The BLM Problem

[Macht]

Re: The BLM Problem

I seriously never questioned if SE knew what they were doing when they built ToA areas like they did. Just look at the CoP areas and you see many of them were different methods to encourage high level players to play with low level players. A party exping in the level capped zones can get some good exp in them as well even if your actual level is way above the limit.

Then you got the ENMs that give large chunks of EXP and deaths don't cost you any EXP. Hell even going between the original content and Rize of Zilart, RoZ areas are easier to EXP in then the Original, CoP areas are also eaiser to EXP in then RoZ (Due to player level range being less of an impact), following that same trend ToA areas are easier to EXP in then CoP.

Just seems to be following this trend to encourage more lv. 75s potential for some plan they got cooking waiting to show off.

[Vyuru]

Re: The BLM Problem

True, but the CoP missions DO seem to encourage the use of mages, rangers, and kiting tactics...

But that is only if you do not prepare properly, or if you have someone decide to go afk/ignore orders in the middle of the fights.

If people actually prepare and are competant, I'd say that CoP stuff (exp included) is FAR easier than ToAU.

There are some jobs that are real powerhouses in the level 30-40 range, and there is alot of gear in that range that really boosts your stats in comparison to the monsters you fight.

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

I seriously never questioned if SE knew what they were doing when they built ToA areas like they did. Just look at the CoP areas and you see many of them were different methods to encourage high level players to play with low level players.

You mean like that exploitable bug in one of the Promy missions where you have one member of the party who never leaves the introductory cutscene (prelude to the BC fight) and have someone train/aggro the mammets to that person (That person drops from PT) If done right, all the mammets would be beating on that one person still in cutscene, but that person is rendered invincible. Drop one mammet at a time and it's an easy fight.

Oh yeah, SE really knows what they are doing.

Just seems to be following this trend to encourage more lv. 75s potential for some plan they got cooking waiting to show off.

What plans? To take over the world? What kind of grandiose scheme are they trying to prepare while letting the game fall into the gutter? I'm not as unrealistically optimistic as you. I've seen so many things in the past 3 years that make me suggest that everyone from GM to Project Manager do not know their own game that they are designing the way we players do.

[seq]

Re: The BLM Problem

A party exping in the level capped zones can get some good exp in them as well even if your actual level is way above the limit.

bullshit, you get EXP as the actual level you are at, not as the caped level you are at.
a LV49 BST in one reverne #1 will get EXP as if he is chaining EP mobs(though they are Em-T to the LV40 cap).

You mean like that exploitable bug in one of the Promy missions where you have one member of the party who never leaves the introductory cutscene (prelude to the BC fight) and have someone train/aggro the mammets to that person (That person drops from PT) If done right, all the mammets would be beating on that one person still in cutscene, but that person is rendered invincible. Drop one mammet at a time and it's an easy fight.

it's in CoP2.5 and fixed it after 8749827987 player used it and passed by that hard mission, then we got stuck trying to do it the way SE intended it to be.

I've seen so many things in the past 3 years that make me suggest that everyone from GM to Project Manager do not know their own game that they are designing the way we players do.

one year and a half for me, but i felt the same as you :3, PUP may have to suffer the same updating years DRG suffered because of that.

[Karinya]

Re: The BLM Problem

If people actually prepare and are competant, I'd say that CoP stuff (exp included) is FAR easier than ToAU.

Is that some kind of joke? Tauruses, buffalos and fomor vs. colibri, puks and imps for exp? Or maybe you meant to compare Airship Armada mission fight to the Ashu Talif fight? Snoll Tzar or Tenzen vs. Khimaira 13?

Almost all TAU missions are practically unloseable if you have even a vague clue what you are doing. Most assaults can be won on the first try.

Of course, TAU isn't done yet, and there may be harder content still to come - I certainly hope so - but most of what there is now is stupidly easy, except for a few mob families that most people just avoid (soulflayers, wamoura, maybe poroggos).


The TP burn problem is (IMO) a combination of
1. horribly weak for their level monsters. They have no offense *and* no defense.
2. Sanction - both the refresh and, especially, the exp bonus. This makes any camp outside the Empire VERY unattractive while the AC is in Imperial hands. (The ease of reaching camps with staging points is also a factor, compared to how much of a pain it is to reach the 70+ exp camps in Uleguerand or Moongate for example.)
3. Related to the above: Beseiged forces are both rare and weak. Level 6 < temporary items. This keeps the AC in the empire over 90% of the time, racking up sanction exp bonuses higher and higher and strangling any chance at exp camp diversity. At a minimum, forces need to accumulate faster giving players less time to rescue captured generals. When was the last time you saw a doubleheader? 2 updates ago? 3 updates ago?
4. super short spawn times - this makes killing T-VT far more rewarding than high VT-low IT. Again, camps outside the Empire can't get this benefit no matter who's in your party. They have to draw monsters from a wider area either by roaming or by long pulls, both of which have obvious drawbacks. Pre-TAU high level areas could stand to have their repop times and/or density of spawn points adjusted.
5. Melee and magic accuracy and damage are balanced against each other for a certain monster level. Magic effectiveness depends only weakly on target level, which is why mages are so much more effective on HNM and so much less effective on relatively weak monsters.
6. Utsusemi, it's way too effective subbed. Bouncing hate is way better than having a tank try to hold it (tough enough already on low-defense Ts), which leaves BLM exposed because they are designed to be limited by hate.
7. A few pieces of horribly broken gear like Ridill. It needs a substantial DMG nerf, lower proc rate or both. But SE almost never does anything to old content so it will probably remain miles above every well-designed item ever created.

For a while I actually thought that SE had *deliberately* made exping in the empire much, much faster than outside it in order to sell everyone the expansion as fast as possible. But even if that is true, there's no need to stick to that strategy anymore. Let's see some balance and changes that will make it more attractive to return to some old abandoned exp camps like Moongate, Lufaise Meadows or Ru'Avitau. I don't necessarily want to see Caedarva or Mamool Staging Point emptied out, but they shouldn't have 90% of all exp parties. Adding new areas doesn't increase variety if the new areas are so much better that they make all the old areas obsolete.

[tdh]

Re: The BLM Problem

A party exping in the level capped zones can get some good exp in them as well even if your actual level is way above the limit.

bullshit, you get EXP as the actual level you are at, not as the caped level you are at.
a LV49 BST in one reverne #1 will get EXP as if he is chaining EP mobs(though they are Em-T to the LV40 cap).

You just said the same thing he did, FYI.

Just look at the CoP areas and you see many of them were different methods to encourage high level players to play with low level players.

I'd thought they were trying to do the same thing as well, just I've never really seen anybody doing it. I have seen some RNGs go and solo a full Merit Point in Promy areas, but never seen a range of people EXP in there. Well, outside of having to defend themselves from agro on the way to the actual Boss fights. I've often toyed with the idea of going to Promy-Mea and EXP'n off of Wanders in the Lv.23~25 range. With their low HP, and tons of available mobs to pull, these would be prime EXP camps.

[Macht]

Re: The BLM Problem

You mean like that exploitable bug in one of the Promy missions where you have one member of the party who never leaves the introductory cutscene (prelude to the BC fight) and have someone train/aggro the mammets to that person (That person drops from PT) If done right, all the mammets would be beating on that one person still in cutscene, but that person is rendered invincible. Drop one mammet at a time and it's an easy fight.
Oh yeah, SE really knows what they are doing.
What plans? To take over the world? What kind of grandiose scheme are they trying to prepare while letting the game fall into the gutter? I'm not as unrealistically optimistic as you. I've seen so many things in the past 3 years that make me suggest that everyone from GM to Project Manager do not know their own game that they are designing the way we players do.

Picking a single occurence out of everything else they created is an extreemly unfair comparison. Personally would find that hard to believe since every single cutscene I've ever been in has never placed me in an invincible state. If that does happen I would take that to be an oversight on SE's part and likely they will fix when they are aware of it's existance. I should also add try to do a rebuttle of my statement using what's clearly an unintended effect is moot.

My statement was directed to the wide range and overall view of what SE intended of the expansion. While you tried to shoot it down with a single occurence that clearly doesn't even follow the overall view, and is clearly a bug to boot. Which even states more that this wasn't intended by SE, and extreemly likely they'd correct that when the developers become aware of it.

I should also state if you've read past posts of mine I've made many comments on how I saw this game shaping and every single time it seems SE has proven that the case. They've done it quite a few times just with DRG as one of the many to prove my point. I think SE knows very well that they are trying to make their game shape up into, and every graphic display they hint out and others things have shown this to be true. The common problem I see from the players is the masses trying to shape it be just like WoW, or to be just like EQ, or to be just like Lineage, and if it doesn't conform then it's a "bad design".

[Mog]

Re: The BLM Problem

I should also state if you've read past posts of mine I've made many comments on how I saw this game shaping and every single time it seems SE has proven that the case. They've done it quite a few times just with DRG as one of the many to prove my point.

Well, I would think SE would fix it by now. CoP has been out for how long? 1, 2 years? Doesn't seem that they're addressing any major mission bugs/exploits when they ever do updates.

Edit: I just realized this is still the blm thread.....boy did this thread get offtopic. o.O

[Aeni]

Re: The BLM Problem

Picking a single occurence out of everything else they created is an extreemly unfair comparison. Personally would find that hard to believe since every single cutscene I've ever been in has never placed me in an invincible state.

Ahh, we're playing the same game, right?

In almost EVERY occurence I've been rendered invincible. Windy mission 1-3 I think, where I have to track down everyone's favorite Mithra (necklace lady) and was in a cutscene when a skelly aggro'd me (I was low level at the time) Didn't even know until I got out of the cutscene and some other player told me what happened (He started beating on you and I voked it off you - are you okay?) I didn't even get a single scratch. That thing conned Decent Challenge AT LEAST.

I can go on and on. One instance in CoP? You conveniently forgot about AV. OMG that was the biggest exploit I think to date. I can go on about more, a lot of them UNDOCUMENTED because certain HNM LS didn't want their easy pickings to go out the door. You know they exist. They know it exists. Does SE know? Probably don't want to admit what shoddy programmers they are.

Anyway, I've yet to see anything that SE did to prove what you're stating here. Like I said, they've done some nice things in the past, but they've also made numerous blunders before. Look at rangers. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FIGURE OUT IT WAS A REALLY BAD NERF? OMG ... you can figure this out on a testing server before going live. "Trying it out and before tweaking" on a LIVE server is a good business model? And you're a programmer?!?!?!

[Macht]

Re: The BLM Problem

Ahh, we're playing the same game, right?
In almost EVERY occurence I've been rendered invincible. Windy mission 1-3 I think, where I have to track down everyone's favorite Mithra (necklace lady) and was in a cutscene when a skelly aggro'd me (I was low level at the time) Didn't even know until I got out of the cutscene and some other player told me what happened (He started beating on you and I voked it off you - are you okay?) I didn't even get a single scratch. That thing conned Decent Challenge AT LEAST.
I can go on and on. One instance in CoP? You conveniently forgot about AV. OMG that was the biggest exploit I think to date. I can go on about more, a lot of them UNDOCUMENTED because certain HNM LS didn't want their easy pickings to go out the door. You know they exist. They know it exists. Does SE know? Probably don't want to admit what shoddy programmers they are.
Anyway, I've yet to see anything that SE did to prove what you're stating here. Like I said, they've done some nice things in the past, but they've also made numerous blunders before. Look at rangers. HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FIGURE OUT IT WAS A REALLY BAD NERF? OMG ... you can figure this out on a testing server before going live. "Trying it out and before tweaking" on a LIVE server is a good business model? And you're a programmer?!?!?!

Every Cutscene I've been in what has always happened is it pulls me out of the cutscene when I die. That has happened every single time without fail, which is why I have a hard time believing that. Obviously if this does happen then some extra condition is being done, until I see it first hand I can't really say much else about it.

Yes you can test any before putting it live, doesn't mean that you'll be able to accurately assess the impact. While many RNG/NINs complained about that change I personally was constantly commented that it seemed like the nerf did nothing to me. If you want proof of testing can not always fix the problems then an easy way to see this is with a card game "Magic: The Gathering" a simple card game that they spend 3 years on in R&D and still with every release there are those 2-3 cards that are broken.

Testing doesn't always give you the answer, it can help to solve the more obvious problems but when it gets more complex it's very unlikely to do much. Also to boot all developers have their own methods to trying and control situations. WoW and Anarchy Online when they had an area that wasn't ready for players what do they do, they let the players think they can get to the zone if they get past the specific mob.

The catch though is that the specific mob until the area development is finish is indestructable. They intentionally let players try and kill an unkillable mob just so they think they are progressing. The mob only becomes killable once the zone is actually ready. I'm sure lot of people would grimpe and moan about those mobs stating that the developers didn't know what the hell they were doing.

Seriously before writting out something to be bad you got to try and get in the developers heads and know why they did that. Unless you guys can IM a developer to the MMOs like say Prat from EQ, or Snider from Anarchy, it's very unlikely you'll understand the deceptions often put in front of the players.

Well, I would think SE would fix it by now. CoP has been out for how long? 1, 2 years? Doesn't seem that they're addressing any major mission bugs/exploits when they ever do updates.
Edit: I just realized this is still the blm thread.....boy did this thread get offtopic. o.O

Only thing I can guess at the moment as why they wouldn't of fixed it by now if this is true, is likely they are probably seeing the same as me and haven't figured out that extra condition yet. If no ones told them then it can easily take a while, then it can also just be something of the engine that makes it impossible to fix. If the latter is true then the likely action is to start putting together more patrolling forces to look for these illegal actions and penalize that players for using them. This was a method VikingMUD did for 2 years while trying to work on a patch to cover a specific bug.

As I just stated above unless you can IM the development team, then you likely don't know the full story of what's going on.

[Gentoo]

Re: The BLM Problem

Seriously before writting out something to be bad you got to try and get in the developers heads and know why they did that. Unless you guys can IM a developer to the MMOs like say Prat from EQ, or Snider from Anarchy, it's very unlikely you'll understand the deceptions often put in front of the players.

I agree with what you're saying about the challenges of software development, Macht. Eric S. Raymond once postulated that software can be fixed quickly if there's lots of developers available to look at the problem. The "many eyeballs'' theory.
The reverse holds true -- when you have software released to the general public there's lots more eyes looking to exploit corner cases than there are testers to figure out those corner cases.

I also found your comparison of other MMO games releasing unfinished material insightful. This particularly thread really hinges around the ToAU areas which seem to have gone against the previous design of FFXI. Now that you've made the comparison with AO and EQ, it seems [to me] that the entire ToAU expansion was released unfinished. However, instead of hiding the unfinished content from users, like in your examples, it was simply released to consumers to do with as they wish.

None of the jobs were complete. The fauna in the new zones seems unbalanced. The mechanisms of Sanction and AC serve to penalize camp diversity. Overall, the ToAU expansion seems to have encouraged the very homogenization SE spent a great deal of time trying to discourage.

Like Aeni I don't have the confidence that SE has anything really special in store. The incomplete feel to this expansion feels exactly like SE suffered from lack of direction, not that it's the portal to something cooler that has yet to be revealed to us. Unfortunately, because of the design (intentional or not) of this expansion, it's damn near impossible for people to play the game while avoiding the problem areas.

[Macht]

Re: The BLM Problem

I agree with what you're saying about the challenges of software development, Macht. Eric S. Raymond once postulated that software can be fixed quickly if there's lots of developers available to look at the problem. The "many eyeballs'' theory.
The reverse holds true -- when you have software released to the general public there's lots more eyes looking to exploit corner cases than there are testers to figure out those corner cases.
I also found your comparison of other MMO games releasing unfinished material insightful. This particularly thread really hinges around the ToAU areas which seem to have gone against the previous design of FFXI. Now that you've made the comparison with AO and EQ, it seems [to me] that the entire ToAU expansion was released unfinished. However, instead of hiding the unfinished content from users, like in your examples, it was simply released to consumers to do with as they wish.
None of the jobs were complete. The fauna in the new zones seems unbalanced. The mechanisms of Sanction and AC serve to penalize camp diversity. Overall, the ToAU expansion seems to have encouraged the very homogenization SE spent a great deal of time trying to discourage.
Like Aeni I don't have the confidence that SE has anything really special in store. The incomplete feel to this expansion feels exactly like SE suffered from lack of direction, not that it's the portal to something cooler that has yet to be revealed to us. Unfortunately, because of the design (intentional or not) of this expansion, it's damn near impossible for people to play the game while avoiding the problem areas.

Yes, this is were I've noticed that SE differes. Instead of fooling the players to fight unwinable fight that some have actually spent 3 months fighting (Compliments of Snider to tell me), they instead give you an as is world and continue to develope it till it reaches the overall design wanted.

The obvious over abundant focus on Besiege is an indicator to me of them planning something. Just the story around the astral cancadescence and not to mention the device itself hints at much more to come. The fault I see in the design that SE had been working to try and fix is the intrest on Besiege. From this I do feel that the Besiege is probably going to grant many more benefits to the players outside of the Besiege as it progresses.

[Icemage]

Re: The BLM Problem

We've wandered pretty far afield from the original topic, but since the current trend of discussion still touches on it, here's more things to chew on:

The development of FFXI's game mechanics is pretty interesting if you're a student of game theory like I am. Unlike some posters in this thread, I am unconvinced that Square-Enix has a cohesive goal for the game; many changes are seemingly being made out of educated inspiration.

ToAU definitely was released unfinished, but so was Chains of Promathia... as was Rise of the Zilart.

People have forgotten that Tu'Lia wasn't unlocked when Zilart was released - it was around 6 months before players had access to the zone, and even then there was nothing there to do aside from sightsee or die to magic aggro until a few months after the zone was released and the sky gods were added.

Chains of Promathia was much the same. The zones in CoP are almost all overly conservative with respect to difficulty. Uleguerand Range is a really unpleasant place to go XP in even after S-E adjusted the spawn points. Movalpolos is almost completely useless for XP due to high linkage rates. Really the only solid XP zone to come out of the entire expansion was Bibiki Bay - and even THAT wasn't true until after S-E rearranged the spawns.

ToAU seems to me like an overreaction to the cool reception that Chains of Promathia received. It's a much more accessible expansion, but it breaks many fundamental game mechanics. The missions are easy, the XP zones are plentiful, Sanction is retardedly overpowered compared to Signet.

In most cases, my read of Square-Enix's approach has been that they take incremental steps whenever possible, but they slip up sometimes. Notice the fiasco of abjuration gear, for instance. When S-E takes the time to redesign things, they usually do a good job (exception: RNG nerf, which was again an overreaction on their part - but they've since made amends for that). The SMN changes (and the ongoing changes to DRG for the past couple years) are more evidence of Square-Enix trying to get the balance right incrementally.

When it comes to brand new material, their track record isn't as good. Puppetmasters are still suffering from a lack of identity, even after the latest changes (they're stronger, but still have no defined roles they excel at). Besieged is still a mess. Sanction's insidious effect on the behavior of XP parties is still way overpowered.

I'm not saying that Square-Enix isn't trying hard to bring the game back into balance, and to be fair as a whole they do a better job of it than most other MMORPG developers. But that's not the same thing as saying they're doing a flawless job at it.

The BLM imbalance is one of the symptoms of their failure to "get it right".


Icemage

[Karinya]

Re: The BLM Problem

I don't think there's a BLM problem, really. There's a DD/NIN problem, and at that, only under certain conditions. A traditional party can make just as much exp as ever in places like Moongate or Uleguerand - it's just that nobody wants to do that when they can make double (or more) the exp in a TP burn killing monsters that don't fight back for Chain #999. Once you subtract all the jobs that can get TP burn invites, you're left with only PLD, WHM, BLM and sometimes SMN (and maybe PUP, I haven't seen enough of them to tell), and the only party you can make out of that is a manaburn, leaving the PLD and WHM completely hosed. They need DDs even when DDs don't need them, because you can't defend a monster to death.

Break the TP burn exp levels down to a similar exp rate as a "normal" party setup and you'll probably see more normal parties being formed when all the jobs for them are available, with tp burns only when there is a real excess of DDs. (Both party types still have to compete for BRDs, RDMs and CORs, but with equal exp rates, the competition will be more even.)

I don't want TP burns to not exist at all - I just want them to make about the same exp as other party setups, so there isn't a clear "best" setup. More equally-good options for party setup will mean better invite prospects for more jobs *and* more camp diversity/less crowding (since camp suitability will vary depending on the party setup). This is, of course, a tricky balancing act, but these guys are professionals, it's hard to believe they can't do better than they've done so far.

Of course camp diversity also hinges on correcting the imbalance between Signet and Sanction, but I would be fine with fixing that in either direction (remove the bonuses from Sanction or add them to Signet). There's really nothing wrong with everyone making 15% more exp then they did 6 months ago - the problem is with TP burns making 150% more exp than normal setups.

I don't think 15k/hr was intended - more a matter of some changes made to appease the CoP whiners getting out of hand. Whether or not the developers will be able to rein it in, though, I'm not so sure about. (Or even willing to rein it in - how many people would start whining all over again if TP burn's exp rate was cut to the exp rate of an equally skilled and equipped normal party?)


My suggestions for actions that would help without nerfing/buffing any jobs:
1. Direct stat adjustments to some of the weakest-for-their-level monster families.
2. Adjust the chain timer so that the chain continuation interval continues to decrease past Chain #5, even if the chain multiplier doesn't increase any further. #6 half the timer of #5, #7 one-third, #8 one-fourth etc. would be one possibility. Rewarding people for saving up some MP/TP to quickly kill #4 and #5 is fine, but infinite chains just provide too big an exp advantage to party setups/tactics/choice-of-enemies that are capable of them. Killing fast is already its own reward.
3. Introduce a new exp table for level 71+ characters so that monsters in the +1-8 range (i.e., 1 to 8 levels above the highest level player in the party) are worth less exp than presently and monsters at +10 or higher are worth more. According to Vana'diel Monsters the exp tables change every 5 levels from 45 to 60 but then from 61+ they don't change anymore - it seems they should.
4. Possibly some adjustments to monster spawn locations and rates. This could go either way - making more monsters easier to reach in pre-TAU areas, reducing the supply in TAU zones or a combination of both. Partly this is to restore a variety of viable exp camps in addition to a variety of viable exp party setups, but of course the available monsters affect which jobs you want to recruit to fight them.
5. Skillchain effect damage should be resisted less often, particularly when it matches at least one weak element on the target. The reward for doing skillchains is currently not often large enough to outweigh the damage of just spamming your most damaging WS. This should probably be a system change, rather than through gear, so that gear tradeoffs don't undermine the effect.


If that's not enough then we can talk about nerfing subbed utsusemi, multihit weaponskills (they're still way better than 1-2 hit WS in almost all situations) or whatever else.


P.S. You're forgetting Lufaise for CoP - although rams' HP down move is extremely dangerous, some manaburns fought them anyway, and I had several traditional parties killing the big birds.

[Lmnop]

Re: The BLM Problem

OMG overwhelmed. I'm going to post this first and then go re-read Macht's and Karinya's posts -- so if I say something redundant, I apologize.

First things first: S-E broke this game by adding an item called "Ridill." Seriously, all the old-school items with additional effects (Light Staff for instance) had a 5-10% activation rate while a weapon that adds entire extra attacks activates more often than not. What the hell were they thinking?

Oooook, moving on. Now to Aeni: what the hell? In Counterstrike people launched themselves thousands of feet in a single bound. Exploitable glitches say nothing about S-E's ability to balance gameplay.

S-E tries, but I do think ToAU is less thought-out than previous implementations. No Expansion was "complete" but I don't think that was Gentoo meant. Sure, there was more storyline and loot to be had and zones to be experienced, but there was never a core mechanic so ground-breaking as Sanction. It was a lot for them to slap in, and I don't feel that they smoothed the edges properly, and I don't think Puppetmaster should've been released until... this December. But damnit, what's that have to do with BLMs?

S-E isn't Blizzard ('nuff said). And it's not like EQ where you take 2 months off and come back to find your job role changed (I never played the game, just hearsay from a friend). Things come slow, but at least they're well-thought out. I do believe that BLM will follow a similar pattern. Right now I feel:
-Blms need more "meshing" abilities (meshing with other jobs)
-Brds have too much utility
-Whms are so nice to have that no one complains about the fact that they are utterly 2nd rate
-Pld should be using sword/shield more often than sword/sword
-People need to stop being idiots.

It's not S-E's fault that people don't understand the intentions of the SAM update and it's not S-E's fault that after almost five years, people are just now getting the idea "hey, maybe we should try meleeing HNMs."

--------------------
Edit for Karinya: I like your ideas and I like your take, but they still leave BLMs manaburning anything that's not exp. It's pretty obvious that the reason they can't move Blm is because it'll affect them too much. Nerf their HNM action and you probably nerf their exp (more). Boost their exp and they're still kings of BCNM/HNM so we end up with Elitist BLMs who can do anything they want running the show (again).

What's that mob that takes like 2.5x damage from Skillchains? Is it Qutrub - who happen to also take double damage from melee? Or is it another mob family? At any rate, if I had to guess -- the mobs conducive to normal party layouts are also hell (like Lamias strip-ga thing). Why can't they add something that attacks fast and accurately, but relatively lightly, resists (elemental) magic frequently but is vulnerable to SCs (and thus, MBs wouldn't get resisted due to heightened magic acc during MB)? Would it be so broken? Can't be worse than Puks.

And yeah, Skillchains shouldn't be 100% unresistable but they should be unresisted more often than not. The other night I got a party that did wtfSkillchains, doing Mistral Axe >> Dragon Kick for Light. I'd say about 85% of the SCs did half DK's damage, the other 14.9% did 1/4th. One(1) was completely unresisted for 100% damage. Ironically enough, he missed a hit on the DK so it was still as much damage as normal.