Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

[Alerith]

No mention of needed PLD adjustments.

This whole announcement is exceedingly disappointing.

[Carth]

The Level Correction and Atk/Defense ratio changes, should they go through, would be a big step in making PLD and other tanks more viable for endgame.

I would like to see their ideas for Enmity changes, however.

[MarkovChain]

I mathed a bit the effect of the change to ratio of the DPS of various DDs. Assuming the new pdif cap is 3.0 and 4.0 for crit I get the following DPS against decent challenge mobs under high buffs ( 2x marches, 2xminuets, enfire, haste, boost dex, berserk / hasso when relevant )

pup
DPS : 754.424557
monk
DPS : 893.517180, spharai : 894.729028
glanz
DPS : shijin : 901.413704, ascetic : 889.168151
ryunohige
DPS : 753.796222, relic : 510.799683
war
DPS : 839.825226
conqueror
DPS : 902.734577
koga
DPS : 1106.887842
liberator
DPS : 910.986609
ragnarok
DPS : 816.908923

previously it looked like (increase in dps in % listed)

pup
DPS : 729.824907 (+3%)
monk
DPS : 797.954570 (+12%), spharai : 756.999267(+18%)
glanz
DPS : shijin : 774.754062(+16%), ascetic : 732.400090 (+21%)
ryunohige
DPS : 751.280283 (+0.3%), relic : 509.021529
war
DPS : 754.763829 (+11%)
conqueror
DPS : 772.762159 (+16.8%)
koga
DPS : 867.586253 (+27%)
liberator
DPS : 764.374423 (+19%)
ragnarok
DPS : 716.567921 (+14%)

As you see the change will act as a nerf on PUP and DRG (since they never hit attack cap) so I'm not sure it's the good thing to do. Basically it will buff those jobs or weapons that already go often at the ratio cap right now, while not touching others, but at the cost of dying to berserk.

[Raksha]

I could have sworn I have seen a vid of people using Modus to kill over 50% of a Hydra before, however I could be mistaken I suppose. Also in either case I know no one got to kill AV or anything with it, however it was the fact that SE nerfed it before people could that was my point, they likely rushed to patch it because they noticed what they had done, they were just to absent minded about it to ever come back to it to really fix it. They did what they had to so it would not be overpowered, but they never actually balanced it, simply destroyed it and left it to waste away.

There was a video, but they never actually killed the hydra/cerb/whatever with it. It was done as a proof of concept/practice run.

[Demon6324236]

That exact concept is what got it so heavily nerfed, as I said, SE just never went back to balance it, just like how they do many things in this game, once its nerfed its gone with no hopes of returning to an acceptable use. Thankfully I think for the most part they did ok with Embrava, though I still do not like exactly how they did it, but its at least acceptable by compare. Embrava is another subject entirely, but I use it as an example just because its another of SCH's nerfs, just Embrava I feel was handled a bit better, even if they did wait a very, very, long time to do it. In the end however, that long wait may be why it is turning out to go as well as it is, rather than ending up as a total flop like Modus did.

[MarkovChain]

Pop corn incoming for MNK & PUP, a google translate of the JP posts shows an increase from 2 to 2.25 for ratio cap. While the effect is limited for pup since their attack is still fairly low, it is a giant boost too mnk as they are more likely to reach it. Anyway a very well geared pup with KKK is probably getting a substancial boost too. Also keep in mind that MNK has the possibility to use boost on WS, for ~20% boost to attack, while right now you are advised for not using it since the time lost is usually not worth the effort, but this could change. The draw back is, of course, berserk is going to kill you but at least boost doesn't ... Math incoming.

[MarkovChain]

Ok here we go. The state of DDs right now (recall for post 233)

pup
DPS : 729.824907
monk
DPS : 797.954570 , spharai : 756.999267
glanz
DPS : shijin : 774.754062, ascetic : 732.400090
ryunohige
DPS : 751.280283 , relic : 509.021529
war
DPS : 754.763829
conqueror
DPS : 772.762159
koga
DPS : 867.586253
liberator
DPS : 764.374423
ragnarok
DPS : 716.567921

Now with the increase of 1H ratio, without boost on the MNKs :

pup
DPS : 742.038901
monk
DPS : 840.811957, spharai : 813.065319
glanz
DPS : shijin : 832.802696, ascetic : 772.443094

5% to 7% increase to MNKs (remember the targets are ~even match)

Balance™

Note that the abvove comparison are done with only dia2 / minuets / food as attack buff, which put the mnk nearly at cap but not at cap, as the ratio varies between 2.15 and 2.25 depending on impetus.

[Camate]

Greetings!

Since there has been a lot of feedback and questions regarding level correction, I’d like to take this opportunity to add a bit to what we mentioned last week about how we are looking into eliminating level correction.

This level correction is what we will be using to make it so that when you increase your defense the damage you take will be reduced. In other words, the level correction will be focused on the monsters' attack power. Since we will not be making any changes to the level correction in regards to monster defense, damage towards higher level enemies will not see an increase from the level correction adjustments. Completely getting rid of level correction would make it easy at low levels to defeat monsters that have a difference of 20 levels or more.

With that said, from your character's perspective, these changes will only really be applicable to higher level monsters, and easy prey monsters or other lower level monsters will not become weaker. However, depending on the attack/defense ratio there may be variations.

We also understand that the current attack/defense ratio cap for single-handed and two-handed weapons is 2 and 2.25 respectively, and an idea was raised to set them both to 2.25. We will need to examine whether this value is good enough or if we need to make further changes in advance before we proceed with this adjustment.

Now to answer some questions…

With these adjustments could you also make adjustments to weapon skills that have “defense ignored varies with TP”?

Currently we do not have any plans to make adjustments to these kinds of weapon skills.

Am I going to die right away when I use Counterstance now?

We understand the concerns associated with this and there is a possibility that we will be making separate adjustments to Counterstance.

As a final note, we do not have any plans at the moment to make adjustments to weapons that deal non-elemental damage; however, we do realize that they are extremely strong. Though this is speaking more about the future, since we will be introducing items that have a higher damage value, we expect that these weapons will not be something that are used full-time, and the situations for use will become limited.

In regards to the way we create monsters, we will still be adding features to them like you can see currently, where some monsters will be weak against piercing, while others weak against blunt damage or physical damage in general. However, instead of making it so you can only do damage via a certain method of attacking, we feel it would be better to create them so certain attack methods yield even more damage. To get a better idea of what we are talking about, Qutrub are a perfect example.

Also, the possibility that we add more weapons that deal non-elemental damage is extremely low.

Now then, just to wrap stuff up, below is a TL;DR version of the basic plan for these adjustments. Please keep in mind that none of this is finalized.

• Attack/defense ratio adjustment plan
  • Increase the cap value for the numbers calculated from the attack/defense ratio.
    Make adjustments so that when a player’s defense is low, damage taken will increase.
  • Increase the cap of the attack/defense ratio for single-handed weapons.
    Look into increasing this to 2.25, the same attack/defense ratio of two-handed weapons.
• Level correction adjustment plan
  • Level correction for monsters’ attack power
    Make adjustments so when a player’s defense is high, damage taken will be reduced.
  • Make adjustments to monsters’ strength via parameters
    Monsters created after Seekers of Adoulin will be made at a level where there is no level correction, and when higher level monsters are created modification will be placed on attack, defense, and stats.

[Motenten]

We also understand that the current attack/defense ratio cap for single-handed and two-handed weapons is 2 and 2.5 respectively, and an idea was raised to set them both to 2.25.

I don't see anywhere in the JP posts where they state that the two-handed weapon ratio cap is 2.5. I only see where they are raising one-handed weapons from 2.0 to 2.25, the same as two-handed weapons. As far as player testing has indicated, two-handed weapons indeed have a 2.25 ratio cap. Can you please clarify?

Increase the cap of the attack/defense ratio for single-handed weapons.
Look into increasing this to 2.25, the same attack/defense ratio of two-handed weapons.

And then later in your post you say the same thing. Probably an error in the first statement?

[Camate]

I don't see anywhere in the JP posts where they state that the two-handed weapon ratio cap is 2.5. I only see where they are raising one-handed weapons from 2.0 to 2.25, the same as two-handed weapons. As far as player testing has indicated, two-handed weapons indeed have a 2.25 ratio cap. Can you please clarify?



And then later in your post you say the same thing. Probably an error in the first statement?

Hi Motenten!

Thanks for pointing that out. It was a typo. I missed a "2". The original post has been corrected. Sorry about that!