Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

[Freelancer]

One area of focus for the November 24 version update is battle balancing. Among the many adjustments being made are changes to the accuracy of physical and magic attacks, enmity rates, actions for all classes, and reductions to the amount of skill points needed to rank up, and more.

Character Progression

Accuracy

The accuracy rates for actions in general, both physical and magic, have been increased, making it easier for players to land attacks. This will, subsequently, result in more skill points.


Skill Points in Parties

Skill points earned in battle are now awarded after an enemy is defeated. Additionally, discrepancies in the amount of skill points awarded to party members have been reduced. Together with these changes, the overall number of skill points awarded has also been increased, making progression easier even in smaller parties.


The above changes will serve to increase the tempo of battle, and also allow players to obtain more skill points than was previously possible. To further facilitate the process of ranking up, the amount of skill points required to attain ranks 11 through 31 has been reduced. The reductions are most significant for the rank range of 11 through 20, as we would like to enable players the ability to engage in more goal-oriented content, such as the hunting of notorious monsters, at an earlier stage of play. Further information regarding these changes will be released in the version update details Topics post of November 24.




Balancing Adjustments to Actions

In order to improve the uniqueness and flavor of each class in party battle, we have made a number of adjustments to the effects, durations, execution costs, and enmity generation rates of a number of actions. Below is a sampling of these changes.

Pugilist

Featherfoot

Active duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
Evasion rate increased.


Gladiator

Luminous Spire

MP cost reduced from 20 to 10.


Marauder

Foresight

Stamina cost reduced from 5 to 3.5.
Active duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
Parry rate increased.
Bloodbath

Stamina cost reduced from 6 to 3.5.



Archer

Trifurcate

MP cost reduced from 30 to 15.


Lancer

Speed Surge, Life Surge

Active duration increased from 120 to 180 seconds.


Conjurer

Cure, Cure II, Cure III

Enmity generation adjusted.


Thaumaturge

Scourge

Amount of damage dealt increased.

Sacrifice, Sacrifice II, Sacrifice III

Enmity generation adjusted.
Amount of HP healed increased.

[GosamerWings]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Not to tear open a wound, but I do hope this isn't their ideal of increased uniqueness. Because honestly as it stands of the four classes that only DD Archer and lancer are all that is really needed, the rest are just poorly constructed jobs that only offer skills that can be subbed and used at a larger distance or more often by lancer or archer. Puglist and marauder are decent solo, but situational moves that require you to have hate that you can't take the damage of because you don't have the def of the tank, are poor design in my eyes, and that's what puglist and marauder bring to the table that can't be subbed. And honestly, if that monster is hitting the tank behind his shield for 1/4th - 1/3rd of his life, what in god’s name would make me want to grab his attention so I can TRY to evade/parry an attack so I can use my more damaging moves.

Disclaimer
Keep in mind when I say what the jobs bring to the table I don't mention things like concussive blow, or skull sunder or fracture, because those abilities can be subbed, unlike archer's arrow notching (a good deal of the archer offensive skills) or lancers speed surge and life tap ect.

But at this point it's a waiting game to see what square delivers. Thankfully the sp system is getting some attention, because honestly I didn't like skilling up in ffxi (but I put up with it because as long as I kept at it reasonably I could preform in a party because it wasn't my main source of leveling)... But to take skilling up which was annoying and make it worse was an accomplishment..... [/sarcasm]

[jenova_9]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

it's nice they improved accuracy for everyone, mew. and more SP

[Aeni]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Not to tear open a wound, but I do hope this isn't their ideal of increased uniqueness. Because honestly as it stands of the four classes that only DD Archer and lancer are all that is really needed, the rest are just poorly constructed jobs that only offer skills that can be subbed and used at a larger distance or more often by lancer or archer.

I seem to also be observing this as well. It seems that Archers are becoming the Rangers of FFXIV. Now, to be fair, like Rangers, they're going to be arguments about the costs of playing the class, due to ammo and the fact that you burn so much of it and require TONS of inventory slots to fill it all up with 99x stacks that, unlike in FFXI, do not stack upon themselves either (i.e., no quivers) But, the fact that you can still do great damage with the cheap vendored Rank 1 ammo at Rank 50 seems to indicate a huge scaling issue. Archers are going to need some scaling penalities with ammo, maybe having lower ranked ammo cause faster wear and tear on their weapon.

I do like the changes to the skill point situation but I'm concerned that they're heavy handed with this particular change. If the system can be reliably counted on in keeping and assessing a fair balance of individual and group contributions to influence the outcome at the end of battles (i.e., skill points) then this will work well. If it doesn't, then SE is introducing additional holes into the system for which it can be exploited to terrible effect.

[jenova_9]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

oh mew there nothing wrong with Archers. It's good they do great damage and it's already one of the most expensive classes. It balances itself out, mew. Nerfing them would just make them not so fun and would force them to give more gil to the greedy corrupt crafters. The result would still be a big timesink if they have to start crafting their own high level arrows. Because if that's the only way to be effective, then less people would choose Archer since it's too much work.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Archers are going to need some scaling penalities with ammo, maybe having lower ranked ammo cause faster wear and tear on their weapon.

Why should Archers be punished for being frugal? There are days, be it FFXI or FFXIV, the materials for your best arrows just aren't there. No RNG with a lick of sense uses top tier arrows to TP with in FFXI, they use them to weapon skill, this is actually epitomized by the crossbow users, who will capitalize on Holy Bolts everywhere they can because they are cheap and powerful. They don't WS with them, though, as that's high tier bolts are for (and barrage/double shot)..

And really, Archers are already spending more than any other class short of Gladiator on repairs and consumables.

But if that's what you want, we should make it so anyone that uses a low tier ability sees more wear and tear, Cure 1 should wear out a wand/club/whatever faster than what's appropriate for the situation. Starting to see how dumb your idea sounds?

Only penalty that is needed is the damage vs. defense penalty fix that and you've fixed the problem. That said, however, the penalty shouldn't be too great because when you make the penalty too great, you're forcing them to use high tier ammo, which should never be the case. They should be afforded options as their expense is more constant on top of wear-and-tear.

[Malacite]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Archers are going to need some scaling penalities with ammo, maybe having lower ranked ammo cause faster wear and tear on their weapon.

Please, don't make me strangle you with your own entrails. The hassle of just being able to make your own ammo is stressful enough. If anything Ranged Weapons should degrade slower than melee weapons (as should mage weapons, at least when casting) since really, there's not too much stress put on either a Gun or a Bow. The worst that happens to a bow is you may need to replace the strings after a while.

[Aeni]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Why should Archers be punished for being frugal?

Why shouldn't they?

Look, their equipment and gear options aren't limited to just leather or light armor. They have a vast array of options already . You could be wearing spandex and a t-shirt and still do great damage.

There is something called an economy and last I checked you had a vast array of ammos that all have differing ranks. If furgaility was an option on the table then what was the point of the ammo? A gil sink? It fails at that miserably since it's not a sink but a redistribution of wealth (unless you have people buying the very limited options from the vendors) This is no different than the ammo economy in WoW.

Now, with that said, if you don't want ammo to be an issue, then get rid of it altogether. I've already outlined the major problems with the class including the lack of necessary options regarding inventory. Of course, by doing so, you would need to find someway to make carpentry profitable as it is (and was in FFXI) ammo that made the craft since this time around there are no "mog house" and requirements in quests to bolster it.

The fix I outlined would be much easier to implement and does not require additional testing and having to worry about variability of scaling in end game. The penalty only causes wear and tear which is nothing unusual in the game. As for your analogies, they're as pointless as ever. The analogy would best be summed up as the other classes are just at the mercy of the crafting community as the archers and certain classes already have a bigger upfront investment (talking millions of gils at Rank 50) than Archers currently do now.

---------- Post added at 12:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:26 PM ----------

Please, don't make me strangle you with your own entrails. The hassle of just being able to make your own ammo is stressful enough. If anything Ranged Weapons should degrade slower than melee weapons (as should mage weapons, at least when casting) since really, there's not too much stress put on either a Gun or a Bow. The worst that happens to a bow is you may need to replace the strings after a while.

Oh the archer fanbois are starting to flood in. I'm betting you were an LOLRNG in FFXI?

Like I said, if ammo has become the bane of existence for archers (and the only real legitimate excuse for not wanting to get their damage scaled back) then get rid of it altogether like they've done for Hunters in WoW. Then figure something else to base their damage and have it scale appropriately to the rank.

[GosamerWings]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

I can't really agree on the nerfing bat yet. Mainly because while archers and lancers are the most useful, that is because they bring things to the table that others can't. For instance let’s say that pug gained a passive ability at level 10 (or active like lancer's speed surge) that was pug only that increased their crit rate and for every crit they could launch moves that used to require you to evade. That would be something all their own just at level 10 giving reason to be a pug. Or if marauder was given an ability at level 10 (instead of their aoe cone normal attack) that gave their normal attacks a chance to proc a bone break like status that lower the monster's attack/evasion/defense/or magical resistance and upon landing they could use (insert ability here). Rangers already get something at 10 that is all their own, and so do lancers. What square is failing to realize is it's the same boat as ffxi, if a blue mage can dual wield sub thief sneak attack and trick attack and is advertised as having a thief sub high enough to perform in the party, with the necessary skills to equip dual wield. What is the purpose of having the thief in the group when the blue mage can SA+TA for equal if not more damage and have a myriad of other useful skills to help others as well as themselves and speed up battle?

The same applies to lancer and archer, why be a pug or a marauder when you can do all the useful abilities on another class. While it is wonderful that S-E wanted to make job abilities accessible to everyone. You can't do that then give 2 of the 4 skills that are separate from the others without giving the other two something to compensate that can be used. The thing that made ffxi wonderful was that even though there were so many flavors of DD, whenever you got one in your party they bought a different style to the table. Except thief >.< vs people subbing it, but they could at least keep up with most jobs (cept for the rare occurrence of a completely geared out blue mage with all the magic to back it up).

Be it warriors and breaks, monks and their insane dot, samurai and weapon skills, dark knights and drains, stuns, and utility, blue mage and their library of skills, Beast master and pets (done properly even before years of tweaks), ranger and insane burst damage, Dragoon and their wyvern and jumps, puppet master and it's different flavor of puppet, or dancer and it's ability to support and enhance or combat debuff the monster, Ninja with the elemental wheel (at the cost of your bank account rofl).

Yes I know that ffxi took time to get all these things in place, that these things weren’t in place as they are written in when the launch first came... but the point behind this is that even in the infant stage of ffxi there was a difference in what you played. You could switch from a monk, to a warrior, to a samurai, to a thief, to a dragoon, to a dark knight, to a beast master, to a ranger, (wheel ninja wasn't really popular back then so I'll omit that) .. And each experience was all its own. You weren’t relying on the skills of another class, even though it was nice added function, I think Squenix needs to take some time out and add a little bit more variety. I know people will scream at me that marauder’s use axes and do more damage (I will push into the dust that it's the same across the board with normal attacks and skills). That puglist get tp faster than any other job (they do) but at the expense of not having the stamina to use the tp abilities, so thus it balances out the game since the stamina required to fire off the skills still needs to be there. This leaves lancer archer and Gladiator. You have a DD a Ranged DD that can do burst damage at the cost of stamina and a tank that can use moves based on blocking. The other two could have been left out of the game. But then again a lancer with concussive blow evade accuracy debuffs better than a puglist, so at least I can level puglist for subbing it's moves. And long as I can get all of pug's moves and marauder's moves that are useful to them (which I can) why play them when they both have a stamina problem, when I can speed surge my lancer, or notch arrows on my ranger and either gain tp insanely fast for less stamina used, or speed up my stamina gain and give the party an attack -> hp damage conversion while using all the moves from marauder and puglist -smiles.


TL;DR- sub skills from pug and marauder and play lancer or archer, they get skills no one else can use.

[Malacite]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Oh the archer fanbois are starting to flood in. I'm betting you were an LOLRNG in FFXI?

Before they nerfed it, and a while back for Maat's Cap. I'm not saying RNG needs to be ZOMGBORKED! like it was initially in XI, but it actually feels like it performs about right for the investment cost in XIV. In short, leave it the fuck alone SE. They've already ensured that ranged attacks will not become obsoleted in XIV the way they were in XI due to haste, all courtesy of the stamina gauge.

---------- Post added at 04:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 PM ----------

TL;DR- sub skills from pug and marauder and play lancer or archer, they get skills no one else can use.

This is something that's starting to piss me off actually. I really hate that I can't use Speed Surge on my other classes, and I'm even more pissed about not being able to cast magic as a Crafter or Gatherer. God forbid a mob should aggro me and I'd like to defend myself instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off waiting for a job-change macro to go through.

[GosamerWings]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Before they nerfed it, and a while back for Maat's Cap. I'm not saying RNG needs to be ZOMGBORKED! like it was initially in XI, but it actually feels like it performs about right for the investment cost in XIV. In short, leave it the fuck alone SE. They've already ensured that ranged attacks will not become obsoleted in XIV the way they were in XI due to haste, all courtesy of the stamina gauge.

Yeah of all the things done wrong, s-e actually made archer pretty nice (minus the weapon skill animations (but I'm sure they will address that eventually). Now all thats needed is some things to give jobs their own identity I mean my mom's dog eat sleeps and poops, my cat eats sleeps and poops, but one of them will slobber all over my hand if it's put in front of it's face, but one of them wont give a fuck about me if the house is on fire

God forbid a mob should aggro me and I'd like to defend myself instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off waiting for a job-change macro to go through.

ROFL, every time I get reminded of that I remember telling one of my ls mates to use that stun skill while he ran away. His response was always I don't have it equipped.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

There is something called an economy and last I checked you had a vast array of ammos that all have differing ranks. If furgaility was an option on the table then what was the point of the ammo? A gil sink? It fails at that miserably since it's not a sink but a redistribution of wealth (unless you have people buying the very limited options from the vendors) This is no different than the ammo economy in WoW.

Listen closely this time:

I am not saying damage on ammo shouldn't be rescaled in a better Arrow + Bow Damage vs. Mob defense kind of way. I think they should actually make sure rank 1 arrows aren't just as good as anything else.

HOWEVER, I don't think an archer should be severely penalized for using ammo that might be a couple tiers lower than what's best for his level. I don't know if they have enfeebling arrows or magic proc arrows in FFXIV yet, but in FFXI if you were a RNG worth a damn you invested in acids and holy bolts for crossbow - easily some of the lowest tier crafts and ammo in the game to TP before using something like Darksteel (or better) to WS, Barrage or Double Shot.

For guns, there's just nothing better than the highest tier bullet for anything, so you just buy them, though CORs will switch to low tier bullets for Leaden Salute since all the modifiers are totally different from Slug Shot, Detonator and others. I believe RNG got a light based version of that WS called Trueflight (?) so they could switch to low-tier ammo for that WS as well.

Bows you have the Demon Arrows for lowering defense, which are essential regardless of level (which is 56, if I recall). I'm sure there's better than Kabura and Marid arrows out there now and if they're cheap, then by rights you should be using them. But I'd imagine there's some kind of arrow that's expensive now, enough so that it would be prudent to invest in some lower tier arrows if you need something to fall back on. I didn't whore myself out on Scorpion Arrows, but I certainly didn't ignore them. They were and still are abundant and cheap.

If something is efficient, reliable and cheap - why punish people for using it? That would be like nerfing meat mithkabobs or Regen spells.

I don't see PLDs cursing out WHMs for casting Regen III on them because its a cheap spell, its also damn effective and saves them from blowing more MP on people over time. SCH surely knows it. because even at double the cost Regen II on everyone is pretty fucking wicked when coupled with Accession Stoneskin. But we should punish them for being cheap and not using more MP, shouldn't we?

[Aeni]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

I don't have a problem with Archers being able to do more damage with better ammo. That's all and good and it doesn't rub me the wrong way in the slightest. If they do more damage than anybody else, everything else equal, so be it. They do pay a hefty price in terms of inventory space (obligatory mentioning of opportunity costs associated with not being able to receive loot or having to be handicapped every time they want to transition back and forth from crafting and combat) and having to use ammo constantly is expensive. I should know, as I played many ranged classes in various MMORPGs over the past 10 years and I had a main Hunter in WoW.

But having to do damage that is better than those around them and having the option to "cheapen" this ability by being able to do so with Rank 1 equipment at far higher ranks is inexcusable where you question balance. When you can have Archers just soloing fine without help and then doing extraordinarily fine with a group then you've got balance issues.

They cannot just ramp up defense or adjust mechanics too much because that will penalize solo Archers too heavily and make them reliant on a group to do good DPS (much like the issue with Hunters in WoW when pets were suck-ass disposable vanity pixels) Leaving the damage dealing intact but introducing a way where you penalize them for using low rank ammo seems to be a reasonable solution and this solution can also be flexible. I'm only advocating in extreme cases where someone will be using ammo 20 ranks or more lower than their current level. If they're Rank 35 and use Rank 20 ammo, leave them be. If they're Rank 40 and use Rank 10 ammo, then there's a big issue here. I mean, c'mon now, at Rank 40, you have millions already and even if you bought your ammo from someone else you aren't going bankrupt doing so.

So there's no easy answers but I thought having a reasonable solution without screwing around with the damage mechanics of a class is sensible.

---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:54 PM ----------

I don't see PLDs cursing out WHMs for casting Regen III on them because its a cheap spell, its also damn effective and saves them from blowing more MP on people over time.

But you're comparing apples to oranges. Regen III doesn't effect a crafter's ability to make money. Ammo does.

---------- Post added at 06:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------

I don't know if they have enfeebling arrows or magic proc arrows in FFXIV yet,

Sorry, I had to respond to this as well, because I didn't want people to get any wrong ideas. The new "skillchain" system handles the enfeebling and so right now there are no ammos that do this and there will never be a need for ammos to do this. For solo purposes, sub spells from other classes and then for group work, it's nice that you can have access to enfeebling spells via synergy so you don't need to have to wait 3 hours for that one class that can do it for you.

[Malacite]

Re: Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

Demon Arrows actually lower enemy attack, not defense BBQ.