The whole thing about not realizing how good you are at a game is definitely on point. I always believed I was an average Destiny 2 player because I'm always around others who are either masters at the game either PvE or PvP wise. Then when I started doing LFG groups for Grand Master Strikes and Excision, I realized that the average player is way less skilled than I expected. People who would die a dozen times to my two.
It's easy to not understand how good you are when top players always tell others that, if you're not at the 99.9th percentile, you're trash and have no clue what you're doing or what you're talking about
The thing is that the content for people who don't care about their performance (dungeons, trials, raids) is already clearable while doing the bare minimum You can have everyone completely ignore positionals and break combos all day, drift all cooldowns and still kill in a timely manner This is not the time when missing positionals would break combo. The change to make melees approachable already happened years and years ago. Anything further now exists solely to remove complexity from those that appreciate it.
@@Orphan_of_Kos_or_some_say_Kosm You can see this when any discussion of parses online is always expecting to be 80% percentile or better to just be considered "good enough". Which is absolutely insane because all of those parses, wether they were a 1 to a 99, resulted in a clear.
@@vaan_ complexity kills MMO's. every MMO that has advertised itself as being hardcore or having complexity etc has died or had to radically "casualise" and make changes to stay relevant. The sad truth is that if you want complexity in a video game, don't play MMO's. Both FF14 and WoW has had to remove complexity over the years to keep itself relevant because unfortunately hardcore/ midcore players cannot keep MMO's running. MMO's require the casual players in order to exist so they are designed for them.
In terms of casual players accessibility in Dawntrail dungeons I noticed something funny. Trusts/Bots were created to allow more casual audience participate in dungeons without having to interact with other people, but they actually make the dungeons harder. With other human players, even if you cannot play at all and stand in every fire, they are still able to ress/carry you through fights. While with trusts/bots, the fight wipes as soon as you die. On top of that the fights tend to last longer as NPC-s do less damage, so you need to dodge more mechanics cycles on average.
Also does not help that they often do not adjust to how you are positioned. Had Alisaie drop her marker aoe on me in the second boss of the 93 dungeon... 3 times I think cause I was trying to dodge the mechanic and still stay in Melee Range. Alisaie you're a caster I'm a viper. Get the heck out of my spot >:c
I strongly disagree. With Trusts, the only limiting factor is your own play. If I'm in a party, I have to babysit everyone else to make sure they don't eat shit. I have zero control over the play of others, so if the tank is garbage, then I'm not clearing the dungeon. If the DPS is garbage, I'm not clearing the dungeon. If the healer is garbage, I'm not clearing the dungeon. With Trusts, if I'm garbage, then I don't deserve to clear the dungeon.
An incredibly thoughtful perspective. Essentially, there is no clear cut answer on what makes something fun. It is the holy grail of game design. We all have different perspectives and game devs unfortunately have to juggle all of those perspectives against their own design goals.
Casual player here. I think people just need some time to settle in with viper, without all the traits leading up to lvl100, it does feel a bit strange. But when you get to 100, everything makes sense and it's (for me) the most fun class in the game. It's essentially what I wish fury warrior would've been, there's literally no down-time at lvl100. Picto on the other hand, I just don't have the patience for that type of class, but people are fine with it I'm guessing?
I love Picto because it offers a palette (lol) of different types of abilities. I've got my standard combo of casts for most situations, I've got my canvases for big damage and AoE, and I've got my paint abilities for instant casts while on the move or during mechanics. And the fact that each of those different sets plays in a different way is very fun and engaging to me. But I can see why it wouldn't jive with everyone.
@@Maria_Erias I'm already negatively predisposed towards casters, so my judgement doesn't mean much in that regard. Aesthetically (lol) I think it's great, especially the water spell, makes me wish there was a water type caster, that I'd play.
As someone who plays all classes, all longcasts feel horrible at first but as you get used to them it's fine, the only thing you really need to understand on picto is when exactly to paint vs when to damage, also I tried to incorporate swift to try and get an instant canvas, simple answer, No.
But what if you enjoy complex jobs? What if the playstyle that you find satisfying is managing many different skills and resources? Personally I don't see why complexity has to be purged across the board. There are 20 different jobs in the game, so why can't we have a few complex ones?
@@talancorwell Then I hope there's a job with the complexity (and the *type* of complexity) you like. Not everything has to appeal to everyone, but SE does have the challenge of making sure each job is appealing to *enough* people.
@@heyimbilliejean I agree. I'm only pushing back against the idea a lot of people have that complexity is inherently more enjoyable. The problem with Viper, for me, is that the parts of the rotation that are complex in an interesting way are handled for you by the job gauge lighting up the correct buttons, and the only remaining complexity is the constant barrage of positionals, which just make the whole job feel tedious. For me, it's the worst of all worlds.
41:30 this is exactly how all FFXIV healers play when nothing goes wrong... It's extremely noticeable because things don't go wrong nearly enough. I've heard some things about dawntrail though, so maybe things go wrong more often in the new expansion.
I love how Viper currently plays, I hope that Yoshida and them doesn't mess up its play style to much. I tried Samurai (use to be a Samurai main Melee DPS) and they changed the way it works a little, with some of the abilities and threw me for a major loop. And I clicked right away with Viper as my main Melee DPS, kind of like how I clicked with Gunbreaker as my main Tank.
RIGHT? tsubame being tied to meiko is so fucking dumb... "DERRR WELL I GUESS NOONSE USES THE GIANT POTENCY BUFF ON AOES SO MIGHT AS WELL MAKE THAT MMORE OF A PAIN AND HARDER TO DO!" when 90% of the fucking fights ARE AOE EXCLUSIVELY OUTSIDE OF RAIDS/TRIALS
As a summoner main since arr, I gave the endwalker change a chance expecting more built to its kit in dawntrail. I think Larry's video explains it best where my thoughts are. I then picked up viper and fell in love. I don't normally play melee but it has been stupid fun. I'm now maining it.
Of the two new jobs I feel if any of the two would be complained about for being too hard it would be Pictomancer. Viper is alot a simpler of the two and you don't have to setup as much as Pictomancer does.
I think people are kinda missing the point here with difficulty vs business. The issue with Viper is that it's so "busy" that you really can't effectively do your rotation on certain fights. I don't personally think this really shows up until you do Everkeep EX. The proposed changes don't seem to make it easier but giving you the ability to have more time on bosses. As far as difficulty, Viper is very complex to minmax but in general much easier than picto, at least imo.
I don't have issue myself with the viper positionals, but I do see what the problem would be for most players. The double weave between your dread combo positionals feels extremely awkward and would likely be difficult for some people to perform while moving from flank to rear (or vice versa). Especially depending on what type of controls they're using. I'm all for skill expression but that particular one is again just very awkward feeling.
I feel like we're playing telephone WAY too much. Japanese complaint > Employees capturing messages > Yoshi P > Yoshi P legalese > Translator > Text > English Audience. Don't we have community translators who can be like, "This is the majority sentiment, with these fringe opinions" on the forums or reddit or something? I don't see the Japanese community at all. I want to but I can't see it anywhere without learning 3 years of the language.
Always cracks me up when people say we have a good connection to the devs xD Like, we are sitting behind 5 walls of filter from the devs. Yoshi might as well be speaking in riddles for the western audience.
As far as I'm aware, the JP players think "the Devs only listen to EN players!". The grass is greener at the neighbour's house, to borrow their version of the idiom.
I think Mishapenchair had it right - no amount of easing down on job difficulty will appease the people who honestly just don't want to put much thought into it. And I think its fine to be mediocre in FF14. It's not a game that forces you to be sweaty, and it's not a game you can just plow through by the time you reach later expansions. But it's also very forgiving. I'm messing up so much going into these new DT dungeons/trials on certain things that don't click in my brain yet - but we still get clears and even with 1-2 vuln stacks, not even getting knocked down. If these kneejerk changes are anything to go by I'd bet it's a vocal minority who are seeing another vocal minority, and taking things far too seriously far too soon because the numbers they do on the screen mean more to them than just clearing the content. Most people aren't hyper casual or a hard core raider, but those small groups stretch the game in ways that are drastic + not commensurate with the overall player base.
They hated him for he told the truth... I was rusty doing the post endwalker trials after 2 years of not playing... I had 8 fucking vulnerability stacks as the main tank by the time we killed the last trial of that questline... game the casuals play is not hard in the slightest...
Anything is hard when you don't have the knowledge, either to playing your character, correct gear, spec, boss fight strats and doing it all at once without distraction.
The normals being clearable by everyone isn't the problem, the problem is when people demand the same results on every class and every skill level. And then what's the point? Especially when people throw riots over certain loot being locked behind ex/savage/ect. There's gotta be a line.
I will say, all comments aside from the job balancing and changes. This launch was an absolute delight. I never had to worry about logging in. I had no issues playing the game and enjoying it how it was intended to be experienced. Unlike other MMOS and Other Triple A titles who have some how managed to fail at releasing their titles, this was a breath of fresh air and honestly set a standard I will expect going forward.
Yeah, people are not talking about this enough. It was buttery smooth, despite the absolutely insane rush. If it is true that the game was doing better than SHB and EW then we had the same rush of players but none of the issues. Of course there's also the argument that this should be the norm and not worth mentioning. OF COURSE it was smooth. That is what we should be expecting from the provider of a product. Sadly reality has taught us otherwise and we've begun to accept the reality of it.
One thing to keep in mind- only melee dps in ff14 have positionals. They used to all have different positionals- it varied from dragoon, to monk, to ninja. With Endwalker, when they added reaper, they normalized all the melees to two positionals (one rear and one flank). Now they've added viper with... four positionals. Obviously one can argue that variety is better, that jobs were better before, but it's inarguable that they 1) made a design rule and 2) broke their own design rule.
Yeah but with Viper you really only have two positionals that truly matter, the Dreadwinder combo - and that you just True North, same as with Reaper's big damage combo. The only time you really use the basic combos is when you are on downtime of the main burst, and mostly just to keep the debuff up
coming from playing Rogue and Demon Hunter in WoW, Viper feels (felt?) like a breath of fresh air. Just DAMAGE DAMAGE DAMAGE YEAH BOYS YEEEEEHAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
People didn't like Proving Grounds? I missed most of that expansion but came back right before the next one and I LOVED Proving Grounds. Something cool I could solo. It was like an early version of the mage tower. That was the best stuff WoW ever added.
The only thing I don't understand about this is that players can be all the jobs on one character, so I'm not sure why people would push to change something due to difficulty. Some jobs are already harder to play than others.
This! That's the big frustration that a lot are over looking. The game already has easy jobs, most have been vastly "streamlined" for the purpose of making them accessible to casuals. But the players on the other end should be allowed to have jobs that cater to them too. New players can't even play Viper, no one was maining Viper already, there are over 20 jobs and most of them are already extremely simplistic. What is the point of being able to change jobs if they all need to be made to do the same things and cater to the lowest end players? Some of us want job options that actually have us doing stuff and find that fun.
Because people **want** to be X instead of Y. It's really not that hard to understand when you remember that not everyone plays video games because they want to be challenged. People play video games because they're **fun**. And fun isn't tied to difficulty unless a player *wants* to be challenged. If you just want to do "cool ninja shit," you're not going to be happy when people tell you to just put on summoner robes instead. They don't want difficulty, they want to enjoy the fantasy that they have constructed for their character. Also, people are really taking the Viper changes to an extreme that is wholly overbearing. The only things that are for sure is that some ranges are being adjusted (big whoop, that's quality of life), and positional requirements are being eased somewhat (which is probably the B2B positional in the Dreadwinder combo getting adjusted so the second attack is positional-free). The complaints of "busyness" is such a nebulous, indistinct, non-specific thing that you can't really say what it is. But if all that led to is a positional adjustment and some range changes, it's probably not as big of a change as people are dooming over.
@@electronsympathy But that argument is also true the opposite direction. A huge chunk of the player base is frustrated because almost every job already caters to the people that just want to play everything with no effort. That's why they keep getting backlash, we on the other end, do not find it fun to play 21 flavors of oversimplified. There should be jobs that offer different ranges of engagement. If you only care about the aesthetics then play Viper in PVE where no one cares, even in normal mode content, no one cares if you don't do your rotation properly. By this logic, Savage content should all be changed to be as easy as normal modes because casuals want all the raid mounts. Casual players should not be entitled to just have everything catered to them. They may find simplicity fun but just as many players find a job that is actually engaging to be what makes it fun. They're not over reacting because a precedent has been set already with so many jobs being overly simplified or having complexity removed while there haven't been any that have gone the other way and gained more complexity. People are worried because they already changed so many jobs to cater to casuals and it kills any gun for those of us that actually want to use our brains. Viper is already not considered difficult by most players because without positionals, having more range, etc, it's already heavily going down the path of becoming "follow the light up buttons" the job and that is frustrating to players that like it with positionals and enjoy it specifically because it is busy. Again, sorry if a casual likes 2 swords aesthetically but you shouldn't just get to have everything because you decide not putting any effort in is fun. Some of us actually want to play the game and be engaged.
@@mismismism What? Are the mechanics of fights not engaging enough for you? Real talk, buddy... If you're so "good" at the game that the only thing that keeps the game from being braindead is a back to back positional requirement... Maybe you're actually missing some shit. I guarantee you, once you step out of your reddit/youtube echo chamber and look at the broader picture, you'll see that this "huge chunk" of the playerbase is actually much, much smaller. The simplest Viper or Summoner gameplay is still miles ahead of most MMO classes in terms of complexity. And there's nothing wrong with them being easy to play. We live in an age where any MMO class is going to be **solved** by some guy with a spreadsheet within hours of release. We have people who are *manually deactivating* pictomancer buffs for a tiny increase in DPS in the first week. MMO classes will never be meaningfully difficult. You're not arguing for difficulty. You're arguing for a class to be harder to *control*, harder to do the correct *inputs*. It's a discussion that's been done to death in the FGC, and the honest truth is that you don't need anything to be difficult to control. Classes being difficult or easy to play isn't the real issue, it's whether or not there's enough space in the gameplay to express yourself as a player. FFXIV, with its rigid, dance-like, scripted fights, and uncompromising, bespoke attack rotations is lacking in that regard.
@@electronsympathy No, they're not, because some of us want variety. No one is being elitist by saying there should be some jobs that are easy and some that actually require some effort. Not to mention it literally does not have an effect on casuals because normal content doesn't have enrage. If a casual just wants to have 2 swords and they can't weave properly, they don't need to. They can literally just do the 2 button combos the whole time, focus on mechanics and clear. All these changes do is make players that actually want to be engaged by their job, find that fun and became fans of the game because of jobs that used to offer that, feel alienated and bored. It's not actually a small portion at all, that's why the backlash has been so intense for the constant simplification of jobs and homogenization that they keep coming out and addressing it. Which is another reason people are mad, because Yoshida came out and said they weren't gonna keep doing this and talking about how they went too far and players need some stress to feel satisfied but then they're talking about a new job being too hard a week after it released when most players, especially the casual ones, don't even have it levelled yet, let alone have muscle memory to even be complaining in the first place, it just dropped, of course people will need to take time to learn how to play a job that barely came out. This whole thing is stupid, there are 21 jobs, if VPR is not for you, that doesn't mean there is something wrong with VPR, you do not build a game with every option catering to the lowest investment players. There are already a whole bunch of jobs made to be casual and simple to play effectively, there are only a few left for the rest of us currently. This is also why stuff like the healer strike happened and BLM players getting pissed and the job has badly fallen off in high end content in favor of PCT because a lot of us actually want a job that feels complex and there is nothing wrong with us voicing that.
Games need skill expression and class differences. Rn I feel like ff14 is struggling a lot with classes feeling distinct outside of aesthetics due to homogenizing the way each role functions. And Skill Expression is hard when the class design is so universally just hit buttons in this order and then hit this button when the gauge is full. Repeat. Which might be an issue with the core system of tab targetting ability rotation gameplay. So it's just based on what the bosses do. But once you know a boss, you kinda just know the boss. Positionals shake up the rotation a bit, but I don't know if I've ever found it particularly engaging as a mechanic. And it's only for melee dps too. On the ranged side the skill expression feels pretty much just "Does BLM know where and when to drop leylines" but if they do they get to do massive damage that completely overshadows the other casters. And I don't think people have really had much problem with that. But I also main RezMage so what do I know I just like having a feather in my cap.
a long, long time ago during at least 2.x and through HW people had asked for talent trees or skill trees or whatnot to be able to have different "versions" of classes; it still comes up but this is one of those things that Yoshida won't budge on. the problem with this and it was an issue in FFXI (and the notice in WoW that it was much the same) that it's only an illusion of choice: high-tier players will always minmax the eff out of each job and would immediately go into "well if you aren't playing it in THIS spec you can't come" and the devs didn't want that to be happening and every job to be viable. even if it's just high-tier players minmaxing, it somehow goes down to even casual players who are just playing or casuals who are trying to get better but want to try something different. that makes it incredibly unfun in the long run for people; i played FFXI for years and it was near impossible to get a group if you weren't playing the preferred subjob to your main job. i mained SMN in 2.0 because i could actually summon things to destroy the enemies, not play a glorified healer. everything else i do agree though, and while having quick-moving jobs is fun, others will struggle. it feels like they're being dumbed down for people who pick up on it quick but everyone should have a chance to get better at it. many people play this game, but a vast majority are the casual players, and it's still just a game at the end of the day.
There are two methods that make multiple options viable in WoW. First is different content/comp/circumstances etc have different "best" builds. Sometimes you want to do pure single target damage, sometimes you want more AoE, sometimes in between. Or certain utility talents you only pic for specific bosses/dungeons. Second one is you can simplify the gameplay a lot by choosing suboptimal talents, less active abilities and more passive ones etc.
I know the fear for me is that I personally don't see how you reduce the "busyness" without hurting what makes the class fun. I think Viper suffers from starting at level 80 and if it was level 50 there wouldn't be nearly as many complaints. I know I struggled a bit with it at first because it's very overwhelming out of the gate. However, I decided to stick with it and ran a MSQ roulette. Having just your 1-2-3 combo let me get used to the flow of those abilities and piece together myself how to fit in the rest of the kit from there. Not everyone is gonna make that connection still (though idk how they stick through the game in that case since its the basis of all jobs), but significantly more people would. The only thing I can think of is the Dreadwinder positionals + double weave being too much, so if they lose the positionals I think it would be fine. If they lose the double weave or any of the other OGCD fun, I think it might actually ruin the job for me.
The amount of flexibility picto has as a caster is insane, just running dungeon content with it feels so smooth, and it feels like I can decide what part of my kit I want to use whenever I want to for movement. I’m also terrible at perfectly executing a rotation and not hyper optimizing 2min burst on picto doesn’t feel TOO bad
As an outsider, it strikes me as strange that the game can support very high end progress raiding, but it can't support a class that's a bit harder than baseline. Surely it's just not that big a deal if one or two classes is harder to perform well on, especially if most content is tuned to avoid frustrating fail states?
The difference is none of the casual player base will even consider ultimates, savage, or criterion content. Most won't even do extremes. So when most players only do content attached to group finder roulettes, the difficulty of each job becomes the main challenge these players will face in the game. And if you have players who think a class is cool, but it's too tough to play, they'll get upset.
@@OldManInternetI don’t get upset. I just don’t play it. I’m here to have fun an get through content at my leisure. If I spend most of my time split between deciding if I should press button 8/12 or 6/12. That’s too much when I’m already running around avoiding the kitchen sink mechanics. I’m here to just have a casual experience an if that makes me not play a class, so be it. Not many games are my speed anymore. An I’m fine with that. The ones complaining are the ones that treat the game as a job an take it serious, which is fine. But they forget we exist, which…..is funny.
It's more so MMO gamers are conditioned to view jank as difficulty, for instance Viper needs to strike the sweet spot It's a class constantly doubble weaving with high apm and positionals, as it stands anyone with any real ping is going to be forever having a unfun experience, for instance NIN (the other scouting job) just lost a positional on Trick attack the job isn't "easier" it's less obnoxious having to pop true north for Trick in certain encounters (say p11s) where the mechs and boss require you to not be at the rear.
Well have you thought of maybe that’s not what the devs are going for in the first place. Also most ppl complaining some job is too easy is not even “hardcore”. 90% those ppl you see in this comment section never set foot in savage or ultimate. They don’t know the correct opener for the job they play. They don’t know even when they doing the rotation wrong. Actually they do have really complicated jobs. Guess what. No one is playing it. And if you ask ANY players do high end content often. They will all tell you. Job is not the hard part of the game. It’s the boss. No one think wow TOP is really hard because you have to do positional. Just like preach said. The ppl complain and trying to show ego are the ppl “nearly” to be good.
@@Havok135 you are sadly the VAST minority my friend, most people take to reddit/forums/twitter/youtube/apparently channels the devs monitor, to bitch and moan incessantly that it's too hard as you can see from spending even 5 minutes scrolling here
I would not be surprised if they remove the positionals from dreadwinder while keeping the positionals on your 123 there’s no way in hell they remove all of them but dreadwinder makes the most sense to me since a lot of people seem to not even know they’re there
They don't want more combat systems. They're happy with their consistency. Positionals are the somewhat DPS agnostic "skill-check" feature they've landed on, and making it so failing them doesn't block class mechanics anymore (because it used to), sealed that deal. I assume the Viper changes will be to bring it in line with the other melees that were revamped: Largely, only the finisher. Reaper does it a bit different with the spenders instead, but it's the same logic. I don't know why people are freaking out.
Because being able to hit all your positionals is how you can express your skill on that job. By removing some of them, your way of expressing skill becomes just critting more.
@@Henji96 i think we have VASTLY different definitions of "expression" here. Positionals are binary. you either hit them or you dont. And it's rarely ever 100% in your own hands if it's even an option- whether it be through tanks moving or the boss shifting around for mechanics (trick attack, anyone?). Not to mention all of the random bosses and the majority of final bosses that are omni-positional to begin with... Frankly, I fail to see how that's "expressive" in any way. Most people I know sit at the back corner of a boss and wiggle back and forth 3 inches to the left and right and just pop true north when things get funky. Standing relatively still and pressing an oGCD button. How expressive! That being said, Viper specifically, has plenty of other ways to "express your skill" as is. We have rattling coils, when and where to use our "spare" reawakens because we're gauge positive on full uptime, we can pretty freely control how much of our debuff to have when going into the burst phase, the burst phase itself has like 3 or 4 different variations with pros and cons on a per fight basis... Heck, Viper barely has a rotation because it's just 90-100 seconds of "just don't mess up" before setting yourself up for a double reawaken in raidwide buff timers. Where I'm from, we call that "freestyle". Not that I necessarily want to see that little extra difficulty go myself. Positionals are the only thing truly differentiating melee from ranged and casters, but calling it a form expression is so very weird and out there to me. I see it more of a role identity. Tanks get aggro, healers heal, melees have positionals, casters have cast times, and ranged cry in the corner.
@@Fluff2556 The expression is grabbing the positionals that arnt free where you arn't standing in the cornor wiggling 3 inches, when its TOP p6 and its been 2 hours in to the raid night and you miss 0 positionals on the boss that spins around and faces the tank while you run around in a circle or when its hello world and the positional is on the opposite side of your tower so the only way to get it is to run though the middle of the boss where you can run in to a healer. Encounter design effects your ability to express your skill and you need both job and encounter design to have skill expression, and while overall encounter design has been moving in a way that lets you greed less positionals and have easier uptime (and therefore be less expressive), changing it on the job design level makes it so no matter what encounter you are going to have less skill expression.
A great discussion with a well informed perspective. I'd love more of this type of thing explaining why things people complain about may not be as simple as they seem in an MMO sense.
This is a super interesting discussion that applies to Augmentation Evoker in WoW as well. The autopilot-style (the one the class is designed around) puts out approximately 30% of what the spec is capable of. The spreadsheet-style (the one the class is actually balanced around) puts out the highest numbers in the game, not that Warcraft Logs can showcase it because it's perpetually broken.. There's no way to bridge this gap with balance tuning or design implementation, which means that one playstyle has to go. And it should be spreadsheet. Also, it should be noted that WoW is one of the most complicated MMOs out there and does next to nothing to teach its players how to play it.
the fuck is an augmentation evoker lmao i haven't played since early legion, played week after vanilla launch to legion but that just sounds like an arcane mage that does enchants or transmogs lmao
also yeah back in vanilla wow especially there was absolutely nothing whatsoever beyond tooltips, that were even wrong sometimes too or abilities being awfully designed (how bout that rank 1 lacerate at like lvl 45 doing 66 damage over 30 seconds for survival hunter LOL ik weird memory for WoW stuff), people expect a truly absurd amount of hand holding in FF and babyrage endlessly online when they don't get it or get ANY frustration whatsoever
I'd really like to hear more about what kind of hero moments could look like. It's something I haven't thought too much about in terms of job identity but it is something I can feel. Healers have great hero moments with rez and rescue letting them do extremely high impact actions in specific scenarios. I think Paladin has a great hero ability in passage of arms, it really makes you feel like a tank, you get a big ass cool looking ability that clearly communicates "get behind me" as you protect your whole party from damage. All tanks can have minor high impact moments like that with their raidwide or single target mitigations letting them save people from mistakes though I find those significantly less strong than passage of arms. As for the dps I can't really think of anything like that, the joy of dps mastery mostly comes down to performing a well practiced rotation exactly as intended and jobs with mobility tools can have some cool moments with using them to reach safe points for mechanics rapidly, but that's really it. It's something that really only comes up when mistakes are made and you're not really searching for those moments so much as they can be hype when they come up naturally.
Positionals aren't particularly interesting but it works well enough for small gains. Only changes to Viper I'd like to see is combining the Coil and Den spells into one button each. Having two keys for each when they can't ever be used at the same time is silly. Also I don't think its necessary for the coil spells to be positional, positionals on the main combo is enough.
My money is on Coils being where the change will be. Those combos are pushing the line of fun/frustrating with the massive, mandatory APM increase, which is something they've moved away from.
I just want the APM to stay high, it's the biggest draw to the class for me. I adore how it plays with different speeds and burst windows. I think Den could be mixed into the Coil's if they added some other buttons to the job. Because legit, it would drop it down to a like 12 button job for everything almost lol. But otherwise the only change I'd ask for personally is removed positionals from the Coil attacks specifically. Back to back positional swaps are never really fun and often frustrating in a game that focuses on dance style fights.
Did i just hear someone have an informed opinion for 50 minutes straight ? Like, actually using his brain, thinking, reflecting on past experience and adding video game design theories to the mix ? And on top of that, making unimaginable statement for some, like "there is no good answer to that" or "i don't know myself" when, in reality, there is in fact no good answer to it and he does not know the answer himself ? To think that there are still people capable of such speech is... incredible. Feels like a fever dream. Immediate subscriber here.
I do agree that we need jobs that are more simple to play than others. But the history of FFXIV seem that every job gets simplified and made easier to play. And as you said my view as someone who's played a lot of MMO, might have a different view than a new person... But they did make the whole rotation of Viper about as simple as you can make it. What I have seem to notice is that some very vocal people, not a lot, but they're very vocal, have this idea that they're entitled to be able to play every job well, and if it's too hard, that's not their fault for not trying to learn, but that the job was made wrongly.
And it sadly feels as though they are the people SE listen to the most. There is actually zero reason outside of job does not function, to make huge changes to jobs based on early access feedback…
I think part of the "busyness" issue is that we're running the tab of 5 expacs now where a new class is introduced and starts 10 levels away from the max cap. Every new class that comes out gets almost/all of its abilities dumped on your head right from the start, with a little "figure it out" tacked on, like it preemptively had a level skip attached to it. One of the factors slowing me down from considering non-base classes in ffxiv is that lack of runway, where you organically learn your class basics. For machinist through to viper/picto its essentially "you should know this already" The devs do it the way they do so you can use the new classes going into the new content without having to grind out those lower levels, but i feel that it would be more organic to do those lower levels and learn the class naturally. Thats what leveling roulettes are for, right? Leveling your non main classes?
major no, i'd never ever ever play the new jobs if i had to elvel from 1.... i played for 4+ yrs i have no fucking interest in going back down to lvl 1 and having 1 button again and playing 80 levels with 1/2 a kit.... just fucking NO. literally refuse to run roulettes because alliance raid is 3000% of the time a CT raid, leveling is 70% of the time some sub 60 bullshit where you lose LITERALLY 3/4 OF YOUR FKING KIT.... idk why the hack ass devs dont do level syncing like EVERY OTHER FUCKIN GAME WHERE YOU KEEP YOUR KIT.... i don't care if it makes some level 20 content easier... those people aren't gonna get my help anyways so punishing me that way is asinine. i help people unsync stuff and farm mounts constantly, i dont need to play fisher price 2 button version of my class to do so.
All I ask for viper is that the proc'ed actions that benefit from either flanked or rear positionals be completely separate actionals able to be manually placed on my jotbar. By all means, combine all the flank potionals onto one button and all the rear positionals on another button. But I'm not going to want to read the name and memorize which names benefit from which positionals. I'd much prefer to infer my positional requirements from the location on my hotbars.
for the 123 combo, you can either tell by the color, or you just remember the next positionals because it's always rear-flank-rear-flank. For dreadwinder, it's working exactly how you wanted.
@@adrian-iw7gm As I'm playing a bit more. I did start to notice that. A green icon is for flank and a red icon is for rear. I suppose it would have been more obvious if the icon colors were a little more saturated.
I think the perfect balance for job design is to have jobs that aren't for everyone, for example i loved played EW BLM because of how complex and flexible it was once you digged deeper into the job but i absolutely hated playing summoner because of how simple and strict it was. Thats why i mained BLM and never touched SMN, and i think that is fine to have a job that is super easy to do well on the game the same way i think that is fine to have a job that is complex and a player with more experience on the job will outdamage you by a decent amount. Sadly i think SE leaning to hard to the side of every job should be for everyone and that is kinda making so every job is easy to do well and every time a job appear with some cool optimizations options they find a way to remove it ( BLM and MNK are good examples of it in DT) leaving very little to explore for players who want to dedicated more time to a job. About combat design i think FF is fine the way it is, theres multiple levels of difficulty and you can choose what you want and dont want to do, the only gripe i had so far in combat design in FF is that dungeons were always too easy, but i think they fixed that very well on DT, they made most of the dungeons a little bit more challenging but not too punishing, so even if the mechs are harder to solve you dont die cuz you got hit once like you do in harder content, that way you keep yourself engaged cuz its harder to avoid mistakes while still being able to clear most of it consistenly cuz its fine to mess up once or twice.
I'm pretty casual. I just play a lot and I think maybe I kind of understand. I don't particularly want to play anything more complex than like... a Fury Warrior and I think it's because I don't like fighting my class to do damage. If my rotation feels like I have to meet a bunch of conditions to use specific abilities, I'm likely just going to pick the guy who presses the button to make the number pop up. Sometimes, in FF, I feel like I'm spinning plates instead of just getting into the nitty gritty and it kinda bores me.
Weird question. But does red/green color blindness have a higher incidence in the East compared to the West? It wasn't something I thought about, but then I seen a few people mention it, and I was like "of course". In the past, you could always remember "when I press this button I need to be flank" and "when I press this button rear". But with the shared buttons, I can see why that would be endlessly frustrating to people with red/green colorblindness because the color is the easy way to distinguish which positional you need.
@rickmel09 Nothing with APM. But the hotbar icons for the different finishers are red and green. So I have seen people make comments about it being hard to remember which positional to hit because they can't see the color. Maybe I misheard because I did just have this video going in the background. But He said the majority of complaints came from Japan, both the APM and the annoyance of positionals. So that colorblind thing was just something that popped into my head.
I doubt it's about the standard rotation positionals. Even if you where color blind, once you learn the flow, rear always follows the button 2-2 and flank always follows button 1-2, or in the instance of the vipersight gauge, left 2 leads to flank and right 2 leads to rear. It's likely the dreadwinder combo, where one is a flank, the other is a rear, you have to do them both sequentially, and theres a double weave between them and following them.
Still kinda surprised they barely waited a week to make such big changes, a lot of friends who played Viper over the MSQ are kinda dumbfounded. Guess I'll wait till the rework to try the class.
28:05 Yeah when I played wow that was me(heroic raiding guild). I hate to say it but my guild wasn't the greatest but I had fun playing with them so I'd rather play with them than pug the raid week 1 or 2. The fun I got playing with those guys far outweighed the gear I would have gotten by finishing the raid a month or two earlier
My thoughts on balance for newer classes is: There's already 19 other jobs in the game, if you don't like the new ones then just stick with one of the old ones. I struggle to understand people complaining about a new playstyle if they still have one available in game that they feel comfortable with. Imagine if people talked this way about fighting game characters, as an example.
I have a feeling this isnt a "kneejerk" reaction, in reality they probably were having talks about it in the back room and the players confirming it was all they needed. Also no "customization" to jobs isnt an issue, in my eyes it is just a plus, it helps balance things easier.
the core problem is that MMO's dont actively take a role in the process of trying to get a player to improve their skill level. The good players arent aware of how good they are because the fact is, they arent that good, talent wise. becoming "that good" is something that virtually everybody could achieve if they wanted to and put some effort into. Its not actually "that" hard. The problem is that MMO's dont have "turn casual players into hardcore players" as a goal of the combat. Elden Ring, dark souls etc. do have that goal of combat. Hell most 2d platformers and speedruns transform games into having that goal implicitly. What MMO's need to figure out is not "how can we have 80% of players doing piss all bad damage, while the best players do 2-3x their dmg" but "how can we turn those 80/20 split into a 20/80 split where the majority of our players are capable of performing the spec/job/class to near its maximum potential. There are absolutely people who can play a fight in WoW perfectly consistently dps wise, who get 100 parses across the board tier after tier. There's not many of them, maybe like 5-10 players per spec max. But they do exist. They dont do it starting from pull 1 as you said, but after 50, 100, 200 pulls they do, and once you learn it, you're eliminating further changes you need to make as you go, until you reach 0. Once you learn it you can repeat it every kill after that point.
I think positionals depend on the job and what it asks of you. For a job that is as simple as viper, where you are basically just hitting the shiny button and rubbing 2 brain cells together, positionals go a long way for me because it's something to think about on a moment to moment basis that supplements the simplicity and pace of the rest of the job. Without them then i fear it would be too simple without much else going on for it but I don't think positionals are a perfect solution either
I feel like positionals only work on jobs that can flex them so they don't have to spend True north every time a mechanic slightly inconveniences them. Samurai is the poster child of doing positionals right, if you're going to do them, you need the option to say "Okay the boss is about to do an attack that will make the rear unaccessible, but the flank is fine, let me do my flank combo and grab that sen, oh no a circle dropped and I still can't get to the back yet, no worries, use my filler sen for the moment and then make my way to the rear." If it persists after that, then use true north. So then what to you do on a class like Viper when you need to double weave, but then also need to hit a positional. I just don't get why EVERY SINGLE MELEE needs positionals, why can't that be a job specific thing?
For me and what I think others are struggling with with Viper is they can't tell if the positionals are flank or rear for their final attack since those skills can't be assigned and they change each time. It took me a while to figure out the flow chart. Ultimately I realized that if the icon was green it's flank, red is rear. That was the only thing I could find besides hovering over the ability to figure out the positional.
I can't imagine they'll change the base rotation positionals. I can only imagine they're complaining about the dreadwinder combo. It is a flank or rear with a double weave into a swapped position with another double weave. I don't find it difficult on controller, because I've got the positionals set up to do a swipe of B -> Y -> X immediately into A -> X -> Y, so I don't have to think about it while moving to the rear from the flank or otherwise. However, I have no idea how most of the JP player base plays the game and I could see how you might get a lil finger twisted on either controller or KB. Especially since the current optimal opener is a debuff setup weave the 2 minute, second red button, and a dreadwinder pot weave into the positionals immediately with an awakened followup before you finish your standard combo positional. So if you're just playing casually (A legitimate thing), this does seem like a LOT of positionals, especially since they've grinded off most of the positionals off the other classes.
DERRRRRRRRRRRR THERES NOT A SKILL PAGE THAT SAYS EVERY SINGLE FKING ABILITIES TOOLTIP OR ANYTHING IN THE GAME SINCE 1.0 RIGHT? SURELY? THERE'S REALLLLLY TOTALLLLY NOT A SKILL PAGE LIKE IN EVERY SINGLE OTHER MMO, RIGHT???? RIGHT??????? RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTT!?!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!
Anyone who thinks that the majority of an mmo's playerbase isn't casual needs to go tank for a year. I've seen dps who didn't even know they could rebind their keys in +20s in WoW. Honestly I don't mind and I'm ok with them building games towards this large audience. As long as I have ways to express my skills and content that requires more effort I'll find something to do.
I'm the opposite. I hate games that cater to morons. That's how WOW has ended up with billions of oxygen thieving noobs. The "it's just a game" crowd that are content wasting other players time because they refuse to improve even SLIGHTLY. They're not team players and shouldn't be given an ounce of clemency
I agree, and this is also a big problem for me with this whole controversy. I think its totally find that not everything is made for everyone, and I don't think every class's play style should be for everyone. Like if you don't want a fast paced, busy class, then maybe viper isn't for you and that ok, there are plenty of other jobs that will cater to your play style.
@@Varichan idk what data center you are on, but as a dps player who does tank on the side, ive seen the exact opposite. Dps players tend to be very skillful and good. Tanks tend to be moronic and brain dead. Maybe just a difference in server population?
I don't know how I feel about positionals as a difficulty/skill check. I know that I really enjoy doing them as a little icing on top of the rotation cake. As Preach says, there's not really a good answer. I do think I prefer the skill check being on how you handle the boss fight rather than how you play your class - it feels like it fits the design of FFXIV more, and it's why I'm glad they don't have spec variety and talent trees the way that WoW does and everyone's on reasonably even footing.
But this leads into an obvious problem: 95% of the content in the game dont have any "skill check" in how you handle the fight. Thats reserved for savage/ultimate and maybe some extremes. The classes HAVE to have some skill checks, otherwise most of the game becomes meaningless.
Sub-specs would be amazing. That is where you could have the difference for skill floors. If someone loves a job but is a casual player they have a spec they can play, but the other version could be far more technical.
I expect they'll be removing the positionals from Swiftskin's Coil and Hunter's Coil. That's where things get really messy, as you're having to double weave OGCDs which alternate combo order, while hitting two sequential, but different, positionals, and its the most awkward bit of the rotation to execute, particularly if there's mechanics going off. It doesn't feel like a fair challenge, it just feels like you need more fingers to do everything without clipping
@aromenoir9552 no, I'm on keyboard. If you're in a group with a decent tank who's holding the boss still, and party members who aren't baiting AoEs through the party, it's fine. In PuG groups, and/or if your latency isn't ideal, or if you're dealing with random AoE drops, it can be *incredibly* frustrating to actually hit the positionals without drifting. It's made worse by the fact you can't correct and use TN if you don't know in advance you're going to need it without drifting. Viper is awesome, and very elegant to play, but Dreadwinder has just got too much going on at once for it to feel satisfying to pull off so little a benefit. Obviously, we don't know what raids will be like yet, so its not an issue in content that matters, but it feels bad, and it feels bad for the average player in the average group.
I'm maining Picto currently and it's kind of hilarious that Viper, of the 2, is apparently the one considered too hard, I don't understand that(do not come for Picto, let us have this damn it! Lol), the job just came out, once people have muscle memory and they know the mechanics in new content, it's not going to feel hard at all. My issue right now is that the majority of jobs have been "streamlined" to be overly easy for a big portion of the player base, we barely have any jobs on the side for players that want something harder, so when a job that is as automated as Viper is being considered too hard... It's just about the most worrying thing they could have said in a statement because if Viper is too hard, what's gonna happen to the others? I don't understand why we have a job system if every job has to cater to the lowest end player because apparently the most casual in FF14 absolutely need to be able to play every job to the highest level with minimal effort.
@rickmel09 It's the same thing. If you can't execute the job, play something else, not every job has to have the same tempo, again, there are 21 jobs to pick from. And like I said, if you are a casual player, and you can't keep up with positionals or weaving or whatever, then just don't, just play at the speed you can. There is no enrage in normal content, you do not have to play a perfect high end rotation, no one expects you to in normal content. They're mad that some jobs have room for skill expression for people that enjoy mastering a job that actually has mechanics. It's the same reason BLM players are pissed, they made changes that specifically killed non-standard rotations and everyone knows the reason is that little Timmy got mad he couldn't pick up BLM and do more damage than an endgame raider that finds their fun spending time practicing and mastering all the ins and outs of their job to learn a bunch of tricks they can do to get the most DPS out as possible. No one requires you to do that but yet casuals are constantly complaining. If there's a new job no one has even had enough time to master yet, that you can't play, guess what, the world doesn't revolve around you, play any of the other jobs that is less busy to you. I had to have surgery during EW and the meds I was on made it impossible for me to play harder jobs, but you know what I didn't do? Go onto the forums and complain that I couldn't play the hard jobs, therefore they need to be changed to all cater to my ability because other players exist that actually want a busier job and they should get equal priority from the dev team.
@rickmel09 Which is exactly what will happen and I actually want to continue playing this game. You all love to defend casuals complaining, treating us like elitists but let the rest of us voice our opinion and here you guys go doing the same things you accuse high end players of doing when this issue actually has nothing to do with casuals. Casual players are not expected to play their rotation perfectly but they keep inserting themselves into job balance.
@@zeening Not surprised by that, it's pathetic. Ranting when these job changes actually don't even affect normal modes. But let them tell it and Viper keeping positionals that add 50 potency means they literally can't play the game and are now unable to progress at all lol. It's exhausting.
I wish Viper was more like how it was originally described where you had to decide between twin swords or dual blade staff and swap between them but now its all just automatically done and there's no thought at all. No skill expression and now with them losing even the positional its just boring "I push glowing button I win! Yay!"
I kinda feel like Preach is missing the point. This isn't a balancing change, it's a change based on purely some people not liking the gameplay. Which, if you don't like it, there are plenty of other jobs to play. We wanted Viper for the "busyness". We want it to be fast and actually make you think even just a little. For casuals, it shouldn't matter anyway because if all you're doing is dungeons and 24m as long as you're hitting your buttons, you'll do fine.
This is basically the same as tank players complaining about Dark knight not being like Warrior every single time, and having Dark knight change into Warrior more and more every expansion. And Warrior players crying whenever Dark knight does something better until it gets streamlined.
I believe the non-JP forums don't have any sway. I'll just deal with the class changes when they're rolled out. What worries me more than Viper changes is actually the increase in MSQ dungeons and trials for DT. My friends were so angry after the final boss that they couldn't enjoy the end of story. I didn't think anything was too hard for me but I've been playing since ARR. I'm worried about the long term health of the game if they raise the skill floor. I get that people have been asking for more of a challenge don't think of the casual players who are getting turned off by the difficulty spike. My friends play to relax, not sweat. To them, spending more than half the time of a boss fight on the floor.
I think individual class complexity is actually the best way to please both casual and hardcore players. Content difficulty is an actual filter to having fun because of individual responsibility, class complexity is not. A casual player can pick up a difficult class and press the buttons in random order and they'll probably still clear normal mode content, they might even have more fun because of having more buttons to press and more mechanics to play around with (and again, you don't need to actually know how to optimally use those at this level). It's relatively easy to make low skill floor-high skill ceiling classes in an MMO, but I feel it's a lot more difficult to make low skill floor-high skill ceiling content.
You fell into the trap of not realising how much better you are then the average. Casual players aren't going to be happy with more buttons to press, there is an extremely common trope in FF14 specifically with some casual players that only press their 1-2-3 combo in all content, there are plenty more buttons then the 123 yet they still don't press them at all. More buttons and mechanics for classes isn't the answer. If it was, it would have already been implemented.
@CJGordon987 I've gotten in arguments with people about this before because they just don't get it. While there are absolutely incredibly talented players at the high end of this game, the skill floor (and by extension the ability of the truly average player) is comically low. And this majority is also the group paying the bills, so as much as PF legends would like more room for skill expression, the vast majority of people just want the job they think looks cool easy enough to play that they can get through their normal dungeons.
@@OldManInternet Not sure which side your argueing for, but that's pretty much what I'm talking about, and where low skill floor-high skill ceiling comes in. My argument is that it's easier to do that with jobs, something that the individual has direct control over, than with content, which is something that is mostly decided by the devs and also heavily influenced by the other people you're doing that content with in the case of group content. Think Devil May Cry (3 and beyond I guess) or Bayonetta which is probably an even better example. A person who's not good at video games can totally play those games on Easy difficulty and have fun just pressing buttons, if you happen to press them in a certain order cool shit happens, there are tons of weapons and moves to play with, you absolutely DO NOT need any of them to beat the game, but they're there if you stumble upon them and think they look cool. However, the depth is there for anyone who wants to explore it, and I'm not talking about the higher difficulties, but the options you have controlling your character; you can do some insane combos in those games if you know what you're doing, the possibilities are nearly endless, but that doesn't take away from the button mashing experience. Linking back to XIV, it already has content difficulty options (Normal, Extreme, Savage, Ultimate, etc.), you can already beat everything that is required to experience the story and everything else available in the expansion (other than higher difficulty variants) by just mashing your 1-2-3 combo. So why would adding 5 more buttons make a difference for those people who don't even care that buttons beyond 3 exist? Why not give the options (keyword options) for the people who want them? Why not raise the skill ceiling while keeping the skill floor where it is?
@@mirai3266 I personally don't mind having higher skill expression jobs/classes in games, but I'm not an average gamer. The average player is going to be annoyed when he has a certain aesthetic in a game he likes, but it's too hard to figure out so they can't do it. Someone who was a war vet and wants to play machinist because it has a gun, but ends up getting pushed into summoner because he doesn't have the reflexes for machinist will probably get annoyed. Maybe he just deals with it, or tries to get better and learn the job he thinks is cooler. But he's just as likely to quit his sub and move on because the job he can play doesn't match the job fantasy he enjoys. I actually think the answer is in making more content at varying difficulties. If the challenge comes from the content rather than the jobs themselves, then players can hop into whatever job fantasy they think is cool, and then figure our what their threshold for challenging content is. Then people can be whatever they want, and find their degree of challenge from the content. When you design some jobs that are hard and some that are easy, you're basically telling half the player base they potentially can't be the thing they think is cool. And that is a more important factor to the devs than a veteran player feeling like there isn't enough skill expression in their preferred job as they optimize their rotations for savage. Because at the end of the day, neither player is more valuable than the other, because they're both a sub. And the established player who has been savage raiding since Stormblood is less likely to cancel a sub over a lack of high end skill expression than a frustrated casual who just wants to be a guy with a gun.
@@OldManInternet So the argument then is that people will get annoyed at _more_ skill expression because they can't interact with that _extra_ skill expression due to not being good enough? That people actually do want to play their classes optimally, they just don't want to have to put in the work to do so? Because as I said, the game already allows you to experience 95% of it doing the absolute bare minimum, if you don't know how to go 1-2-3 on your keyboard you probably wouldn't even have been able to open the game in the first place. You don't need to raise the skill floor to raise the skill ceiling, you can keep that experience intact while allowing the players who want to interact more with the systems the freedom to do so, that's what I was saying with the Devil May Cry/Bayonetta example.
Positionals have always been a player issue. I honestly been ignoring most of them, even if it's a dps loss, with the exception of the single target charged abilities. I actually don't mind how busy Viper is. Something tells me I may actually hate the changes.
When it comes to optimization it requieres quite a bit of juggling, ideally you want to double reawaken on every even minute window, similar to RPR, difference being, RPR has only 1 debuff you need to maintain that can last for up to a minute and that can be refreshed at any time without any issues barring a minor dps loss if you overextend the debuff's duration, while VPR has 1 debuff and 2 buffs you need to upkeep and they come from 3 or 6 different actions depending on how you look at it, while its rotation doesn't allow you to apply these liberally, otherwise you run the risk of over capping important resources you then use for dealing damage or you lose a ton of damage if you have to apply them via a non optimal filler, not to mention they last for up to 40 seconds each. So yeah, easy to pick up and play to a competent level, not that easy to optimize or "parse" with.
honestly i think the problem is less that the class is hard and more that people tend to overthink it. They see 3 or 4 different buffs from different abilities in different stages of your combo flanks and rears an entire second combo with dreadwinder and start panicking wenn the reality just is hit 1-2-rear3-4 and repeat with flank instead of rear and just hit whatever button lights up The only thing that i could imagine could be annoying is the dreadwinder combo because rear and flank come immediately after another in that one.
@@sharodintv4036you have literally the entirety of the GCD to hit those 2 positional though, people make positional 3000% harder to deal with in their heads than they actually are
The thing is with class complexity is i think there should be some classes which do have skill expression. I dont think all of them 'must' be dumbed down to be accessible to everyone. I think this is somewhat problematic in ffxiv vs other MMO's because there are no job build paths... everyone plays the same jobs... but I think for the players who want something more complex is so that everyone can have what they want... One thing I do understand about ffxiv's design is that the majority of complexion comes from the fights themselves and not the classes. In this way everyone has the same class experiences and only the hardcore gamers who want difficulty are subjected to the actually difficult content. While I do enjoy this system to an extent when I sit there and do my dailies which are more or less a pastimes, there are days I would like to just play something difficult to keep me more engaged. New expert dungeons are a good step in the right direction because like EX content+ there is finally quote on quote "Casual" content which has some actual difficulty added.
I think a lot of people get caught up in the "skill issue" argument that they never actually try to analyze exactly why people are having a problem to begin with. look at it this way. someone getting into viper for the first time, and are still getting used to the positionals only have 2 ways to VISUALLY see which positional is next until they get used to it enough to have it down to muscle memory. the little red or green buff on the buff bar, or the gcd button that isn't visibly there until right before you use the attack. people naturally get used to and learn how to do things differently, which can go a long way to explaining why people are so mixed on viper. I'd like it if ALL 3 parts of the gcd's in your rotation turned red or green to show you which positional is coming up, or even add something to the job bar for it. It would go a long way in helping people learn the job, while also not actually changing how it plays.
I mean it is a skill issue. The vast vast majority of people have not had Viper for even 3 days yet. Over 95% of all Vipers on the lodestone are still level 80. Casuals are begging and screaming to make a job they haven't played at all and haven't even attempted to understand yet easier so they dont have to practice it at all lmfao. 99% of this community would cheer and clap if they removed all dps rotations and replaced them with the "damage button" because now they can be good at the game!
@@yeetusdeleetus4697 case in point, someone assuming skill issue rather than trying to figure out the problem. assumes people haven't tried it first, assumes it's all casuals, assumes they don't understand the job. etc. you should try using something other than your imagination for your facts
@@WoahItsCrazyMikeYou just read the first sentence and then stopped reading didn’t you? I know this because your comment makes absolutely no sense if you actually read what they said.
VPR isn't that tough. It's super easy to play. People are wildin'. And it is pretty apparent, they didn't spent a lot of time on Striking Dummies to figure out how it actually works.
@@kenjiayoma7571 Who's been saying it's too difficult? The post says it's too *busy*. It doesn't feel fun, and it doesn't feel like a skill check. It's more often than not a simple "where exactly is the boss, and where did the AoE land" check.
@@omensoffate if you have to move you use true north or take the L on the positionals, there's not a single fight in the game that's tuned so tight you need to hit 100% positionals. Weaving the ogcds while moving is insanely easy btw, that's 100% a skill issue if you struggle and there's plenty of other jobs with the same playstyle.
Them reworking Ninja Mudras to be on the GCD made me quit that job. It was the only dps I enjoyed, but it wasn't that bad because I was a healer main at the time. Didn't play for pretty much all of Shadowbringers/Endwalker because they sucked any joy out of combat to appeal to casuals. Now we finally get another fast paced dps job I enjoy and after not even one full weak they already want to gut it again.
You also need to consider that skill consists of both knowledge and execution. If a player knows exactly how their class and the boss works just lacks the dexterous finger coordination to press 20 buttons in the correct order they will still botch their rotation. I think this is part of the problem when people describe a class as "too busy." Viper's mechancics are super simple once you have managed to understand the confusing as fuck tooltop mess but actually executing this in practice can be a lot for people simply because of the ever changing buttons and the number of abilities in play.
They can play another job. There are now over 20 jobs in the game, why does EVERY job NEED to be catered towards 80 year old penguins with no fingers. We have Summoner, we have RDM, we have WHM and sadly AST now, we have Warrior, we have Reaper, we have like a dozen options for complete brain off, slow 1 gcd at a time gameplay, why do people who are slow and undexterous HAVE to play the fast dexterous gameplay job? Thats my genuine question.
@@yeetusdeleetus4697 That is a question you need to ask SE. Their stance seems to be one of hyper accecability. According to them, if you payed for the dawntrail expansion you should enjoy the two new jobs. My personal stance is that I dislike reaction based skill checks, but I am a gamer who generally prefers strategy games over fast paced action action games. Reactions kill checks for me simply don't add the difficulty I am looking for and imo also don't improve/change the core character of a jobs playstyle. That said, I understand your opinion and am generally not opposed to bussier jobs existing. I will just stick to the jobs I like such as Sage, Warrior or Reaper.
@rickmel09 Because high apm for casters is still extremely low, and that Summoner is objectively the easiest job in the game. You press the big summon button, then you press your colored Legos, repeat. The only optimization on the entire class is when and where you use slipstream
@rickmel09 I mean, not really? That is just inflated by the fact that Garuda gives you 3 quite fast GCDs which brings up the average. Business does not = APM. If Viper only had to press 1 button like Summoner for 99% of its gameplay it would not be busy. Theres nothing to manage, nothing to think about and nothing to keep up.
As a DNC main, Viper felt really easy to pick up. I can see positionals being annoying but that’s literally the only skill issue. Sure there isn’t that beeg damage moment but your uptime is the whole time. Viper is literally a sewing machine of constant/consistent dps and let’s be fr: optimal positionals can be ignored for majority of casual players. If people don’t like Viper I can only imagine it’s bc the play style doesn’t suit them.
The issue with Viper is the positionals is one of the few ways to show skill with the job. It's an extremely simple job where positionals are the only real thing that give it a bit of thought and skill. I'm fine if they put something in to give the class more of a skill ceiling and took away a few positionals, but that isn't being done. There is no reason it should be changed now until they have something to give viper more of a difference between the skill floor and ceiling.
@@BaithNa Yeah? Then why do people mess it up? It's like saying 'having 5 buttons instead of 4 isn't harder, its just a nuisance' or 'dealing with long cat times isn't skill, it's just a nuisance' that makes no sense at all. Having to do something extra IS adding something else to consider. Not to mention getting flank/back attacks isn't so easy when the boss moves or you have mechanics to avoid much like casters trying to get their casts off taking in consideration mechanics. Again, you can say there are better ways to add difficulty, but in the end it is still something that adds complexity to the job.
@@Asin241. That's a false equivalency 2. Just because people don't care you do positionals doesn't mean doing them is a skill, it just means some people care whereas other don't. 3. Again, moving a little before pressing a button isn't a skill under any circumstances. Look up the definition of the word "skill", kid.
I think the thing you left out on the illusion of choice, is that over time they can churn the playstyles by overtuning and nerfing things to give players a mixup on playstyles. Similar to how M+ talent builds let you mess with things you wouldn't in raid. So even though there's a defined best, that may change based on what they want to give you as an experience. And that's something wow seems to do well from time to time. That can't exist within 14 so they lack that lever. Which makes their job harder too.
not saying this is actually the case but considering how many ppl complain about a lot of dungeons and trials being too simple and boring, perhaps they're simplifying the classes a bit in order to make the fights a bit more complex/engaging... yeah, other MMOs are able to have complex classes and complex fights, but most of those games also allow addons (often times addons are basically a necessity)... i don't really see SE caving in and suddenly allowing addons so perhaps this is the compromise *shrug
I personally prefer a rhythm to rotations with lots of buttons even if the button doesn't seemingly add much just because i think button pushing is fun. I'd rather have to hit a button every 30/60 seconds than 2 minutes, because it makes combat feel more kinetic. Viper pulls this off great. It also heavily depends on how you configure your hotbar. I think people underestimate the way your hotbar is laid out in key binds can drastically alter mechanical game feel.
As a kid growing up i used to play Quake 1 and that game had auto aim, so all i ever did in FPS game´s was to use arrow keys to move and Ctrl/spacebar to fire my weapon and then years later i was invited to this LAN party where people were playing TRIBES 1 and after our team got decimated the by the other team, my teammates came to me and asked how i had only got 1 kill in the whole match, but it was due to me not using my mouse at all but just sticking to a keyboard, so i can really imagine some people playing WOW like that :D
I would LOVE if casual players put out 80% of the potential of their jobs, but unfortunately, that's not the case the majority of the time. Yesterday in normal roulette, another picto had half my damage output despite me having two deaths to his 0 deaths (it's been ages since I did that fight, cut me some slack.) I was probably around 80%, myself due to my deaths, and this other picto was maybe 40% of the potential output.
I can get on board with your argument but the dawntrail blm changes and the picto combo cancel changes I don't think fall in line with the argument in the video, both account for a sub 5% dps increase vs intended rotation but Square has decided to remove both.
Big problem is much of the Japanese playerbase who get listened to by developers, play on PlayStation controller. Having more buttons to push regularly than other jobs is going to require more learning as a new job. It is insane that these changes are coming within first week of release. It's likely many of the changes they do is based on data, showing that most players don't actually push their buttons, so they have to encourage or remove/bake skills into others to solve it.
nope it's english players too... comment 2 above yours... " @Abyssionknight 3 days ago I'm a bad player, and I like the idea of making rotations less punishing. I don't do savage or harder content, and I'll still struggle to learn mechanics in later dungeons or 8 man raids, often having to do them 6+ times to understand the mechanics. Even then, I'll have difficulty splitting my focus between doing my rotation and monitoring the mechanics, so often I'll misalign my burst window with the rest of the party, or i'll mess up telegraphed mechanics, because I was focused on my bars instead of the boss. There are entire jobs i've never touched because just reading them makes them sound insanely complicated to manage. So for people like me, we need non-punishing rotations, and ideally the MSQ should ramp up in difficulty over time enough that we can maybe feel confident at least trying savage content. So I like the viper changes, because the less bad players have to juggle, the more we can focus on not wiping the entire group on mechanics, letting you guys get through the content with less wipes or struggle, while letting us feel like we're contributing. I know the good players want complex mechanics and complex classes, but that's beyond most players of this game." WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!?!?!??!?!!?!? in this guy's universe there is NO duty support or trust that LITERALLY TEACHES THE DAMN MECHANICS, he HAS to run with other players and wipe them, there is NO The Balance or saltedxiv or any other myriad tools that LITERALLY TELL YOU BUTTON FOR BUTTON WHAT TO PRESS..... it's sickeningly pathetic, and THIS is what they balance the game around.....
My question to people who are struggling with this one: Is feral druid better or worse because Shred's positional requirement was removed? I think if you ask just about any feral player, it's better because it let them make the class more difficult in other ways (Blood talons / etc.) It let them experiment with making encounters more difficult because now you didn't have to focus on being behind the boss, etc.
not really comparable, 1 single job had 1 positional(yeah i know backstab and ambush too but idc not the point) whereas every single melee job in the game pretty much has at least 2 here lol and they already streamlined most jobs down from 4ish
It comes down to $. There are far fewer hardcore players than casuals. A game developer can design their game for hardcore players and get far less $ than if they design their game for casuals.
Yeah I’ve tried explaining this to people in my static about job simplification. Like for every one of you who wants a harder job, there are thousands of people who want it simpler. And 15-20 dollars a month from you does not even scratch the money they bring in.
Right, because games developed for a niche (hardcore, etc) audience don't do well right? I'm sure Elden Ring sold so well cause it catered SO well to a casual audience. Same with Baldur's Gate 3. If you design a game for everyone, you have a game for no one. FF14 combat has suffered because it has forgotten this fact.
@@Quix32 isn't Elden Ring the most simplified of all soulsborne games? Also idk why you mentioned BG3, the game is super casual and you can choose difficulty as well. They are def not niche/hardcore
@@suncommander7102 If you think ER is a game for casual players then we must have very different definitions of what a casual gamer is. Baldur's Gate is a very difficult game for those not initiated with DnD. Its a very in depth game that requires a lot of reading and planning, something I also wouldn't say is for your everyday gamer. Again, it's niche, just like ER. My point being just because a game (and by extension, game design ie ff14 jobs) is meant for specific types of players doesn't mean it can't be successful.
@@Quix32 I'm not sure how you read "don't do well" out of my comment about not AS MUCH $. It's just math. If a certain population has 100 hardcore gamers and 1,000 casual gamers, and assuming for our thought experiment every gamer buys the game they enjoy, the dev of the hardcore game will sell 100 copies and the dev of the casual game will sell 1,000 copies. Certainly Elden Ring was very popular. That doesn't mean it made as much money as Stardew Valley.
imma be real but, I know plenty of people actually angry if they simplify viper, doesn't that go against the idea of not wanting angry players? they finally found a class they like where its gameplay has some okay skill expression, and now that gets taken away
Hi Preach, I play 1,700 skill speed Viper. I think it was slow till I invested skill speed. My opener is Use charge attack+True North, Attack buff weave,weave, Unlock reawakened (yes that's a triple weave but it's okay cause 2blade attack are 3s 2.83 in my build) haste, weave, weave awaken+burst reapply noxious burn 3 rattles. With haste up the triple weave can't be done but 1.99/2.35 is so fun being fast. From what I can tell if I am able to overtake Picto's easy from just apm. No skill speed I really felt VPR was too slow for a "fast paced job"
is this a joke/meme? i can almost promise you you are not outdpsing pictos with a skill speed build on viper, i'd literally offer to come test it with a meter on your DC but don't want to get banned if you get angry lol
The only problems with Viper is that some of the animations are so quick that they're hard to see and they leave the player standing for a second while the GCD rolls. This is actually the rare case of when slowing down actually makes it look more busy than it really is.
With the exception of Dreadwinder combos, which is where the change is likely coming, because thats a mess of alternating doubleweaving while hitting positionals. It's 3 *incredlbly* concentrated GCDs, with huge fuckup potential.
I really think they missed a trick not putting positionals back into monk. With the buff and dot maintenance gone, they could have put positionals back on the actions that spend fury pips. Then have perfect balance negate position like it does forms. It feels a bit brain dead, but still my favourite
With all the door bosses the game now has? Unless you can True North the major positionals, they can't impact the rotation in a meaningful way - because then the jobs that rely on them are made strictly worse by the encounter design. But then, if you just True North your major positionals, why are they even in the game at that point... I think they've painted themselves in a corner with this, really.
I'm such a tank main, I don't like positional but Viper isn't hard but also it feeels weak or underwhelming for some reason but I do think positionals are dumb
i do miss my destro lock from MOP/cata, 5.1mil chaos bolt on a 3.1mil HP BiS raid geared tank was funny af, doing like Preach said 3-5x the next highest person's DPS and regularly critting for 1-3mil+ when most other classes aren't even breaking 1m
I remember tera combat was the best for me BECAUSE its busy (some classes ofc not all) and it had real time dodging. never anything came close after that.
The 80% thing shows you suffer from the thing you described about not understanding how good you are at a thing. I’m not a tank main, but I often run dungeon roulettes on WAR, because I find it goes more smoothly. I can carry if need be. In the majority of those dungeons, I out dps at least one of my damage dealers. Their “80%” should be nearly doubling me. This is true even for jobs as simplistic as SMN. In order to achieve that 80%, you would need to make jobs so simplistic as to make them unplayably boring for even stronger casual players.
unironically big true, i'm almost always top or #2 on damage dealt as tank, and have, on many MANY occasions beat at least 1 DPS on healer which.... should NOT be fucking happening in the current state the game is in, EVER. fking EVER.
I kind of like the idea of making classes easier to play as long as the content is made tougher. I feel like Blizzard has done that over the years recently. Making class a bit easier to play and understand, so they can make the content a bit harder. I hope Square takes this approach going forward. I can't imagine trying to play Monk, Samurai, or another of the older melee in some of these new dungeons in 14. You also have no time for positionals in a lot of these bosses.
11:50 Honestly, I'm not that good. What I have is good sense, adaptability, and intuition; which is to say I can go from bad player to decent player faster than many others, even if I will never reach the apex of skill. But really though, by the time you've progressed enough to play with level 80 jobs, you've almost certainly gotten 2000 hours in FFXIV. If in that time you still haven't learned the basics of playing the game, there's something wrong with you (e.g. maybe you're a games journalist), and any amount of "catering" the game does for you at this point will only ruin the game for everyone else.
My issue with this is that this is literally by level 80, which the class starts at, is in the later game and there are a ton of other classes that have become casual. You add a class that finally requires a little more thought to play. However I also realize both sides have good and bad points. I however do believe if they keep only giving to casuals, players like me who just want a bit of complexity outside of dodging circles and squares on the ground will likely end up moving on from the game. Just where I am on this.
It's probably just removing back to back GCD positionals like they've done to every other melee in the game now. Hardly a big deal and it won't affect the feel of the job barely at all besides bringing down the skill floor a little bit.
@@Auesis You mean Gibbet and Gallows, but those are the only positionals Reaper has, Viper has effectively 4 (6 in actuality). My point is that the job will barely change and the change they'll likely do is just rip out 2 positionals from either the twin blade mode or the basic 1-2-3.
Thats the whole enjoyable part about viper though, going in between positions. You say "back to back" but there's a whole 3GCD gap in between them, its really not that bad. You even still get the oGCD proc even if you miss the positional so I really do not see the problem here.
I'm actually a bit upset that the Dragoon Dance has been simplified from Stormblood into Shadowbringers, and now into Endwalker. Having to figure how to dance around the boss on the corners was part of what made Dragoon initially so attractive to me.
My only problem with the changes is that if the job needs to be for everyone even those with 300 ping then we can never have a higher apm job. This sucks and if they end up slowing the job would suck even more becuase why even release it? Would just make me want to quit the game honestly.
Anyone who considers the MSQ hard Should be able to get 70/75% of a job's potential damage. Anyone who has ever cleared at least one extreme Should be able to get 90% Out of a job. Savage and ultimate players can fight over the last ten percent.
All of this sounds like its under the assumption that Viper is hard, when its literally the most braindead easy job in the entire game. No one is saying Picto should be changed and its so much more complex and I think that comes down to people just saying to themselves "You know what, maybe pictomancer isn't for me" and you move on and play something else. People need to say the same about Viper. Making Viper easier risks it becoming un-engaging, without the busy gameplay it has no identity that differentiates it from other melee jobs. Removing positionals is fine if that is the main complaint they are getting because it doesn't effect the gameplay all that much, but going off of them saying they want to address the busyness of the job and change the effect of several actions this sounds way too major. Aside from the fact this has only been out for 5 days as of official release. Are you seriously going to say that is enough time to have players play around, level it and truly test out the functionality and gameplay of a Job and come to the conclusion that you need to dumb it down even further? Developers need to look at feedback and know what they should act on and what they should just leave and let settle.
![Dragon Age Trilogy Main Quests Ranked [Pt. 2]](/img/n.gif)
The whole thing about not realizing how good you are at a game is definitely on point.
I always believed I was an average Destiny 2 player because I'm always around others who are either masters at the game either PvE or PvP wise.
Then when I started doing LFG groups for Grand Master Strikes and Excision, I realized that the average player is way less skilled than I expected. People who would die a dozen times to my two.
It's easy to not understand how good you are when top players always tell others that, if you're not at the 99.9th percentile, you're trash and have no clue what you're doing or what you're talking about
The thing is that the content for people who don't care about their performance (dungeons, trials, raids) is already clearable while doing the bare minimum
You can have everyone completely ignore positionals and break combos all day, drift all cooldowns and still kill in a timely manner
This is not the time when missing positionals would break combo. The change to make melees approachable already happened years and years ago. Anything further now exists solely to remove complexity from those that appreciate it.
@@Orphan_of_Kos_or_some_say_Kosm You can see this when any discussion of parses online is always expecting to be 80% percentile or better to just be considered "good enough". Which is absolutely insane because all of those parses, wether they were a 1 to a 99, resulted in a clear.
Watching 10 people get blasted by the telegraphed witness beam was certainly an eye opening experience
@@vaan_ complexity kills MMO's. every MMO that has advertised itself as being hardcore or having complexity etc has died or had to radically "casualise" and make changes to stay relevant. The sad truth is that if you want complexity in a video game, don't play MMO's. Both FF14 and WoW has had to remove complexity over the years to keep itself relevant because unfortunately hardcore/ midcore players cannot keep MMO's running. MMO's require the casual players in order to exist so they are designed for them.
In terms of casual players accessibility in Dawntrail dungeons I noticed something funny.
Trusts/Bots were created to allow more casual audience participate in dungeons without having to interact with other people, but they actually make the dungeons harder.
With other human players, even if you cannot play at all and stand in every fire, they are still able to ress/carry you through fights. While with trusts/bots, the fight wipes as soon as you die.
On top of that the fights tend to last longer as NPC-s do less damage, so you need to dodge more mechanics cycles on average.
Also does not help that they often do not adjust to how you are positioned. Had Alisaie drop her marker aoe on me in the second boss of the 93 dungeon... 3 times I think cause I was trying to dodge the mechanic and still stay in Melee Range. Alisaie you're a caster I'm a viper. Get the heck out of my spot >:c
@@zman1347 isn't she rdm? maybe she was doin melee combo
I strongly disagree. With Trusts, the only limiting factor is your own play. If I'm in a party, I have to babysit everyone else to make sure they don't eat shit. I have zero control over the play of others, so if the tank is garbage, then I'm not clearing the dungeon. If the DPS is garbage, I'm not clearing the dungeon. If the healer is garbage, I'm not clearing the dungeon. With Trusts, if I'm garbage, then I don't deserve to clear the dungeon.
@@moogleboy absolutely spot on, and that needs to be heavily expressed to people.
Trusts are easy. They are slow but just follow the npcs. It took us 30 min to beat the first trial with duty finder. With trusts i only wiped once.
An incredibly thoughtful perspective. Essentially, there is no clear cut answer on what makes something fun. It is the holy grail of game design. We all have different perspectives and game devs unfortunately have to juggle all of those perspectives against their own design goals.
Casual player here. I think people just need some time to settle in with viper, without all the traits leading up to lvl100, it does feel a bit strange. But when you get to 100, everything makes sense and it's (for me) the most fun class in the game. It's essentially what I wish fury warrior would've been, there's literally no down-time at lvl100. Picto on the other hand, I just don't have the patience for that type of class, but people are fine with it I'm guessing?
Both are fun imo.
I love Picto because it offers a palette (lol) of different types of abilities. I've got my standard combo of casts for most situations, I've got my canvases for big damage and AoE, and I've got my paint abilities for instant casts while on the move or during mechanics. And the fact that each of those different sets plays in a different way is very fun and engaging to me. But I can see why it wouldn't jive with everyone.
@@Maria_Erias I'm already negatively predisposed towards casters, so my judgement doesn't mean much in that regard. Aesthetically (lol) I think it's great, especially the water spell, makes me wish there was a water type caster, that I'd play.
I feel like viper is made for dumb people, it's so boring to play, everything is done for you. Only thing I like is that it looks cool
As someone who plays all classes, all longcasts feel horrible at first but as you get used to them it's fine, the only thing you really need to understand on picto is when exactly to paint vs when to damage, also I tried to incorporate swift to try and get an instant canvas, simple answer, No.
The only thing that matters for any rotation is whether it's satisfying, and it doesnt need to be complex to be satisfying.
But what if you enjoy complex jobs? What if the playstyle that you find satisfying is managing many different skills and resources? Personally I don't see why complexity has to be purged across the board. There are 20 different jobs in the game, so why can't we have a few complex ones?
That comment wasn't a personal attack against you or your comment to be clear, just trying to voice an opposing perspective
@@talancorwell Then I hope there's a job with the complexity (and the *type* of complexity) you like. Not everything has to appeal to everyone, but SE does have the challenge of making sure each job is appealing to *enough* people.
It does for some people and those people should have a job for them.
@@heyimbilliejean I agree. I'm only pushing back against the idea a lot of people have that complexity is inherently more enjoyable.
The problem with Viper, for me, is that the parts of the rotation that are complex in an interesting way are handled for you by the job gauge lighting up the correct buttons, and the only remaining complexity is the constant barrage of positionals, which just make the whole job feel tedious. For me, it's the worst of all worlds.
41:30 this is exactly how all FFXIV healers play when nothing goes wrong...
It's extremely noticeable because things don't go wrong nearly enough.
I've heard some things about dawntrail though, so maybe things go wrong more often in the new expansion.
I love how Viper currently plays, I hope that Yoshida and them doesn't mess up its play style to much. I tried Samurai (use to be a Samurai main Melee DPS) and they changed the way it works a little, with some of the abilities and threw me for a major loop. And I clicked right away with Viper as my main Melee DPS, kind of like how I clicked with Gunbreaker as my main Tank.
RIGHT? tsubame being tied to meiko is so fucking dumb... "DERRR WELL I GUESS NOONSE USES THE GIANT POTENCY BUFF ON AOES SO MIGHT AS WELL MAKE THAT MMORE OF A PAIN AND HARDER TO DO!" when 90% of the fucking fights ARE AOE EXCLUSIVELY OUTSIDE OF RAIDS/TRIALS
As a summoner main since arr, I gave the endwalker change a chance expecting more built to its kit in dawntrail. I think Larry's video explains it best where my thoughts are. I then picked up viper and fell in love. I don't normally play melee but it has been stupid fun. I'm now maining it.
Viper is pog right now.
Of the two new jobs I feel if any of the two would be complained about for being too hard it would be Pictomancer. Viper is alot a simpler of the two and you don't have to setup as much as Pictomancer does.
I think people are kinda missing the point here with difficulty vs business. The issue with Viper is that it's so "busy" that you really can't effectively do your rotation on certain fights. I don't personally think this really shows up until you do Everkeep EX. The proposed changes don't seem to make it easier but giving you the ability to have more time on bosses. As far as difficulty, Viper is very complex to minmax but in general much easier than picto, at least imo.
I don't have issue myself with the viper positionals, but I do see what the problem would be for most players. The double weave between your dread combo positionals feels extremely awkward and would likely be difficult for some people to perform while moving from flank to rear (or vice versa). Especially depending on what type of controls they're using. I'm all for skill expression but that particular one is again just very awkward feeling.
I’m glad these kind of discussions are on youtube thanks !
I feel like we're playing telephone WAY too much.
Japanese complaint > Employees capturing messages > Yoshi P > Yoshi P legalese > Translator > Text > English Audience.
Don't we have community translators who can be like, "This is the majority sentiment, with these fringe opinions" on the forums or reddit or something?
I don't see the Japanese community at all. I want to but I can't see it anywhere without learning 3 years of the language.
Always cracks me up when people say we have a good connection to the devs xD Like, we are sitting behind 5 walls of filter from the devs. Yoshi might as well be speaking in riddles for the western audience.
As far as I'm aware, the JP players think "the Devs only listen to EN players!".
The grass is greener at the neighbour's house, to borrow their version of the idiom.
You need to get with MrHappy on his Podcast. I would love hear you two discuss this
Omg yes
Second this
this
I think Mishapenchair had it right - no amount of easing down on job difficulty will appease the people who honestly just don't want to put much thought into it. And I think its fine to be mediocre in FF14. It's not a game that forces you to be sweaty, and it's not a game you can just plow through by the time you reach later expansions. But it's also very forgiving. I'm messing up so much going into these new DT dungeons/trials on certain things that don't click in my brain yet - but we still get clears and even with 1-2 vuln stacks, not even getting knocked down. If these kneejerk changes are anything to go by I'd bet it's a vocal minority who are seeing another vocal minority, and taking things far too seriously far too soon because the numbers they do on the screen mean more to them than just clearing the content. Most people aren't hyper casual or a hard core raider, but those small groups stretch the game in ways that are drastic + not commensurate with the overall player base.
They hated him for he told the truth...
I was rusty doing the post endwalker trials after 2 years of not playing... I had 8 fucking vulnerability stacks as the main tank by the time we killed the last trial of that questline... game the casuals play is not hard in the slightest...
Anything is hard when you don't have the knowledge, either to playing your character, correct gear, spec, boss fight strats and doing it all at once without distraction.
This! Thank you! 👏👍
The normals being clearable by everyone isn't the problem, the problem is when people demand the same results on every class and every skill level. And then what's the point? Especially when people throw riots over certain loot being locked behind ex/savage/ect. There's gotta be a line.
I will say, all comments aside from the job balancing and changes. This launch was an absolute delight. I never had to worry about logging in. I had no issues playing the game and enjoying it how it was intended to be experienced. Unlike other MMOS and Other Triple A titles who have some how managed to fail at releasing their titles, this was a breath of fresh air and honestly set a standard I will expect going forward.
Yeah, people are not talking about this enough. It was buttery smooth, despite the absolutely insane rush. If it is true that the game was doing better than SHB and EW then we had the same rush of players but none of the issues.
Of course there's also the argument that this should be the norm and not worth mentioning. OF COURSE it was smooth. That is what we should be expecting from the provider of a product. Sadly reality has taught us otherwise and we've begun to accept the reality of it.
One thing to keep in mind- only melee dps in ff14 have positionals. They used to all have different positionals- it varied from dragoon, to monk, to ninja. With Endwalker, when they added reaper, they normalized all the melees to two positionals (one rear and one flank). Now they've added viper with... four positionals.
Obviously one can argue that variety is better, that jobs were better before, but it's inarguable that they 1) made a design rule and 2) broke their own design rule.
Yeah but with Viper you really only have two positionals that truly matter, the Dreadwinder combo - and that you just True North, same as with Reaper's big damage combo. The only time you really use the basic combos is when you are on downtime of the main burst, and mostly just to keep the debuff up
coming from playing Rogue and Demon Hunter in WoW, Viper feels (felt?) like a breath of fresh air. Just DAMAGE DAMAGE DAMAGE YEAH BOYS YEEEEEHAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
People didn't like Proving Grounds? I missed most of that expansion but came back right before the next one and I LOVED Proving Grounds. Something cool I could solo. It was like an early version of the mage tower. That was the best stuff WoW ever added.
absolutely loved the ..was it 30 waves? as a healer and the tank moving out of the ground healing aoe effects. my desk still has bite marks in it.
Love your vids preach! keep doing what you do
The only thing I don't understand about this is that players can be all the jobs on one character, so I'm not sure why people would push to change something due to difficulty. Some jobs are already harder to play than others.
This! That's the big frustration that a lot are over looking. The game already has easy jobs, most have been vastly "streamlined" for the purpose of making them accessible to casuals. But the players on the other end should be allowed to have jobs that cater to them too. New players can't even play Viper, no one was maining Viper already, there are over 20 jobs and most of them are already extremely simplistic. What is the point of being able to change jobs if they all need to be made to do the same things and cater to the lowest end players? Some of us want job options that actually have us doing stuff and find that fun.
Because people **want** to be X instead of Y. It's really not that hard to understand when you remember that not everyone plays video games because they want to be challenged. People play video games because they're **fun**. And fun isn't tied to difficulty unless a player *wants* to be challenged. If you just want to do "cool ninja shit," you're not going to be happy when people tell you to just put on summoner robes instead. They don't want difficulty, they want to enjoy the fantasy that they have constructed for their character.
Also, people are really taking the Viper changes to an extreme that is wholly overbearing. The only things that are for sure is that some ranges are being adjusted (big whoop, that's quality of life), and positional requirements are being eased somewhat (which is probably the B2B positional in the Dreadwinder combo getting adjusted so the second attack is positional-free). The complaints of "busyness" is such a nebulous, indistinct, non-specific thing that you can't really say what it is. But if all that led to is a positional adjustment and some range changes, it's probably not as big of a change as people are dooming over.
@@electronsympathy But that argument is also true the opposite direction. A huge chunk of the player base is frustrated because almost every job already caters to the people that just want to play everything with no effort. That's why they keep getting backlash, we on the other end, do not find it fun to play 21 flavors of oversimplified. There should be jobs that offer different ranges of engagement. If you only care about the aesthetics then play Viper in PVE where no one cares, even in normal mode content, no one cares if you don't do your rotation properly. By this logic, Savage content should all be changed to be as easy as normal modes because casuals want all the raid mounts. Casual players should not be entitled to just have everything catered to them. They may find simplicity fun but just as many players find a job that is actually engaging to be what makes it fun.
They're not over reacting because a precedent has been set already with so many jobs being overly simplified or having complexity removed while there haven't been any that have gone the other way and gained more complexity. People are worried because they already changed so many jobs to cater to casuals and it kills any gun for those of us that actually want to use our brains. Viper is already not considered difficult by most players because without positionals, having more range, etc, it's already heavily going down the path of becoming "follow the light up buttons" the job and that is frustrating to players that like it with positionals and enjoy it specifically because it is busy. Again, sorry if a casual likes 2 swords aesthetically but you shouldn't just get to have everything because you decide not putting any effort in is fun. Some of us actually want to play the game and be engaged.
@@mismismism What? Are the mechanics of fights not engaging enough for you? Real talk, buddy... If you're so "good" at the game that the only thing that keeps the game from being braindead is a back to back positional requirement... Maybe you're actually missing some shit.
I guarantee you, once you step out of your reddit/youtube echo chamber and look at the broader picture, you'll see that this "huge chunk" of the playerbase is actually much, much smaller.
The simplest Viper or Summoner gameplay is still miles ahead of most MMO classes in terms of complexity. And there's nothing wrong with them being easy to play. We live in an age where any MMO class is going to be **solved** by some guy with a spreadsheet within hours of release. We have people who are *manually deactivating* pictomancer buffs for a tiny increase in DPS in the first week. MMO classes will never be meaningfully difficult. You're not arguing for difficulty. You're arguing for a class to be harder to *control*, harder to do the correct *inputs*.
It's a discussion that's been done to death in the FGC, and the honest truth is that you don't need anything to be difficult to control. Classes being difficult or easy to play isn't the real issue, it's whether or not there's enough space in the gameplay to express yourself as a player. FFXIV, with its rigid, dance-like, scripted fights, and uncompromising, bespoke attack rotations is lacking in that regard.
@@electronsympathy No, they're not, because some of us want variety. No one is being elitist by saying there should be some jobs that are easy and some that actually require some effort.
Not to mention it literally does not have an effect on casuals because normal content doesn't have enrage. If a casual just wants to have 2 swords and they can't weave properly, they don't need to. They can literally just do the 2 button combos the whole time, focus on mechanics and clear. All these changes do is make players that actually want to be engaged by their job, find that fun and became fans of the game because of jobs that used to offer that, feel alienated and bored.
It's not actually a small portion at all, that's why the backlash has been so intense for the constant simplification of jobs and homogenization that they keep coming out and addressing it. Which is another reason people are mad, because Yoshida came out and said they weren't gonna keep doing this and talking about how they went too far and players need some stress to feel satisfied but then they're talking about a new job being too hard a week after it released when most players, especially the casual ones, don't even have it levelled yet, let alone have muscle memory to even be complaining in the first place, it just dropped, of course people will need to take time to learn how to play a job that barely came out.
This whole thing is stupid, there are 21 jobs, if VPR is not for you, that doesn't mean there is something wrong with VPR, you do not build a game with every option catering to the lowest investment players. There are already a whole bunch of jobs made to be casual and simple to play effectively, there are only a few left for the rest of us currently. This is also why stuff like the healer strike happened and BLM players getting pissed and the job has badly fallen off in high end content in favor of PCT because a lot of us actually want a job that feels complex and there is nothing wrong with us voicing that.
Games need skill expression and class differences. Rn I feel like ff14 is struggling a lot with classes feeling distinct outside of aesthetics due to homogenizing the way each role functions. And Skill Expression is hard when the class design is so universally just hit buttons in this order and then hit this button when the gauge is full. Repeat. Which might be an issue with the core system of tab targetting ability rotation gameplay. So it's just based on what the bosses do. But once you know a boss, you kinda just know the boss. Positionals shake up the rotation a bit, but I don't know if I've ever found it particularly engaging as a mechanic. And it's only for melee dps too. On the ranged side the skill expression feels pretty much just "Does BLM know where and when to drop leylines" but if they do they get to do massive damage that completely overshadows the other casters. And I don't think people have really had much problem with that. But I also main RezMage so what do I know I just like having a feather in my cap.
I really love the high APM of viper, it's happy medium of WOW x FFxiv type of play. I really hope they don't slow it down.
a long, long time ago during at least 2.x and through HW people had asked for talent trees or skill trees or whatnot to be able to have different "versions" of classes; it still comes up but this is one of those things that Yoshida won't budge on. the problem with this and it was an issue in FFXI (and the notice in WoW that it was much the same) that it's only an illusion of choice: high-tier players will always minmax the eff out of each job and would immediately go into "well if you aren't playing it in THIS spec you can't come" and the devs didn't want that to be happening and every job to be viable. even if it's just high-tier players minmaxing, it somehow goes down to even casual players who are just playing or casuals who are trying to get better but want to try something different. that makes it incredibly unfun in the long run for people; i played FFXI for years and it was near impossible to get a group if you weren't playing the preferred subjob to your main job. i mained SMN in 2.0 because i could actually summon things to destroy the enemies, not play a glorified healer.
everything else i do agree though, and while having quick-moving jobs is fun, others will struggle. it feels like they're being dumbed down for people who pick up on it quick but everyone should have a chance to get better at it. many people play this game, but a vast majority are the casual players, and it's still just a game at the end of the day.
There are two methods that make multiple options viable in WoW. First is different content/comp/circumstances etc have different "best" builds. Sometimes you want to do pure single target damage, sometimes you want more AoE, sometimes in between. Or certain utility talents you only pic for specific bosses/dungeons. Second one is you can simplify the gameplay a lot by choosing suboptimal talents, less active abilities and more passive ones etc.
I know the fear for me is that I personally don't see how you reduce the "busyness" without hurting what makes the class fun.
I think Viper suffers from starting at level 80 and if it was level 50 there wouldn't be nearly as many complaints. I know I struggled a bit with it at first because it's very overwhelming out of the gate. However, I decided to stick with it and ran a MSQ roulette. Having just your 1-2-3 combo let me get used to the flow of those abilities and piece together myself how to fit in the rest of the kit from there. Not everyone is gonna make that connection still (though idk how they stick through the game in that case since its the basis of all jobs), but significantly more people would.
The only thing I can think of is the Dreadwinder positionals + double weave being too much, so if they lose the positionals I think it would be fine. If they lose the double weave or any of the other OGCD fun, I think it might actually ruin the job for me.
exactly, that IS viper's identity with how stale/boring it feels, "PUSH BUTTONS FAST HIGH APM FAST JOB GO FAST"
Next expansion I would much rather have them go back and update the older jobs to how smoothly the viper and pico play now than have new jobs.
The amount of flexibility picto has as a caster is insane, just running dungeon content with it feels so smooth, and it feels like I can decide what part of my kit I want to use whenever I want to for movement. I’m also terrible at perfectly executing a rotation and not hyper optimizing 2min burst on picto doesn’t feel TOO bad
@rickmel09 the hotbar is pretty empty compared to others ( yes you blm, 3 hotbars is barely enough lmao) so it's not that bloated yet
As an outsider, it strikes me as strange that the game can support very high end progress raiding, but it can't support a class that's a bit harder than baseline. Surely it's just not that big a deal if one or two classes is harder to perform well on, especially if most content is tuned to avoid frustrating fail states?
The difference is none of the casual player base will even consider ultimates, savage, or criterion content. Most won't even do extremes. So when most players only do content attached to group finder roulettes, the difficulty of each job becomes the main challenge these players will face in the game. And if you have players who think a class is cool, but it's too tough to play, they'll get upset.
@@OldManInternetI don’t get upset. I just don’t play it. I’m here to have fun an get through content at my leisure. If I spend most of my time split between deciding if I should press button 8/12 or 6/12. That’s too much when I’m already running around avoiding the kitchen sink mechanics. I’m here to just have a casual experience an if that makes me not play a class, so be it. Not many games are my speed anymore. An I’m fine with that. The ones complaining are the ones that treat the game as a job an take it serious, which is fine. But they forget we exist, which…..is funny.
It's more so MMO gamers are conditioned to view jank as difficulty, for instance Viper needs to strike the sweet spot It's a class constantly doubble weaving with high apm and positionals, as it stands anyone with any real ping is going to be forever having a unfun experience, for instance NIN (the other scouting job) just lost a positional on Trick attack the job isn't "easier" it's less obnoxious having to pop true north for Trick in certain encounters (say p11s) where the mechs and boss require you to not be at the rear.
Well have you thought of maybe that’s not what the devs are going for in the first place. Also most ppl complaining some job is too easy is not even “hardcore”. 90% those ppl you see in this comment section never set foot in savage or ultimate. They don’t know the correct opener for the job they play. They don’t know even when they doing the rotation wrong. Actually they do have really complicated jobs. Guess what. No one is playing it. And if you ask ANY players do high end content often. They will all tell you. Job is not the hard part of the game. It’s the boss. No one think wow TOP is really hard because you have to do positional. Just like preach said. The ppl complain and trying to show ego are the ppl “nearly” to be good.
@@Havok135 you are sadly the VAST minority my friend, most people take to reddit/forums/twitter/youtube/apparently channels the devs monitor, to bitch and moan incessantly that it's too hard as you can see from spending even 5 minutes scrolling here
I would not be surprised if they remove the positionals from dreadwinder while keeping the positionals on your 123 there’s no way in hell they remove all of them but dreadwinder makes the most sense to me since a lot of people seem to not even know they’re there
They don't want more combat systems. They're happy with their consistency. Positionals are the somewhat DPS agnostic "skill-check" feature they've landed on, and making it so failing them doesn't block class mechanics anymore (because it used to), sealed that deal. I assume the Viper changes will be to bring it in line with the other melees that were revamped: Largely, only the finisher. Reaper does it a bit different with the spenders instead, but it's the same logic. I don't know why people are freaking out.
True! North! Say it slowly. Truuuuuue. Noooooorth.
Because being able to hit all your positionals is how you can express your skill on that job. By removing some of them, your way of expressing skill becomes just critting more.
@@Henji96 i think we have VASTLY different definitions of "expression" here. Positionals are binary. you either hit them or you dont. And it's rarely ever 100% in your own hands if it's even an option- whether it be through tanks moving or the boss shifting around for mechanics (trick attack, anyone?). Not to mention all of the random bosses and the majority of final bosses that are omni-positional to begin with... Frankly, I fail to see how that's "expressive" in any way. Most people I know sit at the back corner of a boss and wiggle back and forth 3 inches to the left and right and just pop true north when things get funky. Standing relatively still and pressing an oGCD button. How expressive!
That being said, Viper specifically, has plenty of other ways to "express your skill" as is. We have rattling coils, when and where to use our "spare" reawakens because we're gauge positive on full uptime, we can pretty freely control how much of our debuff to have when going into the burst phase, the burst phase itself has like 3 or 4 different variations with pros and cons on a per fight basis...
Heck, Viper barely has a rotation because it's just 90-100 seconds of "just don't mess up" before setting yourself up for a double reawaken in raidwide buff timers. Where I'm from, we call that "freestyle".
Not that I necessarily want to see that little extra difficulty go myself. Positionals are the only thing truly differentiating melee from ranged and casters, but calling it a form expression is so very weird and out there to me. I see it more of a role identity. Tanks get aggro, healers heal, melees have positionals, casters have cast times, and ranged cry in the corner.
@@Fluff2556Ranged stand in Narnia and miss the party heals going on 3/4 of the way across the arena, correct.
@@Fluff2556 The expression is grabbing the positionals that arnt free where you arn't standing in the cornor wiggling 3 inches, when its TOP p6 and its been 2 hours in to the raid night and you miss 0 positionals on the boss that spins around and faces the tank while you run around in a circle or when its hello world and the positional is on the opposite side of your tower so the only way to get it is to run though the middle of the boss where you can run in to a healer. Encounter design effects your ability to express your skill and you need both job and encounter design to have skill expression, and while overall encounter design has been moving in a way that lets you greed less positionals and have easier uptime (and therefore be less expressive), changing it on the job design level makes it so no matter what encounter you are going to have less skill expression.
A great discussion with a well informed perspective. I'd love more of this type of thing explaining why things people complain about may not be as simple as they seem in an MMO sense.
So much wisdom condensed in one video! Preach it, Preach.
This is a super interesting discussion that applies to Augmentation Evoker in WoW as well. The autopilot-style (the one the class is designed around) puts out approximately 30% of what the spec is capable of. The spreadsheet-style (the one the class is actually balanced around) puts out the highest numbers in the game, not that Warcraft Logs can showcase it because it's perpetually broken..
There's no way to bridge this gap with balance tuning or design implementation, which means that one playstyle has to go.
And it should be spreadsheet.
Also, it should be noted that WoW is one of the most complicated MMOs out there and does next to nothing to teach its players how to play it.
the fuck is an augmentation evoker lmao i haven't played since early legion, played week after vanilla launch to legion but that just sounds like an arcane mage that does enchants or transmogs lmao
also yeah back in vanilla wow especially there was absolutely nothing whatsoever beyond tooltips, that were even wrong sometimes too or abilities being awfully designed (how bout that rank 1 lacerate at like lvl 45 doing 66 damage over 30 seconds for survival hunter LOL ik weird memory for WoW stuff), people expect a truly absurd amount of hand holding in FF and babyrage endlessly online when they don't get it or get ANY frustration whatsoever
I'd really like to hear more about what kind of hero moments could look like. It's something I haven't thought too much about in terms of job identity but it is something I can feel. Healers have great hero moments with rez and rescue letting them do extremely high impact actions in specific scenarios. I think Paladin has a great hero ability in passage of arms, it really makes you feel like a tank, you get a big ass cool looking ability that clearly communicates "get behind me" as you protect your whole party from damage. All tanks can have minor high impact moments like that with their raidwide or single target mitigations letting them save people from mistakes though I find those significantly less strong than passage of arms.
As for the dps I can't really think of anything like that, the joy of dps mastery mostly comes down to performing a well practiced rotation exactly as intended and jobs with mobility tools can have some cool moments with using them to reach safe points for mechanics rapidly, but that's really it. It's something that really only comes up when mistakes are made and you're not really searching for those moments so much as they can be hype when they come up naturally.
@rickmel09 the first time I solo'd a boss as war after every died felt really cool. The 5th time I started to feel like it was a major balance issue
Positionals aren't particularly interesting but it works well enough for small gains. Only changes to Viper I'd like to see is combining the Coil and Den spells into one button each. Having two keys for each when they can't ever be used at the same time is silly. Also I don't think its necessary for the coil spells to be positional, positionals on the main combo is enough.
My money is on Coils being where the change will be. Those combos are pushing the line of fun/frustrating with the massive, mandatory APM increase, which is something they've moved away from.
I just want the APM to stay high, it's the biggest draw to the class for me. I adore how it plays with different speeds and burst windows. I think Den could be mixed into the Coil's if they added some other buttons to the job. Because legit, it would drop it down to a like 12 button job for everything almost lol. But otherwise the only change I'd ask for personally is removed positionals from the Coil attacks specifically. Back to back positional swaps are never really fun and often frustrating in a game that focuses on dance style fights.
Did i just hear someone have an informed opinion for 50 minutes straight ? Like, actually using his brain, thinking, reflecting on past experience and adding video game design theories to the mix ? And on top of that, making unimaginable statement for some, like "there is no good answer to that" or "i don't know myself" when, in reality, there is in fact no good answer to it and he does not know the answer himself ?
To think that there are still people capable of such speech is... incredible. Feels like a fever dream.
Immediate subscriber here.
FF14 has one really big hero moment and its in the first eikon fight in stormblood in doma
The tanks clicking on a line of text that triggers a scripted event is not "a hero moment"
@ich3730 in terms of spectacle it is, no other class can do it and it's anime as hell for better or worse
I do agree that we need jobs that are more simple to play than others. But the history of FFXIV seem that every job gets simplified and made easier to play. And as you said my view as someone who's played a lot of MMO, might have a different view than a new person... But they did make the whole rotation of Viper about as simple as you can make it.
What I have seem to notice is that some very vocal people, not a lot, but they're very vocal, have this idea that they're entitled to be able to play every job well, and if it's too hard, that's not their fault for not trying to learn, but that the job was made wrongly.
And it sadly feels as though they are the people SE listen to the most. There is actually zero reason outside of job does not function, to make huge changes to jobs based on early access feedback…
I think part of the "busyness" issue is that we're running the tab of 5 expacs now where a new class is introduced and starts 10 levels away from the max cap.
Every new class that comes out gets almost/all of its abilities dumped on your head right from the start, with a little "figure it out" tacked on, like it preemptively had a level skip attached to it.
One of the factors slowing me down from considering non-base classes in ffxiv is that lack of runway, where you organically learn your class basics.
For machinist through to viper/picto its essentially "you should know this already"
The devs do it the way they do so you can use the new classes going into the new content without having to grind out those lower levels, but i feel that it would be more organic to do those lower levels and learn the class naturally. Thats what leveling roulettes are for, right? Leveling your non main classes?
major no, i'd never ever ever play the new jobs if i had to elvel from 1.... i played for 4+ yrs i have no fucking interest in going back down to lvl 1 and having 1 button again and playing 80 levels with 1/2 a kit.... just fucking NO. literally refuse to run roulettes because alliance raid is 3000% of the time a CT raid, leveling is 70% of the time some sub 60 bullshit where you lose LITERALLY 3/4 OF YOUR FKING KIT.... idk why the hack ass devs dont do level syncing like EVERY OTHER FUCKIN GAME WHERE YOU KEEP YOUR KIT.... i don't care if it makes some level 20 content easier... those people aren't gonna get my help anyways so punishing me that way is asinine. i help people unsync stuff and farm mounts constantly, i dont need to play fisher price 2 button version of my class to do so.
All I ask for viper is that the proc'ed actions that benefit from either flanked or rear positionals be completely separate actionals able to be manually placed on my jotbar. By all means, combine all the flank potionals onto one button and all the rear positionals on another button.
But I'm not going to want to read the name and memorize which names benefit from which positionals. I'd much prefer to infer my positional requirements from the location on my hotbars.
for the 123 combo, you can either tell by the color, or you just remember the next positionals because it's always rear-flank-rear-flank.
For dreadwinder, it's working exactly how you wanted.
@@adrian-iw7gm As I'm playing a bit more. I did start to notice that. A green icon is for flank and a red icon is for rear. I suppose it would have been more obvious if the icon colors were a little more saturated.
Legion shadow priest was the pinnacle of fun in any MMO I’ve ever experienced. It’s sad to hear that it’s thought of as a failure in design.
I think the perfect balance for job design is to have jobs that aren't for everyone, for example i loved played EW BLM because of how complex and flexible it was once you digged deeper into the job but i absolutely hated playing summoner because of how simple and strict it was.
Thats why i mained BLM and never touched SMN, and i think that is fine to have a job that is super easy to do well on the game the same way i think that is fine to have a job that is complex and a player with more experience on the job will outdamage you by a decent amount.
Sadly i think SE leaning to hard to the side of every job should be for everyone and that is kinda making so every job is easy to do well and every time a job appear with some cool optimizations options they find a way to remove it ( BLM and MNK are good examples of it in DT) leaving very little to explore for players who want to dedicated more time to a job.
About combat design i think FF is fine the way it is, theres multiple levels of difficulty and you can choose what you want and dont want to do, the only gripe i had so far in combat design in FF is that dungeons were always too easy, but i think they fixed that very well on DT, they made most of the dungeons a little bit more challenging but not too punishing, so even if the mechs are harder to solve you dont die cuz you got hit once like you do in harder content, that way you keep yourself engaged cuz its harder to avoid mistakes while still being able to clear most of it consistenly cuz its fine to mess up once or twice.
I'm pretty casual. I just play a lot and I think maybe I kind of understand. I don't particularly want to play anything more complex than like... a Fury Warrior and I think it's because I don't like fighting my class to do damage. If my rotation feels like I have to meet a bunch of conditions to use specific abilities, I'm likely just going to pick the guy who presses the button to make the number pop up. Sometimes, in FF, I feel like I'm spinning plates instead of just getting into the nitty gritty and it kinda bores me.
Play summoner, melee jobs aren't for you.
Just play un-optimally. Positionals in casual content REALLY aren't make or break.
Weird question. But does red/green color blindness have a higher incidence in the East compared to the West? It wasn't something I thought about, but then I seen a few people mention it, and I was like "of course". In the past, you could always remember "when I press this button I need to be flank" and "when I press this button rear". But with the shared buttons, I can see why that would be endlessly frustrating to people with red/green colorblindness because the color is the easy way to distinguish which positional you need.
@rickmel09 Nothing with APM. But the hotbar icons for the different finishers are red and green. So I have seen people make comments about it being hard to remember which positional to hit because they can't see the color.
Maybe I misheard because I did just have this video going in the background. But He said the majority of complaints came from Japan, both the APM and the annoyance of positionals. So that colorblind thing was just something that popped into my head.
I doubt it's about the standard rotation positionals. Even if you where color blind, once you learn the flow, rear always follows the button 2-2 and flank always follows button 1-2, or in the instance of the vipersight gauge, left 2 leads to flank and right 2 leads to rear. It's likely the dreadwinder combo, where one is a flank, the other is a rear, you have to do them both sequentially, and theres a double weave between them and following them.
Still kinda surprised they barely waited a week to make such big changes, a lot of friends who played Viper over the MSQ are kinda dumbfounded. Guess I'll wait till the rework to try the class.
28:05 Yeah when I played wow that was me(heroic raiding guild). I hate to say it but my guild wasn't the greatest but I had fun playing with them so I'd rather play with them than pug the raid week 1 or 2. The fun I got playing with those guys far outweighed the gear I would have gotten by finishing the raid a month or two earlier
My thoughts on balance for newer classes is: There's already 19 other jobs in the game, if you don't like the new ones then just stick with one of the old ones.
I struggle to understand people complaining about a new playstyle if they still have one available in game that they feel comfortable with. Imagine if people talked this way about fighting game characters, as an example.
I wish he'd keep the twitch chat on screen for these discussion videos so we could see their replies and funny emotes !^^
I have a feeling this isnt a "kneejerk" reaction, in reality they probably were having talks about it in the back room and the players confirming it was all they needed. Also no "customization" to jobs isnt an issue, in my eyes it is just a plus, it helps balance things easier.
the core problem is that MMO's dont actively take a role in the process of trying to get a player to improve their skill level.
The good players arent aware of how good they are because the fact is, they arent that good, talent wise. becoming "that good" is something that virtually everybody could achieve if they wanted to and put some effort into. Its not actually "that" hard.
The problem is that MMO's dont have "turn casual players into hardcore players" as a goal of the combat. Elden Ring, dark souls etc. do have that goal of combat. Hell most 2d platformers and speedruns transform games into having that goal implicitly.
What MMO's need to figure out is not "how can we have 80% of players doing piss all bad damage, while the best players do 2-3x their dmg" but "how can we turn those 80/20 split into a 20/80 split where the majority of our players are capable of performing the spec/job/class to near its maximum potential.
There are absolutely people who can play a fight in WoW perfectly consistently dps wise, who get 100 parses across the board tier after tier. There's not many of them, maybe like 5-10 players per spec max. But they do exist. They dont do it starting from pull 1 as you said, but after 50, 100, 200 pulls they do, and once you learn it, you're eliminating further changes you need to make as you go, until you reach 0. Once you learn it you can repeat it every kill after that point.
I think positionals depend on the job and what it asks of you. For a job that is as simple as viper, where you are basically just hitting the shiny button and rubbing 2 brain cells together, positionals go a long way for me because it's something to think about on a moment to moment basis that supplements the simplicity and pace of the rest of the job. Without them then i fear it would be too simple without much else going on for it but I don't think positionals are a perfect solution either
I feel like positionals only work on jobs that can flex them so they don't have to spend True north every time a mechanic slightly inconveniences them. Samurai is the poster child of doing positionals right, if you're going to do them, you need the option to say "Okay the boss is about to do an attack that will make the rear unaccessible, but the flank is fine, let me do my flank combo and grab that sen, oh no a circle dropped and I still can't get to the back yet, no worries, use my filler sen for the moment and then make my way to the rear."
If it persists after that, then use true north. So then what to you do on a class like Viper when you need to double weave, but then also need to hit a positional. I just don't get why EVERY SINGLE MELEE needs positionals, why can't that be a job specific thing?
For me and what I think others are struggling with with Viper is they can't tell if the positionals are flank or rear for their final attack since those skills can't be assigned and they change each time. It took me a while to figure out the flow chart. Ultimately I realized that if the icon was green it's flank, red is rear. That was the only thing I could find besides hovering over the ability to figure out the positional.
I can't imagine they'll change the base rotation positionals. I can only imagine they're complaining about the dreadwinder combo. It is a flank or rear with a double weave into a swapped position with another double weave.
I don't find it difficult on controller, because I've got the positionals set up to do a swipe of B -> Y -> X immediately into A -> X -> Y, so I don't have to think about it while moving to the rear from the flank or otherwise.
However, I have no idea how most of the JP player base plays the game and I could see how you might get a lil finger twisted on either controller or KB. Especially since the current optimal opener is a debuff setup weave the 2 minute, second red button, and a dreadwinder pot weave into the positionals immediately with an awakened followup before you finish your standard combo positional.
So if you're just playing casually (A legitimate thing), this does seem like a LOT of positionals, especially since they've grinded off most of the positionals off the other classes.
god for fucking bid you OPEN THE SKILL SCREEN AND READ THE GOD DAMN TOOLTIPS, right?
DERRRRRRRRRRRR THERES NOT A SKILL PAGE THAT SAYS EVERY SINGLE FKING ABILITIES TOOLTIP OR ANYTHING IN THE GAME SINCE 1.0 RIGHT? SURELY? THERE'S REALLLLLY TOTALLLLY NOT A SKILL PAGE LIKE IN EVERY SINGLE OTHER MMO, RIGHT???? RIGHT??????? RRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTT!?!?!?!?!!?!!?!?!
@@zeening My guy there's been a running joke about how shitty the tooltips in this game are for years now. Please chill.
Anyone who thinks that the majority of an mmo's playerbase isn't casual needs to go tank for a year. I've seen dps who didn't even know they could rebind their keys in +20s in WoW. Honestly I don't mind and I'm ok with them building games towards this large audience. As long as I have ways to express my skills and content that requires more effort I'll find something to do.
I'm the opposite. I hate games that cater to morons. That's how WOW has ended up with billions of oxygen thieving noobs. The "it's just a game" crowd that are content wasting other players time because they refuse to improve even SLIGHTLY. They're not team players and shouldn't be given an ounce of clemency
I agree, and this is also a big problem for me with this whole controversy. I think its totally find that not everything is made for everyone, and I don't think every class's play style should be for everyone. Like if you don't want a fast paced, busy class, then maybe viper isn't for you and that ok, there are plenty of other jobs that will cater to your play style.
If you play with base keybinds and can clear up to +20 keys then by all means, keep going.
As a tank main...
i prefer running with trusts.
They are more useful than the average dps player
@@Varichan idk what data center you are on, but as a dps player who does tank on the side, ive seen the exact opposite. Dps players tend to be very skillful and good. Tanks tend to be moronic and brain dead. Maybe just a difference in server population?
I don't know how I feel about positionals as a difficulty/skill check. I know that I really enjoy doing them as a little icing on top of the rotation cake.
As Preach says, there's not really a good answer. I do think I prefer the skill check being on how you handle the boss fight rather than how you play your class - it feels like it fits the design of FFXIV more, and it's why I'm glad they don't have spec variety and talent trees the way that WoW does and everyone's on reasonably even footing.
But this leads into an obvious problem: 95% of the content in the game dont have any "skill check" in how you handle the fight. Thats reserved for savage/ultimate and maybe some extremes. The classes HAVE to have some skill checks, otherwise most of the game becomes meaningless.
Sub-specs would be amazing. That is where you could have the difference for skill floors. If someone loves a job but is a casual player they have a spec they can play, but the other version could be far more technical.
I expect they'll be removing the positionals from Swiftskin's Coil and Hunter's Coil. That's where things get really messy, as you're having to double weave OGCDs which alternate combo order, while hitting two sequential, but different, positionals, and its the most awkward bit of the rotation to execute, particularly if there's mechanics going off.
It doesn't feel like a fair challenge, it just feels like you need more fingers to do everything without clipping
I assume you play on keyboard ? I dont have any issue with that on controller
@aromenoir9552 no, I'm on keyboard. If you're in a group with a decent tank who's holding the boss still, and party members who aren't baiting AoEs through the party, it's fine. In PuG groups, and/or if your latency isn't ideal, or if you're dealing with random AoE drops, it can be *incredibly* frustrating to actually hit the positionals without drifting. It's made worse by the fact you can't correct and use TN if you don't know in advance you're going to need it without drifting.
Viper is awesome, and very elegant to play, but Dreadwinder has just got too much going on at once for it to feel satisfying to pull off so little a benefit.
Obviously, we don't know what raids will be like yet, so its not an issue in content that matters, but it feels bad, and it feels bad for the average player in the average group.
I just use True North when that comes up and pretend the positional doesn’t exist. 😂
I'm maining Picto currently and it's kind of hilarious that Viper, of the 2, is apparently the one considered too hard, I don't understand that(do not come for Picto, let us have this damn it! Lol), the job just came out, once people have muscle memory and they know the mechanics in new content, it's not going to feel hard at all. My issue right now is that the majority of jobs have been "streamlined" to be overly easy for a big portion of the player base, we barely have any jobs on the side for players that want something harder, so when a job that is as automated as Viper is being considered too hard... It's just about the most worrying thing they could have said in a statement because if Viper is too hard, what's gonna happen to the others? I don't understand why we have a job system if every job has to cater to the lowest end player because apparently the most casual in FF14 absolutely need to be able to play every job to the highest level with minimal effort.
@rickmel09 It's the same thing. If you can't execute the job, play something else, not every job has to have the same tempo, again, there are 21 jobs to pick from. And like I said, if you are a casual player, and you can't keep up with positionals or weaving or whatever, then just don't, just play at the speed you can. There is no enrage in normal content, you do not have to play a perfect high end rotation, no one expects you to in normal content. They're mad that some jobs have room for skill expression for people that enjoy mastering a job that actually has mechanics. It's the same reason BLM players are pissed, they made changes that specifically killed non-standard rotations and everyone knows the reason is that little Timmy got mad he couldn't pick up BLM and do more damage than an endgame raider that finds their fun spending time practicing and mastering all the ins and outs of their job to learn a bunch of tricks they can do to get the most DPS out as possible.
No one requires you to do that but yet casuals are constantly complaining. If there's a new job no one has even had enough time to master yet, that you can't play, guess what, the world doesn't revolve around you, play any of the other jobs that is less busy to you.
I had to have surgery during EW and the meds I was on made it impossible for me to play harder jobs, but you know what I didn't do? Go onto the forums and complain that I couldn't play the hard jobs, therefore they need to be changed to all cater to my ability because other players exist that actually want a busier job and they should get equal priority from the dev team.
@rickmel09 Which is exactly what will happen and I actually want to continue playing this game. You all love to defend casuals complaining, treating us like elitists but let the rest of us voice our opinion and here you guys go doing the same things you accuse high end players of doing when this issue actually has nothing to do with casuals. Casual players are not expected to play their rotation perfectly but they keep inserting themselves into job balance.
@rickmel09 you're just out here being a salty see you next tuesday in alllllll the comments under the video, huh? BLESS YOUR HEART!
@@mismismism that guy's been e-warrior'ing to defend the extreme casualization of the game in soooooooo many comments it's a joke.
@@zeening Not surprised by that, it's pathetic. Ranting when these job changes actually don't even affect normal modes. But let them tell it and Viper keeping positionals that add 50 potency means they literally can't play the game and are now unable to progress at all lol. It's exhausting.
53:05 I have the same problem in Darktide, i struggle on the lower difficulties because I lose focus and take stupid hits.
I wish Viper was more like how it was originally described where you had to decide between twin swords or dual blade staff and swap between them but now its all just automatically done and there's no thought at all. No skill expression and now with them losing even the positional its just boring "I push glowing button I win! Yay!"
I doubt they'll touch the base combo positionals. I think it's likely dreadwinder combo's positionals.
I kinda feel like Preach is missing the point. This isn't a balancing change, it's a change based on purely some people not liking the gameplay. Which, if you don't like it, there are plenty of other jobs to play. We wanted Viper for the "busyness". We want it to be fast and actually make you think even just a little. For casuals, it shouldn't matter anyway because if all you're doing is dungeons and 24m as long as you're hitting your buttons, you'll do fine.
Also, why is the job that starts at level 80/90 the easy job??
@@Swerg20 Because most other jobs suffer from years of added abilities stacked up from previous expansions, that are slowly getting pruned away.
This is basically the same as tank players complaining about Dark knight not being like Warrior every single time, and having Dark knight change into Warrior more and more every expansion. And Warrior players crying whenever Dark knight does something better until it gets streamlined.
I believe the non-JP forums don't have any sway. I'll just deal with the class changes when they're rolled out.
What worries me more than Viper changes is actually the increase in MSQ dungeons and trials for DT. My friends were so angry after the final boss that they couldn't enjoy the end of story. I didn't think anything was too hard for me but I've been playing since ARR. I'm worried about the long term health of the game if they raise the skill floor.
I get that people have been asking for more of a challenge don't think of the casual players who are getting turned off by the difficulty spike. My friends play to relax, not sweat. To them, spending more than half the time of a boss fight on the floor.
I think individual class complexity is actually the best way to please both casual and hardcore players. Content difficulty is an actual filter to having fun because of individual responsibility, class complexity is not. A casual player can pick up a difficult class and press the buttons in random order and they'll probably still clear normal mode content, they might even have more fun because of having more buttons to press and more mechanics to play around with (and again, you don't need to actually know how to optimally use those at this level).
It's relatively easy to make low skill floor-high skill ceiling classes in an MMO, but I feel it's a lot more difficult to make low skill floor-high skill ceiling content.
You fell into the trap of not realising how much better you are then the average.
Casual players aren't going to be happy with more buttons to press, there is an extremely common trope in FF14 specifically with some casual players that only press their 1-2-3 combo in all content, there are plenty more buttons then the 123 yet they still don't press them at all. More buttons and mechanics for classes isn't the answer. If it was, it would have already been implemented.
@CJGordon987 I've gotten in arguments with people about this before because they just don't get it. While there are absolutely incredibly talented players at the high end of this game, the skill floor (and by extension the ability of the truly average player) is comically low. And this majority is also the group paying the bills, so as much as PF legends would like more room for skill expression, the vast majority of people just want the job they think looks cool easy enough to play that they can get through their normal dungeons.
@@OldManInternet Not sure which side your argueing for, but that's pretty much what I'm talking about, and where low skill floor-high skill ceiling comes in. My argument is that it's easier to do that with jobs, something that the individual has direct control over, than with content, which is something that is mostly decided by the devs and also heavily influenced by the other people you're doing that content with in the case of group content.
Think Devil May Cry (3 and beyond I guess) or Bayonetta which is probably an even better example. A person who's not good at video games can totally play those games on Easy difficulty and have fun just pressing buttons, if you happen to press them in a certain order cool shit happens, there are tons of weapons and moves to play with, you absolutely DO NOT need any of them to beat the game, but they're there if you stumble upon them and think they look cool. However, the depth is there for anyone who wants to explore it, and I'm not talking about the higher difficulties, but the options you have controlling your character; you can do some insane combos in those games if you know what you're doing, the possibilities are nearly endless, but that doesn't take away from the button mashing experience.
Linking back to XIV, it already has content difficulty options (Normal, Extreme, Savage, Ultimate, etc.), you can already beat everything that is required to experience the story and everything else available in the expansion (other than higher difficulty variants) by just mashing your 1-2-3 combo. So why would adding 5 more buttons make a difference for those people who don't even care that buttons beyond 3 exist? Why not give the options (keyword options) for the people who want them? Why not raise the skill ceiling while keeping the skill floor where it is?
@@mirai3266 I personally don't mind having higher skill expression jobs/classes in games, but I'm not an average gamer. The average player is going to be annoyed when he has a certain aesthetic in a game he likes, but it's too hard to figure out so they can't do it. Someone who was a war vet and wants to play machinist because it has a gun, but ends up getting pushed into summoner because he doesn't have the reflexes for machinist will probably get annoyed. Maybe he just deals with it, or tries to get better and learn the job he thinks is cooler. But he's just as likely to quit his sub and move on because the job he can play doesn't match the job fantasy he enjoys.
I actually think the answer is in making more content at varying difficulties. If the challenge comes from the content rather than the jobs themselves, then players can hop into whatever job fantasy they think is cool, and then figure our what their threshold for challenging content is. Then people can be whatever they want, and find their degree of challenge from the content.
When you design some jobs that are hard and some that are easy, you're basically telling half the player base they potentially can't be the thing they think is cool. And that is a more important factor to the devs than a veteran player feeling like there isn't enough skill expression in their preferred job as they optimize their rotations for savage. Because at the end of the day, neither player is more valuable than the other, because they're both a sub. And the established player who has been savage raiding since Stormblood is less likely to cancel a sub over a lack of high end skill expression than a frustrated casual who just wants to be a guy with a gun.
@@OldManInternet So the argument then is that people will get annoyed at _more_ skill expression because they can't interact with that _extra_ skill expression due to not being good enough? That people actually do want to play their classes optimally, they just don't want to have to put in the work to do so? Because as I said, the game already allows you to experience 95% of it doing the absolute bare minimum, if you don't know how to go 1-2-3 on your keyboard you probably wouldn't even have been able to open the game in the first place. You don't need to raise the skill floor to raise the skill ceiling, you can keep that experience intact while allowing the players who want to interact more with the systems the freedom to do so, that's what I was saying with the Devil May Cry/Bayonetta example.
It's mind-boggling to me that anyone could find Viper troublesome. It seems like a job designed to parse well with minimal brain power.
Positionals have always been a player issue. I honestly been ignoring most of them, even if it's a dps loss, with the exception of the single target charged abilities. I actually don't mind how busy Viper is. Something tells me I may actually hate the changes.
When it comes to optimization it requieres quite a bit of juggling, ideally you want to double reawaken on every even minute window, similar to RPR, difference being, RPR has only 1 debuff you need to maintain that can last for up to a minute and that can be refreshed at any time without any issues barring a minor dps loss if you overextend the debuff's duration, while VPR has 1 debuff and 2 buffs you need to upkeep and they come from 3 or 6 different actions depending on how you look at it, while its rotation doesn't allow you to apply these liberally, otherwise you run the risk of over capping important resources you then use for dealing damage or you lose a ton of damage if you have to apply them via a non optimal filler, not to mention they last for up to 40 seconds each. So yeah, easy to pick up and play to a competent level, not that easy to optimize or "parse" with.
@@ronin1361 Dreadwinder without drifting while doing mechanics is the really unfun bit.
honestly i think the problem is less that the class is hard and more that people tend to overthink it.
They see 3 or 4 different buffs from different abilities in different stages of your combo flanks and rears an entire second combo with dreadwinder and start panicking wenn the reality just is hit 1-2-rear3-4 and repeat with flank instead of rear and just hit whatever button lights up
The only thing that i could imagine could be annoying is the dreadwinder combo because rear and flank come immediately after another in that one.
@@sharodintv4036you have literally the entirety of the GCD to hit those 2 positional though, people make positional 3000% harder to deal with in their heads than they actually are
Also something to consider is How the East playes and how the West play seems to be vastly different ,how do you make bothe sides happy?
Take a shot every time preach says yoshiP invited him to dinner
Why are you trying to kill so many people?!
The thing is with class complexity is i think there should be some classes which do have skill expression. I dont think all of them 'must' be dumbed down to be accessible to everyone. I think this is somewhat problematic in ffxiv vs other MMO's because there are no job build paths... everyone plays the same jobs... but I think for the players who want something more complex is so that everyone can have what they want... One thing I do understand about ffxiv's design is that the majority of complexion comes from the fights themselves and not the classes. In this way everyone has the same class experiences and only the hardcore gamers who want difficulty are subjected to the actually difficult content. While I do enjoy this system to an extent when I sit there and do my dailies which are more or less a pastimes, there are days I would like to just play something difficult to keep me more engaged. New expert dungeons are a good step in the right direction because like EX content+ there is finally quote on quote "Casual" content which has some actual difficulty added.
I think a lot of people get caught up in the "skill issue" argument that they never actually try to analyze exactly why people are having a problem to begin with.
look at it this way. someone getting into viper for the first time, and are still getting used to the positionals only have 2 ways to VISUALLY see which positional is next until they get used to it enough to have it down to muscle memory. the little red or green buff on the buff bar, or the gcd button that isn't visibly there until right before you use the attack. people naturally get used to and learn how to do things differently, which can go a long way to explaining why people are so mixed on viper.
I'd like it if ALL 3 parts of the gcd's in your rotation turned red or green to show you which positional is coming up, or even add something to the job bar for it.
It would go a long way in helping people learn the job, while also not actually changing how it plays.
Hell, I play DRG with only two positionals buttons and I'm CONSTANTLY getting which one is which mixed up.
I mean it is a skill issue. The vast vast majority of people have not had Viper for even 3 days yet. Over 95% of all Vipers on the lodestone are still level 80. Casuals are begging and screaming to make a job they haven't played at all and haven't even attempted to understand yet easier so they dont have to practice it at all lmfao.
99% of this community would cheer and clap if they removed all dps rotations and replaced them with the "damage button" because now they can be good at the game!
@@yeetusdeleetus4697 case in point, someone assuming skill issue rather than trying to figure out the problem. assumes people haven't tried it first, assumes it's all casuals, assumes they don't understand the job. etc.
you should try using something other than your imagination for your facts
@@WoahItsCrazyMikeYou just read the first sentence and then stopped reading didn’t you? I know this because your comment makes absolutely no sense if you actually read what they said.
VPR isn't that tough. It's super easy to play. People are wildin'.
And it is pretty apparent, they didn't spent a lot of time on Striking Dummies to figure out how it actually works.
or they ignored the entire first VPR quest where they straight up teach you how to play it
Use dreadwinder hitting the positional while doing the 2 ogcds while doing a mechanic where you have to move away from the boss
@@omensoffate i do it all the time and sometimes i don't, not a big deal enough to scream on forums about it being too difficult
@@kenjiayoma7571 Who's been saying it's too difficult? The post says it's too *busy*. It doesn't feel fun, and it doesn't feel like a skill check. It's more often than not a simple "where exactly is the boss, and where did the AoE land" check.
@@omensoffate if you have to move you use true north or take the L on the positionals, there's not a single fight in the game that's tuned so tight you need to hit 100% positionals. Weaving the ogcds while moving is insanely easy btw, that's 100% a skill issue if you struggle and there's plenty of other jobs with the same playstyle.
Them reworking Ninja Mudras to be on the GCD made me quit that job. It was the only dps I enjoyed, but it wasn't that bad because I was a healer main at the time.
Didn't play for pretty much all of Shadowbringers/Endwalker because they sucked any joy out of combat to appeal to casuals.
Now we finally get another fast paced dps job I enjoy and after not even one full weak they already want to gut it again.
You also need to consider that skill consists of both knowledge and execution. If a player knows exactly how their class and the boss works just lacks the dexterous finger coordination to press 20 buttons in the correct order they will still botch their rotation. I think this is part of the problem when people describe a class as "too busy." Viper's mechancics are super simple once you have managed to understand the confusing as fuck tooltop mess but actually executing this in practice can be a lot for people simply because of the ever changing buttons and the number of abilities in play.
They can play another job. There are now over 20 jobs in the game, why does EVERY job NEED to be catered towards 80 year old penguins with no fingers. We have Summoner, we have RDM, we have WHM and sadly AST now, we have Warrior, we have Reaper, we have like a dozen options for complete brain off, slow 1 gcd at a time gameplay, why do people who are slow and undexterous HAVE to play the fast dexterous gameplay job? Thats my genuine question.
@@yeetusdeleetus4697 That is a question you need to ask SE. Their stance seems to be one of hyper accecability. According to them, if you payed for the dawntrail expansion you should enjoy the two new jobs.
My personal stance is that I dislike reaction based skill checks, but I am a gamer who generally prefers strategy games over fast paced action action games. Reactions kill checks for me simply don't add the difficulty I am looking for and imo also don't improve/change the core character of a jobs playstyle. That said, I understand your opinion and am generally not opposed to bussier jobs existing. I will just stick to the jobs I like such as Sage, Warrior or Reaper.
@rickmel09 Because high apm for casters is still extremely low, and that Summoner is objectively the easiest job in the game. You press the big summon button, then you press your colored Legos, repeat. The only optimization on the entire class is when and where you use slipstream
@rickmel09 I mean, not really? That is just inflated by the fact that Garuda gives you 3 quite fast GCDs which brings up the average. Business does not = APM. If Viper only had to press 1 button like Summoner for 99% of its gameplay it would not be busy. Theres nothing to manage, nothing to think about and nothing to keep up.
@rickmel09 LOOOOOL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH this guys is COPING LMFAOOO
so if they take off smn res they should do same amount of dps as blm? because job difficulty dont matter right?
As a DNC main, Viper felt really easy to pick up. I can see positionals being annoying but that’s literally the only skill issue. Sure there isn’t that beeg damage moment but your uptime is the whole time. Viper is literally a sewing machine of constant/consistent dps and let’s be fr: optimal positionals can be ignored for majority of casual players.
If people don’t like Viper I can only imagine it’s bc the play style doesn’t suit them.
The issue with Viper is the positionals is one of the few ways to show skill with the job. It's an extremely simple job where positionals are the only real thing that give it a bit of thought and skill. I'm fine if they put something in to give the class more of a skill ceiling and took away a few positionals, but that isn't being done. There is no reason it should be changed now until they have something to give viper more of a difference between the skill floor and ceiling.
Doing positionals isn't a skill though, it's a nuisance. It doesn't take any skill to move a little to the side before pressing a button.
@@BaithNa it does take SOME skill to plan all your positional and true north timers while doing mechanics. Obviously savage and up.
@@BaithNa Yeah? Then why do people mess it up? It's like saying 'having 5 buttons instead of 4 isn't harder, its just a nuisance' or 'dealing with long cat times isn't skill, it's just a nuisance' that makes no sense at all. Having to do something extra IS adding something else to consider.
Not to mention getting flank/back attacks isn't so easy when the boss moves or you have mechanics to avoid much like casters trying to get their casts off taking in consideration mechanics. Again, you can say there are better ways to add difficulty, but in the end it is still something that adds complexity to the job.
@@hass556moving left or right before pressing a button isn't a skill. The games in the Gold Saucer take more skill than positionals require.
@@Asin241. That's a false equivalency
2. Just because people don't care you do positionals doesn't mean doing them is a skill, it just means some people care whereas other don't.
3. Again, moving a little before pressing a button isn't a skill under any circumstances. Look up the definition of the word "skill", kid.
I think the thing you left out on the illusion of choice, is that over time they can churn the playstyles by overtuning and nerfing things to give players a mixup on playstyles. Similar to how M+ talent builds let you mess with things you wouldn't in raid. So even though there's a defined best, that may change based on what they want to give you as an experience. And that's something wow seems to do well from time to time.
That can't exist within 14 so they lack that lever. Which makes their job harder too.
not saying this is actually the case but considering how many ppl complain about a lot of dungeons and trials being too simple and boring, perhaps they're simplifying the classes a bit in order to make the fights a bit more complex/engaging... yeah, other MMOs are able to have complex classes and complex fights, but most of those games also allow addons (often times addons are basically a necessity)... i don't really see SE caving in and suddenly allowing addons so perhaps this is the compromise *shrug
I personally prefer a rhythm to rotations with lots of buttons even if the button doesn't seemingly add much just because i think button pushing is fun. I'd rather have to hit a button every 30/60 seconds than 2 minutes, because it makes combat feel more kinetic. Viper pulls this off great. It also heavily depends on how you configure your hotbar. I think people underestimate the way your hotbar is laid out in key binds can drastically alter mechanical game feel.
As a kid growing up i used to play Quake 1 and that game had auto aim, so all i ever did in FPS game´s was to use arrow keys to move and Ctrl/spacebar to fire my weapon and then years later i was invited to this LAN party where people were playing TRIBES 1 and after our team got decimated the by the other team, my teammates came to me and asked how i had only got 1 kill in the whole match, but it was due to me not using my mouse at all but just sticking to a keyboard, so i can really imagine some people playing WOW like that :D
40:31 Sounds like balancing skill floor and skill ceiling is an art.
I would LOVE if casual players put out 80% of the potential of their jobs, but unfortunately, that's not the case the majority of the time. Yesterday in normal roulette, another picto had half my damage output despite me having two deaths to his 0 deaths (it's been ages since I did that fight, cut me some slack.) I was probably around 80%, myself due to my deaths, and this other picto was maybe 40% of the potential output.
I can get on board with your argument but the dawntrail blm changes and the picto combo cancel changes I don't think fall in line with the argument in the video, both account for a sub 5% dps increase vs intended rotation but Square has decided to remove both.
Big problem is much of the Japanese playerbase who get listened to by developers, play on PlayStation controller. Having more buttons to push regularly than other jobs is going to require more learning as a new job. It is insane that these changes are coming within first week of release. It's likely many of the changes they do is based on data, showing that most players don't actually push their buttons, so they have to encourage or remove/bake skills into others to solve it.
Meanwhile on the flip side the Japanese playerbase have also gone on and said they listen too much to the western playerbase
nope it's english players too... comment 2 above yours... "
@Abyssionknight
3 days ago
I'm a bad player, and I like the idea of making rotations less punishing. I don't do savage or harder content, and I'll still struggle to learn mechanics in later dungeons or 8 man raids, often having to do them 6+ times to understand the mechanics. Even then, I'll have difficulty splitting my focus between doing my rotation and monitoring the mechanics, so often I'll misalign my burst window with the rest of the party, or i'll mess up telegraphed mechanics, because I was focused on my bars instead of the boss. There are entire jobs i've never touched because just reading them makes them sound insanely complicated to manage.
So for people like me, we need non-punishing rotations, and ideally the MSQ should ramp up in difficulty over time enough that we can maybe feel confident at least trying savage content. So I like the viper changes, because the less bad players have to juggle, the more we can focus on not wiping the entire group on mechanics, letting you guys get through the content with less wipes or struggle, while letting us feel like we're contributing. I know the good players want complex mechanics and complex classes, but that's beyond most players of this game." WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!?!?!??!?!!?!? in this guy's universe there is NO duty support or trust that LITERALLY TEACHES THE DAMN MECHANICS, he HAS to run with other players and wipe them, there is NO The Balance or saltedxiv or any other myriad tools that LITERALLY TELL YOU BUTTON FOR BUTTON WHAT TO PRESS..... it's sickeningly pathetic, and THIS is what they balance the game around.....
I'm super interested to hear your thoughts on ESO class design when you get around to endgame.
My question to people who are struggling with this one: Is feral druid better or worse because Shred's positional requirement was removed? I think if you ask just about any feral player, it's better because it let them make the class more difficult in other ways (Blood talons / etc.) It let them experiment with making encounters more difficult because now you didn't have to focus on being behind the boss, etc.
not really comparable, 1 single job had 1 positional(yeah i know backstab and ambush too but idc not the point) whereas every single melee job in the game pretty much has at least 2 here lol and they already streamlined most jobs down from 4ish
@rickmel09 WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MAKE GAME MORE CASUAL PLSSSS WAHHHHHHHH
It comes down to $. There are far fewer hardcore players than casuals. A game developer can design their game for hardcore players and get far less $ than if they design their game for casuals.
Yeah I’ve tried explaining this to people in my static about job simplification. Like for every one of you who wants a harder job, there are thousands of people who want it simpler. And 15-20 dollars a month from you does not even scratch the money they bring in.
Right, because games developed for a niche (hardcore, etc) audience don't do well right? I'm sure Elden Ring sold so well cause it catered SO well to a casual audience. Same with Baldur's Gate 3.
If you design a game for everyone, you have a game for no one. FF14 combat has suffered because it has forgotten this fact.
@@Quix32 isn't Elden Ring the most simplified of all soulsborne games? Also idk why you mentioned BG3, the game is super casual and you can choose difficulty as well. They are def not niche/hardcore
@@suncommander7102 If you think ER is a game for casual players then we must have very different definitions of what a casual gamer is.
Baldur's Gate is a very difficult game for those not initiated with DnD. Its a very in depth game that requires a lot of reading and planning, something I also wouldn't say is for your everyday gamer. Again, it's niche, just like ER.
My point being just because a game (and by extension, game design ie ff14 jobs) is meant for specific types of players doesn't mean it can't be successful.
@@Quix32 I'm not sure how you read "don't do well" out of my comment about not AS MUCH $. It's just math. If a certain population has 100 hardcore gamers and 1,000 casual gamers, and assuming for our thought experiment every gamer buys the game they enjoy, the dev of the hardcore game will sell 100 copies and the dev of the casual game will sell 1,000 copies. Certainly Elden Ring was very popular. That doesn't mean it made as much money as Stardew Valley.
imma be real but, I know plenty of people actually angry if they simplify viper, doesn't that go against the idea of not wanting angry players? they finally found a class they like where its gameplay has some okay skill expression, and now that gets taken away
Hi Preach, I play 1,700 skill speed Viper. I think it was slow till I invested skill speed. My opener is Use charge attack+True North, Attack buff weave,weave, Unlock reawakened (yes that's a triple weave but it's okay cause 2blade attack are 3s 2.83 in my build) haste, weave, weave awaken+burst reapply noxious burn 3 rattles. With haste up the triple weave can't be done but 1.99/2.35 is so fun being fast. From what I can tell if I am able to overtake Picto's easy from just apm. No skill speed I really felt VPR was too slow for a "fast paced job"
is this a joke/meme? i can almost promise you you are not outdpsing pictos with a skill speed build on viper, i'd literally offer to come test it with a meter on your DC but don't want to get banned if you get angry lol
The only problems with Viper is that some of the animations are so quick that they're hard to see and they leave the player standing for a second while the GCD rolls.
This is actually the rare case of when slowing down actually makes it look more busy than it really is.
With the exception of Dreadwinder combos, which is where the change is likely coming, because thats a mess of alternating doubleweaving while hitting positionals. It's 3 *incredlbly* concentrated GCDs, with huge fuckup potential.
I really think they missed a trick not putting positionals back into monk. With the buff and dot maintenance gone, they could have put positionals back on the actions that spend fury pips. Then have perfect balance negate position like it does forms. It feels a bit brain dead, but still my favourite
With all the door bosses the game now has? Unless you can True North the major positionals, they can't impact the rotation in a meaningful way - because then the jobs that rely on them are made strictly worse by the encounter design.
But then, if you just True North your major positionals, why are they even in the game at that point... I think they've painted themselves in a corner with this, really.
@@thesunthrone doesn't a door boss have a complete circle, so all positionals hit?
I'm such a tank main, I don't like positional but Viper isn't hard but also it feeels weak or underwhelming for some reason but I do think positionals are dumb
"I don't feel living a good life unless I see some people are suffering", that is a universal human darkness.
i do miss my destro lock from MOP/cata, 5.1mil chaos bolt on a 3.1mil HP BiS raid geared tank was funny af, doing like Preach said 3-5x the next highest person's DPS and regularly critting for 1-3mil+ when most other classes aren't even breaking 1m
I remember tera combat was the best for me BECAUSE its busy (some classes ofc not all) and it had real time dodging. never anything came close after that.
@rickmel09 i have, didnt like the combat
i loved that game, was so sad it got shut down when i went to play it again (had lost account info and was salty as i had ahigh lvl warrior)
@@zeening yeah sad it wasnt popular enough
The 80% thing shows you suffer from the thing you described about not understanding how good you are at a thing.
I’m not a tank main, but I often run dungeon roulettes on WAR, because I find it goes more smoothly. I can carry if need be. In the majority of those dungeons, I out dps at least one of my damage dealers. Their “80%” should be nearly doubling me. This is true even for jobs as simplistic as SMN. In order to achieve that 80%, you would need to make jobs so simplistic as to make them unplayably boring for even stronger casual players.
unironically big true, i'm almost always top or #2 on damage dealt as tank, and have, on many MANY occasions beat at least 1 DPS on healer which.... should NOT be fucking happening in the current state the game is in, EVER. fking EVER.
I kind of like the idea of making classes easier to play as long as the content is made tougher. I feel like Blizzard has done that over the years recently. Making class a bit easier to play and understand, so they can make the content a bit harder. I hope Square takes this approach going forward. I can't imagine trying to play Monk, Samurai, or another of the older melee in some of these new dungeons in 14. You also have no time for positionals in a lot of these bosses.
11:50 Honestly, I'm not that good.
What I have is good sense, adaptability, and intuition; which is to say I can go from bad player to decent player faster than many others, even if I will never reach the apex of skill.
But really though, by the time you've progressed enough to play with level 80 jobs, you've almost certainly gotten 2000 hours in FFXIV.
If in that time you still haven't learned the basics of playing the game, there's something wrong with you (e.g. maybe you're a games journalist), and any amount of "catering" the game does for you at this point will only ruin the game for everyone else.
My issue with this is that this is literally by level 80, which the class starts at, is in the later game and there are a ton of other classes that have become casual. You add a class that finally requires a little more thought to play. However I also realize both sides have good and bad points. I however do believe if they keep only giving to casuals, players like me who just want a bit of complexity outside of dodging circles and squares on the ground will likely end up moving on from the game. Just where I am on this.
It's probably just removing back to back GCD positionals like they've done to every other melee in the game now. Hardly a big deal and it won't affect the feel of the job barely at all besides bringing down the skill floor a little bit.
Uh, Gluttony is still a thing, and they even buffed it this expansion
@@Auesis You mean Gibbet and Gallows, but those are the only positionals Reaper has, Viper has effectively 4 (6 in actuality). My point is that the job will barely change and the change they'll likely do is just rip out 2 positionals from either the twin blade mode or the basic 1-2-3.
Thats the whole enjoyable part about viper though, going in between positions. You say "back to back" but there's a whole 3GCD gap in between them, its really not that bad. You even still get the oGCD proc even if you miss the positional so I really do not see the problem here.
I'm actually a bit upset that the Dragoon Dance has been simplified from Stormblood into Shadowbringers, and now into Endwalker. Having to figure how to dance around the boss on the corners was part of what made Dragoon initially so attractive to me.
@@TheJoukaiNo, they mean Gluttony. It’s the thing that creates the situation where you have two back to back positionals.
i agree, 80% casual, 10% boss and up too 10% class mechanical stuff
My only problem with the changes is that if the job needs to be for everyone even those with 300 ping then we can never have a higher apm job.
This sucks and if they end up slowing the job would suck even more becuase why even release it? Would just make me want to quit the game honestly.
Gotta say I love Mike passive aggressively flaming the toxic part of the FromSoft community xD
Which would be around 95% of them... They are a special bunch...
My guess is around 75% of the maximum potential damage for the average player. 85 to 95% for the high end. And 100% for the bloodstone squeezers.
Anyone who considers the MSQ hard Should be able to get 70/75% of a job's potential damage. Anyone who has ever cleared at least one extreme Should be able to get 90% Out of a job. Savage and ultimate players can fight over the last ten percent.
All of this sounds like its under the assumption that Viper is hard, when its literally the most braindead easy job in the entire game. No one is saying Picto should be changed and its so much more complex and I think that comes down to people just saying to themselves "You know what, maybe pictomancer isn't for me" and you move on and play something else. People need to say the same about Viper. Making Viper easier risks it becoming un-engaging, without the busy gameplay it has no identity that differentiates it from other melee jobs. Removing positionals is fine if that is the main complaint they are getting because it doesn't effect the gameplay all that much, but going off of them saying they want to address the busyness of the job and change the effect of several actions this sounds way too major.
Aside from the fact this has only been out for 5 days as of official release. Are you seriously going to say that is enough time to have players play around, level it and truly test out the functionality and gameplay of a Job and come to the conclusion that you need to dumb it down even further? Developers need to look at feedback and know what they should act on and what they should just leave and let settle.