Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

[Loial]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

PLD won't have a place in "rapid fire" battles to keep hate. There is so much damage going on in such a short amount of time, if a PLD "could" hold hate on that much damage, they should be nerfed since it would be unbalancing.

I'm not sure what they plan to add to make us do our job better over "continuous battles."

[Karinya]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

I don't think that's necessarily true, Loial.

The problem is that against weak monsters, the ability of DDs to do damage increases, but the enmity generated by things like Provoke and Flash does not, so PLDs fall behind in enmity. Ninjas rely more on their damage to hold hate, so when everyone's damage (including theirs) goes up, they lose less ground.

This could be fixed simply by increasing the effect of enmity-generating abilities against VT or lower level targets. That wouldn't necessarily imply any better hate holding on ITs or HNMs, because the effect is level-dependent.

Now, that might well end up still inferior to 3 /NINs bouncing hate around and taking no damage at all. But at least as far as enmity is concerned, there's no reason to suppose that better hate holding vs VTs would necessarily translate into overpoweringly good hate holding vs ITs/HNM.

As for improving performance in continuous battles, I'd suggest a self-only MP restoring JA (something like Meditate or Chakra but for MP), but they probably don't want to overshadow Chivalry so soon after they introduced it. We already got Auto-Refresh (plus Sanction, which helps us more than it helps ninjas - although it would be nice if they added a method for Signet to get similar bonuses, not everything takes place in the Empire). What else is left? Give PLD the higher level Regen spells in case there's no WHM in party? An Ethereal Earring-like ability (either a trait or a limited-duration JA)? Runic?

Runic would be really cool and address PLD's longstanding problem with magic damage, but I think it may be too much to hope for.

[Armando]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Although it wouldn't be a direct fix, another possibility would be increasing the EXP gained from fighting IT mobs sharply, and make more mobs like Lamia Idolators. They have a lot more HP, but take x3 the damage from everything - this means that they take x3 damage from a WS, and then the SC is tripled yet again, making them actually take x9 damage from SCs. That may allow traditional EXP parties to gain EXP at a rate much closer to burn parties.

[Ziero]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Runic as a JA, or even a JT with a 'counter' like proc rate is something I always thought Plds should have. It would certainly lvl the playing field in regards to tanking magic using mobs. I mean it's certainly unbalanced when an AM can be absorbed by Utsu but a Pld would take it right to the face. Yes -ga spells drop shadows and can be just as dangerous, but it's still unbalanced because Nin has far fewer spells to worry about then Pld.

[Macht]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Heheh, are you saying evading 2-4 physical attacks every 30 seconds is godly?
About MUDs I gotta tell you I know absolutely nothing about em, where can I find this rules you talk about?
And about new abilities, making PLD more flashy I guess it's a matter of personal opinion, I already like the job the way it is, but I guess it would depend on what kind of new ability (or abilities?) you are talking about.

Find a way so PLDs can still dish out good damage and yes, this can become godly. You're thinking in aspect of 1 PLD party, what happens if you do this and have 2-3 PLDs dealing damage + chivalry + 30 sec Flash. You've created an alternative almost Utsusemi like effect yet is far stronger then Utsusemi because the other party members wouldn't have to worry Flash backing Flash starts to create a Utsusemi like effect for everyone. On average a good party only needs to evade about 6-8 hits, so Flash backing Flash like that with a 30 sec. timer could do that easily.

So yes, design starts to become to godly.

[Aeni]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Although it wouldn't be a direct fix, another possibility would be increasing the EXP gained from fighting IT mobs sharply, and make more mobs like Lamia Idolators. They have a lot more HP, but take x3 the damage from everything - this means that they take x3 damage from a WS, and then the SC is tripled yet again, making them actually take x9 damage from SCs. That may allow traditional EXP parties to gain EXP at a rate much closer to burn parties.

I think I like this idea, Armando. In fact, let's take it a step further.

Why don't SE change the exp bonus formula so that it will change on the chain depending on mob difficulty. This will definitely even out the playing field.

Take the current system for exp chain and then nerf it for every one level the mob difficulty goes down from where it is barely on the threshold of challenging. This usually is around 7-8 levels from 50-60 and 8-9 levels from 60-70. From 70-75, because of meriting, it might have to change, due to the cap and then the lack of monsters that are generally difficult or pose as a challenge to a merited party of 75s. In this situation, the bonus will not use monster difficulty as a check, but use the total meriting of the party as a check. The more merited a party is, the less challenging the fights would be and therefore the less bonus they should receive.

We're talking net exp btw, not just exp before sanction bonuses or from the empress ring is applied.

[Lmnop]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

ok, first off, I think the TGS remark was geared towards drawn-out battles, not lots of battles on-end. aka HNM, not exp. At any rate, when it comes to merit parties, I think if a PLD can at least serve as main or support healer and otherwise help to keep a party running indefinately, they've contributed enough to overcome their higher damage taken and lower damage output. I don't think they're quite where they'd need to be to be considered a #1 pick, but I think they're close. It starts with <stpc> macros, and Chivalry helps. If you can get a pld/war who tanks an average of 50% of the fights, uses a mostly-DD build to contribute ~70-80% as much damage as a dedicated DD, and uses tp for Chivalry every 15-20 minutes so that he never has to rest... it seems good on paper, but there are issues currently.

If it's 4x DD, brd, and Pld, then the Pld isn't refreshed. If it's Rdm, Pld, 4x DD, then the DD aren't happy because there's no bard buffs. If it's 3x DD, Pld, Rdm, Brd, then, well, these parties function just fine with Rdm healing and refreshing, so the Pld's Mp-support isn't required.

So Pally would either needed the buffing ability of a Brd (>.>), the enfeebling ability to make mobs behave like everyone had brd buffs (aka, defense- equal to ammount minuet would give attack+... yea right), and they already have auto-refresh which would make them effectively their own Rdm. Powering up their Auto-refresh would, well, piss off both RDMs and SMNs. I think Maju would have good information as to whether or not he thinks Chivalry would be enough to compensate mp (from looking at his thread where he main-healed a party. I wasn't happy with how much he had to rest).

Armando's idea is pretty slick. In general, I think we need more reason to have a skillchain + MB. In fact, I wish THF had a trait that increased max damage of skillchains they close, and I wish Dark Knights had ABS-Magic Defense to boost MB damage. (I know, Abs-Int has this effect, but on a very low scale).

[Raydeus]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Find a way so PLDs can still dish out good damage and yes, this can become godly. You're thinking in aspect of 1 PLD party, what happens if you do this and have 2-3 PLDs dealing damage + chivalry + 30 sec Flash. You've created an alternative almost Utsusemi like effect yet is far stronger then Utsusemi because the other party members wouldn't have to worry Flash backing Flash starts to create a Utsusemi like effect for everyone. On average a good party only needs to evade about 6-8 hits, so Flash backing Flash like that with a 30 sec. timer could do that easily.

So yes, design starts to become to godly.

People could do that right now, if a few PLDs went DD and equiped some +evasion gear it's possible to do that already. And if they went /NIN the dmg mitigation effect would be even greater.

That's why I think enhancing Flash would work, because it wouldn't really change the way things are (or could be) right now, but it would give PLDs a good hate boost and as an aditional effect help a little more with damage mitigation.

I see a bigger problem on giving PLDs a native voke, because then they would be able to sub /NIN and since they would have both Flash and the new ability that would easily make subbing WAR unnecesary for hate and thus creating a new form of Blink tank (which would become another Burn job for sure), followed by all the Nerf PLD threads about it.



Now, keep in mind that my Flash coment was referring to the native PLD voke stuff. I'm more interested in making PLD more efficient with war or even rdm sub than I am about making it able to sub NIN and not have hate issues.

Things like some sort of trait that would reduce the Emnity loss from damage taken is the kind of stuff I would really like to see.

[Macht]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

People could do that right now, if a few PLDs went DD and equiped some +evasion gear it's possible to do that already. And if they went /NIN the dmg mitigation effect would be even greater.
That's why I think enhancing Flash would work, because it wouldn't really change the way things are (or could be) right now, but it would give PLDs a good hate boost and as an aditional effect help a little more with damage mitigation.
I see a bigger problem on giving PLDs a native voke, because then they would be able to sub /NIN and since they would have both Flash and the new ability that would easily make subbing WAR unnecesary for hate and thus creating a new form of Blink tank (which would become another Burn job for sure), followed by all the Nerf PLD threads about it.
Now, keep in mind that my Flash coment was referring to the native PLD voke stuff. I'm more interested in making PLD more efficient with war or even rdm sub than I am about making it able to sub NIN and not have hate issues.
Things like some sort of trait that would reduce the Emnity loss from damage taken is the kind of stuff I would really like to see.

Yes, they could do it now. Come on though reducing the time just makes it even more viable and more breaking. I mean if PLDs could just about spam flash then the mob could face anyone wouldn't matter, WHMs could spam curaga if it even ends up being needed, BLMs could spam their strongest spells to their hearts content, and on down the list all because they got PLDs able to spam flash and avoid most of damages.

[Raydeus]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Yes, they could do it now. Come on though reducing the time just makes it even more viable and more breaking. I mean if PLDs could just about spam flash then the mob could face anyone wouldn't matter, WHMs could spam curaga if it even ends up being needed, BLMs could spam their strongest spells to their hearts content, and on down the list all because they got PLDs able to spam flash and avoid most of damages.

To do that you'd have to coordinate really well so you didn't waste your Flash because you casted it before the other Flash wore off. You'd also require a very specific Flash order, simply because spamming Flash would only give you hate but not make the effect last longer.

In the end the change to recast wouldn't make much of a difference for a 3 PLD party simply because it's very unlikely players could coordinate so well that the next Flash would be casted right as the last one wears off, but it would make a difference for 1 PLD parties.

Besides, if people had the skill and could work together to coordinate Flash in a way the mob would always be Blind. Wouldn't they deserve to minimize damage? It would take some serious skill to coordinate like that if you ask me. It's not like you could set a macro to cast Flash with a set /wait because they would overlap easily.


Also at least in my parties WHMs can cast a few Curagas without drawing hate, specially at merit lvls. A PLD can easily hold his/her ground against massive Cure spells thanks to all the +Emnity we get and all the -Emnity WHMs get.

Same with BLM really so it's not like they will all go out and just spam the strongest spells every fight, there isn't enough MP and it's unlikely they will change their habits just because the PLD gets a little more hate from Flash.

[Macht]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

To do that you'd have to coordinate really well so you didn't waste your Flash because you casted it before the other Flash wore off. You'd also require a very specific Flash order, simply because spamming Flash would only give you hate but not make the effect last longer.
In the end the change to recast wouldn't make much of a difference for a 3 PLD party simply because it's very unlikely players could coordinate so well that the next Flash would be casted right as the last one wears off, but it would make a difference for 1 PLD parties.
Besides, if people had the skill and could work together to coordinate Flash in a way the mob would always be Blind. Wouldn't they deserve to minimize damage? It would take some serious skill to coordinate like that if you ask me. It's not like you could set a macro to cast Flash with a set /wait because they would overlap easily.
Also at least in my parties WHMs can cast a few Curagas without drawing hate, specially at merit lvls. A PLD can easily hold his/her ground against massive Cure spells thanks to all the +Emnity we get and all the -Emnity WHMs get.
Same with BLM really so it's not like they will all go out and just spam the strongest spells every fight, there isn't enough MP and it's unlikely they will change their habits just because the PLD gets a little more hate from Flash.

Not really that serious amount of skill. NINs doing Utsusemi need more skill timing the use of Utsusemi right, Flash is instant mob is very unlikely to counter the spell. My LS does extreemly well creating timed effects it's not that, especially since you can macro the more important things with call functions.

My LS actually does that with the more outstanding call sounds. Were each sound is to indicate a specific thing, 1 for indicating a WS has been used, 1 for indicating player has TP for a WS, and so on. Might be like learning a new language at first, but that's the fun part I get out of it.

After a while of actually doing timing for the purpose of being able to time thing perfectly with other people it becomes pretty second nature, not that hard really. Only looks hard when you have ignorant players unwilling to try new things.

[Raydeus]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Only looks hard when you have ignorant players unwilling to try new things.

And that's exactly why I'm talking about skill. If you find skillful players it isn't hard to do, but I doubt a pickup party made of random players would pull it off that easy.

And even if they did I seriously doubt most players would be able to keep the timing for as long as some parties go. Heck, most players have troubles setting a SC in every fight for extended periods of time.



Edit> But again, if players were able to do it for extended periods of time, wouldn't they deserve the xp from it?

[Lmnop]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

What NIN do takes a lot of effort, it's true. But that's coordinating with yourself. You know the cliche "if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself." This is horribly true with FFXI because there is a 1/10 chance that a party member is actually paying attention. While this sort of thing would be easier to coordinate with Vent or the like, just having a Flash macro and a "Flash Ended" + <call> macro would really help out. Then you just have to be really attentive about your own chat log when it's your turn to flash, and make sure you tell the party as soon as you see "mob's blind effect wears off." At any rate, party cooperation barely exists in this game, and is getting less and less rewarding as the game continues (first it was meat tanking, then it was skillchains and having tanks period).

Well, despite all that I just said, I don't think lowering Flash recast will solve a whole lot. A little more hate gained, a bit more mp spent.

[Aeni]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Well, despite all that I just said, I don't think lowering Flash recast will solve a whole lot. A little more hate gained, a bit more mp spent.

I have to agree. Otherwise they'd lower Stun recast and imagine the amount of abusage that will go on with that spell. Not to mention what happens when a RDM subs DRK for it.

I mean, let's get serious here. We want to do something to change the psychology of players here, not try to piece together one big fat "I win Button."

[Raydeus]

Re: Regarding Job Adjustments mentioned at TGS 06

Well, despite all that I just said, I don't think lowering Flash recast will solve a whole lot. A little more hate gained, a bit more mp spent.

I think the same, but I'd rather see that than giving PLD a native Voke (like I said in that other post ).

I don't think I'll see a low level trait/ability that would reduce Emnity loss since they already added Guardian though, so I'm wondering what's SE gonna do.

I have to agree. Otherwise they'd lower Stun recast and imagine the amount of abusage that will go on with that spell. Not to mention what happens when a RDM subs DRK for it.

Sorry, but huh? If changing one spell would mean changing the other then DRK would've gotten Auto-Refresh when PLD did.

I mean, let's get serious here. We want to do something to change the psychology of players here, not try to piece together one big fat "I win Button."

This is just a game, people doesn't win anything besides entertainment, and the psychology behind this shouldn't go beyond having a good time while playing. If you want to "fix" players acording to your concept of whats the right way to do things then you need to step back a bit from the game.

(I don't wanna sound mean or anything like that, but you take it too seriously.)