[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Granyala]

It's not specifically "wow mentality" it's just how people on the internet have "evolved".
Basically any game these days that is popular or pvp has this "elitist" mentality where doing 10001 instead of 10000 dmg is "absolutely broken" and people that do 9999 dmg instead aren't being let into any group and are "super bad"

Tryhards will be tryhards.

[Delever]

People have always been silly about stupid shit. WoW didn't invent this. All the way back in ARR you had people only wanting overgeared members for dungeon runs, and acting like Titan was some world first raider content.

If anything, some of the nonsense has improved over time.

Looking back at it there was a reason why titan ex was heralded as difficult back then though. The game had a terrible built in input lag that does not exist today. And if you were an EU player back in ARR you had to add another 200ms to that input lag due to no dedicated EU servers. So in titan ex you literally had to react to everything in a split second or memorize the whole thing so well that the lag would not affect you.
I look back at it now and the fight is easy af but back then I remember having a hard time with it on EU.

[Wrecktangle]

I remember when people were trashing DRK for being the worst tank (which yeah comparatively it was) and the first UCOB kill had a DRK in the group.... We have never had a case of a job being disgustingly overpowered to the point where it completely overshadows other jobs minus WHM at the start of ShB.

Everyone who was anyone knew DRK was busted because it was an absolute monster at mitigating magic damage, which 85% of threats at that time were. That's why top end raiders were using it back then.

There was also 2.0 when WAR was completely and utterly awful as a tank to the point a lot of people ran 2 PLDs. Then in 2.1 when they buffed WAR so comically much, that it was pretty much the undisputed best tank by a stupid margin. It did the most DPS, took on average the least amount of damage, and had an invuln that made having a second tank useless 30% of the time. Then when DRK came out, PLD basically didn't exist in the raiding community for the entirety of the expansion.

I just feel like more classes need that "evolution" treatment that PLD is getting for example where with every expansion the class felt like it was evolving and growing off its base kit. We started with a 1,2,3 spam class, we got an extra combo with a dot and a dps combo, then we got a magical rotation to fill in the huge gap of no buffs in the rotation, then we got a finisher to the magic rotation and now we re getting an evolution of the finisher plus a finalization of the "holy knight" theme. It all feels logical and nice and I wish other classes got a similar treatment. It looks like PLD will break the poster boy curse from the previous expansions.

Speaking personally as a PLD main, I'm super glad we're going deeper into the Holy Knight theme. That's my literal dream, but the tooltip leak is little saddening. They're hiding tanking reworks and hotfixes as new traits/abilities and it feels bad:

Level 82: Holy Sheltron is not a new ability. It's a tanking mechanic rework disguised as such.
Level 84: Can't possibly be real, because that's fucking lazy.
Level 86: Spirits Within is not a new ability even if it's psuedo AOE now.
Level 88: Could have been a hotfix.
Level 90: Don't know the true details, but mechanically it's just goring blade but prettier.

Looking back at it there was a reason why titan ex was heralded as difficult back then though. The game had a terrible built in input lag that does not exist today. And if you were an EU player back in ARR you had to add another 200ms to that input lag due to no dedicated EU servers. So in titan ex you literally had to react to everything in a split second or memorize the whole thing so well that the lag would not affect you.
I look back at it now and the fight is easy af but back then I remember having a hard time with it on EU.

The input lag still exists. What you're referring to was their old position polling code. It was SO comically bad that people on good connections had issues. They've since updated it to be much more responsive, but still not good.

For instance WoW has instantaneous position polling updates as of one of the more recent expansions (Legion maybe? I don't actually remember). I don't remember what FF14's is now, but I think it's like 250ms, but it used to be like 400-500ms.

[TidalConflux]

A lot of the most recent WoW refugees have not been playing long enough for them to make a massive impact on the community in the late game. I've also noticed that a lot of WoW refugees have not really brought their "go go go" mentalities into FF14. If anything, it might be a response to long time FF14 players being impatient with the newer WoW refugees who are getting used to the game.

Go go go still exists though in the FF14 community -- it isnt a WoW thing. Any higher level dungeon will have wall-to-wall pulls because simply the fights are just boring for slow pulling; as there really isnt a bad thing for overpulls and usually tanks/healers have enough kit wise to do anything. Usually you will either see adjustments when either the tank/healer requests slow pulling.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

SE is horribly opaque when it comes to game development. All of this could be on a PTR right now for people to test out (not just creators and journalists, who are all being given gifts for some reason) and get feedback/iterate on, and instead it's going to be crunch mode to get every issue fixed within a month, which will be an utter failure, causing a meta to form that's going to persist for the next year in the mentality of the playerbase.

For a company that's homogenized so much to try and seek extreme balance, this is a Blizzard/Hazzikostas level move.

I don't know about the PTR. Blizzard just used it as an unpaid beta test. It's rather refreshing that FFXIV delivers content patches and they are bug free upon release. As for getting player feedback on systems... yeah the buttons are nothing to write home about but I can't really think of any systems that were shockingly bad and should have been tested. Square aren't idiots like Blizzard who pushed RNGendaries/Azerite traitrs/anima stuff to live.

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Any higher level dungeon will have wall-to-wall pulls because simply the fights are just boring for slow pulling

Also because anything that isn't an extreme or a savage is really easy.

[Cosmic Janitor]

So, are the (EU) servers broken right now? I couldn't find anything on their official status updates and notification page and the is.xivup.com keeps showing something different everytime I load it (and it itself works for a change).

[TidalConflux]

Also because anything that isn't an extreme or a savage is really easy.

Oh yea, any of the base content outside of Savage is just really faceroll -- but thats been the case for a while: the mentality has never been related to "WoW or ex-WoW players", it exists because of how barebones of a challenge the base content is.

But man... people that are not world first clearing stuff really need to stop with the "class x is unplayable!" when they can improve their personal DPS by like 40% or more by just actually understanding the class, rather than going "what do the best players play?"

Sure, but you also have to admit that if you play Bard; you have less chances to do things like Savage than swapping to Dancer. The jobs may not be unplayable -- but that does not mean they dont underperform compared to its competitors. Similar situation with Monk.

[Thestrawman]

Sure, but you also have to admit that if you play Bard; you have less chances to do things like Savage than swapping to Dancer. The jobs may not be unplayable -- but that does not mean they dont underperform compared to its competitors. Similar situation with Monk.

Why would we admit something that isn't true? There's nothing stopping you from playing bard in a Savage, or an extreme, or even an ultimate. Just because you don't play those classes doesn't mean they aren't played.

[TidalConflux]

Why would we admit something that isn't true? There's nothing stopping you from playing bard in a Savage, or an extreme, or even an ultimate. Just because you don't play those classes doesn't mean they aren't played.

You can literally go on FF Logs and look at recorded Savage runs and see the number of parses. 5.4 and 5.5 both list Dancer nearly having twice the number of parses than Bard. This would tell me statics look more towards Dancer to buff melee damage dance partner than the other ranged physical jobs (being Bard and Machinist, where you will rarely double up on RPDPS in one group).

Same thing with monk -- where Samurai is completely the most dominant and most sought after melee job. With Ninja and Dragoon having nearly twice the number of parses as a second melee compared to monk.

Even if the data is not complete, it shows trends where certain jobs are less sought after than others for a variety of reasons. It doesnt make them unplayable, it just means that you'd have better chances rerolling as Savage groups would rather take something else in a limited group setting.

[Thestrawman]

You can literally go on FF Logs and look at recorded Savage runs and see the number of parses. 5.4 and 5.5 both list Dancer nearly having twice the number of parses than Bard. This would tell me statics look more towards Dancer to buff melee damage dance partner than the other ranged physical jobs (being Bard and Machinist, where you will rarely double up on RPDPS in one group).

Same thing with monk -- where Samurai is completely the most dominant and most sought after melee job. With Ninja and Dragoon having nearly twice the number of parses as a second melee compared to monk.

Even if the data is not complete, it shows trends where certain jobs are less sought after than others for a variety of reasons. It doesnt make them unplayable, it just means that you'd have better chances rerolling as Savage groups would rather take something else in a limited group setting.

Or, more people like playing those classes. Doesn't mean there's anything stopping you from playing those classes. And nothing stopping you from clearing Savage with those classes. Being unpopular doesn't mean they're bad.

[Poppincaps]

You can literally go on FF Logs and look at recorded Savage runs and see the number of parses. 5.4 and 5.5 both list Dancer nearly having twice the number of parses than Bard. This would tell me statics look more towards Dancer to buff melee damage dance partner than the other ranged physical jobs (being Bard and Machinist, where you will rarely double up on RPDPS in one group).

Same thing with monk -- where Samurai is completely the most dominant and most sought after melee job. With Ninja and Dragoon having nearly twice the number of parses as a second melee compared to monk.

Even if the data is not complete, it shows trends where certain jobs are less sought after than others for a variety of reasons. It doesnt make them unplayable, it just means that you'd have better chances rerolling as Savage groups would rather take something else in a limited group setting.

....you are completely not factoring in job popularity. Monk was considered the worst melee job from a gameplay perspective. I highly disagree with this take, but Bard is considered to be less fun than Dancer. Hell, Red Mage, which is the worst caster in terms of dps, has way more parses than Summoner and Black Mage.

If you go onto a recruitment discord, you'll see that people rarely ask for 1 specific job. They ask for a role i.e. Melee, Ranged Phys, Caster, Shield or Regen Healer, or Tank.

[TidalConflux]

Or, more people like playing those classes. Doesn't mean there's anything stopping you from playing those classes. And nothing stopping you from clearing Savage with those classes. Being unpopular doesn't mean they're bad.

But that begs the question: why are they unpopular?

Also side question: Isnt Black Mage one of the most popular jobs in the game? If so, then why does it have one of the lowest parses in Savage if people are just bringing what they enjoy playing? Seems kind of odd.

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Hell, Red Mage, which is the worst caster in terms of dps, has way more parses than Summoner and Black Mage.

Because Red Mage is better for prog fighting due to insta-raise and Embolden damage buff. On the other hand, Black Mage might do insane DPS but Savage has a lot of movement usually which cripples them.

If you go onto a recruitment discord, you'll see that people rarely ask for 1 specific job. They ask for a role i.e. Melee, Ranged Phys, Caster, Shield or Regen Healer, or Tank.

True, but that also doesnt mean that there is also a specific sway in what jobs are more picked. As you said, Monk is considered the worst melee job in pure gameplay because its a pure mess of clunk. But something like Samurai having the highest pickrate also correlates it with it having some of the highest damage in the game.

[Shakzor]

You can literally go on FF Logs and look at recorded Savage runs and see the number of parses. 5.4 and 5.5 both list Dancer nearly having twice the number of parses than Bard. This would tell me statics look more towards Dancer to buff melee damage dance partner than the other ranged physical jobs (being Bard and Machinist, where you will rarely double up on RPDPS in one group).

Same thing with monk -- where Samurai is completely the most dominant and most sought after melee job. With Ninja and Dragoon having nearly twice the number of parses as a second melee compared to monk.

Even if the data is not complete, it shows trends where certain jobs are less sought after than others for a variety of reasons. It doesnt make them unplayable, it just means that you'd have better chances rerolling as Savage groups would rather take something else in a limited group setting.

You're forgetting an extremely important factor. Why do people play these jobs? Do people just have more fun with them? Do they play them because they're stronger? Because their group needs it?
Dancer is simpler and doesn't require as much work as other jobs like Machinist or Bard to be effective, which obviously attracts people that just want a more casual job to play without dragging down their friends, because it's basically "feathers > blinking buttons > standard buttons" and there aren't that many of those to begin with, as opposed to like Dragoon that starts with an opener of like 20 unique skills that you gotta memorize and then continues with rotating between the dmg and buff/dot sequence with having to weave in jumps inbetween.
Another thing is Samurai are strong because they have 0 group utility, but the class fantasy is also something that's very popular in general. For example if you ask people for their favorite character from FFX, Auron is probably pretty high due to his lone wolf samurai persona or longsword is the most popular weapon in Monster Hunter.
Popularity and strength are not neccessarily directly connected

[kaminaris]

But that begs the question: why are they unpopular?

Also side question: Isnt Black Mage one of the most popular jobs in the game? If so, then why does it have one of the lowest parses in Savage if people are just bringing what they enjoy playing? Seems kind of odd.

Because they are not fun to play. Bard is good example of that. Machinist is 10x more fun to play.

[TidalConflux]

You're forgetting an extremely important factor. Why do people play these jobs? Do people just have more fun with them? Do they play them because they're stronger? Because their group needs it?
Dancer is simpler and doesn't require as much work as other jobs like Machinist or Bard to be effective, which obviously attracts people that just want a more casual job to play without dragging down their friends, because it's basically "feathers > blinking buttons > standard buttons" and there aren't that many of those to begin with, as opposed to like Dragoon that starts with an opener of like 20 unique skills that you gotta memorize and then continues with rotating between the dmg and buff/dot sequence with having to weave in jumps inbetween.
Another thing is Samurai are strong because they have 0 group utility, but the class fantasy is also something that's very popular in general. For example if you ask people for their favorite character from FFX, Auron is probably pretty high due to his lone wolf samurai persona or longsword is the most popular weapon in Monster Hunter.
Popularity and strength are not neccessarily directly connected

Not disagreeing: however, as for how strong samurai are -- you still need two melee DPS. You rarely double up on Samurai and default to secondary DRG/NIN for second DPS and utility. Dancer is a really easy class I agree -- but its also strong with the amount of pure damage it gives its dance partner. While the class does no DPS, it makes up for it in utility. You can play BRD/MCH just fine; but there is a clear trend that people favor a class that does mostly utility in the rDPS than those who do damage.

For as popular as Black Mage is -- you dont see it in in Savage because how the class works. I am not saying people play these classes more because they are popular -- I am saying these jobs have more parses because they are better suited and built around for Savage. You can translate this to tanking. Warrior sees a lot of numbers in Extremes and normal content; but when it comes to Savage, you rarely see them over its counterparts.

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Because they are not fun to play. Bard is good example of that. Machinist is 10x more fun to play.

Yet sees basically the same amount of parses as Bard. Ill be honest, I find MCH really boring even though its one of my more favorite jobs.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

But that begs the question: why are they unpopular?

Dancer is popular because it's easy and fun. You can turn your brain off, just push the glowing buttons, and then watch the sparkles. No need to worry about positionals, little need to worry about your rotation, etc.

Isnt Black Mage one of the most popular jobs in the game? If so, then why does it have one of the lowest parses in Savage if people are just bringing what they enjoy playing? Seems kind of odd.

Because Black Mage is one of the hardest jobs to play. In order to maximize your damage, you have to stand still. If you move then that's a huge DPS loss, especially if you allow your stacks to lapse if you haven't casted a spell in a few seconds. If you stand still for too long trying to get a cast off and then die to an AoE, that's a huge DPS loss. You can only really familiarize yourself with the timing and placement of AoEs in boss fights after spending several hours progressing on them, so you only start getting it down and doing good towards the end of a prog run. For everything else, queuing for something and then landing a boss you hadn't done in a while sucks because you're just not going to remember where to stand and for how long and you're going to do little DPS, and that's not fun.

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something like Samurai having the highest pickrate also correlates it with it having some of the highest damage in the game.

Samurai is relatively easy, and it's a little fun. The hardest parts are 1. the positionals, and 2. remembering to use your filler combo once every minute (and making sure you have your skillspeed adjusted so that your rotation is synced).

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Another thing is Samurai are strong because they have 0 group utility

That's another thing that makes Samurai easy. I don't have to think about when to use Trick Attack or something, or think about the state of the healer's cooldowns and mana and wonder if I should maybe toss the tank a shield. I just focus on myself. It's less mentally exhausting.

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Not disagreeing: however, as for how strong samurai are -- you still need two melee DPS. You rarely double up on Samurai and default to secondary DRG/NIN for second DPS and utility. Dancer is a really easy class I agree -- but its also strong with the amount of pure damage it gives its dance partner. While the class does no DPS, it makes up for it in utility. You can play BRD/MCH just fine; but there is a clear trend that people favor a class that does mostly utility in the rDPS than those who do damage.

Maybe if you're an ultra hardcore raider or something. I raided the first two tiers of Eden Savage with my FC and did some Savage PUGs. Nobody really cared what you brought.

[Shiira]

Sure, but you also have to admit that if you play Bard; you have less chances to do things like Savage than swapping to Dancer. The jobs may not be unplayable -- but that does not mean they dont underperform compared to its competitors. Similar situation with Monk.

Bard is the strongest ranged dps in tea and it's only second in e12s. One of the tanks in the team that got tea world first said if your range player doesnt play bard they're griefing you.

Monk is the second strongest melee in tea and fourth strongest dps overall for the fight.

Also world first tea and e12s had a black mage.

[TidalConflux]

Bard is the strongest ranged dps in tea and it's only second in e12s. One of the tanks in the team that got tea world first said if your range player doesnt play bard they're griefing you.
Monk is the second strongest melee in tea and fourth strongest dps overall for the fight.

What metrics are you even using?

[Shiira]

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statisti...set=90&boss=77
https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/32&dataset=90#aggregate=amount&dataset=90

Past 2 weeks, 90th percentile.

[The Casualty]

Bard is the strongest ranged dps in tea and it's only second in e12s. One of the tanks in the team that got tea world first said if your range player doesnt play bard they're griefing you.

Monk is the second strongest melee in tea and fourth strongest dps overall for the fight.

Also world first tea and e12s had a black mage.

I know I would want a Bard and a Summoner for TEA. The cleave value in those first two phases is nuts.