XIV combat mechanics and formulas

[Aeni]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

OK so I just got done testing with my Legacy, and all my stuff is there.

But, I'm just gonna say this: I fucking hate the changes to WAR.

Funny, because the consensus is that WAR is OP, at least in beta.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

I quite like what they did with Pugilist/Monk. They ripped off Warhammer Online's Balance System that was used for the High Elven Swordmaster and Black Orc classes, except it works in this game because Bioware can't do netcoding for shit. The only issue I have had so far is that Offensive and Defensive Cooldowns sometimes refuse to fire off the global cooldown and you have to wait for it to finish. So that evasion buff might come too late to avoid being smacked in the face.

Still holding out for Thief or Ninja to be added but at the moment I'm loving my little Miqo'te brawling machine.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Monk is GREAT now, I love how it's just an endless string of combos - it just enhances the job both thematically and functionally.

Really, REALLY loving the new PLD changes as well. I dislike losing Holy Succor, and Hallowed Ground got nerfed to 10 seconds from 15, but overall it's really good for the most part. Spirit's Within got messed up a bit (lol 1-second silence effect wtf...) but they ditched Shield Lob (unless that's quested, didn't do any GLA quests) and I really, really love the 2 Oath Skills - Oath of Swords is particularly nasty - flat out 25% attack increase with no drawback. Oath of Shields lowers your damage 25%, but gives you permanent 35% damage reduction and increased enmity - PLD is really, really amazing at tanking bosses now at least on paper.



What I hate about WAR is Wrath. They removed Mighty Strikes (BOO!!!!) nerfed the shit out of Steel Cyclone, and now to use 3/5 of our Job Skills you have to have Defiance active (increases your HP 35% but lowers damage 25%) and use your weaponskills to build up Wrath - 1 point per skill - until you're Infuriated (5 points) at which point then, and only then can you use Steel Cyclone and 2 other attacks.



I don't like it. I had a blast on WAR in 1.23 tanking multiple mobs at a time with Vengeace & Steel Cyclone. Now WAR looks like a confused PLD to me.


Also, Bard Songs now continuously drain MP and party members have to be within "hearing range" to get the effect; no more singing a song and then it's up for a pre-determined duration. Songs also lower your damage 20% when active, it's crap... I don't get why they felt the need to nerf Bard so hard.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Bards were pretty OP in 1.0. They were 0% Risk, 100% Reward and could buff themselves into killing machines so they likely wanted it to take more a support role.

You do also know that Warrior is a tank right? Something that it does ridiculously well now thanks to Defiance and the Combo Points (Wrath) System. Infuriate > Unchained also allows for some pretty crazy burst damage. Plus at 5/5 Wrath you will have +20% crit chance until you use a Wrath Consumer. Warriors are kind of crazy right now and stupidly OP as far as tanking goes. The damage they can put out isn't bad either.

Warriors also get some insane self healing with Convalescence and Thrill of Battle alongside things like Second Wind, Bloodbath > Unchained > Heavy Swing > Maim > Storm's Path will restore a silly amount of HP. Plus Storm's Eye got a HUGE buff in that is increases the healing you receive by 50% Plus Vengeance alongside the Warrior attacks makes it ridiculously good at holding AoE Hate, something that a Paladin can't do.

I'd actually be more inclined to take a Warrior tank over a Paladin now purely because it's going to be much harder to pull aggro off him/her and all of the passive self healing that will make them much easier to heal over time. Sure a Paladin will be less "spikey" in terms of incoming damage, but a good Warrior will know the right defensive cooldowns to take to make that redundant.

[Armando]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

I wonder. No doubt Armando enjoys analyzing systems, but I doubt even he started playing FFXI because he saw an opportunity to apply algebra.

Ding ding ding!

@Cid: Games should give you as many meaningful choices as possible with the simplest set of rules (e.g. Portal.) Ideally you should be able to understand the stats easily but still find multiple equally valid optimal setups (e.g. Pokemon.) Later in its life FFXI failed at both because the rules were stupidly complex yet in 98% of the cases the combat was shallow (e.g. spam certain JAs in a set routine and WS at 100 TP every time.)

He's around, but I don't think he reads XIV threads. Much as I didn't before I played the beta.

I wasn't online most of past week. And in general I don't click on FFXIV threads, but this one caught my attention for obvious reasons.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Ding ding ding!

Games should give you as many meaningful choices as possible with the simplest set of rules (e.g. Portal.) Ideally you should be able to understand the stats easily but still find multiple equally valid optimal setups (e.g. Pokemon.) Later in its life FFXI failed at both because the rules were stupidly complex yet in 98% of the cases the combat was shallow (e.g. spam certain JAs in a set routine and WS at 100 TP every time.).

Completely agree with this. Pokemon has a massive amount of depth for what essentially amounts to an RPG about collecting cute monsters aimed primarily at children.

One thing that did annoy me about FFXI was the fact that you did need entire spreadsheets to work out if a bit of gear was truly going to be an upgrade for that specific WS you want to do damage with. I remember agonising for hours over if a bit of gear would be worth using in a Trick Attack Macro or if it would let me hit harder with Evisceration for example.

It was needlessly overcomplicated for such a simple and shallow combat system

[Aeni]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

@Cid: Games should give you as many meaningful choices as possible with the simplest set of rules (e.g. Portal.) Ideally you should be able to understand the stats easily but still find multiple equally valid optimal setups (e.g. Pokemon.)

The problem with MMOs is that when you do not have a closed system (e.g., Pokemon), you're going to have to deal with the eventuality of exploitation. MMOs are founded on community and mutual trust. Exploitation serves only to undermine trust and the idea of fair play. It then erodes the community and you'll end up with no game whatsoever. This topic has been explored and discussed to death on numerous occasions and I will not delve into it here. Suffice to say, to what needs a game is developed for will determine both the level of complexity and the type of system being employed. I think that is a great challenge that is still evolving today.

[Armando]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

The problem with MMOs is that when you do not have a closed system (e.g., Pokemon), you're going to have to deal with the eventuality of exploitation.

Not sure what you mean by a closed system. Pokemon has exploits too, it's just that the community agrees on banning certain things.

Suffice to say, to what needs a game is developed for will determine both the level of complexity and the type of system being employed.

I think I get what you're saying, but I don't think that excuses FFXI's needlessly convoluted math. There's no practical benefits to making PDIF some weird step-wise function or for fSTR to be so complicated. If you could approximate your damage in FFXI with [DMG + (STR-VIT)/4] * Attack/Defense it'd be a lot easier to wrap your head around the stats and the impact on game balance would be pretty minimal.

I know that the MMO genre imposes a lot of limitations on the game mechanics, but the math itself doesn't need to be hard. Most of the exploits arise from specific abilities or combinations of abilities and not something as fundamental as stat calculation (except Haste. That was stupid.)

[Aeni]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Armando, I wasn't specifically replying to your post on any specific item, but more in general terms.

Using Pokemon as an example, the neat fact that you're able to play the game you want, makes it accessible for all. That is all fine and good in a closed environment. However, when you have a situation where that is no longer the case, then you have to put in some defined guide rails in place to tell players what they can or cannot do. I know that is a frustrating reality for many players who are jumping into MMOs for the first time and I have seen numerous complaints on the official forums regarding this.

For example, Blizzard decided that stats were too complex for many players to understand, so they simplified things and removed them as a choice on gears (So no longer will a player be agonizing over a gear choice if a certain stat is present or not present on the item) But they wanted to make sure those that love customization will have that option and introduced the Reforge system. It's a system where you reduce a stat and add another (e.g., reduce dodge and add accuracy) This adds another layer of complexity without having to add additional stats or redefine the system.

I believe SE is also trying to achieve this with materia. However, it's not an easy task, because the possibilities for exploitation exists. So they will have to put restrictions on this and try to best balance off the gap between players who have no materia present and those that have the maximum allowed in the game. If this was FFVII or Star Ocean 3, the sky is the limit (you're only limited by time and money), and so you could have something that is so unbalanced that it trivializes the content of the game. That's where I was going with my concerns regarding exploitation and fair play.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

SO4's crafting allowed for some very, VERY unbalanced item mods as well rofl...




Aside from the horribly slow recovery rate of GP, I'm really loving gathering & crafting now - just went and HQ'd myself a new hatchet ^_^

[cidbahamut]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

@Cid: Games should give you as many meaningful choices as possible with the simplest set of rules (e.g. Portal.) Ideally you should be able to understand the stats easily but still find multiple equally valid optimal setups (e.g. Pokemon.) Later in its life FFXI failed at both because the rules were stupidly complex yet in 98% of the cases the combat was shallow (e.g. spam certain JAs in a set routine and WS at 100 TP every time.)

I tend to agree, I just felt the need to point out that taking it to the other extreme is just as bad. A 1:1 ratio of stat to effect is utterly boring and leaves no room for discovery or creative approaches. FFXI added too many variables and convoluted equations, but the end result was that you actually did have to stop and think, which I appreciated. I'll gladly take a convoluted mess of a stat system over a simple "sword+1 -> sword+2 -> sword+3" system for any MMO I'm looking to invest actual time in.

[Malacite]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Also, I should probably let you guys know that you don't get "extra" points anymore;

You get exactly 30 Bonus Points in total by level 50, and the max for any 1 stat is 30 - it's not like in 1.23 where you could very nearly max out 2 stats, so you're really best off just dumping them all into 1 category. I'm actually very disappointed in this system, as for the most part your primary damage stat trumps everything else for DoW & THM, with CNJ going for MND for healing. I suspect PIE might be used by ACN, but otherwise there's really just no incentive to boosting "off stats" e.g. DEX on GLA, or PIE on CNJ/THM.

If they could find a way to tweak the effect of stats specifically for bonus points, that'd be great. For example, each point of VIT normally adds 7 HP, but if you're adding extra VIT via bonus attributes, maybe it could add 12 instead - then it would actually be worth considering over STR.

[Taskmage]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Isn't it the case that your MP regeneration rate is a % of your max MP, making PIE pretty important for CNJ?

[Etra]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

This is why I'm not touching my allocate-able stats until a moth+ into release. Gives you math wizards time to figure things out.

[Firewind]

Re: XIV combat mechanics and formulas

Isn't it the case that your MP regeneration rate is a % of your max MP, making PIE pretty important for CNJ?

That is something I'm not too sure about. THM/BLM can switch into Umbral Ice to get a ridiculous refresh effect or just Convert, and CNJ/WHM also has the ability to cast a form of Refresh on themselves with Shroud of Saints. BRD might have the best use out of PIE though due to Mage's Ballad.

Of course this is all theorycrafting, I may be completely wrong.