DRG's feeling screwed? do something about it!

[greysenn]

See, thats the way it's supposed to be with Admin. Player interaction with quests, new implementation etc.

I guess Sony style left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth about gm's and all. But given S-E's FFXI's approach versus that, I'd still much rather not see them

[imac2much]

I see your point Grey... I guess AO just has good management relatively. Yes yes, we all know how horrible that game was at launch, but the way it's improved so incredibly over the years shows just how well the player-dev interaction works.

Even though you say you'd rather not see any dev/GM interaction in this game, this also means that "broken" jobs like DRG and RDM won't get fixed any time soon. Even if they didn't interact within the game, it would be nice if they posted with significant regularity in forums like funcom employees do with AO.

[FrozenChrono]

So there's no plan to raise the level cap in the immediate future, but they may raise it as high as 225 eventually? Or were you talking about weapon skills when you were saying 225? Either way if they're probably gonna get fixed eventually I'll probably still go Dragoon, I'm not planning on playing 10+ hour days like many of you (at least most days I won't) so I won't be leveling nearly as fast. I've heard it takes a devoted player around 2 months (of course it varies with how devoted, equipment, class, ect...) to hit 60's, so it'd probably take me more like 4 or so. Guess I'll just do it and hope it's tweaked to perfection by the time I get there.

[JexIntrepid]

All i really ask from S-E is for more options for "good" lvlin' spots, where most ppl won't be competing for a class that's good against a certain mob, and totally ditch the other ones. So whereas at lvl 65-70 the common mobs now are bones i guess, make it so another area from maybe lvl 66-71 that the common mobs are demon (and please make sam a bit stronger wit demon killer), and still another area be more fly-type mob (for dragoons).
The competition is fine within a certain dmg dealing class, and some will be able to do well in maybe all 3 diff. areas (drks), but overall, ppl won't be sitting lfg for months.

That and make more dmg dealing classes have at least A- in a certain wep, or add a few new weapon classes. Or make a quest where you can make your wep rank go from B to A- for the following classes.

Redmage- they have no A class. that just blows, sword, greatsword? something, geez...

Dragoons should be given A- in either staff or something.

Monks should be given A- in (i never get the spelling right)
nunkachuks. these should be pretty much like clubs, so it's not
h2h, but club-like weps that can be used for duel wield.

Samurai - should get at least a B in bow, and A- in spear, they already don't get alot of good drg ws so it's not a problem.

IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK SQUEENIX!?!:spin:

PS. Rugal, you permanently retired from FFXI ? that's too bad, with a pld at lvl 64, i'm sure you can have more fun in Dynamis or whatever it's called from then - lvl cap. Why'd you quit?

[imac2much]

Originally posted by JexIntrepid
PS. Rugal, you permanently retired from FFXI ? that's too bad, with a pld at lvl 64, i'm sure you can have more fun in Dynamis or whatever it's called from then - lvl cap. Why'd you quit?

Several reasons. Main thing was the horrible XP system S-E implemented in this game... it forces you to party with random people instead of friends, due to the "acceptable" level range of around 2-3 levels, esp for melees. Plus you need full 6 people to get decent xp. This combines with the overall crowdedness of leveling spots (due to lack of good leveling areas) to a horribly monotonous and unenjoyable "XP grind" not found in many other MMOs. Yes, in other MMOs leveling and XP'ing can be tedious as well. However, I also don't have to wait 3+ hours for a party in those games like AO, I can play with just 1 or 2 friends, even if they are 10 levels above or below me, and get great xp. I don't have to constantly farm in the same places as everyone else, I can duo with a pal and explore interesting areas, all while getting xp and items.

Another problem was the inherently greedy, selfish, and relatively immature community. I definitely didn't have this problem in AO, which had a MUCH more mature playerbase. The multiple LS thing is kinda broken in this game as well. Also at high levels there's really nothing to do other than HNM camping (all dynamis really is is a glorified HNM hunt :p)

It may sound as if I totally hate FFXI, but that's not the case.. S-E does a lot of things right, and overall I think FFXI is a pretty good MMORPG. However, it does too many things wrong, especially in the XP-grind area and high level gameplay, to really make me consider it worthwhile... it's definitely not a casual gamer's type of game compared to other games and MMORPGs, and I find much of my time I spend in it a waste, other than as a pseudo-chat room to converse with some friends.

Meh, I go into detail about this in my farewell thread in the PLD forums... I don't wanna spam, so I won't link it, but you can check it out if you're interested.

To put this back on topic (sorta)... I know the whole "selfish and immature community" thing won't ever change (esp at high levels), but perhaps after a year or two S-E will fix the horrible xp-system along with "broken" jobs like DRG. Who knows, who knows... I personally don't have that much faith in them, but I do hope they prove me wrong.

[Akanei]

Originally posted by Carbon
Are you sure it's not a jump and a regular attack coinciding simultaneously? I've seen that happen a lot.

...I'm gonna pretend I didn't read this.

Yes I'm sure. Why? I really doubt I could do 200-500 damage off a 1-hit jump w/o either double attack or war 2h.

Example: 5 hit penta+DA Jump+DA High Jump+Double/Vorpal. = self-renkei w/o samurai. I've done this a number of times. Hell, I've done it with a 4 hit penta because I got a normal hit between it.

[Carbon]

500 is high, but I've done lots of 200-300 damage jumps with SAM sub (which obviously doesn't have double attack).

Redmage- they have no A class. that just blows, sword, greatsword? something, geez...

Dragoons should be given A- in either staff or something.

Monks should be given A- in (i never get the spelling right)
nunkachuks. these should be pretty much like clubs, so it's not
h2h, but club-like weps that can be used for duel wield.

Samurai - should get at least a B in bow, and A- in spear, they already don't get alot of good drg ws so it's not a problem.

Red mages don't need an A rating in a weapon IMHO. They're mages first and foremost, and they're swordsmanship isn't what gets them parties.

Dragoons and monks...as I said earlier, if you take a look at the actual weapons they use and how they use, I think the penalties they get is stupid.

The blunt side of spears/lances is used to attack just as much as the thrusting animation. For some races, the polearm animation is EXACTLY the same as the 2h staff animation.

Likewise, a lot of HTH weapons for monks are BLADED, or otherwise POINTY, which means they're SLASHING or PIERCING.

I know, it's nitpicking but, still.

[Weezingpipes]

Whats dumb in reference to the MNK thing is like...NOTHING is resistant to blunt damage. At all. Its either they are weak to it, or there is no real penalty to using a blunt weapon. I heard monks do shit damage to like crabs, which ok fine at the levels you can leve off crabs you do have a lot of other options, and I've never seen a monk do especially poor damage at any level honestly. The same isn't true for piercing weapons. A large quantity of monsters are resistant to piercing time of damage (slightly or majorly), and few monsters are actually weak to it. I suppose if the road to 75 was paved with flies and bats, I wouldn't be complaining, but it isn't...

I think the biggest problem is JP players really don't address any issues. I know from experience most game developers aren't stupid enough to not read player forums/fan sites that they have access to as a means of obtaining feedback, without directly saying "so what do you think?". If anything, that was part of why EQ was so largely affected by the player base - mind you, the websites people post on aren't official, mostly player fansites/player made and managed forums. Devs read them, got a lot of feedback from that. I think it would be foolish to assume the devs of this game don't seek out feedback, but maybe I'm giving them too much credit. Like Imac said though, too much player feedback can be bad. A lot of problems in EQ were directly related to x group of whatever class complained ad nauseum about something, even if they weren't necessarily right, and changes were made for them. Things got changed that shouldn't have been, which only lead to further imbalances, and nothing was really solved. I mean seriously, I've never met a japanese player who really saw a problem with the game, as though its disrespectful to give a conflicting opinion.

I'll also say the differences in classes aren't grossly stupid in terms of exp groups. In the respect all jobs *can* get to 75, it is balanced...just the road is harder and more time consuming for some more than others. Not to say I think player complaints are far from it, I'll use the lame ass argument here : I pay the same fee as everyone else, why do I need to invest proportionally more effort getting to 75? Simple logic, but it does apply.

While I'll have to disagree with Carbon about using a Polearm as a blunt object, I'd like to see staves be more viable for dragoons. The skill rating isn't the huge problem (a B+ or A- ranking couldn't hurt though), staves simply aren't good weapons. The weapon skills suck. All of them. You get a weak damage 1 hitter to start with, and thats basically the best. Weak light, earth and darkness elemental ws, a def down ws (not worth using), and some mp giving crap. While they renkei better compared to staves, they just suck bad. I might consider fighting bones with a staff to 75 if I could actually renkei Light, but alas don't believe thats an option! Its not hard to balance staves to be decent for melee without being too good for the mage types, blammo release melee tuned staffs. Problem solved.

On an unrelated note, the Darkness renkei set is messed up pre quest ws. Thats part of what turns many people off of Samurai at that level. At least the other applicable melee jobs have another very viable option to doing Darkness.

One thing thats pissing me off majorly lately I had a discussion with a friend about lately : viability of exping spots. Entirely too many monster types have too many incredibly stupid abilities that people simply don't fight them. This includes but is not limited to : Dolls, Opo Opo, Scorpion (nothing especially crippling but just...stupid), Bombs, Wyverns, Manticores, Tonberry (no one exps off these unless they have to, which basically means people camping coffer keys). Part of the problem in this game is resists are mostly worthless to say the least. You can have maximum possible buffed fire resist on all members of your party, and 5 members of your party will take 100 damage, while your white mage takes 1600 damage from a bomb self destruct for example. Goblins worked ok as an exp mob. For the most part even vs high level goblins, its hard to die to a goblin suiciding unless you aren't being attentive. Insta gib from a bomb type monster (dolls too) is R E T A R D E D if you actually prepare for it. Screw those people who don't buff resists, they deserve to die, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Oh but bombs are supposed to do that! Congratulations, an entire zone is not worth entering unless you have to do a mission or quest. Wasted content is dumb.

Related to mobs with stupid abilities, lets talk density. The crowd control system in this game isn't good to say the least. Its rather awkward honestly. 1 add people can usually manage (although 9/10 groups I join prefer to escape than deal with an add for some reason). The reason people exp off what they do is they want to take the path of least resistance. You have entire zones of monsters never even touched because of stupid special abilities and/or really poorly thought out monster densities. I see entire rooms of Quicksand Caves with like 5 Anticans piled on top of each other - who is exping off that? No one, thats why they sit at the zone lines. While I do agree different monsters do require different pulling methods, some of it is just plain stupid and just leads to a lot of wasted content. The path for everyone leveling is identical because of this problem. 70% of most areas are totally untouched. While I used to want to believe the problem is people didn't like a challenge, there is challenge and there is idiocy, and there is 0 incentive to exp off many monster types unless its completely necessary. If they at least had actually desireable drops (doll shards for 1k each don't really tickle my pickle, now have every doll drop 250 gil for all members, now we're talking turkey) it might justify fighting harder monsters, but presently people just kill whatever is easiest to pull the fastest and dies the fastest while dealing the minimum amount of damage. Monster placement needs to be worked on hard for many zones. This would solve SO many problems with crowded exping areas.

The more I think about it, I do agree with Imac's point on the exping systems method of penalizing lower level people is just adding insult to injury. Tonight I got a group in Kuftal basement (69 now) fighting the tigers and cockatrices there. Any melee who has been in one of these groups will tell you it sucks - you can barely hit the damn things even with good equipment, and on top of that, no bard, just a red mage, which doesn't solve the helping melee hit better thing really. I was averaging around 2800-3100 exp an hour because we had a level 71, which really cut down on the viability of exping where a level 68-69 party would. I knew most of the people so wasn't bad, and really the party set up was due to there was a total of about 10 people online 67-69 and many jobs were lacking. Melee incur a huge penalty even being 2 levels lower in exping. Its quite annoying to say the least. Mage types can be 2-4 levels lower and for the most part it doesn't matter much, just means their exp gain sucks more. Thats super dumb. The only job it sort of seems to matter what level they are is BLM, but not a huge amount. Did a Den of Rancor party with a 66 BLM and he was fine. Bring a 66 melee there and they'll be spending 60% of the fight missing.

Lastly, the high end. I don't speak from personal experience here. I have next to no first hand knowledge of fighting HNM's. Here is what strikes me as nutty : I read about different peoples' HNM experiences, not lower levels tagging along some HNM kill, I mean level 75's (melees) who show up and spend the whole fight whiffing or dealing next to no damage, while the BLM's take everything down. Supposedly some fights melees do decent damage (basically means the old world HNM's from what I've read)...but of course BLM's still come out ahead. Ok, I'm used to BLM doing high damage in an exp setting. But it does beg the question, if even by 75 melees are all mostly crap barring some special ability they have which helps a fight (stun for example)...why have them? To loot items the BLM's who are killing everything can't use? Friend of mine told me about going to hunt wyvern skulls and for shits and giggles they gave Vouivre a try with 6 people. Got it to 60% after 30 minutes at which point had to escape because of a bomb spawn and unable to recover. As was described to me, most of the fight with a 75 monk and 75 (I think) ranger were pretty well unable to hit the damn thing even with madrigals/hunters. The BLM did the vast majority of the damage. Why have the melees there? I can't see a Dragoon dealing vastly superior damage to this HNM, let alone anyone else period. I would seriously like to know, are they any HNM's where the BLM take a back seat and the melee actually get to crank out the damage, or is it true most HNM's are about watching the PLD tank while the BLM's whiddle down the HNM's hp?

Forgive my long ranting, I don't like FFXI a whole lot today.

[fuz]

I've also felt that melee damage dealers are at many times... without a place to be in this game. It is probably the most attractive job to be (I know I wanted to be one before I even got the game, along with most all my friends), yet they turn out to be the least useful throughout the levels--whether exping, questing, hnm hunting, etc. I guess my drk makes a good farmer with drain and aspir...

[JexIntrepid]

A few things to comment:

Firstly, crabs make monks = 0, null, useless, craptacular.
Crawlers also.
When you fight those crawlers for the lvls 55 to 65 i believe, monks are usually seen sitting on their ass or farming.

Secondly, i must agree, the lack of interactivity between the Devs and the player, is definitely causing a slow movement towards change and improvement. However, i do agree taht too much will ruin a game. I would recommend that the Devs at least 1 a month have open chat rooms with diff. devs to hear the gripes, and get a general consensus on the actual problems. Make it accessible to clear knowledgeable people, and if people start acting stupid n' n00bish, the Devs can kick them. Just 1 a month. Hold it on a few Playonline FFXI chatrooms.
Then at least i'd feel i'm getting my money's worth of a balanced job, instead of having to pay more money for a certain job cuz my job takes longer to get to 75 than another. Not that the money matters, but its just for reference.

Thirdly, staves could use a few more ws to make it a viable option for those with B+ rating (and please make monks get A-, and Drgs too)

Fourthly, i really have a problem with the viability of xpin' in different spots. Places are being overcrowded for the reasons that it's too damn hard to pull mobs without train, or their abilities can wipe out your party or cause much more downtime. I'm starting to believe that these harder more challenging areas are where ninjas were meant to shine, as they're supposed to be pulling experts, and would be able to pull without a problem. Still very wacky that because of the difficulty, you'll see overcrowded areas all the time, and then you'll see spots where you'd get the same amt of mobs at same lvl, but they're just too damn full of surprises or assist each other too much.

And lastly, i have to disagree. Blms may be the strongest dmg dealers with their magic, but they'll pull off too much hate from doing that, and they need renkeis to make the most dmg outputs. As far as those HNMs go, i think they just tried the wrong HNM, if they were whiffing like that at lvl 75, it's either that HNM isn't a mob to fkk with, or we have to wait for some better higher lvl abilities (or more enhancing AF) to deal with them. Honestly though, this is where i've seen the creative minds of some jps work. The idea of subbing nin to drk, with 2hr and the kraken club was just a taste of different combos i'm sure some ppl try when they start whiffing even with their uber equip and uber subjobs. Maybe ppl don't even bother, but the smart ones might realize certain combos give better edge in some very rare situations.

[goudaba]

I just though of some things that would help the DRG, feel free to give me your impressions, as I'm not high enough yet and still have to experience the "You suck" barrier.
Basically, it would be the addition of 2 abilities. And with that setup, we can keep our Wyvern as a 2hr.

1 - Pet command : Fly High > Command the wyvern to fly high(d'uh) so he wont be considered in combat, so out of AoE range, for at least 2 sec. This ability would help A-LOT to Wyvern surviving more than 2-3 battles.

2 - JA/passive ability : Synergy(sp?) > Ok, this one have to be in though with either if its a passive or cative.

LV : 60
passive : Each times the DRG do a WS, the Wyvern sync with the hits to add DMG and a random effect(same random as breath) then do normal breath. DMG of polearm and bites would combine to form a piercing/blunt type of DMG. Just imagine how much the wyvern would fly through the mob on a penta
This would make DRG better at WS without creating new ones and he could dish some DMG on bones as the WS would be part blunt.

LV : 60
Active :
Duration : 1-2 min
CoolTime : 3 min
Effect : The wyvern would sync with the DRG normal attacks only to add DMG output, but the attacks would combine and become piercing/blunt with the add of elemental with the same random factor as Breath. The wyvern would still attack with its own delay factor and normal DMG output. Again, it would help in later LV so we could dish some DMG on bones

I think those additions could help the DRG a bit without unbalancing other classes, but I could be wrong.
By the way, the additionnal DMG from synergy(sp?) wouldn't be trendemous, but high enough to be worth it.
Also, those abilites goes with the SE way of thinking that a DRG is VERY VERY Wyvern dependant, but now it would actually stay alive for at least 2hr.

[JexIntrepid]

i'd rather just see more diff. fly-type mobs in a diff. area that's less aggro friendly, so ppl stop overcrowding the bone sections, and more ppl realize that they can take drgs other places and get same amt of xp / hr.

[Cammus]

We should organize a post with ideas to fix our job, without overpowering of course! and without asking god-like abilities!

Simply to put us at balance!!!

And send it to S&E under the name of FFXIonline Dragoon Community

[Weezingpipes]

Judging by the upcoming patch announcement, they aren't listening even when its all in plain sight.

[Zafron]

Well I don't have any experience with high level DRGs but it seems to me if the job is fine until end-game then the only place the job needs to be changed is the end-game levels.

Heres what a zero first hand experience noob proposes:

1) Change Wheeling Thrust, so that it is comparable to other jobs 225 WSs in terms of usefullness(so its practical to use even if you aren't doing lv3 light)

2) Change Impulse Drive, so that it is comparable to other jobs 250 WSs in terms of usefullness.

3) Add some endgame DRG Traits for example:

lv70 Perfect Jump: jumps never miss, or compounded jump DMG or shorten jump timer, or some combination of the 3.

4) Give DRGs another ATK or ACC bonus at 70 or something.

5) make end-game Lances more comparable to end-game scythes and H2H weapons(if not raise the dmg, at least make them easier to get).

I see alot of proposals for change that are simply too complicated. My experience in online games is if you make massive changes all at once it more often than not exacerbates the problem, throwing off balance even further.