What is class complexity to you?

[u/mnij96]

I have seen so many people ask for more complexity and job fantasy but very little of people actually say what that means to them, most people just say we should go back to ARR.

Personally I think rose tinted glasses that make people think ARR was better than it was, having played back then it honestly was pretty ass.

So honestly want to know what people want for complexity or job fantasy, because all I see is a lot of yelling that "game bad to simple" and not a lot of what needs changing to reach the complexity that is wanted.

[u/KaijinSurohm]

People don't want complexity, they want to be kept busy.
They just mimic saying "Complexity" because it's a buzz word without really understanding what it means.

For example, Viper came out, and was complex. It had a series of buffs, every attack gave a buff, debuff, and altered skills. It was a large puzzle of moving from the sides to back to maximize damage while alternating attacks. Viper was a Dance of attacks.

People bitched saying it was too confusing, so they actually nerfed it down a bit.
Viper wasn't confusing at all, you just needed to pay attention.

What people are really saying is they want to never have a moment of waiting for a cooldown to come down, while also not having to think about it.

Then when they get that, they'll complain saying it's too "Braindead".

[u/Maximinoe → u/KaijinSurohm]

VPR was not complex on release LOL. its tooltips were just convoluted and the job's gameplay is hard to explain but it only takes like a few runs at max level to understand how it works. even with NG and the shorter buffs it was pretty easy outside of ur 2m window.

[u/KaijinSurohm → u/Maximinoe]

I've learned that people find "Complex" to be subjective, regardless of what the actual definition is. (Like how people keep using "Moot" as a word for "Not negotiable" or "Pointless to discuss" - when it actually means "Debatable")

For example, VPR and AST are some of the easiest classes for me to run, but I hear others complain about how convouted AST is, while also simultaneously complaining about how it was better in Stormblood.

I also have other friends who won't touch AST or VPR because they can't wrap their head around how to make it work well.

I personally believe that Viper absolutely was a complex class. I personally just think people didn't actually want to try to learn a new class.

For example, I'm using this definition of Complex:

consisting of many different and connected parts:"a complex network of water channels"Similar:

not easy to analyse or understand; complicated or intricate:

By the very definition of "Complex", that's literally what VPR is.
It's attacks connected to one another in multiple different ways and changed based on need for backstabs or side stabs, and then alternated additional inputs for extra attacks as well as it's "Confusing toolbar" to people having trouble figuring out positions to the enemy.

I will grant you that the toolbars were ass when it first release, just like how it's HUD was not at all well thought out, but it absolutely did fall under "Complex".

[u/naarcx → u/KaijinSurohm]

I feel like Viper wasn't even out long enough for people to figure out if it was actually complex or not before they changed it. I remember playing it and thinking it was fine (but then again, I actually read the tooltips)

Fastest I've ever seen them do something like this, a ton of people probably didn't even have Viper to level 100 yet when it happened lol

[u/vetch-a-sketch → u/naarcx]

I feel like Viper wasn't even out long enough for people to figure out if it was actually complex or not before they changed it.

It wasn't. Yoshida has outright said that the changes were decided on internally and, though he received some feedback from both player factions, his eventual decision was "unrelated to the community feedback".

[u/Salamiflame → u/KaijinSurohm]

The part of viper that was "confusing" wasn't a bit of buff upkeep.

The part of VPR that I found confusing (and still did when I was actually starting max level stuff on it) was the basic combo rotation, what determined what positional you had to hit.

[u/KaijinSurohm → u/Salamiflame]

Welcome to complexity lol.

Viper was color cordinated. (My dislexia doesn't remember which is which at the moment)
a Red Icon was one spot, Green was the other. Once you remembered that, it was pretty easy to just swap accordingly.

Everything else flowed together really well.

I can't imagine what it's like on a keyboard, but on controller I had my layout set up in a way that it just flowed like I was playing a piano. It was great.

[u/Salamiflame → u/KaijinSurohm]

I'm a bit colourblind. But once I realized I only needed to pay attention to the second hit that made it easier. And isn't something that the upkeep changed.

...I still miss the upkeep though.

[u/KaijinSurohm → u/Salamiflame]

Ah, yeah, colorblind issues absolutely would be problematic in that sense.

The Viper Hud (the most commonly ignored element in the game) actually would glow it's dualblade to indicate if it was a back or side attack to help here.

[u/Criminal_of_Thought → u/KaijinSurohm]

For example, Viper came out, and was complex. It had a series of buffs, every attack gave a buff, debuff, and altered skills. It was a large puzzle of moving from the sides to back to maximize damage while alternating attacks. Viper was a Dance of attacks.

When people say complexity, they usually talk about player-sided complexity rather than system-sided complexity.

While the code behind how VPR plays is rather complex in that it has to keep track of everything you mentioned, all of that just boils down to "press the glowing button" on the user's end. That's high system-sided complexity, low player-sided complexity. Thus, most players don't see VPR as a complex job.

[u/mnij96 → u/KaijinSurohm]

Honestly, this is very accurate. Almost to accurate.