Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

[Taskmage]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

There seems to be a lot of fire and brimstone over the "nerfing' of /WHM, that is will somehow herald the end of the game as we know it. Last I checked, whenever there was a major change, people bitched, adapted, and moved on. Experience parties and HNMs and events won't suddenly come grinding to a halt because healing suddenly takes more effort.
So what if it hurts SMN? It should. SMN 1-74 have been invited for little more than the only subjob that that provides any options, rather than for being a SMN.
Veteran SMN aren't fine with it, they've just become used to it for lack of other options. Knock the crutch for under them, they will fall, and it will become really apparent what SMN as a main is worth on it's own. Yes, they will flounder for awhile. They may even become the DRG of the era(no disrespect to DRGs, I'm simply referring to the rep), but since anyone only ever sees job health in terms of invites, if SMN's invites suffer, then that will be the big flare in S-E's face that some changes need to be made.
How about, instead of copping to the inconvenience of fixing Healing skill, acknowledging that maybe Healing skill should work just like every other skill? There's no reason C- or half-level skill should suit a party anywhere nearly as capably as A ranked skill. There should be no reason that just anyone can eek by with a bit of MND--or worse--just a lot of MP spamming Cures inefficiently.
The value of just about every other spell or weapon is reflected in the amount of skill the user has, Healing skill and Cures should be no different, even if it is inconvenient.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Healing skill is somewhat inconsistent with other magic skills in the degree it influences spell effectiveness, but that in itself doesn't create a problem for the game. Rather I would say it averts one. If whm was the only really good healer with pld, blu and rdm trailing in a tie for second the way war trails in 3rd place as a tank job, we'd have people clamouring that there weren't enough tanks or healers.

If anything, I'd say it's the other skills that are broken for being so blatantly ineffective from subjobs. Whm is "the only subjob that that provides any options." Isn't the fact that all the other choices are bad much worse than the one choice being actually good?

The real problems are with smn main, non-whm mage subs and to a lesser extent whm main, not with whm sub. I say let's stick to fixing what's actually broken.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

The isn't a problem with healing skill:

SMN and WHM's problem is, again, MP endurance. This is why WHMs can't keep up with burn PTs and SMNs can't keep avatars out all the time and do all the pacts they'd like to do. They need endurance.

WHM suffers from RDM's ability to heal not because of healing skill, but because SE took RDM's White Magic one tier too far and combined with RDM's MP endurance, it makes them more than adequate for the main healer slot.

These are the facts you guys seem to be content to overlook. The healer role is not the problem, its how SMN presently functions as its main job that's the problem.

SE seems to be addressing MP endurance for SMN with this Spirit concept. As far as WHM goes, I think SE is looking at Scholar to be a booster subjob for mages, WHM included, possibly SMN as well. If Black and White Stratagem JAs can affect pacts, that could give SMN another sub to play with and something more to do than be a straight healer, though they would still be expected to fufill that role at times.

[Malacite]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

TM makes a good point. Either SE nerfs /WHM, or boosts the effectiveness of other magic types to not be so gimp when subbed.


and MP endurance is only one of SMN's problems. Sub par avatar damage and mostly worthless blood pacts until you can pile on +skill items and/or are 65+. You can't seriously say people invite SMN to exp (very often) to actually summon. It's all about the WHM. And yes, I do have experience with the job, I played it quite a bit on my taru until I retired that character, was at one time in an all SMN shell and have quite a few SMN friends who seriously hated having to main heal all the time and having lolpacts.

[Pteryx]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

If anything, I'd say it's the other skills that are broken for being so blatantly ineffective from subjobs. Whm is "the only subjob that that provides any options." Isn't the fact that all the other choices are bad much worse than the one choice being actually good?

The real problems are with smn main, non-whm mage subs and to a lesser extent whm main, not with whm sub. I say let's stick to fixing what's actually broken.

If this actually happened, I'd be quite happy. It'd have loads of versatility benefits. -- Pteryx

[Lmnop]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Your math's off. 3 STR for 2 Attack is 66.7% (and the lowest I'd accept as possibly being balanced). 75% would be 4 STR for 3 Attack, and is what I feel they should try. If 75% is too low -- and I doubt it would be -- then 80%, or 5 STR for 4 Attack, is what I feel they should try next. -- Pteryx

How embarrassing! Thank you.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Healing skill is somewhat inconsistent with other magic skills in the degree it influences spell effectiveness, but that in itself doesn't create a problem for the game. Rather I would say it averts one. If whm was the only really good healer with pld, blu and rdm trailing in a tie for second the way war trails in 3rd place as a tank job, we'd have people clamouring that there weren't enough tanks or healers.

If anything, I'd say it's the other skills that are broken for being so blatantly ineffective from subjobs. Whm is "the only subjob that that provides any options." Isn't the fact that all the other choices are bad much worse than the one choice being actually good?

The real problems are with smn main, non-whm mage subs and to a lesser extent whm main, not with whm sub. I say let's stick to fixing what's actually broken.

Interesting inversion of perspective: what you're saying is, instead of nerf the one, buff the rest.

That's something that I do not disagree with.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Magic's effectiveness should be dependent on level--whether that's exp level or skill level, I'm not sure, but that's not really relevant. Offensive magic is determined by level of the target and the caster, while non-offensive magic is based on the level of the caster alone.

Healing magic has low caps, but it's not breaking the rules, I think--its effectiveness is determined by level. Is the lower caps themselves somehow rule breaking? Maybe, but if Cure I heals 400 HP for WHM75, why bother to have Cure IV at all? Clearly a relatively low cap or low growth curve is needed, and lower cap is easier to implement.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Magic's effectiveness should be dependent on level--whether that's exp level or skill level, I'm not sure, but that's not really relevant. Offensive magic is determined by level of the target and the caster, while non-offensive magic is based on the level of the caster alone.
Healing magic has low caps, but it's not breaking the rules, I think--its effectiveness is determined by level. Is the lower caps themselves somehow rule breaking? Maybe, but if Cure I heals 400 HP for WHM75, why bother to have Cure IV at all? Clearly a relatively low cap or low growth curve is needed, and lower cap is easier to implement.

Lower growth rate was kind of what I was thinking. Perhaps if you wanted to make sure not to break anything, you could keep the current soft-cap numbers, but have them serve as a transition point between relatively quick growth in healing output per skill/MND and rather slower growth. So maybe a SMN/WHM at 75 is Curing for more than 31, say 62, but a WHM75 with capped Healing Magic is now Curing for 93, and similar distinctions for higher tiers. Something like this would allow Healing Magic skill to mean more generally without breaking Divine Seal, I'd think...

That said, making subjob's skill literally mean having the effectiveness of someone half your level doesn't necessarily make sense. Yes, your subjob abilities are capped at half your level, but you are a lot higher level than your subjob, and current level is supposed to account for a lot. Again, this seems like something that should achieve some kind of balance from the limits of the subbed skill cap and the potency of the main job level... To take a random gimped example: WAR/BLM should suck for the reasons of having half the spell tiers, poor MP, half the MAB traits, and such, not because at level 75 they cast like a level 37 character.

[Malacite]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

>. > 400 HP Cure 1? Don't you think that's rather extreme?

I do think SE should uncap all cures and let healing skill improve them (the same goes for nukes and other spells > _>) but with a reasonable growth rate determined by primary stats and spell tier.

E.g., with enough MND and skill a Cure 1 could hit say around 50-60 HP, which would be amazing for WHM, and so forth with the higher tier spells (within reason, as you said we don't want to overshadow Cure V. However, Cure V also has the enmity advantage, and these boosts would mostly apply to WHM anyway and not RDM due to skill differences)

[Karinya]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Allowing lower level cures to keep gaining in effectiveness will make them more MP efficient; having more MP efficiency sounds good, but spamming low level cures over and over and over to get that efficiency sounds not so good.

Cure V aside, the other cures' MP costs and caps were carefully chosen to keep their MP efficiency about the same, so you can use whatever size cure you need at the moment without worrying that you're wasting MP. I don't really think I want to see that broken.

Give WHM a cure potency trait at 50 or 60 (that would apply to all their cures equally), maybe buff the higher tier regens (which are already very hate and MP efficient) or add new WHM-only spells, and don't try to fix what isn't broken.

Besides, it would be ridiculous to nerf /whm and not /nin (you can't use your subjob to help others but you can still use it to be pretty much invulnerable? wtf?), and nerfing both would be such a revolution I don't think anyone could claim to have a good idea of what the game would be like afterwards.

[Malacite]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Cure V aside, the other cures' MP costs and caps were carefully chosen to keep their MP efficiency about the same, so you can use whatever size cure you need at the moment without worrying that you're wasting MP. I don't really think I want to see that broken.

What part of cure growth based on spell tier did you not get? It's not that hard to keep them in check with each other if they're uncapped so long as their growth rates aren't too high.

[Lunaryn]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

What part of cure growth based on spell tier did you not get? It's not that hard to keep them in check with each other if they're uncapped so long as their growth rates aren't too high.

Agreed, once you hit the transition point, a lower growth curve could be balanced in a way similar to how the caps are now. There's no reason why the MP efficiency of a first Tier Cure has to grow beyond that of a second tier just because it hasn't stopped growing altogether. It's not that hard to write formulae and then test them for their effect over certain variables. Curve-based growth analysis is one of the major uses of calculus, isn't it? We have all sorts of nifty techniques for avoiding having to lock things down to known quantities in order to control them. :P

[Malacite]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

the growth of each cure would use a different exponent based on it's tier. Simple as that.

[Karinya]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

"Simple" would be giving whms a cure potency trait that gives them +10%, +20% or whatever to all their cures (while everyone else keeps the MP costs and amount cured that they have now). Changing the cap formulas and changing the way skill affects cures would be a lot less simple.

It's a little late now, but maybe someone should have asked SE about their idea for SMN and whether or not the half-summon, half-healer playstyle is what they had in mind for the job. Then again, I think that's been asked before, years ago, and SE is apparently ok with the job the way it is (at least since the BP split).

I think that trying to get the bugs and junk BPs fixed is more important, and more likely to succeed, than trying to convince SE to change the job into something radically different that there is *less* need for among the playerbase compared to what it is now. If it doesn't fit your idea of what a summoner "should" be - design your own damn game.


To return to the original question: I think SE is trying. Too many players want to DD compared to the needs of parties; but SE has introduced several dd hybrids in the last expansion and this one. BLU can heal while dealing damage - but the players refuse. COR is a DD and support at the same time - but hardly anyone plays it. DNC will apparently be a DD and support at the same time that doesn't have to depend on ammo, luck *or* mp (sounds pretty freaking broken when you put it that way, doesn't it?) - we'll see if anyone actually plays it with any emphasis on the support roles or if 90% of players get bored by the lack of big ws numbers and go back to WAR/NIN.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Can players' interests and needs be balanced?

Slow linear growth: May make ridiculous result like Cure I for 20 HP at WHM37, if aiming for 40 HP at Lv.75

Curved growth: Means a look-up tables, since you don't want to do fancy calculations for something used so often. Unfortunately, look-up tables takes memory, so it's still "expensive" to implement.

WHM can already cure better; the problem is most exp'ing do not require better curing than we have now, unless you count my Lufaise Meadows (Tavnazian Ram and Abraxas) party earlier today.

Nerfing /WHM: reduced choices of viable healers and effectiveness of many backup healers--bad at low levels

Hiking Healing Magic's effect: doesn't help WHM at high levels exp parties.

That's why it's better to fix SMN instead of fiddling with /WHM or healing magic. I understand what some you who advocate changing healing magic want, but honestly you'd get much better boost to WHM main if you just nerf Seigan/Hasso and Utsusemi, which unfortunately will still leave less room for SMN mains in parties.