Thoughts on the FFXI Job Adjustment Manifesto

[SpankWustler]

We understand your concerns very well, but it has been difficult for us to focus on anything other than Voidwatch. With that said, we have decided to consider not only the current situation, but also the future, which is why we decided to allow scholar-like activity from a lower level so that they can participate more actively in the battle content that will be added in the future.

Thank you for removing my hopes for tier II helices and replacing them with an all-consuming fear that level-capped content is on the dark and perilous horizon.

[Merton9999]

While I won't pretend to understand what job will benefit from sub usable Helix spells in a major way, I think I have a solution for all the Scholars who want Scholar only Helix procs.

Only allow Helix spells under the effect of Immanence to proc.

Yes, it costs a stratagem, but it would allow the devs to have their sub usable Helix spells without hurting Scholar only proccing too bad (while I'm not going to debate whether or not Scholars would get invited or not if they didn't have unique procs, I will strongly state that there are other good reasons for Scholars to come to Voidwatch aside from proccing welfare). Also, it would sortof fit the picture of Scholar's being tactical mages.

The problem is there are any number of things they could do, I can think of a million easy tweaks. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than removing the spells from subjobs like the Afflatus JAs. And I understand that Mocchi said they want to look at ways to make SCH main more useful, but regardless of the words we have two years of 76-95 actions that say the exact opposite, including one of the worst ones with this update after they already made the "SCH main more useful" statement. I'm not holding my breath any more, and at this point I'm kind of done making suggestions just to see this kind of nonsense in the end.

EDIT
Yeah so I just told my LS about this helix adjustment and naturally the first response was "lol I guess you get to come WHM/SCH to VW now..."

Before I go to bed infuriated by this new nerf to SCH, I'm going to second Sotek's suggestion that SE just scrap the helix adjustments for this update completely. In fact, I'd prefer absolutely no updates to SCH than to have helix spells subbable. Whatever miniscule amount of utility would be added with the regen adjustments, it's going to be completely washed out by the helix change.

Just do something simple and make MV stop missing and not stack. That can't be hard, and every SCH would like it.

[Economizer]

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than removing the spells from subjobs like the Afflatus JAs.

Bad design. Good design would be allowing the JA but with nerfs like they did it for years before on things that would be considered too powerful. Some buffs aren't too powerful, like Convert. Some would be considered too powerful from a sub job, like Accession or Meditate.

From a sub Scholar perspective, I don't see a strong reason for Helix spells being at a sub usable level, outside of a proc system. Jobs that nuke will be able to nuke without them, and jobs that don't won't really use them anyways at higher levels from what I see. Maybe there are niche uses (a level capped BCNM or two comes to mind), but generally this won't be affecting job balance outside of proc welfare.

From a Scholar main standpoint, in terms of flavor of the job, Scholar is augmented by heavy use of job abilities. Rather then adding more spells, I'd rather see these job abilities augment the spells in major ways, especially for Scholar main. While things like tier 2 helix spells and tier 2 storm spells would fit Scholar well, being able to get the equivalents of these via arts and stratagem usage would fit Scholar better, at least in my opinion, even when it comes to proc welfare. Even if it took more coding work.

On Helix spells in general, if SE decides they are going to go ahead with lower level Helix spells that scale with level, I think a passable alternative to straight up Helix 2 spells would either be my previous suggestion. A good alternative to Helix 2 spells would be dual helix spells that work with Immanence to create more complex skillchains, and happen to be the new procs.

Helix spells usable at a lower level may or may not be a good idea dependent on how SE deals with it, but ultimately, I'm not going to spend my time arguing against the direction SE wants to go with the game considering that they still are going in that direction despite some protests on the JP and NA boards, at least in this case. I'm going to try to suggest something that fits both the dev's goals and the player's. It might not be the best solution for players, people might spew venom rather then explain their feelings rationally about it on occasion, but I feel that it is the more realistic solution.

[Merton9999]

I'm not at all concerned with whether or not it's considered "bad design" from some sort of scholastic or purist point of view. I'd prefer a simple pragmatic solution to a problem everyone else sees. No one would miss subbable helix spells. You can keep following the FFXI 101 design handbook, I'll keep suggesting they stop going this direction since we have a test server and a feedback forum for such things.

[Economizer]

I'll keep suggesting they stop going this direction since we have a test server and a feedback forum for such things.

Perhaps Scholars will manage to get sub usable Helix spells blocked. I don't think it would overly affect anyone outside of procs. This has a pretty good chance of even being the best solution to the issue - even if SE went along with Helix spells scaling up with level, I don't think there would be much difference if Helix spells were just learned at level 50 or 55 if they really wanted to lower the level on them.

All that said, I just think that given how much SE's team seems to want this change, there should be suggestions that work with it too, in addition to just saying that Helix spells shouldn't be adjusted in level. If the dev team is willing to be flexible, we should be too in our feedback. It is more of a back up plan of sorts, kind of like saying, "I would much prefer A, but if you must go with B, please make C adjustments to the idea."

So please, keep up the pressure in what you want, I don't think it is unreasonable to say Helix spells shouldn't be sub usable. Just be willing to discuss alternatives if the changes SE is making end up going through.

[Creelo]

We understand your concerns very well, but it has been difficult for us to focus on anything other than Voidwatch.

First, I don't think the dev team or the community reps understand our concerns very well.

And if the dev team truly can't focus on anything other than VW at the moment, then how about they finally add that "Add spoils to treasure pool" option we've all been asking for.

kthxbai <.<

[Sotek]

All that said, I just think that given how much SE's team seems to want this change, there should be suggestions that work with it too, in addition to just saying that Helix spells shouldn't be adjusted in level. If the dev team is willing to be flexible, we should be too in our feedback. It is more of a back up plan of sorts, kind of like saying, "I would much prefer A, but if you must go with B, please make C adjustments to the idea."

The issue I have with this is that there is literally no reason for them to lower the level of Helices. When they have no conceivable reason to do this it's very hard to cut them some slack.

Letting lower level Scholars feel more scholarly is a non-reason and quite clearly bullshit, or at the very least extremely poorly thought out; be it through a new level capped end game event that the majority of people are going to hate, or simply not understanding the current level system that badly.
Adjusting the strength of them, again, doesn't require their level to be dropped. Another non-reason.

I'd be flexible with them if they'd be honest with us. If they came out and said "We don't want Scholar to be useful for our stupid Stagger system", I'd be flexible, pissed off, but flexible. As it is, I'm just pissed off. Eight Helices isn't exactly the twenty four unique spells Black Mage gets for Stagger, but it was a start. Now White Mage gets them all, thanks SE.

[Zhronne]

I'm beginning to wonder if it is because of limitations to how many new spells the game can hold. They don't want to "waste" spells on more tiers of Helices, so they are doing this instead.

Was about to say.
They already mentioned in some post in the past that they are "running out of space" for new JAs and new spells.
It's fine, we don't need Tier II helixes. Making Helixes stronger is very welcome indeed but losing our uniquness totally is not.

I still don't get the point of this choice, Mocchi's post makes no sense to me. Either I'm missing something to understand their perspective, or it's an excuse.

[Bayohne]

Mocchi made a lengthy follow-up to yesterday's post, and I want to make sure you're aware of some of the reasoning behind some of the changes that are taking place.

Let me start by explaining our new policy.

As you all know, the level cap will be raised to 99 soon. After that, as I mentioned elsewhere, we are planning on implementing various other adjustments, such as reviewing merit point categories.

Considering these changes, although it may take longer to finalize, some jobs will require fundamental overhaul instead of minor adjustments.

For example, for puppetmasters we plan on re-examining every attachment and the AI logic of automatons. For corsair we plan on re-evaluating every roll. Similarly, we would like to adjust the fundamentals of scholar, namely light & dark arts and Helix spells.

I’m sorry for making similar requests two days in a row, but please understand that we are making adjustments so that scholar becomes a useful job all around and not just a tool for procing weakness in Voidwatch content.

Regarding whether being able to use Helix spells starting at a lower level is right or wrong, we understand that it is possible to level up in Grounds of Valor and Abyssea with the help of other players, but we do not consider that standard procedure. This is the same reasoning as why job adjustments do not factor in leveling in Abyssea areas as a standard issue.

Next up are Helix spells.

Instead of shortening the time in between damage dealt over time, we would like to establish that damage is dealt every 10 seconds. We also plan on increasing the amount of damage dealt and fixing the effect duration at 90 seconds instead of 45-90 seconds. We will prepare these changes in time for the next test server update.

Regarding accuracy, Helix spells are set to have similar accuracy as tier IV black magic spells, so we will not be adjusting their accuracy. Instead, we decided to stabilize Helix spells by fixing damage dealt and their effect duration.

This is a bit off-topic, but regarding the effects of "Adloquium," we decided not to adjust its base stats. In the future, we plan on looking into introducing gear that enhances the effect.

*Updated the statement regarding "Adloquium" as it was unclear.

[Asymptotic]

Wait, there's gear that enhances Adloquium? This is news to me.