Suggested tweak to pld and whm

[Legal Fish]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Cures? Okay.

You see, I'm not one to be against nerfs. I know some people hate any kind of nerf, but anyway: Cures can be 'resisted'. Healing Skill now plays on how accurate your cures are. A WHM with A+ will probably get a resist once a month of partying everyday. A RDM with B- will probably get a resist once to three times every hour of partying. A PLD with A- will probably get a resist once a day of partying. Someone with /RDM or /WHM will likely be used to curing half the cap of HP for the level a lot of the time. MND still plays the role of cap-breaking.

WHMs and PLDs getting additional +Cure traits with or without the change above would be fine. Especially if one of the WHM's traits is below level 37, so that RDMs(or even BLMs, SMNs, and BRDs) have a better excuse to sub it.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Cures? Okay.

You see, I'm not one to be against nerfs. I know some people hate any kind of nerf, but anyway: Cures can be 'resisted'.

And, what would happen to SMN healers? >_>

I think SMN's have suffered enough without taking away their best ticket to the party during large number of levels.

(Not that I'm saying SMN's should be confined to main healing--I am perfectly happy to main heal in party on RDM if a SMN would take care of Haste for me and use other good buffs. Still, the dilemma is partially their fault--about half of the SMN's I partied with didn't know how to SC with bloodpacts when I asked for it--had to look the chart up for them and tell them how to time it.)

I'd rather nerf Utsusemi: Ichi from /NIN. Two attack absorb instead of three leaves it useful for pulling while giving PLD's and WHM's more chances to cure.

More intelligence for monsters which should be intelligent would be nice, too. If they see bunch of Utsusemi shadow absorbs, why not bust out AoE attacks? Banishga instead of Banish from beastmen WHM's, at the very least.

Beefing up AI here and there, and loosening the rules for when monsters can use TP attacks can really help balance things without players crying foul over nerf, too.

[Emurei]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Or they can scale up the EXP gain in certian areas that require the tradtional set up. Or zones that mobs that remain alive for a while will yield bonus exp and slowly lowers the exp amount as you kill more of them to the base amount. This not only helps out non TP burns but also BSTs and soloers as well

ToAU area would yield the flat rate all the time cause mobs are constantly getting killed.

[Icemage]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

One thing maybe would be to change the XP formulas for parties. Leave the 6 man party numbers pretty much where they are, and make the XP formula for smaller numbers of party members more generous.

Right now the XP tables give, relative to solo XP per player, assuming all players are at the same level:

Solo: 100%
2 people: 60%
3 people: 45%
4 people: 40%
5 people: 37%
6 people: 35%

For those who don't know what this means:
A solo player who defeats an Even Match enemy earns 100 XP. If a 6 person party defeats an enemy that is Even Match to the entire party, they'd earn 35 XP.

I wonder if players would change their habits if the XP table looked more like this:

Solo: 150% (Current Solo XP x 1.5 total for party )
2 people: 125% (Current Solo XP x 2.5 total for party)
3 people: 80% (Current Solo XP x 2.4 total for party)
4 people: 57.5% (Current Solo XP x 2.3 total for party)
5 people: 44% (Current Solo XP x 2.2 total for party)
6 people: 35% (Current Solo XP x 2.1 total for party)

I think one flaw in the original game design (well-intentioned or not) was that S-E wanted to encourage people to form 6 member parties for XP, since that earns the most XP as a whole for the party per kill. It did, but did so in such a way that people simply refuse to entertain anything but 6 member parties unless they're very open-minded, or have no choice (BST).

Seeing how BST is really the only efficient solo job in the game, and the change to Leave really hurt them, why not turn the tables a bit and give people some options for XP? After all, you'd expect 6 members to be able to kill things faster than 3 members anyway... so they're still earning more XP over time even if they're earning less total per kill.

This would also have the nice effect of weakening Bards and Corsairs a bit (not a lot, since they're still making people stronger by their presence, but it's also true that both jobs, being AoE buffers, are somewhat less effective with fewer party members).


Icemage

[Lmnop]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

both of the above posts have good suggestions. But I don't think base exp for soloed mobs should be increased by 50%. Namely because BLM can already solo 10k in an hour. And Blus and Nins aren't far behind. In fact, I believe (but I'm not sure) that Bst is behind the aforementioned jobs in solo-ability (well, probably not NIN, but blm and blu).

It would be interesting if mobs basically spawned at level 80, and then their level increased for every minute they're alive until level 85. With AU pop rates, it could have interesting effects... or it could do nothing at all.

Are there still no end-game Marid spots? I missed the ideal levels to exp off of the only Marids I know of.

[Emurei]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Furthering my idea…..

When I said EXP earned for less camped locations. Base the EXP on family type of mobs there for the whole zone instead of all the mobs lump together. Let’s go into detail, take the Dunes for example.

Theoretically speaking there are 10 Spawn points for each of the following mobs:

Goblin
Bat
Lizard
Ghost
Skeleton
Pugs
Crabs
Flies

If they were constantly killed as they spawned the rate would be 10 spawns an hour. 100 possible spawns within the zone total in an hour timeframe. Lets give them a percentage threshold (70%) which the EXP will start to dry up depending on how much the dip below 70%.

Party (A) kills only gobs and killed 25 of a possible 100 in the zone with in an hour. That’s 25% since the remaining possible mobs are 75% the bonus EXP rate remains the same for the next hour on Goblins.

Party (B) moves in to a different part of the zone but kills only gobs as well, and they manage to kill 30 of a possible 100, while Party (A) kill rate is the same. Total is 55% of 100 gobs are killed. During tally the zone would calculate that 45% remains and that’s 25% lower than the 70% threshold. Next hour bonus exp is reduced by 25% since that’s how much it dipped into the threshold bringing 100% to only 75% of the bonus. If the bonus is 100 EXP for an IT the next hour after tally it would be bonus 75 EXP.

Party (C) & (D) move in and start killing gobs as well and compete with (A) & (B) after another hour or two EXP would be at a flat rate as it is now. Than (A) all dings 20 and leaves the dunes (B) & (D) disbands and (C) said “Fuk this the exp suxorz, lets kill pugs!” Since pugs hasn’t been killed their EXP bonus remains at 100%. No one is killing gobs but the bonus is at 0%, that hour gobs were at 100 of 100 possible (100%) so that’s a gain of 30% over the threshold. In turn it will calculate that 30% to the bonus EXP back.

Apply this too all EXP zones and those zones with little or no EXP parties there would benefit the most from the bonus EXP while the TP-Burn zones don’t since the mobs are constantly dying there. Though this doesn’t completely fix the problem, its not nerfing anything either, keeps TP-Burn intact but promote some different choices in EXP locations. Heck this wouldn’t even be that hard to implement, look at how they tally conquest every hour, it can be done as part of the tally.

[Nazo]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Something I was thinking of, which someone touched on earlier but didn't really expand on, is a skillchain / mb bonus. The bonus would be awarded based on the best single SC done per fight and with the level of the skillchain and tier of the spell so that a lvl 1 skillchain with Tier 1 MB gets a small bonus, while a lvl 3 SC with AM burst would net a substational bonus.

Set the numbers right and a traditional party could potentially make the same XP per hour as a TP burn party while still maintaining a slower kill rate. No need to nerf anything and ruin people's fun, nor any need to buff up the jobs left out of TP burn parties and potentially unbalance the game even further. Not only that but it gives lower level parties an incentive to start learning how to SC too. Everyone wins!

[Lmnop]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

thing I don't like about that is that it honestly just trades efficiency for exp. Even if AM isn't ideal, it'll get the biggest exp boost. Likewise, no one would ever make Scission on Torama -- despite that being the only time in the game that you're asking for Scission -- just because distortion would give a small boost to the exp.

Honestly, just decreasing the resist rate of Skillchains would go a very long way.

I actually like the idea of what Legal Fish suggested. And then, to build off of that and Vyuru's original suggestion: Instead of traits that increase Cure potency, traits to further lower cure resist rates. WHM would get one @30 and another @70, while PLD would get a single trait @50, for instance.

I wanna see RDMs given a slew of unique enfeebles. Something that would make it so Whm + Rdm would function similarly to whm + brd, because instead of boosting all your melee, the rdm is debuffing every mob equivalently. That sort of thing could help move Rdm out of main healer position in end game (or lighten the blow of getting their main healing ability nerfed).

[Karinya]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

The main thing we need is new tables of monster relative level vs. base exp value for 66-, 71-, and 75. The 75 one in particular should take into account that most 75s have merits and therefore perform as 76, 77 or even 78 - and both of the over-70 ones need to take into account the ultra-powerful gear available to those levels too.

I'd also like to see two adjustments to the chain system: one increasing the base chain timer at level 70 (the same way it does at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60) and another making chain timers continue to decrease after chain #5 while the chain exp bonus does not increase further (thus while a party may achieve chain #6, 7 or 8, infinite chains would be eliminated). The #5 timer at level 70 would be 80 seconds by extending the existing table, I'd suggest 40 for #6, 27 for #7, 20 for #8, 16 for #9 etc. (i.e. 1/2, 1/3, 1/4... of the #5 timer). 27 seconds would be doable if you could save some TP while still killing #6 in time (and had the monster standing by in camp), but then it's very unlikely that you would *still* have the TP to kill #8 in 20 seconds. On tougher monsters even #6 would be a challenge.

The current 61- table is just not adequate for assessing the threat that a level 83 mob poses to a level 75 party (i.e. less than zero; but since a level 69 mob can potentially put quite a dent in a level 61 party, a +8 is still rated as "IT" and gives exp accordingly).


Of course, you can't force the players to go to higher level mobs to get good exp without also *giving* them some higher level mobs; the abundance of low-80s mobs in TAU areas is great for the current system, but with a fixed system merit parties would need mid-high 80s mobs to make decent exp. (This would imply that they actually need some defense, a real healer, etc. because they would be fighting mobs that could actually hurt them.)

Uleguerand demons come to mind - you can fight them with a NIN, but it has to be a NIN that knows what they're doing and pays some attention to hate control and damage mitigation, not one of the current hauby berserk monkeys. But currently they give a lot *less* exp per hour than massacring defenseless (and worse for game balance, attackless) flies - what if instead they gave *more*? Who doesn't think that pre-TAU meriting was better than what we have today in every way except exp/hr and *maybe* the number of available camps?

Once the base system is fixed, specific imbalances (Are imps too weak even for their level? Does Sanction give too many bonuses that Signet doesn't? Do longer respawn timers hurt the exp viability of non-TAU camps in general, or only when fighting weak mobs? Is Utsusemi still too strong when subbed?) can begin to be addressed.


Changes to pld and whm are probably not really necessary; they're quite useful in the right party setup fighting the right monsters. The real problem is that that party setup makes *much* less exp/hr than abusing weak, fast-respawning mobs worth way more exp than their power justifies. Reform the exp system and player behavior will follow it - including a revival of party styles that are well suited to fighting monsters that are actually dangerous.

Fighting weak monsters is cowardly and boring; it shouldn't be so highly rewarded. It's that disproportionate reward that creates bias against defensive jobs, which are specialized in fighting dangerous monsters.


P.S. At the highest levels it may be necessary to have a same-level monster no longer check "Even Match" - because it isn't. Even match implies that a player who goes into the fight at full strength (i.e. not already wounded or low MP) should have somewhere around 50/50 chance of winning or losing, which is actually about right for most job/monster combinations in the mid levels (and why you don't want to try to solo EMs without NPC unless you're a BST). A level 75 player is often significantly stronger than a level 75 monster, and in some cases so much stronger the monster has no real chance of even dealing major damage. Barring a global modification of monster stats as a function of level, the simplest fix to this would be for a level 75 player to have level 75 monsters check DC, or maybe even EP, and they have to go up to 77 or 78 to get a monster to check EM.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Any action/stat/trait in the game that isn't effected by armor is broken in my eyes. Healing Skill needs a purpose, just like Summoning Skill does/did.

[seq]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

good idea Vyuru, but i guess more shield+ items would be better (there is Tons of Evasion+ items that NIN can use and very few shield+ items for PLD) that'de boost shield blocks, thus making PLD a more tanking job.
Icemage suggested that PLDs can DD/Support heal now, but i really didn't level PLD to 69 to support heal, PLDs are to tank and DD not to support heal -.-;
yes they can, yes i can, but it isn't what i leveled PLD for. ever asked a BLM to support heal? a WAR to tank? a NIN to nuke? a RNG to melee? why would you ask a PLD to do something his job isn't designed for.
all PLD needs imo is to fix the damned Defense, i get to defense cap without using Defender -_-
as much i see NIN with evasion+40 equip, i'de like to see PLD with Shield+40 equip.

[Armando]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Any action/stat/trait in the game that isn't effected by armor is broken in my eyes. Healing Skill needs a purpose, just like Summoning Skill does/did.

Undead nuking! XD

ever asked a BLM to support heal? a WAR to tank? a NIN to nuke? a RNG to melee? why would you ask a PLD to do something his job isn't designed for.

1) Why not? 2) Why the heck not? 3) They can, with the proper setup at the right levels 4) No, but ranged attacks do the same thing as meleeing so it's mostly a moot point... Anyways, there's no part about the PLD job that implies it wasn't made for support DD'ing. We get the spells, the MP pool, the gear and the weapons (have you compared axes to bastard swords post-50? The great majority of bastard swords are actually much better than the competing axes...)

all PLD needs imo is to fix the damned Defense, i get to defense cap without using Defender -_-

If you know your defense is capped then pump up your Accuracy and Attack instead.

as much i see NIN with evasion+40 equip, i'de like to see PLD with Shield+40 equip.

Evasion =/= Evasion Skill. Evasion is to Defense as Evasion Skill is to Shield Skill, in theory. But, in any case...Gallant Leggings + Boxer's Mantle + Koenig Schaller + Shield Torque + Buckler Earring = 10 + 10 + 5 + 7 + 3 = +35 Shield Skill. Throw in HQ Gallant Leggings and it's 37.

Anyways, yeah, PLDs shouldn't be FORCED to play the support DD role in order to gain merit points, but I don't see why a PLD can't fill the role when needed. You make it sound like it's so terrible.

Back on topic, I agree. What we need is some changes to the EXP tables and some serious strengthening of Skillchains and MBs. There's nothing wrong with burn parties, really, but a traditional party that bothers to coordinate skillchains and magic bursts of the proper elements should do even better.

[seq]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

If you know your defense is capped then pump up your Accuracy and Attack instead.

sorry i said:

Icemage suggested that PLDs can DD/Support heal now, but i really didn't level PLD to 69 to support heal,

didn't mention not DDing at all, but support healing means i'm not tanking, right?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Why not ask a BLM to main heal?

Because it is, quite frankly, insulting to the BLM and they're not built for the task at all. Cure III is the best it gets for them, they have no access to the higher tier Regens (which most WHMs don't seem to know how to use anyway).

JP PTs in particular have a real nasty habit of settling for a BLM as main healier and I just don't get it. I just flat out leave a PT that takes a BLM to main heal because that's the sort of PT mechanic best left behind in Valkurm... and it wasn't a good PT mechanic there, either.

Sure, a BLM may be able to main heal in some situations, but most I encounted in the main healer role still want to NUKE and try to do so, resulting in deaths. They can't do both as fluidly as a RDM could.

Why ask WAR to tank?

Um... because they were built to from Day One? Because they get the defense gear to do so? In my honest opinion, if you don't have a DEF build and a melee build as a WAR, if you only use handaxes, you're just another WAR on the bandwagon. If you have strong backline support, there's absolutely no good reason for a WAR not to tank, period.

PLD as melee?

I guess its fine to do, but I think people become PLDs because they enjoy that style of tanking. People dont like their role being taken away from them by other jobs and that's something that always must be considered.

I hate EXPing with the "Zomgpullpullpull" BRD because my RNG and COR and do it too, hell, I think COR is better suited for it. THF, too.

And before you go back and say anything about WAR tanking going against the purpose of the job - there's a difference between design and player trends. Before RoZ, WAR was invited to tank and is still given gear to do so - its just a difference between what SE intends for the job and how the community wants to play it.

[Icemage]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Fact: 3-4 melees sharing hate with /NIN or Third Eye from /SAM is more efficient than PLD main tanking. It gives less hate control, but not by much, and actually saves healers a ton of MP, which is hate control of another kind. Not only is it more efficient in the short term since you are expecting your DDs to lose some enmity sooner or later from being attacked, but healing magics are also more efficient; you now have 3-4 targets to put Regens on, and the likelihood that area effect cures like Curaga, Spring Water and Healing Breeze will be more efficient than the respective Cure spells goes way up.

No solution to PLD in XP will succeed unless it addresses this problem. This is primarily why I suggested that players be encouraged to form parties without a full 6 members as an alternative; PLD tanking is a LOT more attractive if your party is PLD RDM DRK DRG for instance.


Icemage