If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

[Saren]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

I mean hell, why is it that you can only MB on the target of the chain?

Say you do fusion. Why can't the BLM Burst Fire II, while the WHM busts Cure III on the PLD?

As I understand it it's because of the system the skill chains are based on. The reason you can magic burst is because the weapon skills used to create the chain have had certain effects on the mob.

I pictured it as using some of the elemental effect that has already been inflicted on the mob by the weapon skills to augment the spell that you magic burst with. I couldn't think of a less violent example but like throwing a grenade at someone you have already doused in petrol.

So you can't magic burst a cure on the pld because he hasn't been hit with any ws and doesn't have any elemental effects on him to augment a spell.

[Armando]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Make magic more... efficient.

The problem with magic is that it doesn't scale up in damage well. You take on a mob 5 levels lower, your Thunder III does what, 8 more damage because of the drop in the mob's INT? Sure, there's also a drop in resist rates. But look at melee: you fight a mob 5 levels lower, and there's not only a decrease in accuracy penalty but also a very noticeable decrease in Attack penalty.

On the flip side, magic isn't hindered too much against high level targets. That's all well and good and makes it useful. But let's move the focus to EXP for now. The best configurations invariably involve plenty of well-geared melees fighting low-level targets with support jobs that can further increase their hit rate, damage, and attack speed. And all of this, of course, is "free" damage, with no restrictions applied.

Compare how many means (buffs, traits, equipment, food) a melee has to increase Attack, Accuracy, or attack speed. Count the number of ways we can drop a mob's Defense and Evasion. Hell, we even have food for Store TP.

How many JAs do we have to increase the potency of a nuke? How many buffs are there to increase a caster's MAB and Magic Accuracy? There's COR. That's about it. Are there ways to quicken casting time or reduce recast timers? Very limited. How about ways to shorten healing ticks? None. Ways to debuff a mob's MDB, null magic damage resistances, or add a multiplier to certain kinds of magic damage? None. Reliable way to lower a mob's elemental resistances? BRD. Foods to increase MAB, Magic Accuracy, Healing Potency, Conserve MP? None.

We get two new jobs, one of which is arguably a support/healer hybrid. The best thing it brings to the table for mages is En-aspir. Too bad melee and casting are mutually exclusive unless your whole spell list consist of instant-cast melee damage spells. SCH brings some interesting things but forces you into that particular sub and you lose spells.

It would be pretty cool if our support jobs could actually, you know, support our mages, in ways other than MP recovery. Hell, even melee jobs support each other better than actual support jobs support mages (hello thar Shield Break, Acid Bolts.)

[postman]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

id change voke in pvp so that if your voked you cant un-target that person for a time limit

[Lmnop]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Isn't that how it works? It's just... fallible. Has a % chance of success instead of being 100%. Though if it isn't already in the game, I'd like to see Enmity + affect the success of your provokes in pvp, while enmity - should affect your chances of resisting provokes.

[Maju]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

I love the suggested restriction on equipment swaps. It really makes no sense and forces people to carry around ridiculous amounts of equipment.

Also, nerf melee burn to oblivion. Utsusemi spam is the one single reason that is keeping me from re-subscribing to FFXI. Kill it with fire and implement less broken and more varied ways to mitigate damage. Get rid of enmity bleeding while you're at it as that mechanic hasn't had a purpose since the very beginning of the game when there were no true tanks.

Otherwise I'm quite fond of the combat system. It's quite weak for fighting multiple targets but there rarely is a need to do that anyway. I'm more concerned about balance issues and outdated mechanics than the way fighting is implemented.

Of course there is also room for technical improvement. It's silly that hitting a moving target requires special action from the player's part. None of that nonsense in WoW, for example.

I noticed Feba was coming up with ideas to remove "the leveling grind", which I find a little weird as the way I see it, leveling has always been one of the strengths of FFXI. It requires interaction with other players and you get to look at pretty animations, characters and locations.


And finally, even though it has nothing to do with the combat system, I wish the dev team would grow a spine. They need to stop licking the players' boots and do what's good for the game even if it's a blow to the individual player. NERF things instead of buffing people in an endless circle! The power creep is so severe that people are melee burning Kirin for f***'s sake!

[Feba]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

I noticed Feba was coming up with ideas to remove "the leveling grind",

Wrong. Read the entire concept.

[Rain_Blade]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Would basically eliminate having to repeat the leveling grind

I don't want to start to take sides, but does anyone know the difference between repeat and remove? Because otherwise he would have said this:

Would basically eliminate having to remove the leveling grind

[Feba]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Actually I would've removed "having to repeat". Saying "having to remove" there doesn't really make any sense.

[Rain_Blade]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Actually I would've removed "having to repeat". Saying "having to remove" there doesn't really make any sense.

Tatz wha i tryin tuh say ; ; If you'd say the second quote, the keyword would be remove; although, it doesn't make much sense to say that in the first place, but in the first quote, saying "eliminate" seems to make some people forget the rest of the sentence and think "It wouldn't help removing leveling grind." rather than remember the keyword: repeat

I hope I don't sound as stupid as it might seem O.O

[Malacite]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

I couldn't disagree with you more Maju...


Yeah, utsu's rather game breaking I won't argue that, but it's unfortunately gotten to the point where any kind of nerf would cause a massive uproar in the community, possibly even cause a lot of players to quit (sad but true). I don't agree with getting rid of burn parties at all. The solution is in making other styles of EXP just as good, not nerfing burns.

Finally we have a solution (well, at end game ><) for all those DD jobs just sitting there seeking. All SE has to do now (in regards to burns) is actually make what kind of armor you wear worth a damn (along with VIT and DEF...) so that, god forbid, some jobs can go back to using DD subs and not have to rely on the crutch that is utsusemi and still not be such a sponge on the mage's MP.


I've got a looooooooooong list of grievances for SE, but I'll finish with this for now;

GIVE DRAGOON HAUBERGEON ALREADY GOD DAMN IT.

[Nuriko]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

DD seeking doesn't seem to be a problem these days, except that there aren't many. There are a LOT of dancers and scholars. Oh well, I suppose it will all work out somehow...

[Maju]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Yeah, utsu's rather game breaking I won't argue that, but it's unfortunately gotten to the point where any kind of nerf would cause a massive uproar in the community, possibly even cause a lot of players to quit (sad but true). I don't agree with getting rid of burn parties at all. The solution is in making other styles of EXP just as good, not nerfing burns.

Yes and taking away the drugs from a heroin addict will also cause a massive uproar but it's still good for him.

Also, burn is already stupidly good. There is no way to make a traditional party better without seriously messing with the way mobs give exp. This is again one of those endless buffing circles that SE is stuck in.

Oh no, bards can't melee like warriors, buff them! Oh no, bards can melee like warriors and buff like crazy and they're by far the best pullers for burn, buff warriors! Oh no, bards can no longer melee as well as warriors, buff them! Oh no... and so on and so on. Eventually every mob will die to one swing from anyone and give 15k exp. That's what FFXI is heading towards at this rate and the devs are too afraid of angry players to stop it. Fucking spineless cowards.

[Malacite]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Considering that there's a good chance at least half the player base would quit, they'd be killing the game in it's entirety.

We're not talking about a minor change here. Complete total Paradigm shift that would have a massive impact on many aspects of the game (particularly end game)


Also, SE is doing the right thing. Nerfs suck (though at times they are necessary) and it's a lot better to find creative ways to power up jobs to deal with specific issues, rather than making everything harder for them.

Blizzard does the same thing with WoW, and look at their subscription base. Fact is, SE stated in an interview from 1UP about ToAU that they made the EXP grind easier in that expansion because it's what the players really wanted. Any good company will try to appease the masses, rather than cater to a few disgruntled individuals.


In a nut shell: sit and spin.

[Ziero]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Yes and taking away the drugs from a heroin addict will also cause a massive uproar but it's still good for him.
Also, burn is already stupidly good. There is no way to make a traditional party better without seriously messing with the way mobs give exp. This is again one of those endless buffing circles that SE is stuck in.
Oh no, bards can't melee like warriors, buff them! Oh no, bards can melee like warriors and buff like crazy and they're by far the best pullers for burn, buff warriors! Oh no, bards can no longer melee as well as warriors, buff them! Oh no... and so on and so on. Eventually every mob will die to one swing from anyone and give 15k exp. That's what FFXI is heading towards at this rate and the devs are too afraid of angry players to stop it. Fucking spineless cowards.

Wow, so wrong in so many ways.

I can only assume you don't play otherwise you would have known about all the ups and downs 2 hander jobs have gone through in the past few months. And of course there were those massive nerfs to Rng, Bst and to a point Blm that they dropped on everyone. SE's doing a good job of balancing out the nerfs and the buffs to every job so far.

Well except Pup...still don't know exactly what the hell they're supposed to do...

Also, many melee can sub Sam effectively now and still get a good offense/defense out of it in burn PTs. Though Utsu and /nin is still strong, /sam now offers a nice balance to any job that uses 2 handed weapons.

I will agree on the whole "make Def/Vit be worth a damn" thing though, I would love if my Heavy Curiass did more then just look pretty.

[Maju]

Re: If you could make a significant change to FFXI's battle system...

Blizzard does the same thing with WoW, and look at their subscription base. Fact is, SE stated in an interview from 1UP about ToAU that they made the EXP grind easier in that expansion because it's what the players really wanted. Any good company will try to appease the masses, rather than cater to a few disgruntled individuals.

Hey, I used to play warrior in WoW, and Blizzard has done nothing but nerfed them over and over again. The latest patch, 2.3, was yet another warrior nerf patch. It also nerfed warlocks who were generally seen as being overpowered and rightfully so.

As a warrior, I always hated it when every freakin' patch came with a nerf or two, but if warriors remained to this day entirely unchanged from, say version 1.5, they would be ridiculously overpowered.

In short Blizzard has done their fair share of nerfing, but it's less apparent because in WoW, new gear keeps making people stronger. In FFXI, gear advancement is largely horizontal, yet everything is much easier nowadays because everything gets buffed in circles. I was honestly surprised they didn't simply boost dual wielders after they made samurai ridiculous. Thgouh as I understand it, they did buff PLD enmity generation as a direct consequence of them having trouble keeping hate from the recently buffed 2h-users.

I can only assume you don't play otherwise you would have known about all the ups and downs 2 hander jobs have gone through in the past few months. And of course there were those massive nerfs to Rng, Bst and to a point Blm that they dropped on everyone. SE's doing a good job of balancing out the nerfs and the buffs to every job so far.

The "ups and downs" of 2-hander jobs were the one astronomical buff and then the following toning down of said buff, but the end result was still positive for those affected and I agree that something had to be done as dual wielders were much better because of a stupid damage formula that favours hitting as frequently as possible over everything else as well as a bugged WS formulas.

The RNG nerf was done back when the game was still healthy. The old RNG burns couldn't even compete with TP burns of today even if they were possible and they were seen as being broken back then.

I'm not sure what nerfs BSTs or BLMs had, though, and I'm not sure they needed ones as BLMs are also victims of the TP burn dominance as well as generally losing to melee in the damage race. Heck, I used to outdamage BLMs in my parties while tanking as PLD. Though they do excel at end game, once again thanks to stupid damage formulas.