Suggested tweak to pld and whm

[Karinya]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

All that "adjusting" Utsusemi and xp gained from T-VT mobs is gonna acomplish is making people quit the game.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add: if they're only in the game to make 15k/hr on mobs that don't fight back and be invulnerable while ignoring their defense, why do we want them to not quit? Let them go find something even easier to play, like tic-tac-toe. Almost all the players that would quit if balance was restored to pre-TAU levels would be no loss to the FFXI community. And the servers are grossly overcrowded anyway.

Want to make things better? Then IT mobs should give a lot more XP to make them worth killing (IT mobs require SC tactics which would also have a positive impact on regular setup kinda jobs).

"A lot more XP" is a relative term. It can be achieved in two ways and frankly I don't think making merits easy to get is necessarily an improvement. I wouldn't mind if high level exp rates stabilized at, say, 10k/hr, but the important thing is to get exp rate parity between different types of PT setups, no matter what absolute level of exp it is at.

SE has to boost regular party setups so they can catch up, not destroy the way of xping that allowed many DD that used to spend days looking for party to get some of the XP mages have enjoyed for so long.

Gee, mages have been making 15-20k/hr? I must have missed that. Pre-TAU manaburns were lucky to make half that - and that's if nobody died, did you know manaburns are very risky compared to normal PT setups *or* TP burn?

And btw, DD still spend days looking for party, if they're not level 73 yet. The uselessness of defensive jobs at high levels has apparently led to *even fewer* people trying to level them up - hard to blame them, what's going to be there when they get there - and as a result it's even harder to form an exp, as opposed to merit, pt than it ever was before. (Although the increased relative attractiveness of meriting may play a part too.) So TAU has not only introduced new problems, but failed to solve the old ones.

[Vyuru]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

One solution?

Nerf the Utsusemi recipe itself, make it so expensive to make that it prohibits the benefits of /nin. Instead of 33NQ and HQs of 66 and 99, make it so that the NQ synth is 12, HQ1 is 24, HQ3 is 33 or 36, whichever you prefer, while keeping the ingredients per synth constant.

I don't really like this, since I am more or less against any nerfing of jobs, but yeah, it kinda sucks that everything is /nin now. I think it is more than fair to let people play the way they want to, but this is approaching the scale of the whole ranger domination, and that is unacceptable to me.

And you have to admit, it might be different between parties, but being on the conservative side, I'd say 70% of the time, TP burn parties were primarily warriors, sometimes bsts, fewer times drk/nin with 2x axes, but most of the time it's always 3x warriors in the party. More often than not, TP burns are made up of people who can use Rampage. Maybe Rampage could use a little tweaking, since that is ALL they ever use, maybe reduces the effectiveness of Dual Wield and Utsusemi while subbed, but the /nin is just... Way too much now.

[Icemage]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Nerfing the cost of making of Utsusemi does nothing except put more money in the pockets of gilsellers. I'm a level 96 Woodworker, and as things stand, it makes no sense for me to spend time making shihei. It simply is not profitable enough for the time spent (bearing in mind that I can make all the ingredients myself, from fishing for materials to make black ink, making the black ink, making my own bast parchment, and of course making the shihei itself). It's not that it isn't mildly profitable... it's just mind-numbingly tedious. Making me do three times the number of synths to achieve the same quantity is not going to make me more likely to want to make them... and in any case will not affect how those tools are used in a party.

No. The correct thing to do is make Utsusemi less reliable when subbed. Make it 2 shadows for Ichi, the same way Ni gives 3 when subbed. That might help. Or keep the shadow count, but make your chance to evade a hit with shadows not guaranteed when using Ninja as a subjob - maybe it behaves like Blink instead. That would help, too.

That would force TP burn parties to slow down because as it is you need a pretty skilled and decked out RDM to support a full-on TP burn party. Increase the MP usage due to more damage being taken, and TP burns will be forced to add more recovery, which reduces their overall attack power and reduces their kill speed.


Icemage

[Raydeus]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Oh yeah, I forgot to add: if they're only in the game to make 15k/hr on mobs that don't fight back and be invulnerable while ignoring their defense, why do we want them to not quit? Let them go find something even easier to play, like tic-tac-toe. Almost all the players that would quit if balance was restored to pre-TAU levels would be no loss to the FFXI community. And the servers are grossly overcrowded anyway.

Uh huh, are you gonna pay for the people who quits the game, say 1000 people quit, will you be ok with SE raising the monthly fee to compensate for them?

Also, those players have the same right as you do to play the game in any way they want, if they want to make merits fast so they can do other stuff with those merits then it's their choice.

You can't force your concept of "what an xp party should be" on others, and you are in no position to decide who should be playing and who shouldn't.

"A lot more XP" is a relative term. It can be achieved in two ways and frankly I don't think making merits easy to get is necessarily an improvement. I wouldn't mind if high level exp rates stabilized at, say, 10k/hr, but the important thing is to get exp rate parity between different types of PT setups, no matter what absolute level of exp it is at.

If you want to spend 50% more time getting the same amount of merits it is your choice, but don't expect many players to follow you. Merits are already a huge time sink, specially if you consider you can get so many jobs to 75.

(Edit > And not only merits, but XPing in general.)

So, unless you are planning on keep playing for the next 10 years (or have enough time to play more than 8 hours a day) then there's nothing wrong with getting 15k xp an hour.

Heck, it should be 20k xp/hr if you ask me.

Gee, mages have been making 15-20k/hr? I must have missed that. Pre-TAU manaburns were lucky to make half that - and that's if nobody died, did you know manaburns are very risky compared to normal PT setups *or* TP burn?

If you consider the amount of time most DDs used to spend looking for party then mages were making much more xp than them in the same amount of time.

If you are jealous of the amount of xp a TP burn can make then I guess you were from the same people who was asking for the RNG nerf and others. Also, risk has always been a matter of player skill more than anything, in all the Manaburns I did as a RDM no one ever died, (well, I think maybe just me that I remember, on a very unfortunate DC).

And btw, DD still spend days looking for party, if they're not level 73 yet. The uselessness of defensive jobs at high levels has apparently led to *even fewer* people trying to level them up - hard to blame them, what's going to be there when they get there - and as a result it's even harder to form an exp, as opposed to merit, pt than it ever was before. (Although the increased relative attractiveness of meriting may play a part too.) So TAU has not only introduced new problems, but failed to solve the old ones.

Melee heavy parties start at lvl 50+ and I haven't seen as many DD looking for a party as it was before Aht Urgan, not even close. So either there are less players going DD or DDs are getting more parties.

And like I said before, PLD and their defense/emnity need some kind of adjustment, Shield, Sentinel and Rampart help a little bit but the problem is with damage taken over time (and MP wasted because of it) so 5 minute recast abilities are too slow to help that.

And unless you wanna settle for 8k or less xp/hr then something has to change about it.

[Celeal]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

In the past S-E introduced sushi when there is an issue for the high-priced acc+ gear during the meat era. Maybe S-E should introduce new types of food for PLD and WHM that is suitable in burn parties?

In my last party, I was trying Black Curry and Sis Kebai for my PLD for the 1st time, instead of Taco. Black Curry works out very well to me. However, I feel that the current food in the game still lacking for PLD.

IMHO, the current food is too "one-sided" for PLD tank:
1. Defensive food --- Lack of attack and accuracy for PLD tank in party.
2. Sushi --- DoT is very nice, but still lack a bit of defend. Without Defender, the damage taken is still random, the mob can either hit "okay" damage, or sometimes can hit very hard. If Defender is used, it kills the DoT.
3. Attack food --- Lacks accuracy. Without Defender, damage taken is not consistent. With Defender, it is like eatting Defensive food.

Black Curry is nice because it has DEF+ % (a bit lower) and ACC +5. However, if there is other food that can give more ACC+ and some DEF+ at the same time, that should be great for PLD. I wish there is a food has the effect like Accuracy +10, Defense +15%, Enmity+3.

[Karinya]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

"Settle for" 8k? You haven't been playing long, have you?

One year ago - just one year - 8k/hr was mindblowingly awesome exp that few parties could even dream of. HALF that much was pretty decent. Now you talk in a disgusted tone of "settling for" 8k/hr as if it was something that only subjobless n00bs would make.

That, right there, is what I'm talking about. Player expectations for exp have become not just inflated, but RIDICULOUSLY inflated. As long as you don't have a tank, because they're just useless dead weight that will drag your exp down to 10k/hr or (gasp!) even lower.

Let's be clear here: tripling parties' exp rates is not, in itself, what I object to. If exp rates were tripled *across the board* that would be fine. It's the fact that such insane exp is only available to certain party setups - that systematically exclude certain jobs - and using an extremely boring, braindead playstyle with no team tactics whatsoever that I object to.

I would love to get 15-20k/hr fighting demons in Uleguerand Range. But no. If you want that exp rate you have to get all WAR/NINs and kill a fly every 10 seconds. Other party setups, fighting monsters that are actually fun and challenging to fight, get left in the dust.

[Lmnop]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

I'm still waiting to hear what's wrong with Qutrub. >.> I gotta admit, I really enjoy exping off of weak stuff from the standpoint that my numbers look good. I HATE missing and I'm NOT gonna give in to the +40 acc + sushi tards. I like how your assorted builds really show what they're capable of in those settings. Having a setting like that, but also having the mob be dangerous enough to warrant Plds or Whms (either, both, whatever). Of course, such a mob would be hell to hold hate against when the melee are doing even more inflated numbers. But then, the fact that SCs do double normal damage vastly increases the amount of hate given from Trick Attacking a SC closer onto a tank. Hello party tactics? The game needs another dimension I think. Trick attack and Skill Chain/MBs is really all we have.

[Raydeus]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

"Settle for" 8k? You haven't been playing long, have you?

One year ago - just one year - 8k/hr was mindblowingly awesome exp that few parties could even dream of. HALF that much was pretty decent. Now you talk in a disgusted tone of "settling for" 8k/hr as if it was something that only subjobless n00bs would make.

You say I haven't been playing for long, I say you are still playing in the past.

One year ago there were less things to do, less armor, less merit options, less everything.

The same way the game has seen a major increase in content (What? About 50% or more content now with Aht Urgan than before?), the same way experience and other aspects of the game have to speep up.

With everything that there's to do right now you need to get xp faster (among other things) or you wont be able to see it all. Of course this is from the perspective of someone who only has a few hours a day to play and around 10 hours saturday and sunday together.

So, if you have more than 6 hours a day to play then maybe the increase in content wont affect you since you have time to see it all, but for me getting 8k and hour (today, not a year ago) just isn't enough.

I would like having more options to party and make those amounts of xp with different setups (that's what I was talking about), and that's exactly why I don't think pulling players back to the "10k xp/hr max" days is the solution.

But instead SE has to boost regular party setups so they can make the same amounts of xp.

[Legal Fish]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

One year ago - just one year - 8k/hr was mindblowingly awesome exp

More like two years ago, maybe even three.

[Lmnop]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

no, 1 year ago was when the rad thing was hearing about these sky parties pulling chain 15. It wasn't 'til just before AU came out that all the different variations started showing up, with all the timing mapped out precisely.

Regardless, that's not important. Are you not seeing the heart of what's wrong that Karinya's pointing out? I don't give a shit if we get 3k/hour or 30k/hour -- as long as I have a reason to Skillchain. As long as multiple layouts work. I think tp burns should be acceptable -- they shouldn't get 3x the amount of exp.

[Icemage]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Regardless, that's not important. Are you not seeing the heart of what's wrong that Karinya's pointing out? I don't give a shit if we get 3k/hour or 30k/hour -- as long as I have a reason to Skillchain. As long as multiple layouts work. I think tp burns should be acceptable -- they shouldn't get 3x the amount of exp.

That 3x is not an exaggeration. I was in an LS merit party last night in Bhaflau Thickets and we clocked in 51,000 XP in 2.6 hours - and most of us weren't really "pimped out" on the jobs we were playing.

Amusing part about this: There was a WHM in our party. Setup was NIN/WAR MNK/NIN MNK/NIN BRD/NIN RDM/WHM WHM/BLM. Still managed to make almost 20K per hour. If that's not a sign of the approaching Apocalypse, I'm not sure what is...


Icemage

[Raydeus]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Amusing part about this: There was a WHM in our party. Setup was NIN/WAR MNK/NIN MNK/NIN BRD/NIN RDM/WHM WHM/BLM. Still managed to make almost 20K per hour. If that's not a sign of the approaching Apocalypse, I'm not sure what is...

That setup has always been the most effective, most JP I've party with use it because it's the most efficient.

Contrary to what people thinks having 4 DD and BRD+RDM only slows things down because the RDM gets overloaded with work and the BRD has to waste time backup sleeping.

With the RDM+BRD+WHM setup the RDM can focus on sleeping and buffing/debuffing while the WHM keeps the party alive, then BRDs can pull all they want without having to worry about staying by the party sleeping mobs. So you have an endless supply of mobs lined up and you don't waste any time between kills.

Even if kills themselves are a bit slower you compensate it with the reduction in downtime between mobs.

And that's why whenever I read about NA WHMs not being able to get invites for Burn parties I just lol.

[Akashimo]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

Im my observations, with the way TP burns been going these days, anythings is completely up in the air now in what you can or can't do for exp. Merriting whm, I have gotten away with being able to dd as whm/drg (base mnd is 1 point less than /blm and str is about 2 points higher than /nin). On trolls, I've been able to keep up with the non /nin dds in dmg and a little slower on tp gain due to balancing out dd gear and keeping enough mnd on for cures to not be affected. We had a pld tank which was able to keep hate off rng, sam and war. Also I've been casting flash on the mob to help with pld take less when his wore and wasn't ready to cast again. Rdm was easily able to do enfeebles, refresh and had plenty of mp to spare to nuke, and rarely been back up healing thanks to the pld keeping hate and taking less dmg.
Now, on thf, Thf/war been what I've used in thickets. Considering i'm pulling most of the time, the kill rate is higher and dmg taken is low as /nin. If you want things to die faster use SC, a thf with pld or sam can make some sweet darkness or light. And thats using traditional setups too there.
RDM, its a bit iffy for me. Majority of the parties where lesser colibri's. If i'm lucky on /blm or /smn, my enfeebles land and stick for most of the fight and before the DDs get it down to 50%. /war, just been joining in for fusion SC to mb with fire 2 to up the dmg and exp with a dedicated healer along with me while I also enfeeble with Paralyze, Bio II and Posion II. So things are really up in the air in what should be fixed from my view on how adaptable jobs can be. =x

[Karinya]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

no, 1 year ago was when the rad thing was hearing about these sky parties pulling chain 15.

Yeah, but only if you were the ONLY party in Ru'Avitau (aside from the ones exping on aura statues, ah, those were the days), which happens when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars. Those parties were legendary precisely because the conditions for them were so damn rare.

And even then they weren't making 8k/hr, except in people's dreams (or when everyone had a ridill). I was in several and 5-6k/hr was more typical.

It wasn't 'til just before AU came out that all the different variations started showing up, with all the timing mapped out precisely.
Regardless, that's not important. Are you not seeing the heart of what's wrong that Karinya's pointing out? I don't give a shit if we get 3k/hour or 30k/hour -- as long as I have a reason to Skillchain. As long as multiple layouts work. I think tp burns should be acceptable -- they shouldn't get 3x the amount of exp.

Thank you. I'm glad to see that somebody understands the concept of balance and how it applies to people who are already heavily invested in their jobs (both exp-wise and financially) and don't want to level the flavor-of-the-month just to merit faster. Obviously, as a 75 RDM, I could get into merit tp burns anytime I wanted. The point is that others can't, and that's wrong, whether it affects me personally or not.

[Kenki]

Re: Suggested tweak to pld and whm

This is an interesting topic so I will dig in a bit. Each solution seems to have a problem with it.

People's Mind sets:
#1 More exp per hour is always better than less exp per hour.
#2 It is better to be simple, straight forward and effective in most exp situations.
#3 Don't nerf us!
#4 I don't care about you, me comes 1st (exp, fun..etc)
#5 We will not go back to the way it was unless it benefits us.

Paladins Problems/Solutions:

Unable to keep and hold hate well enough for T-VT mobs or in 'burn' Party. Most melees are very strong on T-VT. Plds have a hard time holding hate with T-VTs after lv60 or once the melees obtained their powerful equipments, Job Abilities or WS. The use of Utsusemi eliminate the need for a static tank. Ninja changed themselves from evasion tank to a full damage dealer while Pld remained as a fulltime tank. Transition to a DD Pld have proven difficult if not impossible for many. The problem lies within the progression of jobs as they level up and becoming better and better (WAY better) rather than the target for exp.


Sol 1: Increase Pld's ability to generate and maintain hate.
Problem: Issue of Pld go ahead and sub Ninja for tanking since provoke is less useful and less damage taken. While this might not hold for exp PT, several events that required Ninja before will now clearly favors Pld. In situations that does not require Ninja, the use of Pld/Nin would greatly reduced the challenge rating.

Sol 2: Create more IT+ mobs or 'traditional' party friendly monsters.
Problem: Exp over-time is not as good as 'burn' PT (evidence of lv60ish able to perform burn PT in ToAU, bibiki, boyada). Even on the new I-am-taking-2x-damage-on-WS mob, the exp over time is clearly not in the

Sol 3: Encourages players to change from the static tank Pld to a DD/Support role in PT.
Problem: Limited spots in PT that would want a Pld. Traditional/Standard/JP formation 3-3 (3DD, 3 support) PT is fairly balanced and requires each member to be very specialized. A Pld with mixed DD/Support won't fit into such PT without reducing its effectiveness. Pure TP Burn/NA formation 4-2 (4DD, 2 Support) is imblanced but works if the support are good enough. Using pld as DD/Support will surely reduced the stress on the mages but also reduced PT's damage output. The reason for 4-2 PT is that most people don't generate enough damage for a standard 3-3 PT to function well.

Sol 4: Implement "Enhanced Provoke" effect in one of Pld's AF.
Problem: Not implemented yet but possible lower exp/hour unless the "Enhanced Provoke" effect is very poweful. Further increase the need for Pld/War in end-game events if holding hate is a problem (this reduces Nin/War uses).

White Mage problem and solutions
Unable to generate enough MP to support a roaming PT is Whm's problem. Most NA players prefer 4-2 Party. This means only 1 Support is avaiable, so Whm will only get one type of Refresh (ballad or refresh; Evoker Rolls are too unevent to count on). Rdm is clearly favorable than Whm in these 4-2 PT. So strictly speaking, Whm don't have enough MP over long periods and downtime is bound to happend more frequenly (than Rdm) if the Whm can not manage their MP right. The lack of Convert and additional refresh shows that Rdm has a much large pool of MP to support the PT than Whm.

Sol 1: Enhanced Whm's ability to cure better.
Problem: This have been implemented. Whm gained Fastcast and very high cure potency through equipments and merits. A Whm can gain up to 70% of cure Potency (ie. Cure 4 can break 680HP) with the right setup and equipments. The use of Curaga, Regen, Cure V and several -Emnity equipments/food made Whm the most powerful Healing job in the game. However, no many people exploited this area due to equipments avaiablity; thus Whm remained quite inefficient than they should.

Sol 2: Gives Whm more refresh effect.
Problem: Since whm is a lot more poweful than Rdm in curing, the better use of refresh can lead to the reduced need for Rdm (or refresher overall) and Smn. Sanction, Noble's Tunic and Smn sub job are good examples. Whm can get a natural +3 Mp refresh combine with a Rdm and Brd to support they can get up to +9 MP a tick. This is clearly a very powerful 'refresh'. Further enhance this feature might reduce the challenges on difficult events or made Whm too good of a Healer compare to Smn.

Sol 3: Encourages people to use 3-3 formation PT (3 Support is bound to have a Whm)
Problem: Average melees aren't strong enough to do enough damage with only 3 people. To peform well in 3-3 setup you need to have strong melees. This means you will have to throw those Pld, Blm...etc out of the PT and invite stronger melees.