HP Scaling, Please Remove It

[Karbuncle]

Again, I think removing HP Scaling will make enemies a bit easier with larger alliances as they would almost certainly have to balance it to a party of 6 with how low population the game is now... so as I mentioned back on page one, instead of removing HP Scaling, add Drop scaling.

Reward people going with more, don't punish them. Problem solved really... Low man can till low man, and alliance folks can reap more rewards.

[cengeal]

I recently left my unnecessarily large and rather noob-filled LS to form my own. I have one rule: Nobody is who dead weight and wants to stay that way. I've found that people who make no effort to change/want to stay that way reveal themselves almost immediately. I don't want to do an apex party with those kinds of players, let alone do a 135 UNM or T3 Eschan/Reisenjima NM. My point is, when you have a "no standards" play method, you get stuck with either an army of morons, or an army of deadweight, or sometimes both. I became fed up when it was the same 10 people who always came up short, so I took the people I knew were competent enough to learn from trial and error and formed my own LS. I still recruit people, but they need to pass a field test first. I'm not going to risk an expensive/difficult to obtain pop because someone is feeling left out.

Everybody is a gimpy newbie at some point or another. I was one myself once. It took a long time to build myself up and be the player I am now. Heck, I have a couple in my LS right now. What distinguishes these people from others is pride. They don't want to be carried and they don't to be given rewards they haven't earned. They don't think it's fair for them to be taking an item that somebody else could put to better use. I had a guy pass the abj for Amalric body because he didn't think he had earned it yet. It was frustrating for me, because that single body piece would have made his BLM much better. At the same time, I was ecstatic that he didn't have the "me-me-me-me first!" mindset that so many seem to have now.

The real problem is new/returning players don't understand the road that lies ahead. As has been previously stated, they see a 119 delve weapon and think "with this, I can fight Sovereign Behemoth!" okay, maybe they don't say that specific NM, but you get the point. They then go out to Behemoth's Dominion, get stomped on, and say "wuuuut? But I'm 119! I'm just as good as everyone else!" The thing is, this comical scenario isn't entirely their fault. The ilvl gear guide is misleading, and should at least be re-evaluated. However, they do need to accept the failure as their own, and improve upon it. The dead weight will begin to ask for help, shortly later they will starting pleaing, and then comes the begging, and then comes the panhandling...

Then they start wondering why nobody will bring them to anything. They may say things like "I'm a good player, I don't know why you guys don't invite me." Let's assume that's true and this person is a good player. But look, all he has is THF and a gimpy BLM that can't break 20k MB's. One job is under geared, and the other is, at best, the 4th best DD of everybody in the group (#4 is being generous btw). Right now, he's suffering from a weak Job Portfolio. Common sense dictates that a good player should be able to determine that he needs to offer more versatility to the group. Now let's assume he's not a good player. Bad players don't know that they're bad players. Most people won't say "hey you suck, not doing things anymore with you", they just will maneuver around you. They do this because they're 100% convinced you're a waste of space.

This is where you need the single most important quality in life: Humility. Ask yourself: is the problem me? If you can't answer that, ask other people. Unless they're the overly sensitive types who are terrified of people not liking them, hopefully they will give you an honest answer. Ask yourself: is my job good for this? Again, ask others if you can't answer the question yourself. This is a problem most new/returning players will have. They don't ask questions because they're afraid of looking stupid/vulnerable. Guess what: everybody does stupid stuff from time to time. Don't be afraid of demonstrating your imperfections to the world. I don't expect anybody in my LS to have an answer for every question, and I don't expect them to never contribute to a wipe. However, I do expect them to understand that their enjoyment and success in this game is on them, not me.

[OmnysValefor]

To keep it short and simple: I believe people should pull their own weight. If three people can down a boss, four people should be able to with equal effort. I like that I can't just PL some old 75 to 99 and merrily drag him through content he doesn't belong at. It cheapens the game, for him especially, to consider content obsolete that he's never even experienced. I know several returning players who have never been to Delve but don't consider it worth their time.

What this thread is asking for is for people carrying you (a little bit, or to the very extremes) to not have to make up for gaps in gear so that you can skip entire tiers of gear.

You've said this or something like it a few times:

Really, my biggest objection to HP scaling is not that it exists, but rather the fact that it is applied to all iLvl content.

If there were a single, or small set of bosses that had this mechanic that would be great, it would be unique, it would be interesting. But when it is blanketed over the entire game it becomes a cudgel that beats players into the same strategies over and over again.

But you said this in your original post:

There is no reason that it should be included, anyone who clamors for more difficult content should find their own ways to make the game more difficult (such as bringing sub-optimal jobs to difficult content).

And I can't help but feel like you're saying that (about it being okay for a small set of bosses) until you get to that small set and want in there too.

[Zekander]

Since you brought it up, at what point does helping become carrying?

I have my own definition, but even that is vague: Carrying would be when a single (or very small minority) of the party is undergeared and underequipped for the content, forcing the rest of the party to do the entire job. Helping would be when there is a balance of veteran and inexperienced players attempting to fight a battle together.
But, to use an extreme example, what if on an entire server there is only a single person who is undergeared. They ask for help from existing veterans on a battle that they cannot possibly complete alone, but that is completely trivial to a party of veterans. Is this carrying or is it helping?

You mentioned before that you have met promising new players. At what content did you meet them and evaluate their skills? No doubt it was at lower level content that you were helping them with. Were you helping or were you carrying?

In a broader definition, both are exactly the same: One (or more) experienced and well equipped players assist one (or more) undergeared and inexperienced players complete content that they would have otherwise been unable to complete.

I'm not even saying either is right or wrong, simply a matter of degree.

[Zekander]

As for my initial stance on HP scaling. I have indeed given it more thought. And while I still see no reason for it's current implementation, in certain circumstances it would in fact be welcome.

Assuming all other fights were normal (without HP scaling), wouldn't it be cool for there to be one powerful boss who increased in power as more players fought it? And, since it was only a single fight, it would be acceptable for the drops from that boss to scale up with players as well. This would create a challenge: Bring as many people to the fight as possible and still be able to win.

Boom: Difficult content that encourages people to play together.

Furthermore, this would be quite similar to the current Ambuscade system. You can choose to solo a very easy fight for a lower reward, or you can bring a party on a higher difficulty for a larger reward.

That brings up my most important point with the problem: Choice.

For Ambuscade and Merit fights as well you choose how difficult (and thereby what rewards) you get to face. This system includes everyone, people who want an easy and fun game, and people who want more of a challenge. Without that choice all players are forced into choosing the same strategy: Bring the absolute minimum number of players possible to win.

And quite obviously, when you choose the lowest number of people that means many others are excluded.

One more thing: You say players should not have to force difficulty on themselves. But they already do this. When you solo a Merit fight on D or VD, you are forcing unneeded difficulty. When you clear (normal non-HP scaled content) with an unusually low number of players, you are forcing unneeded difficulty. People do this because it makes them feel good that they were able to go above and beyond expectations. But when you know that the difficulty is automatically adjusted as people are added and removed, it looses the appeal. Yay, you cleared a tough boss with only three people, but oh wait, that same boss was actually weaker then it would have been with more people, less yay...

[Secondplanet]

My whole argument with people who complain content is easy enough or too easy but use the best gear in the game could easily downgrade their gear if they want a challenge. It may also make them remember what its like for those who don't have those weapon and might even increase their understanding that even though its easy for you who are already geared up for those without its not.

Just like when people do naked runs in Monster Hunter just to enjoy the challenge of the fight.

[Zekander]

For some reason, whenever you say 'you' in your posts I just can't help but feel you are referring to me personally. (I know this is probably not the case)

I, personally, do not want to be carried. I, personally, do not want to carry others. What I want, is to be able to play and enjoy the game without feeling bad about turning people down because it (sometimes drastically) increases the chance of failure.

From what I understand, Vagary also scales HP with the number of people. However, it is still possible to win with a modestly geared alliance of 18 people.

With Reisen NMs however, the experience has been different. Nine people want to fight a NM. All nine fight and they loose. One person is dropped and then suddenly they win. The outside person is swapped in, they still win. Somehow the combined skill of 9 players isn't enough to beat something that the exact same skill level with 8 players can.

[Olor]

To keep it short and simple: I believe people should pull their own weight. If three people can down a boss, four people should be able to with equal effort. .

But these days so much of the game has nothing to do with effort and everything to do with what gear you have. It doesn't matter how good your gear swaps are if none of them have enough accuracy to hit the boss. It never used to be this way - the gap between "ok" gear and "awesome" gear was maybe a handful of STR and a couple points of haste. Maybe a few points of double attack. Maybe a bit higher base damage weapon. Not YOU CANNOT HIT THIS AT ALL.

If three people down a boss with perfect gear it doesn't mean that 4 people with 117 gear can do it. Or even with awesomely upgraded skirmish 1 gear - gear they spent a lot of time trying to get. Then they were stupid and quit for a few months and now it's nearly impossible to catch up.

The gear ladder is not working right now - there are too many complicated events that are too poorly understood by the majority of players and the wikis have not kept up (do please try to find info on the hard mode mission battles - nothing but a little stub saying "this is a battle, here it is, this is what it drops" - nothing on mechanics)

It used to be that there was enough info about strategies etc that came from players of different gear/skill levels that weren't buried 3 feet deep in a BG thread that you might be able to lead folks on content you haven't done without risking looking like a total idiot - but now not so much.

And to top it off - gear power NEVER used to increase by such huge amounts. Seriously - it was way more incremental, now each monthly update wipes out the usefulness of old gear and the new content can't be touched let alone completed with the old gear.

Back in Abyssea days if you had a half decent 99 set you could come back in 3 months and still HIT things. In the 75 days you weren't expected to have every drop from new content 1 month after it hit - or you couldn't participate in parties AT ALL.

The dev's decision to keep creeping the gear levels up and up with no ilevel changes - and make the bosses require better and better gear (by huge margins) has created a gear ladder missing most of the steps. There is no incentive to do older content because the gear is functionally useless for the most part, so you lost what you used to have with old content - where there was some better geared players and some less geared players doing it (all contributing) because the gear was worth it for everyone.

You could say the better geared players were "carrying" the newer players - but I saw - people all contributed, some were better than others but it wasn't leeching. And I know for myself once I had done content with people who were more experienced I often would be willing to lead on it - but it sure was nice learning from someone who already did it.

SE created this problem by invalidating every gear set every month.

[machini]

I've carried lots of people in LSes I've been in, new players and returning players, simply by virtue of "I can annihilate Yorcia Alluvion for you". And now, I'm happy to say, after having not been able to play for half a year, a lot of those players, who are now better geared than me, are willing to return the favor.

But you should not require someone who is geared on Power Level X+10 to help you get power level X gear since you are unable to do so.

[detlef]

For some reason, whenever you say 'you' in your posts I just can't help but feel you are referring to me personally. (I know this is probably not the case)

I, personally, do not want to be carried. I, personally, do not want to carry others. What I want, is to be able to play and enjoy the game without feeling bad about turning people down because it (sometimes drastically) increases the chance of failure.

From what I understand, Vagary also scales HP with the number of people. However, it is still possible to win with a modestly geared alliance of 18 people.

With Reisen NMs however, the experience has been different. Nine people want to fight a NM. All nine fight and they loose. One person is dropped and then suddenly they win. The outside person is swapped in, they still win. Somehow the combined skill of 9 players isn't enough to beat something that the exact same skill level with 8 players can.

So true. You go with a large group and fail. You go back and look at it and say who can we kick? Can we kick this guy too? I'm on the fence about this other guy but to be safe let's not bring him either. That's a very sad reality.