL as the general playerbase does. It's also the reason why Viper's rotations has such low optimization ceiling while having a straightforward rotation cycle, so that the devs themselves are able to "stay on the same frequency" when it comes to job feedback from the playerbase. Pictomancer's number became overbuffed because the devs didn't really explore enough to see how broken Pictomancer is when they're optimized properly. If anyone from the west tried catching some of the JP community streams, you'll realize that some devs only knows how to press buttons, but not the way how players generally do their openers/burst rotations. On the side note the devs also doesn't seem to cover basic proficiency in all jobs, as some jobs have questionable design flaws that doesn't make sense, such as EW Bard not standardizing Barrage to grant Shadowbite while granting Refulgent Arrow, despite Shadowbite was supposed to be Refulgent Arrow's AoE counterpart. Dawntrail's encounters have been full of pleasant surprises, but it wasn't enough. M4S design is so frontloaded on P1, that P2 is just : "Ok here's the setup with 4 cannons and 2 towers, decide how you want to place your players" mechanic. I'm no week 1 raider, but from what I understand, P1 mechanics were more tricky to crack than P2 in a blind setup.

[@sharlayanforum]

I'm not going to speculate on the devs abilities or lack there of, but I will definitely say that the game would benefit from having a person or group of extremely knowledgeable people assigned to each job who are acutely aware of how the job is being played and recieved in the live game by players. Having one or two people who head up design teams who can immediately recognize why things that feel janky on jobs feel that way will only improve them.