Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Don't know about exp'ing on IT++, but if VT+ to IT- chain 5 start to give off exp/hour better than T-VT chaining 12, you can bet all the (I-forgot-the-name) plug-in users on Windower will start to notice right away.

It should pretty easy to manipulate players into going after higher level monsters--just nudge the exp per kill numbers a bit, and make killing T's and low VT's not worthwhile. (Then, watch the hate (e-)mail pour in over "exp nerf".)

[Saren]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

[quote=IfritnoItazura;738816]It'll hurt exp'ing for SMN more than anyone else.

SMN will become the new BLM--strictly for soloing, while dreaming about the good old days when you were wanted by parties. Except SMN was never really wanted by parties, just tolerated.[quote]

Precisely. I am really looking forward to seeing what Scholar will do for whm and blm but smn still feels very left out in the cold when it comes to sub job choices. I would love to see smn tweaked so that it's bloodpacts were more useful in exp, the really joke bad buffs have already been mentioned and the accuracy problems etc but as someone who has played some smn I would rather not lose the only subjob (blu could probably work similarly) that gives me something useful to do between bloodpacts and lets me fill in another role in a party if i have to.

Hell even when I have been smn in a party with a different main healer, I can throw out a cure or status cure to let them keep resting when they are low on mp, take over for a minute while they are casting something that takes several seconds (a regen, reraise, protectra/shellra). Having a mage with /whm in a party is a good idea in the same way that having a DD who can take a couple of hits for the tank just in case is a good idea.

I don't think so, at least not over the "Cure" line of spells. With with Healing Breeze and Wild Carrot, BLU/WHM becomes a sufficient healer on its own at Lv.30. Granted it won't function as smoothly without full strength Cure II and Cure I, since Wild Carrot is closer to Cure III and would disrupt tanking at that level, but BLU can take a few hits anyway, and BLU curing spells have better MP efficiency than the Cures.

The thing that worries me about blu main healing if /whm is heavily nerfed is that, as you said, they don't really seem to have much in the way of a mid range cure spell to help things run more smoothly. Sure they can take a few hits but you can't rest if you are being hit and I can't see blu spells being so efficient (especially as they aren't able to give the party as much in the way of damage mitigation buffs, no higher regens, no flash) that they will offset the need to get as much rest as possible to maintain mp.

[Mhurron]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Something has to happen, whether the def/general strength of all mobs is adjusted or what but there should be no reason why all zones should not be as viable as others at a given level. I should be able to go to the Mire or Lufaise Meadows or somewhere in a Wings zone and be able to get comparable EXP/hour with good players.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

The thing that worries me about blu main healing if /whm is heavily nerfed is that, as you said, they don't really seem to have much in the way of a mid range cure spell to help things run more smoothly. Sure they can take a few hits but you can't rest if you are being hit and I can't see blu spells being so efficient (especially as they aren't able to give the party as much in the way of damage mitigation buffs, no higher regens, no flash) that they will offset the need to get as much rest as possible to maintain mp.

Well, nothing BLU has can actually replace Regen, but, BLU can:
1. Enfeeble to lower damage taken; e.g. Sprout Smack (Slow 15%), Filamented Hold (Slow 25%), Sandspin (acc down), Head Butt (stun), Chaotic Eye (silence), Terro Touch (Atk down)
2. Enfeeble to quicken fights, which saves cure MP per battle used: e.g. Wild Oats (VIT down), Frightful Roar (Def down), a number of different poison spells.
3. Debuff by removing monster's buffs; e.g. Blank Gaze, Geist Wall.
4. Buff party members to take less damage; e.g. Diamond Hide.
5. Sleep links or adds; e.g. Sheep Song (light based), Soporific (dark based), Pinecone Bomb (Um... no idea about element).


With Healing Breeze, Wild Carrot, and Magic Fruit, BLU/WHM looks like a decent healer with impressive support capability to me.

[Ziero]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Something has to happen, whether the def/general strength of all mobs is adjusted or what but there should be no reason why all zones should not be as viable as others at a given level. I should be able to go to the Mire or Lufaise Meadows or somewhere in a Wings zone and be able to get comparable EXP/hour with good players.

The biggest problem is that ALL ToAU zones instantly give better Exp per hour then any zone in the game the minute you activate Sanction. THAT is what's making them Weak ToAU mobs better exp then all the older T-VT targets. People get more bang for their buck with zero downside. Combine Sanctions bonus EXP and auto-refresh with high repops and high quantities of mobs and you have an optimum leveling environment for the vast majority of the games job classes.

[Saren]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Still learning about blu but I did know about the crowd control/dispel/enfeebling aspects already, was just under the impression that the spells are quite heavily dependant on TP for efficacy. The built in dispel is very nice and Diamond hide is nice if late. I do take your points so thanks :)

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

So, yes, nerfing /WHM is a very bad idea. SMN have suffered enough already, let's not take their parties away, too.

When people say, "Nerf /WHM," they are 99% of the time implying a direct huge buff to SMN itself. That way, people will actually be inviting the SMN, not the /WHM.

What I think will help SMN hugely would be to put each Blood Pact on a seperate timer, like every other spell in the game. And have it's power increase with skill, not "skill over cap" . . . you know, like every other spell in the game.

(Even White Mage spells increase with skill; they just hit the soft cap much, much faster.)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

When people say, "Nerf /WHM," they are 99% of the time implying a direct huge buff to SMN itself. That way, people will actually be inviting the SMN, not the /WHM.

When people say "Nerf /WHM" they're not thinking of the damage that would do to several jobs in the process. What about BRD/WHM or COR/WHM, what about BST/WHM or DRG/WHM? Nerfing these is nerfing utility and soloability for various jobs.

And we should do this just for SMN?

Brilliant.

[Malacite]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

You're not seeing the full picture here either BBQ.

By comparison to all other mage subs, /WHM is ridiculously strong since the halved skill ratings don't mean a damn with the exception of a few buffs (Stoneskin, Blink and Barspells) where as nuking or enfeebling is outright useless without any base skill, as are most offensive blue magic spells.

Never mind that if SE adjusted healing magic skill to more properly influence the power of cure spells it would go a long ways to putting WHM back into the top spot.

This doesn't necessarily have to hurt RDM main heal, just give WHM (and preferably PLD too) a much bigger edge in curing power due to sheer skill differences. RDM beats WHM out in endurance because of Convert and Refresh. This for the most part is OK. What's not okay, is that both jobs heal for the same amount and for the same MP spent. Don't you think WHM should be able to spend less MP per cure than a RDM if they're healing the same amounts? (By which I mean a RDM's Cure IV should be equivalent to a WHM's Cure III)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

You're not seeing the full picture here either BBQ.

By comparison to all other mage subs, /WHM is ridiculously strong since the halved skill ratings don't mean a damn with the exception of a few buffs (Stoneskin, Blink and Barspells) where as nuking or enfeebling is outright useless without any base skill, as are most offensive blue magic spells.

Never mind that if SE adjusted healing magic skill to more properly influence the power of cure spells it would go a long ways to putting WHM back into the top spot.

This doesn't necessarily have to hurt RDM main heal, just give WHM (and preferably PLD too) a much bigger edge in curing power due to sheer skill differences. RDM beats WHM out in endurance because of Convert and Refresh. This for the most part is OK. What's not okay, is that both jobs heal for the same amount and for the same MP spent. Don't you think WHM should be able to spend less MP per cure than a RDM if they're healing the same amounts? (By which I mean a RDM's Cure IV should be equivalent to a WHM's Cure III)

The bigger picture is all I'm looking at here. You're asking for healing skill to be raised for WHM and PLD - which will do NOTHING to change their present situation - and gimped for jobs to "liberate" jobs like SMN from being a healer.

Have you played BRD, COR, BLU, BLM or BST? Do you know how valuble healing skill is to their survivability and their endgame roles?

And you you realize by gimping healing skill you're not helping SMN at all, you're just destroying what little invite incentive they had?

RDM's endurance is what gives them the hideous advantage they have over WHM right now, thus, WHM doesn't need more healing power - White Mage has that already - they need more MP endurance to remedy that.

So does SMN, for that matter. MP endurance is a big issue for them.

The problem with the stance on summoner is that people want SMN to play like they thought they played in on other games, but didn't really play it they way they want to believe they did. Summoners were used to end big battles and wipe out groups of weak enemies. Otherwise, they were just as much used for support and damage dealing. Support is half their job, if bloodlust is what you have, you made the mistake of picking a job with support skills and a mountain of MP.

If I go seeking on COR and don't specify what I wish my role to be, chances are my entire job is boiled down to the fact that I have a gun and buffs and I'll be invited to pull. And do you think they're really gonna try to find a BRD after they invite my COR unless I ask?

Probably not.

But they're right, I can pull. If I don't specify otherwise, who am I to argue with what I was invited for? I have to tools for it. If I have melee x4 in PT already, I'm not needed to DD at all, usually.

I know how it feels, but I also tend to fight for what I want most of the time, so that feeling is a bit rare for me.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

The bigger picture is all I'm looking at here. You're asking for healing skill to be raised for WHM and PLD - which will do NOTHING to change their present situation - and gimped for jobs to "liberate" jobs like SMN from being a healer.

We've never asked for Healing Skill to be raised for WHM and PLD: we're asking for Healing Skill to matter more. Raising the soft caps, and such.

Have you played BRD, COR, BLU, BLM or BST? Do you know how valuble healing skill is to their survivability and their endgame roles?

And you you realize by gimping healing skill you're not helping SMN at all, you're just destroying what little invite incentive they had?

Endgame is a very fickle thing.

And, if a Summoner's only incentive for invitation was to be another /WHM, I would personally prefer if they lost that one and got a real incentive for invitation (the part in bold's important, as that's the point you seem to be missing).

RDM's endurance is what gives them the hideous advantage they have over WHM right now, thus, WHM doesn't need more healing power - White Mage has that already - they need more MP endurance to remedy that.

So does SMN, for that matter. MP endurance is a big issue for them.

While I don't dissagree with the White Mage comment, just saying MP Endurance for a Healing Summoner . . . they don't even have a Healing skill, and you expect S-E to give them a trait which helps nothing but a skill from a subjob?!? We're trying to reduce dependence on a subjob for a job to do their actual job, and what you appear to be proposing is going backwards, to be honest.

Unless, you know, you're talking about Avatar Perpetuation. That would be a different matter entirely.

The problem with the stance on summoner is that people want SMN to play like they thought they played in on other games, but didn't really play it they way they want to believe they did. Summoners were used to end big battles and wipe out groups of weak enemies. Otherwise, they were just as much used for support and damage dealing. Support is half their job, if bloodlust is what you have, you made the mistake of picking a job with support skills and a mountain of MP.

I really think of Summoners as supposed to be functioning more like Yuna did than like, say, Rydia did. Sure, they're more than obligated to do some supporting, with their provided Blood Pacts (as opposed to a subjob's spells), I still think that, you know, getting hit by a god . . . that would kind of hurt, you know? Especially if they used some kind of special attack which is so devastating, it had to be compared to, for example, Hellfire.

I still think that you're missing the point that, if a job is nothing more than their subjob, than there's a problem.

[Akashimo]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

And, if a Summoner's only incentive for invitation was to be another /WHM, I would personally prefer if they lost that one and got a real incentive for invitation (the part in bold's important, as that's the point you seem to be missing).
I still think that you're missing the point that, if a job is nothing more than their subjob, than there's a problem.

QFT.

[Malacite]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

You're missing my point BBQ. I say raise PLD's healing skill (because I believe it's currently on par or slightly less than RDM's) so that it can benefit from a healing skill update.

I said that WHM should gain endurance through their higher skill level, casting the same spells as a RDM but to much greater effect, effectively allowing them to spend less MP over all to keep the party alive. This would also let PLD's come into role of main healer, or at least make them less dependent on mages and better fill their protector role.

IMO, PLD really ought to be able to take the hits a bit better and keep others alive under it's own power, with WHM's stepping in for emergencies rather than the odd whack here and there. Plus it would do wonders to save them MP as well, make them less Refresh-dependent.



Lastly, I pointed out some cool options for SMN to have their healing style changed. I have no problems with them being invited to main heal (at least not all the time) but mostly with the /WHM and cures. If SE actually bothered to take the time, they could sure as hell find a way to make a SMN using carbuncle a main healer through the strategic use of blood pact wards, using cures on the side.

SMN has so much potential that SE's not taping into, and I understand why (it's probably the hardest job of all to balance) but after 5 years you think they could have done something by now.

Oh, and I do have a 71 BRD btw. I've never seen my healing skill matter much, given that WHM and RDM's have twice if not more my skill level and their cure 3's still do just as much.

Why should /WHM be the exception to the rule? If you're going to make /WHM and cures so damn potent regardless of halved skill level, then shouldn't it apply across the board to other magic skills?

[Karinya]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

We've never asked for Healing Skill to be raised for WHM and PLD: we're asking for Healing Skill to matter more. Raising the soft caps, and such.

Actually, I think some people have asked for more Healing Skill for PLD, because they realize that otherwise this kind of change would gimp PLD *too*.

I think some people who lament the "excessive" effectiveness of /WHM spells are missing an important point: Other mage subs have powerful traits and/or JAs. /BLM gives you conserve MP, Magic Atk Bonus and Elemental Seal; /RDM gives you Fast Cast, MAB and MDB; /SMN gives you Max MP Bonus and Auto-Refresh.

/WHM gives you... Auto Regen for 1/tick, Divine Seal and Magic Defense Bonus. So it's reasonable for it to have better/more useful spells than other magic subs, since its JAs and traits are comparative crap. (DS is useful, but standing alone it can't possibly compare to other subs.)

And, if a Summoner's only incentive for invitation was to be another /WHM, I would personally prefer if they lost that one and got a real incentive for invitation (the part in bold's important, as that's the point you seem to be missing).

How often in the 5 year history of the game has SE made two major balance changes to the same job, at the same time, in a way that would obviously interact with each other?

How many of those times did they get it right?

If you want to improve some BPs or lower perp costs, fine; I'll support several such suggestions (and have even made them myself). But do that FIRST. Don't take away one of SMN's major ways of being useful to other players unless you think they're *already* ready to stand without it.

I really think of Summoners as supposed to be functioning more like Yuna did than like, say, Rydia did.

I don't know which FFX you played, but in my copy, Yuna spent most of her time casting white magic. (Partly because FFX barspells were sick, and status effects were common, and death happened often... it was really a game to make you appreciate a good WHM, for a lot more than just HP.) Summoner was practically her subjob, aside from storyline - aeons were only really worth using for OD (or to build up their OD for later use), or occasionally as expendable shields. With the possible exception of Magus Sisters, which were broken as hell and FFXI is never going to see anything like them. Outside of their OD attacks (the equivalent of Astral Flow), Wakka, Auron or Lulu could outdamage aeons without breaking a sweat.

Same goes for Dagger and Eiko, too. Summoning has always been something that you pulled out only for specific situations - FFVI and VII even had caps per battle in addition to the MP cost. That's why all the summoners had subjobs (in V and Tactics, you could decide what second ability you wanted your summoner to have. White Magic or Red Magic were popular choices for a reason.)

Sure, they're more than obligated to do some supporting, with their provided Blood Pacts (as opposed to a subjob's spells), I still think that, you know, getting hit by a god . . . that would kind of hurt, you know? Especially if they used some kind of special attack which is so devastating, it had to be compared to, for example, Hellfire.

Yep. Hellfire does in fact hurt, a lot. It's a shame about the recast.

Avatar ultimate attacks have long been something that was designed to only be used for bosses and other special situations; FFXI makes the restriction enforcing that *much stricter* than previous games. That's why they also provided a wide variety of other avatar abilities. Some are great, some are mediocre and some are apparently bugged and useless; I'm certainly not saying that there are no problems with the job. But taking away their ability to contribute through subjob spells would make those problems worse, not better.

SMN's spike damage (especially AOE) really is outstandingly strong; that's why they're crucial to carmine dobsonflies, eco-warrior windurst and a few other fights that really benefit from that ability. But it's not something you can use every fight in exp.

[Saren]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

I agree with most of what Karinya and OMG have been saying. I don't mind main healing on smn, I prefer not to but it beats soloing; it's a role that's always in short supply and most of the time a party needs someone who can keep them alive a lot more than they need a dd/buff/support heal.

I think some people who lament the "excessive" effectiveness of /WHM spells are missing an important point: Other mage subs have powerful traits and/or JAs. /BLM gives you conserve MP, Magic Atk Bonus and Elemental Seal; /RDM gives you Fast Cast, MAB and MDB; /SMN gives you Max MP Bonus and Auto-Refresh.

/WHM gives you... Auto Regen for 1/tick, Divine Seal and Magic Defense Bonus. So it's reasonable for it to have better/more useful spells than other magic subs, since its JAs and traits are comparative crap. (DS is useful, but standing alone it can't possibly compare to other subs.)

I just wanted to disagree with this a bit. If you compare /whm to /melee and /othermage there is a noticable difference. If you are talking about what mage jobs get out of an exp sub:

/blm - MAB is only actually helpful if you are casting damage dealing spells, the only mage jobs that do that in parties other than blm is rdm or blu. rdm always has higher MAB from their main though blu is actually helped by /blm 60+ but when you compare what melee subs offer blu I can't see 4% magic damage increase being worth it. Conserve mp is fine but its not a huge effect on average. Elemental seal is about the most useful thing about /blm and even then you need native enfeebling skill or elemental skill to get the most out of it (so not for summoners) and tends to be an emergency only thing.

/rdm - I was wrong about this last time I was talking about subjobs. Fastcast is nice 30 + if you have a lot of long cast timers and you get access to dispel later on. Still though, part of why it's so nice is that you don't lose Cure 3 by choosing it over /whm and you can shove on a light staff and cure for not far off a whm. MAB and MDB same thing again really, you only get level 1 from /rdm and you can get it earlier on blm or blu main than you could get it from rdm main. MBD is a bit crap really as you said yourself.

/smn - In exp I think it gives slightly better mp recovery than conserve mp does. Max MP bah, most people get more mp on one or two pieces of gear than you will ever get from /smn and as most people will say, max mp after a certain point really doesn't matter for anyone but rdm and rdm/smn ><. BP wise rage is going to be a waste of time so useful wards......Shining ruby (not a huge deal), Aerial Armor (only if you don't have a bunch of nin or /nin which is almost never), Fenrir and Diabolos offer gravity and dispel pretty much but smn abilities are expensive and slow, those avatars are hard to get and you can get the same spells and some native skill to cast them with (if you are talking blm or whm main) by going /rdm or from rdm main.

/whm - Divine seal and Curaga 2 from sub whm. Tell me that's not awsome? With a Light staff on that's an AoE 400+ hp cure spell. Auto regen and MBD I will go with you on. If you want to just talk JA then sure whm looks a bit lackluster but /whm spell wise more than makes up for that: decent Protect and shell, cure 3, curaga 2, most of the barspells (both rdm and blm have native enhancing magic so they don't suck), most of the status cures (all entirely stat independent not like anything you will get from /blm, /rdm or /smn).

I don't think that /whm should be gimped because too many jobs rely on it and you need it to form a party but I can't agree with saying that people underestimate the usefulness of other subjobs because they aren't looking at the Job Abilities.