Job balancing?

[Stompa]

Reading this thread makes me want to quit. I just came back to the game, but it's not very encouraging to see all these interesting jobs to play and yet most of them are useless.

I was BST75 in 2004, I solo'd every single xp, nobody would invite BST for xp parties, nobody would invite BST for events. Other players would MPK me while I was xping, by following me, waiting until I was Pet-swapping and they would voke the new pet, leaving me defenceless and dead. They weren't even doing it because I was killing their xp mobs, they just hated Beastmasters.

In 2006 I levelled PUP on solo, duo, and occasionally (very rarely) was able to form xp parties as PUP leader. When I asked parties if I could bring my PUP they laughed at me and told me to level a different job. When I formed parties as PUP leader, people would join the party, then realise I was going to stay on my PUP, and they would leave the party in disgust.

So job balance is a new cause really. In the past, it was just a known fact that you would be soloing BLM against weak mobs, or in BLM only manaburns. Players have always decided what the optimum party should look like, and if you don't fit their worldview, you're gonna solo/duo it. People even got angry if you even dared to ask about your Bst, Pup, Blm joining their party. And this was like 10 years ago.

Why do you guys continue to play if the job balance really is this abysmal?

So read what I wrote above. Prejudice against specific jobs has been going on since forever. So the question is "why did you ever play FFXI" not why are you still playing it today. Nothing has changed in terms of optimum-build parties, excluded jobs, jobs that get laughed at. It is only that some of the previously hated jobs are now popular, and vice versa.

I play FFXI for the same reasons I always did. I love Vana'diel, it is far more interesting to me than Earth is. I love too many things about the world of Vana'diel to list here. I love the FFXI Menu structures, I love the Game Engine itself, and the battle mechanics. I love my Automaton. I love fishing. I love Requiescat and Upheaval weaponskills, they way they look and feel. I love millions of things about FFXI which is why I still play it.

[Olor]

Reading this thread makes me want to quit. I just came back to the game, but it's not very encouraging to see all these interesting jobs to play and yet most of them are useless.

Why do you guys continue to play if the job balance really is this abysmal?

They aren't precisely useless, they just aren't good for the top of the line content. You can solo a lot of battlefields/missions on them, for example, or do some lower end group content (skirmish etc)

I am not currently ready for most endgame regardless - and I mostly solo stuff, so it's moot for me.

I play because the game is enjoyable, even if it needs balance.

If I did get there - BLU is one of my main/fave jobs so if I did feel confident/competent enough to play more with others I would actually have a place in content.

I just think balancing things better would improve the lives of other players.

[lufia22]

I was BST75 in 2004, I solo'd every single xp, nobody would invite BST for xp parties, nobody would invite BST for events. Other players would MPK me while I was xping, by following me, waiting until I was Pet-swapping and they would voke the new pet, leaving me defenceless and dead. They weren't even doing it because I was killing their xp mobs, they just hated Beastmasters. [snip].

You listed a bunch of old leveling group problems, but has end-game always been so limited in the job spectrum? For me, it's one thing for a job to be 10% worse than the rest, but it's another to exclude and entire archetype. That's just egregious and I can't fathom what the developers were thinking.

[zataz]

my linkshell uses thfs wars and even a rdm and we do well on Reisenjima nms.. that said the biggest issue we run into with new ls people is people trying to skip steps in gear progression

[xiozen]

Reading this thread makes me want to quit. I just came back to the game, but it's not very encouraging to see all these interesting jobs to play and yet most of them are useless.

Why do you guys continue to play if the job balance really is this abysmal?

I had to reply to this... I've been an avid subscriber since 2004; I main PUP and just recently finished my vereth III 119 h2h weapon, (so happy)... I digress.

Point is... I've had many experiences as many have described wherein I'd join a party (end game) as a PUP only to be asked in /tell if I have something else... I haven't been turned down, within recent memory, probably because of my PUPs capabilities... after the event, I'd see folks breaking out their level 32 pup or 15 pup, and getting /tells about the job because they'd been so impressed with it's functionality. Many folks don't understand how a lot of jobs perceived to be useless in endgame, can effectively function in endgame activities and once witnessed, they become "believers" lol... so as much as this was a perspective of the past, it has changed some what now-a-days, but it all depends on the effectiveness of the job. I'm an end game pup, with almost 1000 job points invested, and my automaton is a beast, able to easily solo NMs in Reisenjima--it was a long road but well worth the trip.

[Catmato]

my linkshell uses thfs wars and even a rdm and we do well on Reisenjima nms.. that said the biggest issue we run into with new ls people is people trying to skip steps in gear progression

How do you justify to them spending all that time, gil, and copper vouchers on Yorcia gear, just to throw it away for zi'tah gear?

[Kensagaku]

How do you justify to them spending all that time, gil, and copper vouchers on Yorcia gear, just to throw it away for zi'tah gear?

Quite easily. "If you can't hit the mob for more than 10 damage, assuming you can hit it at all, I'm not going to carry you into the next part." If all you do is carry people, they don't learn content strategies, and they don't improve. Yorcia teaches them self-reliability in soloing mobs and improving combat speed to ensure that they get enough puissance to keep monsters spawning, meaning that they learn ways to improve their gear and dps to speed through those mobs faster.

Additionally, not all cases have Zi'tah gear replacing Skirmish gear. Let's look at Taeon -> Rawhide. Taeon head vs. Rawhide head fully augmented leaves Rawhide with about 15 acc and 18 atk (before stat vomit) versus Taeon which can get up to 20 (total 30 accuracy) of each, as well as Triple Attack and extra STR/DEX to pull it ahead. Rawhide legs are mostly a casting-type piece, and as a result Taeon legs with melee augments is far, far better.

Let's look at Helios -> Psycloth next, with nuking in mind. Psycloth head? Not a hint of MAB, not even in the augments. Good Macc for debuffs, but certainly not a nuke piece like an INT+/MAB+/Occult Acumen Helios would be. Hands can go either way; better Macc, but far less MAB than modest Helios augments. Legs once more have no nuke value, and are an enfeebling piece (though if you're using Helios you're not doing much better here; Hagondes is the best for a good while), and the feet, again, lack in any form of nuking viability.

Zi'tah gear doesn't automatically invalidate older gear; as with many pieces of gear in FFXI, they serve different roles. Yorcia gear is fantastic for several jobs compared to their Zi'tah complements, and serves as a way to get into proper content without having someone hold your hand while you watch YouTube or something. It lets you start to participate when you get to Zi'tah, and in doing so, learn ways to improve upon your character. "Huh, I can't hit at this level content, how am I going to handle higher-level stuff?" You'll see people trying to figure out how to get past Vidala's leveling up by bringing along a nuker to spam wind and level her down, or going splat against Gestalt's Dread Spikes until they think to bring a dispeller. You'll see people take a few losses from Lydia until they bring a stunner, including going /DNC to stun her Bad Breath and proc her. Learning things like these can't be gained by simply having someone else do the fight while you flail about ineffectively or sit back with a video.

Additionally, gil is easy these days. >.> Make 600k+ a day doing Arrapago Remnants II once per day, at least on my server's Alexandrite costs. Throw in some other runs in BR2 and you can easily make more than a million for day even for a low-geared individual, so that there's no "spending all that gil." It's quite easy to get. Copper Vouchers... most people let them just sit. I can't think of the last time I made use of mine, I'm probably in the 100s from idly getting them and turning them in, so it's good they're being used for -something-. The only thing spent here that's really of value is time, and if you value time all that much, then I don't think grinding the high-end bosses for gear just to complain about nothing to do afterwards is much of a better investment.

[Diavolo]

How do you justify to them spending all that time, gil, and copper vouchers on Yorcia gear, just to throw it away for zi'tah gear?

If Skirmish gear is a necessary stepping stone for you then the newest Records of Eminence quests are practically handing it to you. No need to waste time and gil hoping for perfect augments with stones when you know it'll be replaced soon. Between that and reforged Artifact/Relic/Empyrean gear it's not hard at all to begin the climb up the ladder.

[OmnysValefor]

my linkshell uses thfs wars and even a rdm and we do well on Reisenjima nms.. that said the biggest issue we run into with new ls people is people trying to skip steps in gear progression

On the other side of the same coin: Some of the vorseals are hard to get without help if you can't use your own powerful job to brute-force through (SCH, SMN, GEO, BLU particularly).

I agree that a lot of people want to skip tiers and tiers of gear, but some servers (I'm on one) never see pug groups going for vorseal clears, so without ls help (not saying your ls doesn't help), it can be difficult.

Quite easily. "If you can't hit the mob for more than 10 damage, assuming you can hit it at all, I'm not going to carry you into the next part." If all you do is carry people, they don't learn content strategies, and they don't improve. Yorcia teaches them self-reliability in soloing mobs and improving combat speed to ensure that they get enough puissance to keep monsters spawning, meaning that they learn ways to improve their gear and dps to speed through those mobs faster.

Agreed.

Let's look at Helios -> Psycloth next, with nuking in mind. Psycloth head? Not a hint of MAB, not even in the augments. Good Macc for debuffs, but certainly not a nuke piece like an INT+/MAB+/Occult Acumen Helios would be. Hands can go either way; better Macc, but far less MAB than modest Helios augments. Legs once more have no nuke value, and are an enfeebling piece (though if you're using Helios you're not doing much better here; Hagondes is the best for a good while), and the feet, again, lack in any form of nuking viability.

Wholeheartedly agreed. A friend came back and I was helping him gear his BLM so I actually took a close look at Psycloth and yeah. BLM got the shaft from Zi'tah.

Zi'tah gear doesn't automatically invalidate older gear; as with many pieces of gear in FFXI, they serve different roles. Yorcia gear is fantastic for several jobs compared to their Zi'tah complements, and serves as a way to get into proper content without having someone hold your hand while you watch YouTube or something. It lets you start to participate when you get to Zi'tah, and in doing so, learn ways to improve upon your character. "Huh, I can't hit at this level content, how am I going to handle higher-level stuff?" You'll see people trying to figure out how to get past Vidala's leveling up by bringing along a nuker to spam wind and level her down, or going splat against Gestalt's Dread Spikes until they think to bring a dispeller. You'll see people take a few losses from Lydia until they bring a stunner, including going /DNC to stun her Bad Breath and proc her. Learning things like these can't be gained by simply having someone else do the fight while you flail about ineffectively or sit back with a video.

My only complaint with Skirmish is the extreme tendency of stones to augment towards the low useless side. Rei augmenting isn't very different but it's easier to get decent/good augments, easier to spam the augmenting process, and easier to farm stones.

[Catmato]

If Skirmish gear is a necessary stepping stone for you then the newest Records of Eminence quests are practically handing it to you.

Is that from the new Intermediate Tutorial RoE quests?