[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Any insight into how long that latter part I mentioned is?

Warriors of Darkness is wrapped up in 3.4, which is the longest patch. You do a dungeon, and then the story slogs for an hour as you do your obligatory primal stuff, and then it gets up to speed again with a great duty and you're done. Hard part over.

FYI, now that you have finished the Dragonsong War, there is a short, optional questchain (4 quests, no monster slaying, just NPC conversations) that provides closure to the arc. Just talk to the Manservant at the back of Fortemps Manor to pick it up.

[Sharby]

So this is more fair, though I question what content you were doing in WoW that you felt it lacked that level of engagement. I'd argue raiding mythic cutting edge content or pushing the limits of M+ are both going to require more practice and effort from the player than anything in FF14. Again that's not necessarily good or bad though, just different. Most people aren't looking for that level of engagement.

For instance I just played my first league of PoE and that game is riddled with shallow complexity and that's what people love about it. You open up that huge tree and people immediately think its this large complex thing, but then you take a few minutes to actually look at it and see all the redundancies and non-choices and realize that its actually quite simple.

FF14 has a lot of that as well, there's a lot of button bloat which some people enjoy. What those buttons actually do is quite simple, and there's no agency when it comes to how you use them, but there is a decent number of them. And for some people that's all they need to find them compelling.

People are going to bring what they liked about a game to another game, its disingenuous to act like that's the same as saying "why isn't this game this other game". I guarantee you those same people take with them the things they found they liked about FF14 back to WoW when they go back and play it as well.

The same few people seem to like to jump to the defense of people disliking certain things, as if they're not allowed to dislike something they like. Its very much the "you're not allowed to like something I dislike" mentality in reverse.

Bruh all MMORPG's are ultimately trying to be WoW one way or another, its the most successful MMORPG to have ever existed. But again its disingenuous to pretend that's what people are getting at when they weigh a criticism against a specific aspect of FF14 they don't like.

Again, people from "underdog" games feel the need to overzealously defend them. Players criticize what they dislike about any given game, people will bring up games who they have experience with and feel handled certain aspects better. That's totally normal, it doesn't mean they want it to become said other game because they'll have had those exact same kinds of criticisms about said other game as well.

- - - Updated - - -



Well damn, apparently you're way faster at getting through cutscenes than I am.

Any insight into how long that latter part I mentioned is?

Bro I really dont get the point that you're trying to make. It would be better for everyone if you just said 'this is my opinion on this let's agree to disagree' but you have continously wrote page after page essentially trying to say that FF14 players are somehow simpletons that enjoy shadow fake complexity because they dont know any better. You keep bringing up topics like ability bloat even though it's fairly obvious people disagree but you're so deadset on trying to make it an objective fact like what is the point. It's not fun having to have such drawn out discussion after discussion about WoW vs FF14 nor is it fun to have to try and squeeze a word inbetween it. Please be more mindful of what the goal of this thread actually is.


Then you say FF14 players are overly defensive like what ofc ppl are gonna resist if they feel a critique isnt correct especially in a thread made for people who, shocker more or less agree with the majority of the game. You arent immune from refutation just because you have an unpopular opinion and it's a chore having to scroll past it so much. Give it a rest.

[dope_danny]

Got around to levelling my crafters and theres early recipes that require you to go back to those 'spawns once per 33 minutes ingame' nodes from A Realm Reborn. No wonder theres so many mining bots in Thanalan and Coerthas lately.

[The Casualty]

Sidebar - E1S: can Gravity be mitigated? I know it does % max health, but my healers keep fucking letting me die to auto's or straight from it because I'm not topped off and I don't have a CD up for it at that point (might rework my CD rotation), but I know for a fact it can't be sheltron'd, but wasn't sure if it could be % reduced.

Sorry for the late response, been very busy at work this week. As far as I'm aware the only way to mitigate the % damage attacks on Eden Prime are through shields. I think it's a bit of an adjustment for healers to focus on tanks during AoE, as usually tank privilege sees us taking way less damage/ending out with more HP than everyone else. In our week 1 clear I got killed a few times too to lack of heals.

I think the only CD you have that's going to effect anything will be veil. Other than that there isn't much else you can do - the healer needs to step up their game. That and you have enough else in that fight to mitigate.

[Advent]

Bro I really dont get the point that you're trying to make. It would be better for everyone if you just said 'this is my opinion on this let's agree to disagree' but you have continously wrote page after page essentially trying to say that FF14 players are somehow simpletons that enjoy shadow fake complexity because they dont know any better. You keep bringing up topics like ability bloat even though it's fairly obvious people disagree but you're so deadset on trying to make it an objective fact like what is the point. It's not fun having to have such drawn out discussion after discussion about WoW vs FF14 nor is it fun to have to try and squeeze a word inbetween it. Please be more mindful of what the goal of this thread actually is.


Then you say FF14 players are overly defensive like what ofc ppl are gonna resist if they feel a critique isn't correct especially in a thread made for people who, shocker more or less agree with the majority of the game. You arent immune from refutation just because you have an unpopular opinion and it's a chore having to scroll past it so much. Give it a rest.

That's not how good discussions work. Which is, if you want to be specific, the "point" of this thread. If what people want is an echo chamber where none of their ideas are challenged, that's not going to happen. He never said anyone was a "simpleton", nor did he even allude to it. But somehow (And this is where the term "overly sensitive" comes from) people take phrases like "That's not what depth is" and "Button bloat" as an insult to the game, as if they're being personally attacked. This is incredibly immature and useless to the discussion and conversation that it should by all rights be ignored outright. Anyone that is easily offended by criticism, or who can't respond without defensively retaliating without even discussing the point shouldn't be here. Period. A free exchange of ideas and good faith discussion is why I originally came here. If that's not what this is, I struggle to even understand why this thread even exists.

[Gorsameth]

Not sure what I'd want cut.

There aren't really any "filler" arcs from 2.0 through 2.55, every arc contributes to the whole and has filler in it.

2.0 through 2.55 spoilers

Spoiler: 

You can't just wholesale cut out the Company of Heroes arc. It introduces Riol, one of the more prominent Scion NPCs, and finding Drex (the Imperial soldier stranded outside of Wineport) and seeing that he was a perfectly normal guy just like everyone else really helped humanized the Empire, especially when even still, after all this time, the Empire is still portrayed as an overall one note cartoon evil empire. Plus, Shamani was one of the most memorable ARR NPCs as well.

In fact, now that I think about it, you can't cut out a lot of sections either because those seemingly minor NPCs come back to be pretty major characters in the plot, such as Laurentius, Yuyuhase, Alliane, Meffrid, and so on.

The Garuda arc could be heavily edited down, the only thing that really needs to stay is Cid's explanation of how to breach the barrier, as that comes back as a plot point later. Otherwise, the whole fetch questchain could be eliminated in it's entirety. "Go to the guild and ask if they have a corrupt wind crystal". "Sorry, we don't have corrupted wind crystal, go to this guy out in Drystone and ask him". "Oh hey, go get this thing from me over there". "Thanks for the thing! Oh wait, you're looking for a corrupted crystal? Well this thing isn't it. Go over there and get one!". "Oh, you came back? ... Oh, you wanted a corrupted WIND crystal! Well you ACTUALLY need to go over there to get one!"... etc. I'm sure the Grand Companies have at least one so it'd be as simple as having Cid ask a Twin Adders NPC to go get one from the quartermaster. Boom, done. It'd retain the sense of urgency that Garuda threat poses.

The post 2.0 Primal segments could definitely be edited down so that they aren't as intrusive. No, I don't need to spend an hour running through the Sylphlands chasing an NPC whilst pulling aggro from everything we pass by. Just let me get straight to the comedy bits with the Archons and meet Ramuh. No, I don't need to spend an hour running back and forth through Sahagin territory whilst pulling aggro from everything we pass by. Just let us find the priest, raft the two ships together and fight Leviathan.

Post 60 content is over a 100 quests to get to HW. As someone that has recently done it is an insanely long slog of running back and forth.
Yes there are some important story moments in there but my god they need to cut down on just the length of it.

[Katchii]

What addition would you suggest to be added, that gets me to change my position to a specific location in melee range (as melee DPS). Something that would mirror a "weak point" I have to hit, so to say.

Because that is *exactly* why I want positionals to be a thing. What I like about them. What WoW does not have, yet FFXIV does (for example).
That's what positionals require me to do in this game and that's why I want them to be there.

Thanks for that, your specific reasoning for WHY you liked them wasn't clear until now. This makes sense.

The only idea I can come up with on the fly is still a positional skill, but it would be like a proc. Rather than having a skill always have a positional requirement, have a proc that "unlocks" a positional bonus for using it from the "right" spot. Would kind of reflect how those things happen in a fight, weaknesses/openings aren't always there they reveal themselves. This would mirror that kind of thing.

The main issue for me isn't that there ARE positionals, it's that they're a core mechanic that every melee DPS has and has to constantly be paying attention to. Having one move that uses a positional requirement for bonus damage that you have to react on the fly to would be more engaging to me.

While I don't particularly like this idea, it makes sense in this context, if the ability were literally only able to be activated from the correct position that would be interesting as well. Beacsue at least in this regard, having to meet the positional would pretty profoundly affect your game play and provide direct feedback if you were actually doing your job well without having to check your performance afterward to see if you did goo.

And on top of that, how would that specific mechanic, change, or whatever you guys come up with, be different from the current version.

We aren't really talking about missing "visuals" here are we? Because if we are, then I'm out!
Because this part came up here again

and it always sounds like you are looking for a more "visual" feedback-loop to me but I believe none of that has to do anything with what positionals are there for, or would even add any "fun" to them - it's not what I need it to achieve.

Not just visual, but game play affecting. Though having some visual cue to when you hit your positional would solve the feedback problem. Maybe that's enough..I don't know. I'd need to experience it to know.

I'm looking for a mechanic that is rewarding me extra DPS, whenever I move my character to a specific location during a specific time.. I am not looking for a different way to get me extra DPS (like a proper ressource such as SAM has, that can be it's own thing on top of it). It has to involve my character moving to X at time Y (Y can be several seconds long for all I care) when I use certain abilities or do my rotation. It also has to switch to position Z at some point, so that I can't stay at X all the time.

Fair enough. Then to solve this (or my issue with it anyway), yes, having a visual and or possibly audio cue that triggers when you hit your positional would go a long way towards solving my gripe. However, I also like the special proc idea of having an ability have a positional bonus, rather than having the positionals be such a core aspect of their game play.

Yet at the same time, I don't want to be pummeled to shit when I can't fulfill that requirement and it also has to be somehow baked in in the class/job and not the encounter/boss design itself.
I also want to have chances to mitigate the theoretical "loss" of DPS somehow because players/netcode/certain type of bosses/outside influence can fuck it all up (True North in FFXIV is a fitting example)

Change positionals from being such a core mechanic to be being an added positional bonuses proc, add visual cues to them to let you know when you hit them and I think that would help solve the main issue I have while also satisfying your desire to use them as an engaging part of your game play.

- - - Updated - - -

Not sure what I'd want cut.

There aren't really any "filler" arcs from 2.0 through 2.55, every arc contributes to the whole and has filler in it.

2.0 through 2.55 spoilers

Spoiler: 

You can't just wholesale cut out the Company of Heroes arc. It introduces Riol, one of the more prominent Scion NPCs, and finding Drex (the Imperial soldier stranded outside of Wineport) and seeing that he was a perfectly normal guy just like everyone else really helped humanized the Empire, especially when even still, after all this time, the Empire is still portrayed as an overall one note cartoon evil empire. Plus, Shamani was one of the most memorable ARR NPCs as well.

In fact, now that I think about it, you can't cut out a lot of sections either because those seemingly minor NPCs come back to be pretty major characters in the plot, such as Laurentius, Yuyuhase, Alliane, Meffrid, and so on.

The Garuda arc could be heavily edited down, the only thing that really needs to stay is Cid's explanation of how to breach the barrier, as that comes back as a plot point later. Otherwise, the whole fetch questchain could be eliminated in it's entirety. "Go to the guild and ask if they have a corrupt wind crystal". "Sorry, we don't have corrupted wind crystal, go to this guy out in Drystone and ask him". "Oh hey, go get this thing from me over there". "Thanks for the thing! Oh wait, you're looking for a corrupted crystal? Well this thing isn't it. Go over there and get one!". "Oh, you came back? ... Oh, you wanted a corrupted WIND crystal! Well you ACTUALLY need to go over there to get one!"... etc. I'm sure the Grand Companies have at least one so it'd be as simple as having Cid ask a Twin Adders NPC to go get one from the quartermaster. Boom, done. It'd retain the sense of urgency that Garuda threat poses.

The post 2.0 Primal segments could definitely be edited down so that they aren't as intrusive. No, I don't need to spend an hour running through the Sylphlands chasing an NPC whilst pulling aggro from everything we pass by. Just let me get straight to the comedy bits with the Archons and meet Ramuh. No, I don't need to spend an hour running back and forth through Sahagin territory whilst pulling aggro from everything we pass by. Just let us find the priest, raft the two ships together and fight Leviathan.

Don't think anything needs to be "cut" but having a quest chain update as you go rather than having to constantly go back to the NPC and pick up the next quest in the chain would significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to move through them. How many times do I need to go back to the Waking Sands when I have a link pearl? Why do I have to return to the starter NPC when the only thing they're going to do is say good job and then point me very quickly to my next destination which they already knew about. There's no reason to have piece meal questing like that, in some of the situations they have.

[threads]

gah e2s is draining. sitting through 9 min of the same repeated mechanics just to hit enrage or people mess up the cycles is getting old fast.

[blackpink]

gah e2s is draining. sitting through 9 min of the same repeated mechanics just to hit enrage or people mess up the cycles is getting old fast.

welcome to raiding These fights are stupidly easy and people just too slow to learn it. Only way for me to join better groups is to raid a lot of hours. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground in this game.

[threads]

welcome to raiding These fights are stupidly easy and people just too slow to learn it. Only way for me to join better groups is to raid a lot of hours. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground in this game.

yea this 2nd boss seems to be a bigger wall than the last like 3-4 tiers. went through 3 "clear" parties that barely made it halfway.

[Baconeggcheese]

welcome to raiding These fights are stupidly easy and people just too slow to learn it. Only way for me to join better groups is to raid a lot of hours. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground in this game.

Does FF14 not have a WoWprogress equivalent? Lack of those kinds of resources was always my problem whenever I looked at another mmo back when I cared about raiding.

[Wrecktangle]

Even it it is, why is that a probem?

Speaking personally - I think my gameplay should be the furthest thing from automatic and binary that's why I think it's a problem.

You are not forced in any way whatsoever to uphold positionals. Your class will play the exact same way. You are only required to do so if you want to be at 100%, but that is not something that has to change - because I'm also required to do my rotation properly. Or play in a specific way to reach that. It's the same thing, nothing special about it - just another variable.

This is the first time we've probably agreed on the topic and I don't think you realized it. By your own admission - you acknowledge:

1) Regardless of positionals your class will play the exact same way
2) It's the same thing and nothing special about it
3) It's just another *shallow* variable

Where we diverge is that I don't consider that good design. I have never disagreed with the level of engagement it provides or that it does indeed add value, what the core of my disagreement has always been is that I don't think the good they add outweight the negatives. Negatives like you, yourself admitted to above. And like @Katchii has tried to explain is that, we don't want that variable gone, we just want a more interesting variable with less downsides in place of it given current game design.

What addition would you suggest to be added, that gets me to change my position to a specific location in melee range (as melee DPS). Something that would mirror a "weak point" I have to hit, so to say.

I know this wasn't directed at me, but remember - I've actually gone on record stating that I LIKE the idea of positionals, but simply do not favor the current implementation.

Add some agency or gameplay benefit to them (that's not invisible), update the netcode, make animations not slide, and I'd fully defend positionals as a positive combat system mechanic. A great example is the SAM one where they gain Kenki or the DRG gaining access to a new skill. I'd probably also maybe make bosses not randomly turn and face directions based on mechanics/targeting, let the tank decide that IMO to at least make positionals more consistent.

I'm not sure we're playing the same game, then. Some classes like MCH, SMN, and NIN have such exact and demanding rotations that my fingers actually ache after a raid

Every single job is GCD locked so really your RSI is job independent in this case and has nothing to do with "exact and demanding" rotations. RSI's are a really common concern and one that I've dealt with for a long time. I use an AHK macro to combat this (in both WoW and FF14 to great success). Basically what it does is allows me to hold down a key instead of mashing it. It allows my fingers to avoid RSI's and provides consistent and good gameplay. PM me if you want me to send it to you. Might help.

It depends on what you want though. "Just push buttons and keep dots up" works for most tanks/healers and some DPS if you want to just play average but the actual design of FFXIV classes have way more depth to them than anything on WoW, and I feel like I can say this confidently because of how hard I tried to find a rDPS in WoW with even a hint of depth.

Mind you I actually believe that FF14 does ranged DPS better than WoW, but there are certainly a few deep ranged specs in WoW. SPriest easily comes to mind from my limited experience.

I guess if you want to be technical I could say the classes are more engaging and complicated than they are deep. Playing well in FFXIV is an undertaking that requires a lot of practice and effort and I really can't say I feel the same about WoW.

Then you're probably not playing very well in WoW. I have to literally bust my ass across over a half dozen decision trees to do meaningful DPS.

I agree that the jobs could be considered more engaging and complicated than they are deep. That's a fair assessment IMO.

FFXIV has a ton of problems of its own but when I see people attempt to barge into the game, not even 80 or with only one class leveled, and talk about things like "GCD too long" or "positionals" yeah I roll my eyes and don't take them very seriously.

This kind of dismissive attitude is one of the largest reasons companies fail. They don't listen to their customers. If you have a new customer coming in and they say GCD too long and that they don't like positionals you need to ask yourself why they don't (not you personally, but SE). Then you decide on a course of action. That doesn't mean catering, but maybe it means making adjustments, maybe it doesn't.

I mean we've seen it first hand with the MSQ (they've acknowledged it's an issue for the new player experience) and we've seen it with positionals. That's why they've begun trivializing them expansion over expansion.

Except dragoon has rear AND side flank abilities so you have to adjust your position frequently especially for the finishing 2 parts of a combo where they are both right next to each other.

You quoted my entire post with almost no context and your response has nothing to do with anything I said. Mind clarifying?

gah e2s is draining. sitting through 9 min of the same repeated mechanics just to hit enrage or people mess up the cycles is getting old fast.

Dude preach. My static STILL can't fucking do it. They're close though so next week with more gear should be easy, but they 71k RDPS is just too much for pugs this time it seems. I unfortunately wasn't able to clear it early on in the week, so now it's nothing but the fucking riff raff and I'm frustrated. Every tank I'm grouped with is on average 1k dps behind me by enrage. If I have baller ass healers doing 5k+ DPS (AST at like 4k) I have 2 DPS doing 8-9k. If I have every DPS at like 11-12k, I have a tank at 5k and 2 healers at 4k combined. It's just a mess.

[Advent]

That feeling when people generally are upset by 8-9k dps and you know that's where you always fall... I just slink off into a corner somewhere.

[Gorsameth]

That feeling when people generally are upset by 8-9k dps and you know that's where you always fall... I just slink off into a corner somewhere.

Nothing wrong with knowing your own limitations.
And no shame in it either.

[StrawberryZebra]

I don't think they're cutting out any arcs, but there are pretty large portions of the game that are filler that could just be trimmed down. I actually like the overall story of ARR but there are parts that are a fucking slog and I constantly have to tell my friends that they just need to get through it because it gets way better.

I'd be all for a trimmed down more focused MSQ, like the one we have in Shadowbringers, for ARR. I've always considered "It gets better after 20 more hours!" to be admiting that the game has 20 hours of poor quality content. I don't think that should be an incentive to play the game more, but less.

It depends on what you want though. "Just push buttons and keep dots up" works for most tanks/healers and some DPS if you want to just play average but the actual design of FFXIV classes have way more depth to them than anything on WoW, and I feel like I can say this confidently because of how hard I tried to find a rDPS in WoW with even a hint of depth.

I consider Depth in a video game to be the number of emergent possiabilities that come out of the ruleset. In that regard, WoW, with it's myriad of talents, procs and traits has much greater range of possiabilities within it's combat systems than FF14 has. FF14 on the other hand has much shallower ruleset which doesn't really allow much deviation, all of the outcomes are known in advance.

To offer a slightly more impartial comparison, it would be like comparing Go to Snakes and Ladders. Both have easy to understand rulesets, but Go allows for a much wider range of interactions within that ruleset than Snakes and Ladders does. I would consider Go to be the game with the most depth as a result.

The core of the difference is in design philosophy, WoW wants you to be making making a decision each GCD about which skill offers you the best outcome, where FF14 asks you to plan things in advance. This isn't to say one is inherently better than the other, they're just different.

Every single job is GCD locked so really your RSI is job independent in this case and has nothing to do with "exact and demanding" rotations. RSI's are a really common concern and one that I've dealt with for a long time.

I do sometimes wonder how we managed to get here in the MMO space. While they have traditionally offered players more skills than other genres, reaching the point where you have to be pressing one every time it's available is, to me, a failure state for the game. That kind of gameplay really belongs in titles like cookie clicker. Titles where there's very little depth and the APM is the only key factor in playing. GCD locked MMO classes tend to be mechanically shallow, otherwise you'd be either waiting on resources, cooldowns or DOT's etc. RIFT is a great example here, you could macro 70+ skills into 4 buttons and mash away, it was a GCD locked mess of a game, and I'm concerned that FF14 may be on the road to making the same mistakes.

Then there's the effect on players it has too. RSI is one of the more common physical effects of course, but it's also draining on the player having to keep up the same kind of activity level for hours and hours during play time. Asking them to press two buttons every 2.5 seconds and watch whats going on around them and also keep an eye on the bosses telegraphs for their attacks, and any of their debuffs and all of their cooldowns and potentially even keep an eye on other players health/MP bars is asking players to process a lot of information at once.

I recently tried playing an Assassination Rogue in WoW and, honestly, NOT being GCD locked all the time was what made it interesting. Pooling Energy while waiting for Rupture/Envenom to expire so I could get 2 Mutilates with bonus damage from one of my talents made for a very engaging gameplay loop. It was very simple to understand and had far less buttons than a Job in FF14, but it wasn't any less fun because of it.

Sometimes having a bit of a break from pressing buttons builds up a sense of anticpation, that you're waiting for the opportunity to strike for maximum effect. Plenty of Action orentated games do this extremely well, such as Dark Souls or God of War, where waiting for the right moment to go on the offensive adds a ton of tension to the combat even when you're not pressing any buttons. I watched Tekken 7 at Evo last weekend and there's a ton of tension and anticipation even when the players on the main stage are just circling each other looking to get an opening to attack.

I'd be very interested to hear what opinions other people have on the matter.

[Onikaroshi]

I do sometimes wonder how we managed to get here in the MMO space. While they have traditionally offered players more skills than other genres, reaching the point where you have to be pressing one every time it's available is, to me, a failure state for the game. That kind of gameplay really belongs in titles like cookie clicker. Titles where there's very little depth and the APM is the only key factor in playing. GCD locked MMO classes tend to be mechanically shallow, otherwise you'd be either waiting on resources, cooldowns or DOT's etc. RIFT is a great example here, you could macro 70+ skills into 4 buttons and mash away, it was a GCD locked mess of a game, and I'm concerned that FF14 may be on the road to making the same mistakes.

Then there's the effect on players it has too. RSI is one of the more common physical effects of course, but it's also draining on the player having to keep up the same kind of activity level for hours and hours during play time. Asking them to press two buttons every 2.5 seconds and watch whats going on around them and also keep an eye on the bosses telegraphs for their attacks, and any of their debuffs and all of their cooldowns and potentially even keep an eye on other players health/MP bars is asking players to process a lot of information at once.

I recently tried playing an Assassination Rogue in WoW and, honestly, NOT being GCD locked all the time was what made it interesting. Pooling Energy while waiting for Rupture/Envenom to expire so I could get 2 Mutilates with bonus damage from one of my talents made for a very engaging gameplay loop. It was very simple to understand and had far less buttons than a Job in FF14, but it wasn't any less fun because of it.

Sometimes having a bit of a break from pressing buttons builds up a sense of anticpation, that you're waiting for the opportunity to strike for maximum effect. Plenty of Action orentated games do this extremely well, such as Dark Souls or God of War, where waiting for the right moment to go on the offensive adds a ton of tension to the combat even when you're not pressing any buttons. I watched Tekken 7 at Evo last weekend and there's a ton of tension and anticipation even when the players on the main stage are just circling each other looking to get an opening to attack.

I'd be very interested to hear what opinions other people have on the matter.

While maybe some jobs should have other limiting factors, I HATE non gcd locked classes. I want to always be able to hit something not wait for energy to regen like a wow rogue. I hate just standing there honestly.

[GreenJesus]

That feeling when people generally are upset by 8-9k dps and you know that's where you always fall... I just slink off into a corner somewhere.

In FF14 I don't even use damage meters lol.

[Baconeggcheese]

Add some agency or gameplay benefit to them (that's not invisible), update the netcode, make animations not slide, and I'd fully defend positionals as a positive combat system mechanic. A great example is the SAM one where they gain Kenki or the DRG gaining access to a new skill. I'd probably also maybe make bosses not randomly turn and face directions based on mechanics/targeting, let the tank decide that IMO to at least make positionals more consistent.

My primary issue is that you have no way to control where you hit depending on what's going on. You could design infinitely better systems that add actual depth and agency to a job via positionals but it would still be an exercise in frustration because you'd still have to deal with bosses spinning to cast spells, moves being cast that force you to be out of position, tanks moving around that force you to be out of position, etc etc.

You're not hitting an immobile target dummy, so no matter how you slice it positionals are going to remove agency from the player. I don't know how you design a system that takes that into account and is still somehow interesting or at the very least good feeling.

[Katchii]

While maybe some jobs should have other limiting factors, I HATE non gcd locked classes. I want to always be able to hit something not wait for energy to regen like a wow rogue. I hate just standing there honestly.

I'm of a similar mindset, but I don't hate non GCD locked classes. I just hate doing nothing for extended periods of time. Waiting for something so I can actually DO something feels weird to me.

I don't mind waiting 1-2 seconds every now and then (like once every 30 seconds type of thing), but if the class has those constantly (every 10-15 seconds or less) I just can't enjoy playing it. Too much "down" time.

[Onikaroshi]

I'm of a similar mindset, but I don't hate non GCD locked classes. I just hate doing nothing for extended periods of time. Waiting for something so I can actually DO something feels weird to me.

I don't mind waiting 1-2 seconds every now and then (like once every 30 seconds type of thing), but if the class has those constantly (every 10-15 seconds or less) I just can't enjoy playing it. Too much "down" time.

Yea, that's basically wow rogue for me, you're constantly waiting on energy and it feels so slow.