Whoa, context, we can't have that here!
I wouldn't trust one of the podcasts on the grounds of intellectual conversation considering that they're all going to be sounding like that. I think the problem in root of that chain actually comes from the timing of the original post specifically. Aug 30, 2019, that's essentially more than a month after Shadowbringers launched which caused the big culling of skills and making certain jobs like Machinist look Warrior unga bunga. There was a big time back then even in the more casual groups (and on the OF) of people's outcry saying that Physical Ranged specifically would be outclassed even for the 1% boost. That was right on the boon of BLM and SMN being seen as the defacto ranged jobs, and DNC throwing off the balance people were used to with nerfing BRD's support and adding the ADPS/RDPS split. For some people who had mained the jobs that got shafted they pretty much felt despite the fact they were the most mobile. A MCH (hosting the highest ADPS) playing at some of the highest percentiles would still be worse then a Black Mage playing at medium levels. That Enochian boost prebuff to the other jobs was absolutely staggering and absolutely made some phys ranged switch roles because of the ease of damage. Even the main MCH mentor who played since HW (Yes even during the fucking shitshow MCH was in Stormblood), acknowledged the lack of damage and how high it's ceiling was with the changes.
While I can admit balance was somewhat whack, and it was a bit whack for Eden's Verse as well, in the grand scheme of things, I feel people are too attached to their numbers and forget it's a video game. BRD was "mandatory" for all of Stormblood and BRD mains were salty they weren't mandatory anymore.
I can't say I have a lot of sympathy, having played WoW where class specs can get outclassed by 25-50% in dps. But here, after taking the 1% damage buff in consideration, you had marginal differences of 5% dps at worst. In Stormblood, you would bring 2 melee, 1 ranged physical dps, and one ranged magical dps. You could argue that Summoner was really broken, but your magical dps would almost certainly be reserved for Summoner anyway.
A bunch of groups also managed to clear week 1 with suboptimal compositions for both tiers. I've cleared TEA with objectively the worst composition you could clear with in regards to DPS, and I've played some of the jobs I was told I was "griefing" with in Stormblood.
As for the game's skill ceiling, I think the writing was on the wall with Stormblood. This game isn't designed to have this incredible skill ceiling, and the difference between a 90 and 100 percentile player doesn't make much of a difference in whether you clear the content or not.
I saw that shit in person too since when I first started doing SHB raiding our comp was GNB/DRK/WHM/SCH/SAM/RDM/BRD/MCH. It took much longer to clear fights like even just E1 back in the day because the lack of firepower from the phys ranged was just too much. Granted after we got a DNC and the very first RDM buffs came in it helped out a ton (Roiding up our SAM being the main reason), especially for some first time raiders, but sub in a BLM/SMN for that extra Phys and numbers would be met with way more ease.
First time raiders aren't going to change their jobs anyway and probably won't have multiple jobs leveled.
I don't think his response was good (Big XIV influencer calling a random person a retarded monkey is not a good look lmao), but I get what he's saying. If they buffed the damage outright it would be a balancing act between making the casters just a bit better damage wise to compensate for casting spells, so he'd rather the gap be reached through making the job have a lot more to do. Which again speaking as someone who is raiding on an alt as current MCH would be recommended since the most you do after the opener is just 1-2-3 spam till Drill-Air Anchor-Hypercharge is back. I wouldn't expect it to be the days of Stormblood rotations but I feel that's what people like Bok are speaking from. Some extra stuff would be nice (Like the bullet system), but I understand why they changed things from Stormblood.
Only times I ever find the Mogtalk podcasts to be worth real merit are when Xeno and Arthars are on there simply because it becomes Xeno entering clown mode for good reasons when people can't adapt new strats like during the Ilya light rampant nightmare that plagued pf. Past that if you're looking for any real weight you're better off only watching the ones that focus on lore or PVP, since Frosty does play PVP (and usually has Brian or Matteo on who went to the FRC), or Ethys and Anonymoose for lore since they're autist enough to go all in for it.
Nah, there was also a fair bit of hysteria around healers and people wanting jobs to be more complex for the sake of them being more complex. I remember one guy very clearly bitching that "shitters are going to be able to parse as much as I am". People also seem to forget that Stormblood had many complaints about specific jobs being "unplayable" over certain pings, Machinist being one of the worst offenders.
And the thing with people like Xeno and Arthars is that they know how to entertain people and what people react to. Almost everyone else that's on mogtalk is socially incapable and boring as drywall.
TBH when the topic is "Toxic Casuals", you know that's going to be a personal circle jerk if i ever saw one despite people trying to be "fair". Same with that novice network podcast that they had, like almost the exact same issue just candy coated. It's a tough issue to even address being unbiased unless you just ask random players and not influencers.
The game is a tricky slope I'd say because of how much it dips into the casual area. FFXI didn't have this as much since that game just kicked your ass on a daily basis that you learned to work with each other and respect stuff people do. In here because it's more open for accessibility(Including the retards you find in game), you get people of all different mindsets, and when you don't follow what we view as the norm (Big pulls, knowing your cooldowns, etc), you get the big stink eye and a thread on Tales From the Duty Finder.
My take is just this. People are gonna play this game at all levels. If I'm running a roulette, see someone not aoeing in a mob pull, I'll give them a recommendation to do it. If they take it, good, if not whatever, I can always leave if it takes too long, or suck it up if it's near the very end. Healers standing around like wallflowers and not DPSing? Same thing, expect nothing, be pleasantly surprise if it does happen. If I'm entering any high end content that doesn't state they're new to raiding etc, I'd expect basic shit. Know your rotations, eat food, don't waste my time, and know the fight to the point if it's not blind or specifically mentions a mechanic in the listing since you're expected to know everything before it.
If the big boys want to critique all this stuff they should keep that in mind instead of just circle jerking off to how they play the game. Understand the divide betwen Duty finder content and Party Finder, be happy when people actually give a shit in Duty Finder and you can keep your usual thoughts for the higher end content.
Does it really matter? You can literally choose who you raid with, you can choose to run roulettes with other people. You can discriminate based on job and fflogs rating. The worst thing that's going to happen is you run expert roulette, and you get a dumbfuck tank who wants to single pull. Worst, worst case scenario is your dungeon takes 40 minutes to do instead of 15. I'd sooner wager that the people that don't do shit in dungeons don't care about "getting better", and a significant amount of them are watching Netflix on the side while pressing 1 and 2.
Influencers like Bokchoy live in a bubble where they play with the same people every tier. Seen Bokchoy say dumbass shit plenty times where he unironically thinks Party Finder is great, but he goes and clears with his incestuous static first. A good part of frustration with Party Finder is not being able to clear or get your weeklies, which Bok doesn't need to give a hoot about. Not everyone in the game gets to play with people who have nothing to do but to play FFXIV, switch to the most meta jobs, and pull 100 percentile on every pull. I know I'm exaggerating, but I imagine you understand what I mean.
Talking about incestuous raid groups. There was a group that had somewhat of a meltdown because they didn't clear week 1:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/837847172?t=3h49m58s
This is some straight up embarrassing shit. It's a video game.
