Fostering Skillful Play

[Emitremmus]

I personally liked the way you had the option of enfeebling an enemy with items in the CoP era. Perhaps re-including items that aren't going to be terribly dreadful to obtain would be a fun thing to introduce again. A wolf enemy resembling Fenrir, and you have to throw a steak to distract him for instance. Who here can honestly say that an alliance of steak tossing fighters would not be fun?

Using the terrain to your advantage would be cool as well. For example, an area where you fight a monster that can only take damage when it is standing in water. So you have to move him around where you want, let him get impacted by the water, unleash all the damage you can, and he flees away from his weakness. Cool stuff.

Another thing I'm a fan of, is the damage specific types of enemies a la A Shattoto Ascension (and that one ahriman in Abyssea - Konschtat, but screw that guy.) A monster that is only weak to skillchain damage? Heck yes. Forcing people to work together and play accordingly...uh oh. Of course all melee attacks would have to do at least 1 damage to trigger a skillchain, but you feel me.

[Camiie]

With that said, I would like to write a bit about my ideas on game play.
(This isn’t very different from the post I made during the FFXIV battle reform. However, I believe this is important information to share with FFXI fans, so I would like to reiterate these points.)
　
I personally believe that game play is nearly synonymous with fostering skillful play.

Without different levels of skill involved, a game isn’t really a game, and I believe that a major factor in the enjoyment of playing games is being rewarded for playing at a high level of skill. (Although it may be more difficult to explain the fun of finishing off collections or completing specific tasks.)

But you have to reward players at all levels of "skill" in order to create some level of progression. What we've been missing is the middle tier of rewards. We have gear that's apparently intended for everyone and gear that seems to be intended for hardly anyone, but where's the intermediate challenge? There seems to be a missing step between Voidwatch and Neo-Nyzul. This is probably where I get lambasted, but I don't feel as though there's any content along the way that truly prepares me for it. I won't speak to Legion as I figure I'm supposed to get gear from Neo-Nyzul before I dare to set foot in Legion.

The joy felt when defeating a very strong enemy or completing content that is considered challenging is proportionate to how strong the enemy was or how difficult the content was.

Until you cross the line into the realm of frustration, which IMO, your content does a bit too often.

Don't forget that it can also be fun when we're the powerful ones. It's nice sometimes to be able to show off our power and curb stomp our enemies. It's nice when we get to show why we're the ones everyone in Vana'diel calls on when the shit hits the fan. Those of us who've been playing for a long time and amassed all that we have deserve a bit better than to keel over dead every time a dragon sneezes.

Variety is the spice of life. There's room for fights where we'll struggle, but also room for fights where we'll shine.

However, I don’t believe that this is the only aspect of fostering skillful play.

In addition to things like being able to perfectly time the stun of an enemy's powerful ability, there are many different levels and ways in which users have foster skillful play. You need to gather equipment and meds, know the right farming spots for your parties, and various other aspects.

We are gathering equipment and meds. We are using the abilities at our disposal. It's just that the way certain events work, you can do everything right and still get destroyed or the abilities we have (and many entire JOBS) prove to be utterly useless.

Looking from this point of view at the recent FFXI, I feel that the varieties of fostering skillful play are becoming too skewed.

For all of you who love and enjoy playing FFXI, I would like increase the ways you experience the joy of being rewarded for playing well. That said, we will be adding a variety of ways to foster skillful play and we’ll also be making adjustments.

We will strive to improve the game so that users can continue to love FFXI and make lasting memories.

I'd like for you to clarify what you mean here. I'd like to think you mean you're going to make it so we actually have the tools to succeed against whatever we may face, but I have a fear that you're just going to end up making things even more difficult and unfair somehow.

[SpankWustler]

I don't think Akihiko is saying "players are dumb" at all. I think he's recognizing that the current battle mechanics and NM designs just do not create an environment where skillful play can be fostered.

I hope this is the case. I'd be really happy to get some screws and a screwdriver instead of the nails and hammer format everything has gradually moved towards. Plowing through content best cleared by extremely buffed melee and some form of Stun by using extremely buffed melee and some form of Stun gets old after a while.

I think the main concern is that this statement actually does mean something and will be pursued half-way. So, we'll be forced to drive nails with the handles of screwdrivers or forcibly hammer in screws.

[Mirage]

Are you trying to tell me that screws aren't meant to be hammered in?

[Yinnyth]

...

Foremost is fixing enmity such that a tank can actually tank during a max DPS rush. Don't kid yourself if it's not possible for a tank to hold hate when a DD is going nuts, then we'll be falling back to the zerg strategy.

...

Second is fixing the super AoE wipe everyone moves, AoE's need to be severely restricted. SE has gotten entirely too comfortable with making everything aoe.

I agree to some degree with everything you've raised in your post. I do take 2 exceptions though:

Tanking: It is my opinion that tanks should not be able to hold hate off DDs who are going balls to the wall with their damage. If a tank can hold hate off all the DDs while they're doing a primevil brew zerg, then the only portion of the strategy of battles becomes "keep the tank alive" because no one else will be getting damaged, so you just ignore them and let them do their thing. Tanks need to be able to hold hate a lot better than they currently do cetainly, but it should only be enough to hold hate off an average DD going at 75% power.

DDs going at full power needs to be a calculated risk. Enmity gear needs to mean something. Enmity reducing abilities need to mean something. If tanks are always 100% effective, we lose all of these aspects from gameplay.

AoE: AoEs provide the battle with other strategic aspects which should not be removed. Some AoEs are complete BS (Hi, ADL's 4x-instant-use dynamic implosion which has 30' range, does 300-500 damage each, and inflicts terror for over 30 seconds), and those should be changed. But AoEs should not be removed from the game completely.

We need high-power AoEs with a long wind-up so tactical stunning or running for your life is required. We need low-powered AoEs so healing more than just 1 person is sometimes needed. We need short ranged AoEs so people who pay attention can outrange them. We need long-range AoEs which don't hit anything within 5' of the enemy itself so even the healers get put at minor risk. We need conal AoEs so you have to be careful where you stand.

We need a variety of AoEs to force us to think about how we approach a battle. Right now, most AoE attacks are either so weak they can be almost completely ignored or so powerful that they just end any attempt at killing the enemy, and there's nothing you can do about it besides putting up PD. More thought needs to go into how a boss' attacks are programmed instead of using the approach of "I want this enemy to be harder than other enemies so his AoE will be larger, do more damage, and inflict worse status effects!"

[Caketime]

The interface is skill based... what?

I often find navigating the UI to be more of a challenge than most bosses, especially after 9 beers.

[saevel]

@Yinnyth

You idea is very flawed, if the DD's have to "hold back" then they will simply remove the tank and become the *tanks*, which is what is happening now. There is absolutely no such thing as "hate control", at least not the way we think about it (SAM/THF's running around like idiots). In most other MMO's the various squishy class's have some form of enmity reduction that they use strategically to ensure their no where near the top of the NM's hate list. Melee's are expected to have survival abilities so that they don't die faster then the healers can heal them and "tanks" are expected to hold the monsters attention throughout the fight.

If DD's have to "hold back" then eventually people will figure out that DD's can wear DT/PDT gear and suddenly why the f*ck needs a shitty PLD using a sh!tty sword and board. Instead throw in another DD and have everyone crank their damage to full and plow the NM away while spamming curaga's. The NM dies much faster so your have less overall damage intake, MP isn't an issue as it's dead long before the healers supply is gone, and your win rate goes way up as the amount of time the NM's AI spends deciding to screw you is minimized. Where as a long drawn out fight where the melee's only run in to WS affords the NM's AI multiple opportunity's to roll an 11 and just kill you. That or your going to run out of time as all your damage is limited to the PLD's output, which is a very bad place to be.

Also your extremely misinformed about high powered aoe's. If everyone is getting hit by the attack, then why do you even bother with a tank that specializes in reduced damage. Sure the tank only took 50 damage from that attack, too bad everyone else took 1500 and half the mages are dead. In that scenario throw the tank out since their not doing you a damn lick of good, insert another DD and plow it into the ground while spamming aoe cures.

We're talking about what is required for an effective "tank" to work and there is absolutely nothing about FFXI that makes it different from any other MMO in this regard. The system must allow for the designated "tank" to hold the NM's primary attention and to absorb it's more deadly attacks while allowing it to be killed. If these conditions are not met then you don't have a tank, instead you have a liability. If anyone has to stand around with their thumb up their arse or everyone is getting smacked around by aoe's targeted at the "tank", then you don't have a tank and should replace them with a DD and go full out.

The entire reason the players of FFXI resort to DD zerg tactics is that simply put, it works. There is a concept amongst engineers known as KISS. The strategy that is the simplest and most straightforward is usually the best one as it has the least number of places where something could go wrong or a mistake could be made. To acquire loot we must kill something, sometimes activating some sort of weakness system. We will find the simplest and most direct method to accomplishing it.

[Yinnyth]

You idea is very flawed, if the DD's have to "hold back" then they will simply remove the tank and become the *tanks*, which is what is happening now.

The tank jobs, by nature, need to be better at taking a beating than the DDs. If the DDs can survive the thrashing the enemy puts out, then enmity is not the problem. Who cares if PLDs can hold hate 100% of the time if they do no damage and die every bit as easily as the DDs? The PLD would be dead weight.

If DD's have to "hold back" then eventually people will figure out that DD's can wear DT/PDT gear and suddenly why the f*ck needs a shitty PLD using a sh!tty sword and board.

If they're prioritizing defensive gear and abilities instead of pumping everything they can into pure damage, then they're no longer a DD. At that point, they're the tank because they're focused on staying alive and keeping hate.

Also your extremely misinformed about high powered aoe's. If everyone is getting hit by the attack, then why do you even bother with a tank that specializes in reduced damage.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I want the AoEs to have a gimmick to them. Like fulmination having a long charge-up so you can stun it, but it kicks your ass if you don't. Or making it so oblivion smash has a much smaller AoE so the mages survive and can remove the para/silence/bind from the DDs. Or making it so gates of hades is more powerful, but the enemy telegraphs that they're going to use it 15 seconds before it's used so you can get all your defenses up. The idea is that I want gimmicks for the AoEs so plans can be made for how to deal with them which don't involve perfect defense, embrava, scherzo/EA, and/or killing the enemy super fast so he can't use it again.

I agree with you that AoEs are used too frequently as a cure-all to make the battle harder. Removing the AoEs completely for the game is not the solution I want. Even following your suggested changes, zergs would still be the law of the land. DDs never have a chance of pulling hate and no fear of getting hit by an AoE? They just keep doing everything they can to do damage with no variation in the battle at all from start to finish.

[Demon6324236]

Heres the thing, PLD is god, between Phalanx, capped PDT, defense, VIT, and Ochain, Physical damage is worthless. Magic has the same thing, MDB, MDT, Shell V, INT, MND, Aegis. So PLD doesn't take as much as DDs, not nearly, just the problem is AoEs and enmity is all over the damned place. Having a few AoEs, is ok, having alot, is sometimes ok, having nearly everything AoE, is bad, and when normal attacks even become standard AoEs, coupled with enfeebling effects, its fucking terrible. We are on that last one, mobs like Ironclads, Naraka, and Harpies are all of that sort. They use TPs as standard attacks each with enfeebling or special properties of some sort, that is the point when things go really bad. Now days no tank can tank, not normal attacks, not TP attacks, not spells, its almost always just AoE spam, and a tank holding hate or not, wont stop the death of everyone else.

[saevel]

Now days no tank can tank, not normal attacks, not TP attacks, not spells, its almost always just AoE spam, and a tank holding hate or not, wont stop the death of everyone else.

A tank isn't "tanking" if other people are getting hit / killed by rapid fire aoes. That's why I mentioned severely restricting their range to 5~7 feet centered on tank or conal. It allows for strategy and positioning (stand near tank and die) while not requiring your DD's only be Aegis PLDs.

A tank also isn't "tanking" if DD's have to back down their damage potential, that is an artifact of FFXI's broken hate system. People really need to go play other MMOs for a bit and see how sane developers went about solving that balance issue.