Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

[Lunaryn]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

A variation on the "rare mob bounty" idea might be to shuffle about the bonuses normally associated with Signet/Sanction/Sigil, and swap them according average population of camps in their respective regions.

Much like the rare bounty concept, the idea would be to move around the bonuses of Sanction to regions of lower camp popularity. An example would be that since exp camps in Signet areas are of lower popularity, the Sanction bonus would be transferred to Signet, meanwhile, Signet's bonus(TP retention, smaller-party exp bonus), would be swapped over to Sanction, for a pre-determined period of time.

This way, the bonuses that contribute to Sanction areas' popularity are occasionally given to Signet and Sigil areas, thereby increasing their parties' attraction to them.

I don't quite think I'm comfortable with this. Signet bonuses provide things that are useful to specific circumstances, even though I agree with the earlier assessment that its benefits amount to zilch in the context of mainstream xp/meripo. It'd wreak havoc on things like our trio to lose signet bonuses on our camps, and it's not like ToAU zones offer us much yet. I'd think TP loss on resting would create some issues for non-xp activities in signet areas. Basically, a lot of the value of these bonuses comes from the consistency of them; if you didn't know from week to week which bonus you were getting, you'd have no real reason to plan around any of them.

I think the ultimate problem is that SE expected the various benefits on these statuses to balance out and provide contrast. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic to this community. XP bonus will always win out over the other benefits. XP is either the bottom line or irrelevant in mainstream activity, it's never just 'nice'.

[Akashimo]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Hades fails enough already, we don't need this. XD

Making me want to move to hades if my hnmls and dyna shells go under....

[BurningPanther]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't quite think I'm comfortable with this. Signet bonuses provide things that are useful to specific circumstances, even though I agree with the earlier assessment that its benefits amount to zilch in the context of mainstream xp/meripo. It'd wreak havoc on things like our trio to lose signet bonuses on our camps, and it's not like ToAU zones offer us much yet. I'd think TP loss on resting would create some issues for non-xp activities in signet areas. Basically, a lot of the value of these bonuses comes from the consistency of them; if you didn't know from week to week which bonus you were getting, you'd have no real reason to plan around any of them.

I think the ultimate problem is that SE expected the various benefits on these statuses to balance out and provide contrast. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic to this community. XP bonus will always win out over the other benefits. XP is either the bottom line or irrelevant in mainstream activity, it's never just 'nice'.

Put it on a schedule similar to Conquests updates, perhaps?

Every week, the players have to check which nation controls what region, the same could be done for Signet/Sanction/Sigil bonuses, where you check the Conquest/Besieged/Campaign map every--let's say month--to see which map bears what bonus.


However, even assuming the above works, S-E is overdue to update respawn timers in Conquest areas.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't quite think I'm comfortable with this. Signet bonuses provide things that are useful to specific circumstances, even though I agree with the earlier assessment that its benefits amount to zilch in the context of mainstream xp/meripo. It'd wreak havoc on things like our trio to lose signet bonuses on our camps, and it's not like ToAU zones offer us much yet.

Hmm, true. Maybe the Signet adjustment to small-party exp should just become the universal rule for small parties (in addition to whatever other benefits S/S/S might have, variable or not). I can't think of any reason why not - is it going to make duos/trios overpowered and eliminate the 6 man exp party? Hardly.

Then Signet could use another bonus, particularly one more attractive to 6 man parties - how about extending chain timers by 20-25%? It would help compensate for the relatively long pop times (and sometimes long pull distances too) in signet areas and pretty much everyone, small party or full party or even people who solo EM+, would at least sometimes get longer chains than they get before.

I'd think TP loss on resting would create some issues for non-xp activities in signet areas.

No more so than it did before the signet update added free resting in the first place.

Basically, a lot of the value of these bonuses comes from the consistency of them; if you didn't know from week to week which bonus you were getting, you'd have no real reason to plan around any of them.

A week is adequate time to plan, IMO.

I think the ultimate problem is that SE expected the various benefits on these statuses to balance out and provide contrast. Unfortunately, that's just not realistic to this community. XP bonus will always win out over the other benefits. XP is either the bottom line or irrelevant in mainstream activity, it's never just 'nice'.

I think that's not necessarily true, but the fact that the XP is *combined* with free refresh makes it too good. Either one balanced *against* the other might be competitive - sanction free refresh has a lot to do with the lack of downtime in ToAU parties allowing them to reach chain #infinity.

I do think that SE intended sanction to be unreliable, because it depends on besieged outcomes; but besieged outcomes aren't really unreliable. The empire wins so much that it's news if the AC has been lost at all this *month*. That's why one of my suggestions was harder (and more frequent) Besieged - if the Empire loses the AC, sanction gives jack, which might offset how overpowered it is when it *does* work. At least during the times when the beastmen had the AC, some parties might go elsewhere.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't particularly like the idea of Signet or Sigil elements being moved around to Sanction.

First off, Sanction doesn't deserve the TP retention. I shouldn't have to explain why, no melee rests in Empire here even if they had time to.

Secondly, moving that particular buff around screws around with soloist jobs in ways non-soloists probably can't understand. Put simply though the number of viable BST camps in ToA is handily outnumbered by the other viable camps elsewhere. I'd behead the developer that moved around TP retention on a whim, lop that noggin off with my Wrath Tabar, for serious.

The rare mob bounty idea I do like - the longer a mob goes unkilled, the more EXP they offer. That or the longer a particular zone is uncamped, the more valuble those mobs are.

[Feba]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I don't particularly like the idea of Signet or Sigil elements being moved around to Sanction.

One very big reason why this would be a bad idea: it would only move people around. It wouldn't do shit to depopulate areas. If you have special bonus A in region set Y, you're going to go to Y. If A moves to X, you're going to move to X. Nobody would be helped by it. On the other hand, with a system similar to what I described, you would move to the lowest populated areas. If too many people started going there, it would become less attractive, and you'd move somewhere else with a low population. With this, it would just put people on a (weekly) camp rotation. Very useless.

[Pteryx]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Hmm, true. Maybe the Signet adjustment to small-party exp should just become the universal rule for small parties (in addition to whatever other benefits S/S/S might have, variable or not). I can't think of any reason why not - is it going to make duos/trios overpowered and eliminate the 6 man exp party? Hardly.

Then Signet could use another bonus, particularly one more attractive to 6 man parties - how about extending chain timers by 20-25%? It would help compensate for the relatively long pop times (and sometimes long pull distances too) in signet areas and pretty much everyone, small party or full party or even people who solo EM+, would at least sometimes get longer chains than they get before.

I think the reason Sanction doesn't have the small party bonus is the same reason we can't use NPCs in AU -- to try to make it so that there isn't also competition between soloers, small parties, and full parties for the same handful of mobs. The chain extension idea, though, I like; it really does suit the Signet zones as well as you say. -- Pteryx

[Ziero]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Way too much stuff that's just too stupid or way out there to respond to fully. I'll just simply take issue with Ziero's pulling out of context Karinya's suggestion of a system-wide xp buff and criticizing it as pointless because it buffs meleeburn too, then going on to trash any suggestion of an xp/hr nerf on meleeburn as unfairly punishing people who are just looking to get past the worst part of the game faster.

An xp/hr nerf on meleeburn is the most obvious and cleanest way to bring the disparity down without potentially skewing the system in other ways. Either the XP return of favored mobs (imps, colibri) has to be reduced (say a 0.8 xp mod for each of those families), or they need an increase in HP to lower kill speed, or both. These are clean, low-impact changes that would alleviate the vast disparity and exclusive focus surrounding these camps.

This brings up the argument that XP takes too long to make progress and that slowing things back down again is horrible and unfair to people who dislike xp/meripo, etc. Which is precisely why Karinya deliberately married such a nerf to an across-the-board buff, including meleeburn in the above examples. Whether xp/hr is nerfed locally and then inflated globally or whether xp/hr stays lowered but xp/level and xp/merit go down, the goal is to, as cleanly as possible, prevent the xp/hr nerf on meleeburn from significantly impacting progress/time in the more general sense.

I'm hoping you missed that rather than choosing to deliberately ignore it. At any rate our goal here isn't to make you progress slower. This is an issue we have with relative, not absolute, rate issues.

(Not that absolute rate issues aren't worthy of some discussion. The overall degradation in competence I mentioned in another post tracks the rise in ubiquity of PLs at corresponding levels. And we've reached a point where it's almost a given that any party up to the 50s or so has at least one member with a two-boxed PL. However, lowering xp curve at high levels or xp/limit wouldn't likely affect job competence the way lowering xp curve at low levels might.)

Apparently YOU don't understand that as long as Exp is gained on a per-kil basis, TP burns will ALWAYS have far better Exp gain then the standard tank/2 support/3 DD pt. Even before Colibri and Imps, two mobs specifically made to screw the hell out of melees, burn pts were *the* best Exp you could get.

It's not just the target monsters that make Burn Pts work so well in ToAU it's the combination of low hp mobs with fast repops and an exp bonus that create not only infinite pulls, but artificially increased EXP on them. But even besides that, Burn pts can work on almost any mob, anywhere. It was a combat tactic used in KRT, Sky, Sea and Bibiki long before ToAU came out and it was always far more efficiant then traditional parties. Because you only gain exp for killing, and gain more exp for killing fast, having a tank play defensively only slows things down. It will take more then a few slight changes to the exp value, and physical buffing of some mobs to make burning equal to, or even close to, traditional party exp gain. But by doing that you'd force people to go back to the days where you couldn't even exp without a tank and two specific healers while forcing many melee jobs to go back to lfg for weeks on end.

Nerfing something that the vast majority finds a helpful and useful boon to the game just so a very vocal, very small minority can squeeze more 'fun' out of the game...which is something that can already be done...is very narrowminded thinking. If you want to 'balance' the exp gains between traditional and burn pts, then you have to completely rework the way monsters grant exp rewards.

And before any more of you get your panties in a wad and think I'm trying to protect "my" prefered way of exping, just know that I haven't bothered to join any TP burn in months, hell, I don't even go lfg if I can help it. And on top of that I spent the better part of yesterday *trioing* T smithies in Yuhtunga as a Drk/mnk with a Drg and Blm. It was far slower then a full exp pt, but because they were friends (which took me all of 10 minutes to set up) I didn't have to worry about being surrounded by complete morons. And to me, a more enjoyable time exping is far more fun then gaining all the exp in the world. But then again, I'm wierd like that.

I think the reason Sanction doesn't have the small party bonus is the same reason we can't use NPCs in AU -- to try to make it so that there isn't also competition between soloers, small parties, and full parties for the same handful of mobs.

That's exactly why it's like that, though Sanction does provide an overall exp boost anyway. The way it was set up, SE knows that it's harder to get a full 6 member pt in Conquest zones, it's why they added the resting buffs and small pt exp bonuses. But mobs in ToAU were made to be burned, and the bonuses to Sanction reflect that.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

But mobs in ToAU were made to be burned, and the bonuses to Sanction reflect that.

The bonuses in sanction reflect S-E's misconception that ToaU mobs would actually be considered harder than normal.

That simple fact is something often forgotten in this thread, by the way.

[Murphie]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Do you have proof that SE thought those mobs would be harder, or is that just speculation?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

The bonuses in sanction reflect S-E's misconception that ToaU mobs would actually be considered harder than normal.

That simple fact is something often forgotten in this thread, by the way.

Not only that, many of those bonuses, sans EXP, are applicable in WotG Zones. And depending which nation hooks in the freelances, there are additional bonuses to choose from. WotG mobs are generally more difficult than ToA ones.

Well, unless you want to count the Lamia, Qutrub or Trolls of ToA, most of which cannot actually be meleeburned because, you know, they're actually tough.

[Sevv]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Do you have proof that SE thought those mobs would be harder, or is that just speculation?

The later, harder no... just take more time.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Apparently YOU don't understand that as long as Exp is gained on a per-kil basis, TP burns will ALWAYS have far better Exp gain then the standard tank/2 support/3 DD pt.

Wrong. Meleeburns die horribly to IT mobs, because they *can't take the hits* without a real tank. Try meleeburning in Uleguerand and you'll see what I mean.

But Uleguerand gives crappy exp/hr, you say? Exactly my point. Tougher mobs give more exp per kill - but not *much* more, so they can't compete with rapidly massacring wimps on an exp/hr basis. That's what it's in SE's power to change.

Furthermore, this is unique to the highest levels - at lower levels, you *do* get better exp out of tougher mobs, enough that it's worth bringing a tank and then fighting things that will (a) hurt you bad enough to cause major downtime, or (b) kill someone, if they spend the whole fight beating on non-tanks. This is why meleeburns haven't taken over the level 30 exp scene, in spite of people trying to copy high-level tactics - they just don't work that well at that level. Letting goblin smithies beat on mnks and drks is not a winning way to make more exp.

There are no new exp tables after level 60, and that's why mobs that are pathetically weak relative to a level 70+ party still give exp as if they were fairly challenging (while mobs that actually *are* challenging are hard to find, and give only slightly more exp/kill if you do find them.)

Compare how much of a fight a 100 exp mob will give a level 20, 40 and 60 party, with how much of a fight a 100 exp mob will give a level 75+merits party. Most games get harder as you progress further into the game and get to higher levels - why does FFXI get easier at the end instead?

Even before Colibri and Imps, two mobs specifically made to screw the hell out of melees, burn pts were *the* best Exp you could get.

I think you mean "made to screw mages". Colibri are incredibly weak to melees, more so than practically any other mob - you can beat them up *without* food faster than you can beat up most other mobs *with* food. Imps are highly magic resistant, nearly unsilenceable, and have AoE silence, as well as casting spells right back at a manaburn - which is precisely why they're practically un-manaburnable. But aside from the minor annoyance of amnesia (which isn't even a TP reset - you get to save it for later), they, too, take huge damage from melee and have hardly any HP, as well as weak to negligible tp moves.

If you want a mob that really screws melees, fight fomor, slimes, ghosts... there *are* anti-melee mobs, you can identify them by the fact that nobody meleeburns them. (And try fighting mobs with high attack and major burst damage without a tank - pugils, spiders, scorpions.) Even in ToAU areas, some mobs are meleeburned much more than others - meleeburns walk right past flies to pull imps and doomed, precisely because flies are more dangerous.

It's not just the target monsters that make Burn Pts work so well in ToAU it's the combination of low hp mobs with fast repops and an exp bonus that create not only infinite pulls, but artificially increased EXP on them. But even besides that, Burn pts can work on almost any mob, anywhere. It was a combat tactic used in KRT, Sky, Sea and Bibiki long before ToAU came out and it was always far more efficiant then traditional parties.

First of all - you're contradicting yourself. Low HP mobs with fast repops *are* the target monsters for burns - and without them, it doesn't work. Anyway, I think you're overstating the effectiveness of pre-ToAU meleeburning. In ideal conditions it made maybe 20% more exp than a traditional party - and even then, only after 74; without the brokenness of subbed utsu:ni it died horribly. In ToAU you can do it at *60* - on the right mobs.

Meleeburning in KRT only worked when the melees were monks, because of the damage bonus vs. bones. In sky you needed the zone to yourself to do better than a traditional pt.

Utsu: ni and the fact that merits don't make you higher level and adjust your exp (but do let you fight more effectively) have a lot to do with the success of meleeburns, and those factors did take effect before ToAU; but they weren't (and still aren't) so much more effective that nobody would join a traditional party - except in ToAU areas.

Because you only gain exp for killing, and gain more exp for killing fast, having a tank play defensively only slows things down.

You also "gain" exp for not being killed, and for having less downtime. Both of which you do by taking less damage - unless you're fighting monsters so weak they can't even seriously hurt a berserk monk. Are you really forgetting why tanks exist in the first place (and why they still *do* exist for the first 50-some levels)?

It will take more then a few slight changes to the exp value, and physical buffing of some mobs to make burning equal to, or even close to, traditional party exp gain.

Adjusting the most abused mobs would have substantial effect, especially before level 74 - but overall, I agree. Level of mob needs to have a much stronger influence on exp value (for high level parties - it's about right up to 60 or so) in order for killing fewer strong mobs to equal killing many wimpy ones. (Meleeburns don't fight strong mobs, because they would take more damage than their lack of healers could handle, and/or have deaths which cause major downtime.)

But by doing that you'd force people to go back to the days where you couldn't even exp without a tank and two specific healers while forcing many melee jobs to go back to lfg for weeks on end.

An exaggeration - but anyway, this wouldn't happen unless you abolished meleeburns entirely. If you only made them about the same exp/hr as traditional pts, then melees *and* tanks/healers could *both* find parties. (The introduction of five new jobs which can all heal and/or support would have something to say about this situation anyway.)

Paladins today don't lfg for weeks on end - they campaign instead. This doesn't mean it's not a problem. (Of course, even if meleeburns *were* completely abolished, DDs could still go campaign, now that it exists.)

Nerfing something that the vast majority finds a helpful and useful boon to the game just so a very vocal, very small minority can squeeze more 'fun' out of the game...which is something that can already be done...is very narrowminded thinking.

I think you're wrong about how many people like the current "more DDs = more win" state of high level exp (on this thread it appears to just be you and Sevv, although maybe the lurkers really do support you in email). We could take a poll though. 3 options: parties with mostly DDs should make better exp, parties with tanks and healers should make better exp, both types of parties should make about the same exp. Which option do you think would win?

Obviously some DDs are happy. But nearly every support job is bored out of its skull and tanks practically don't even exist anymore. And jobs that formerly relied on party cooperation to perform their role (thf, sam) - don't have that role anymore. Now they just hit things. Some are satisfied with that if it gives them monster exp/hr, some are not.

If you want to 'balance' the exp gains between traditional and burn pts, then you have to completely rework the way monsters grant exp rewards.

Exactly. I don't get why you think this is a bad thing though - a system where a quarter or more of the jobs are *completely unwanted* - not just overpopulated, but actively drags on the exp of any party foolish enough to invite one - is obviously broken. Competing for no spots is worse than competing for few spots.

Introducing meleeburns wasn't necessarily a bad idea to relieve the overpopulation of DD jobs before ToAU (although I would have introduced the new jobs first, and waited to see if that solved the problem before doing anything more) - making them drastically more effective than traditional parties instead of about equally effective *was* a bad idea.

[Ziero]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Wrong. Meleeburns die horribly to IT mobs, because they *can't take the hits* without a real tank. Try meleeburning in Uleguerand and you'll see what I mean.

But Uleguerand gives crappy exp/hr, you say? Exactly my point. Tougher mobs give more exp per kill -but not *much* more, so they can't compete with rapidly massacring wimps on an exp/hr basis. That's what it's in SE's power to change.

Yes, IT mobs are always bad for melees, not saying that Exp burns can work on every monster regardless of lvl. But I am saying that a TP burn will always out exp even the best traditonal party because killspeed is the number one factor in gaining exp.

Furthermore, this is unique to the highest levels - at lower levels, you *do* get better exp out of tougher mobs, enough that it's worth bringing a tank and then fighting things that will (a) hurt you bad enough to cause major downtime, or (b) kill someone, if they spend the whole fight beating on non-tanks. This is why meleeburns haven't taken over the level 30 exp scene, in spite of people trying to copy high-level tactics - they just don't work that well at that level. Letting goblin smithies beat on mnks and drks is not a winning way to make more exp.

Wrong. Even before endgame lvls you can "melee"-burn T-VT mobs. The only problem is long repops and mob shortages. But it's still faster exp, when you have mobs all to yourself, then a traditional party to non-stop pull chainmaking mobs. And I've done this as low as the Dunes. It's not as effective as ToAU camps, but then again ToAU camps were made for burns.

Compare how much of a fight a 100 exp mob will give a level 20, 40 and 60 party, with how much of a fight a 100 exp mob will give a level 75+merits party. Most games get harder as you progress further into the game and get to higher levels - why does FFXI get easier at the end instead?

Actually with a full pt with almost any setup, 100 exp mobs aren't challenging in the least. They still die just as fast at 20, 40 and 60 as they do at 75. It's the IT+ mobs that put up a fight, but even with a Pld tank those are retarded to go after because it means you slow your killing speed to a crawl thus slowing your exp.

I think you mean "made to screw mages". Colibri are incredibly weak to melees, more so than practically any other mob - you can beat them up *without* food faster than you can beat up most other mobs *with* food. Imps are highly magic resistant, nearly unsilenceable, and have AoE silence, as well as casting spells right back at a manaburn - which is precisely why they're practically un-manaburnable. But aside from the minor annoyance of amnesia (which isn't even a TP reset - you get to save it for later), they, too, take huge damage from melee and have hardly any HP, as well as weak to negligible tp moves.

Actually, no, both Colibri and Imps screw with Melees too. It's not that Colibri are "so weak" melee can kill them without food, it's that they have no choice but to not eat food. Combine that with their ability to erase TP...which can't be blocked by shadows, and their attack which strips shadows on a target, and that's a mob that screws with Melee as much as it does mages. And if you consider Amnesia a "minor annoyance" then you're horriblly downplaying the fact that it prevents all JAs and WS for the entire fight. And FYI, they're called TP Burns because you're supposed to use your TP.

Their low HP, the only good thing about those mobs, is the reason why people kill them. But only when they con T-VT.

(And try fighting mobs with high attack and major burst damage without a tank - pugils, spiders, scorpions.) Even in ToAU areas, some mobs are meleeburned much more than others - meleeburns walk right past flies to pull imps and doomed, precisely because flies are more dangerous.

I've burned Pugs...in QUFIM of all places, spiders in QSC and the Deserts, hell I solo'd the ToAU ones. All mobs are burnable once they get to T-VT lvls. Oh, and I've also burned Flies IN ToAU between Doomed and Imp pulls. It was crowded that day.

First of all - you're contradicting yourself. Low HP mobs with fast repops *are* the target monsters for burns - and without them, it doesn't work. Anyway, I think you're overstating the effectiveness of pre-ToAU meleeburning. In ideal conditions it made maybe 20% more exp than a traditional party - and even then, only after 74; without the brokenness of subbed utsu:ni it died horribly. In ToAU you can do it at *60* - on the right mobs

Meleeburning in KRT only worked when the melees were monks, because of the damage bonus vs. bones. In sky you needed the zone to yourself to do better than a traditional pt.

Actually, I'm not contradicting anything, you're just not grasping the concept. It's not only that these mobs are weak that make them the best target for TP burns, it's also the fact that they repop faster then mobs anywhere else in game and that you also gain an Exp bonus on top of killing them, which inflates ones Exp gained per kill.

In otherwords, these things being so burnable was not a mistake, but an intentional addition to allow more people to burn more things. Because as you pointed out, the two best zones for burning before (which made far more then 20% exp on average compared to a normal party) were reserved for either a single job or horrendously overcamped to the point of inefficiancy. Now this combat tactic can be utilized by almost any job just as effectively, and moreso, in far more areas.

You also "gain" exp for not being killed, and for having less downtime. Both of which you do by taking less damage - unless you're fighting monsters so weak they can't even seriously hurt a berserk monk. Are you really forgetting why tanks exist in the first place (and why they still *do* exist for the first 50-some levels)?

Fyi, I've pted without nins and plds pre-50 many many times for exceptional exp. It helps if you don't go after IT++ btw.

Adjusting the most abused mobs would have substantial effect, especially before level 74 - but overall, I agree. Level of mob needs to have a much stronger influence on exp value (for high level parties - it's about right up to 60 or so) in order for killing fewer strong mobs to equal killing many wimpy ones. (Meleeburns don't fight strong mobs, because they would take more damage than their lack of healers could handle, and/or have deaths which cause major downtime.)

An exaggeration - but anyway, this wouldn't happen unless you abolished meleeburns entirely. If you only made them about the same exp/hr as traditional pts, then melees *and* tanks/healers could *both* find parties. (The introduction of five new jobs which can all heal and/or support would have something to say about this situation anyway.)

Unless you dramatically boosted up the exp gained for killing an IT(like 400+ per kill) mob or completely overhauled the way Exp is gained, you can't balance out the difference. But to be honest, even if that were done I wouldn't complain one way as it would be boosting something to make even more people happy without destroying something the majority finds incredibly useful.

Paladins today don't lfg for weeks on end - they campaign instead. This doesn't mean it's not a problem. (Of course, even if meleeburns *were* completely abolished, DDs could still go campaign, now that it exists.)

I think you're wrong about how many people like the current "more DDs = more win" state of high level exp (on this thread it appears to just be you and Sevv, although maybe the lurkers really do support you in email). We could take a poll though. 3 options: parties with mostly DDs should make better exp, parties with tanks and healers should make better exp, both types of parties should make about the same exp. Which option do you think would win?

Obviously some DDs are happy. But nearly every support job is bored out of its skull and tanks practically don't even exist anymore. And jobs that formerly relied on party cooperation to perform their role (thf, sam) - don't have that role anymore. Now they just hit things. Some are satisfied with that if it gives them monster exp/hr, some are not.

First off, I love how you say it would be completely ok that DDs would have to campaign their Exp while it's bad that Plds do...especially since Plds make more on average during those things.

Secondly, most people who play this game by far don't visit here. The average poster here has a different way of thinking from the average player in game from my experiance. But the fact that TP burns have become so dominant and common shows just how popular they are. If there were as many people as you claim who hate burn pts so much, why is it so hard to find and party with them? I can throw up my Flag and find a TP burn much faster then I could find a traditional party, isn't that proof enough?

And I don't know about you, but I see plenty of tanks out there, as they're still highly required for everything else in this game. It's amazing how often people ignore the fact that Exping is one small and annoying facet of this game. As a thf and a war I'm bored out of my mind in tradtional parties, especially as Thf when I have to rely on idiots (long before ToAU came out) to even be halfway effective at my job. Now, I don't have to worry about them, I just have to be good at what I do best. And I have never met a Sam who didn't love burning.

Exactly. I don't get why you think this is a bad thing though - a system where a quarter or more of the jobs are *completely unwanted* - not just overpopulated, but actively drags on the exp of any party foolish enough to invite one - is obviously broken. Competing for no spots is worse than competing for few spots.

But even with traditional Exp there were jobs that people would not invite. Not because of overpopulation of the class and not even because they were bad jobs, but because they weren't the best. Remember loldrg? How about lolthf? People always have and always will want the best and now more jobs fit into that category.

Introducing meleeburns wasn't necessarily a bad idea to relieve the overpopulation of DD jobs before ToAU (although I would have introduced the new jobs first, and waited to see if that solved the problem before doing anything more) - making them drastically more effective than traditional parties instead of about equally effective *was* a bad idea.

ToAU didn't "introduce" anything, they existed, succeeded and they thrived long before the first Colibri spawned. ToAU just gave everyone easier access to them and made them far more efficiant. They were always drastically more effective then traditional parties, but back then they were a highly selective way to exp that only few jobs could participate in. ToAU opened the doors to TP burns for everyone and everyone flooded through them without a second thought. Except for a few support players who miss the "fun" of traditional pts and some Plds who just can't adapt for Exp.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Yes, IT mobs are always bad for melees, not saying that Exp burns can work on every monster regardless of lvl. But I am saying that a TP burn will always out exp even the best traditonal party because killspeed is the number one factor in gaining exp.

And I'm saying that the only reason that is true is because exp per kill is so flat. If IT mobs gave 3 times more exp per kill it wouldn't matter that it took twice as long to kill them. But instead they give only 1.5 times more exp, so they're a poor choice of target.

There are *two* main factors in gaining exp: exp per kill, and kills per hour (which takes into account fight time + downtime). The former exerts much less influence because of the current exp tables, not because of some immutable law of nature.

Actually with a full pt with almost any setup, 100 exp mobs aren't challenging in the least. They still die just as fast at 20, 40 and 60 as they do at 75.

Do you happen to have a video of a level 20 party getting chain #100? I bet you don't.

Lower level parties can *kill* a 100 exp mob, sure. What they can't do is kill it in 30 seconds or less (even though, obviously, level 20-something mobs have far less HP than level 80-something ones).

Actually, no, both Colibri and Imps screw with Melees too. It's not that Colibri are "so weak" melee can kill them without food, it's that they have no choice but to not eat food.

Which doesn't matter, because their weakness is even bigger than the effect of not eating food. That's why people *with no food* can kill a colibri faster than the same people, *with food*, can kill, say, a mamool ja of the same level. (Mamool ja aren't exactly among the game's hardest mobs themselves, but they might rank about average.)

Combine that with their ability to erase TP...which can't be blocked by shadows, and their attack which strips shadows on a target, and that's a mob that screws with Melee as much as it does mages.

Ah, *that* explains why melee-heavy and mage-heavy parties go after them just as often!
Seriously, this whole argument doesn't pass basic common sense. You don't need food *or* shadows to beat the crap out of them, that's how weak they are to melee. And that's why they're overwhelmingly popular targets for melee-heavy parties, the same way bunches of monks go after skeletons and bunches of rangers go after flies or birds. (Well, if there actually were any bunches of rangers anymore.)

It's also why practically anyone - if they're a melee - can solo a T colibri, and then die to a DC of some other mob families, even if they eat food on the latter.

And if you consider Amnesia a "minor annoyance" then you're horriblly downplaying the fact that it prevents all JAs and WS for the entire fight.

True only in the sense that the second Amnesia wears off is the second the fight ends as 3 simultaneous WS rip the imp apart. It's still shorter than a fight against a real mob of comparable level. And some imps won't even use it, and die even faster. Most important JAs can easily be used before the imp gains TP.

Amnesia is annoying. It is not dangerous. Would you *really* rather be up against Mortal Ray, Dancing Chains, 1000 Needles or Throat Stab? I seriously doubt it. *Those* are nasty TP moves. Abrasive Tantara, Feather Tickle and Snatch Morsel are not. Compare Feather Tickle to either Carnal Nightmare *or* Light of Penance, which are both clearly superior to it in two separate and independent ways. FT is a joke.

Which, again, is why people exp on imps and colibri and not on taurus, fomor, cactuars, or tonberries. (This is why the rare mob bounty idea is so beautiful - mob family imbalances would be *self-correcting* because players would go after the nasty mobs only when the bounties made them worth it. It effectively lets players bid on how badass they think a mob is, by being willing to fight it at a given bounty level or not. Imps and colibri, of course, would score very low under this system and would never get a bounty, or constantly have a negative bounty if it were possible.)

Actually, I'm not contradicting anything, you're just not grasping the concept.

I'm grasping your concept just fine - and disagreeing with it.

It's not only that these mobs are weak that make them the best target for TP burns, it's also the fact that they repop faster then mobs anywhere else in game and that you also gain an Exp bonus on top of killing them, which inflates ones Exp gained per kill.

If they weren't weak, fast repops wouldn't be an advantage; if their base exp value reflected their actual lack of difficulty, the sanction percentage bonus wouldn't be enough to make up the difference.

ToAU trolls, lamias, and qutrub repop just as fast as ToAU mamool ja and colibris, don't they? And they certainly are all subject to the same Sanction advantages. If mob family weakness doesn't matter as you say, why aren't all those monsters burned just as often?

First off, I love how you say it would be completely ok that DDs would have to campaign their Exp while it's bad that Plds do...especially since Plds make more on average during those things.

That's not what I said - even if it's true that plds make more exp in a zone where your exp primarily comes from damage (kind of implausible), I'm just saying it's no *worse* for DDs to have to campaign than for plds, and that even if anyone ever actually did seek for days, Campaign guarantees that nobody will have to do that ever again no matter what happens to the rest of the exp system. (But then I also point out that meleeburns aren't being destroyed under any proposed system, and that DDs could find party slots even in traditional parties, both of which you ignore completely.)

But the fact that TP burns have become so dominant and common shows just how popular they are.

Bull. People do them because they *work*, not necessarily because they *like* them. The proof is all over this thread, these boards and the game in general. Lots of people bitch about them while still participating because the rewards are just too big to pass up (or to expect 5 others to pass up, so even if you wanted to do something different you probably couldn't.)

If there were as many people as you claim who hate burn pts so much, why is it so hard to find and party with them? I can throw up my Flag and find a TP burn much faster then I could find a traditional party, isn't that proof enough?

If both party types were equally rewarded and you *still* found TP burns easier... actually that still wouldn't prove it, because of population issues. But it'd be a hell of a lot closer than jumping to the conclusion that anyone who wants more exp/hr must *like* the style of play that gets the most exp/hr. That's as dumb as saying people must like to farm, or they wouldn't do it so much.

And I don't know about you, but I see plenty of tanks out there, as they're still highly required for everything else in this game.

None of which you can participate in at level 1. (And almost all of which DDs are also highly required for, as I'm sure you know.)

It's amazing how often people ignore the fact that Exping is one small and annoying facet of this game.

Exp is not just "one small facet" of the game, it is the gateway to *all* other content in the game. Additionally it probably predominates most players' total time played.

But even with traditional Exp there were jobs that people would not invite.

Wrong again. (Well, unless you count the jobs that didn't exist then. I admit that they didn't get any invites.)

Not because of overpopulation of the class and not even because they were bad jobs, but because they weren't the best. Remember loldrg? How about lolthf?

Yes, I remember numerous people leveling those jobs to 75 before ToAU. Reputation notwithstanding those jobs were quite effective, and quite able to get into or start parties. BLMs are lucky they're damn strong soloers, because otherwise they'd be hosed 1000x worse than any RoZ era melee ever was (instead of only 100x worse - BLMs are nerfed in campaign too, so they don't even have that as a safety net.)

BTW, "lolthf" was AFTER ToAU and hate-bouncing parties destroyed SATA. In the RoZ/CoP era thfs were about as wanted as any other DD (namely, you wanted a few, but generally not as many as were clogging up the server), except in bones parties for obvious reasons.

People always have and always will want the best and now more jobs fit into that category.

Fewer (again, not counting the jobs that didn't exist - most of which work quite well in a traditional party, as low level exp confirms.)
WAR, MNK, NIN, BRD, RDM were highly wanted and still are (MNK a little less so than before). DRG, DRK, SAM gained popularity (although a WAR or NIN will still get invited first). WHM, BLM, PLD, SMN lost big time. RNG are now so rare it's hard to even estimate how wanted they are; BST didn't usually deign to party and still don't; THF are now the DD you take if you can't find a better one, which I think is a poor substitute for their prior unique role which their job was actually designed to do, but you may disagree.

Losers outnumber winners, if you're counting by jobs. If you're counting by players, I dunno - a lot of people merit on their war or brd, if they have more than one job, for obvious reasons. Since merits are transferable that doesn't necessarily hurt them, except possibly in enjoyability.

Except for a few support players who miss the "fun" of traditional pts and some Plds who just can't adapt for Exp.

And who cares about them, right? Why should they have a game that they can enjoy? Clearly, whatever's best for the DDs should be what everyone is forced to do whether they like it or not (if they want a competitive exp/hr rate). That's your whole argument, isn't it? You like tp burns so make sure the rdms and brds can't go anywhere else without gimping their exp, and screw the jobs that don't fit into tp burns at all?