Rate the Dev-Team's progress with the Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto

[Tanama]

The following quote was written in July 2011.


Examine the quote above and give the Dev-Team a letter-grade from A to F on their performance thus far. Explain why and state what you think they should do to improve upon the manifesto. You can grade each job and it's progess individually if you like.

Be as clear as possible and try not to write a wall of text so that the community team can better direct your posts to the dev-team.

As a bonus, type your vision of your favorite job(s) if you don't agree with what was laid out in the manifesto.

[Phogg]

Considering there is no longer any legitimate reason to use half of the BSTs JA's including charm (making 2/3 of their "vision" B.S. from the start), and that the only new concept is an idiotic idea for a one-hour-two-hour (lose pet, get stonekin, lolwut?) that left almost everyone in disbelief at its seemingly thoughtless conception, F.

[Luvbunny]

Grade is F for big FAT FAILURE. Very little that was proposed even see the light of day, it's like over a year, and still no fruition. Bad planning, no vision, and absolutely have no idea on how the game is played by the players. Seems to be stuck in their own little world. Completely clueless in utilizing forums, and pretty much wasted valuable insight and feedback from players. A big waste of resources trying to save a spectacular massive failure that is 14 while doing their best in killing the one golden goose that kept the company profitable.

[Dragonlord]

I completely forgot this manifesto even existed. Which gives credence to the fact the SE has failed to deliver a large majority of what was discussed. Many things we've been suggesting on the job forums are close to what they even stated, yet we were still given flat out "no"s about most of them.

Dragoon: The wyvern is worthless. it does horrendous damage, and its breaths get nerfed to the floor on HNMs. This job lacks a strong WS. The attack penalty on drakesbane makes it fall short on high level targets. We should be using our wyvern and jumps to increase damage output and adjust our fighting style away from other melee's. Separating the new jumps and increasing the time of the 2 good jumps actually harms us. Reduce jump timers significantly, or erase JA delay from the game code. At this point using JAs actually harms our total damage sometimes because of the levels of haste we can acheive.

Puppetmaster: We got some more attachments and upgraded AI. Yet we're still held back by maneuver timing. The 10 second delay is unnecessary. In addition, pup dmg output is gimped by having to use the maneuvers and their JA delay. PUP is suppose to be good in many roles, yet it does each role so poorly no one wants it for anything.

Summoner: Their melee damage is pathetic. Decrease the delay and increase their per hit damage. The lack of large amount of haste from buffs allow DD jobs to remain far above what avatars could put out.

Paladin: They can't reduce damage unless they're the only character on the mob. Enmity system is broken. PLD needs a way to reduce others' damage without having the most hate.

Blue Mage: We're very versatile, but it takes us ~2 minutes to change our role due to the magic cooldown. Maybe change this so the delay time is directly proportionate the the number of spells we change, so we're not waiting 1 minute to switch out for 1 different utility spell. Unbridled wisdom is unnecessary. Most of the spells are worthless and haev no business being on a 5 minute shared timer. These should be tide-turning spells, things that are so good we have to think about which one is most beneficial in a situation. Currently, its bilgestorm for defense down, or bloodrake for some dmg/hp. Stop having HNMs resist breath damage to the ground. The mp/dmg ratio is already horrendous on them (except wind breath which is hindered by time/dmg)

[Rekin]

In regards to Dragoon: C-
Defense: C
They've done well to improve the job defensively by raising its skill caps in parry and evasion and some other lines but it does not help in stopping aoe-death like attacks that sweep any melee not invincible to dust. They've delivered on helping our wyvern survive but raising its health and adding the PDT passive found on Summoner's avatars. Yet the wyvern itself is not as nearly as useful as player's would like it. On any HNMs, the meat of endgame, wyverns only are helpful by proxy as they grant a buff to spirit/soul jump. But even with these bonuses dragoons are more often than not forced to leave the front lines or allow their wyvern to die in order to attempt to keep up with other 2handed damage dealers.
Offense:
The biggest problem dragoon faces is the fact it suffers greater liability than any other 2handed damage dealer in order to function. The wyvern doesn't do much on its own to the point where it might not as well exist because it's melee attacks deal maybe 50 damage, maybe being the key word. The wyvern's breath also does nearly no damage, perhaps the equal to one melee swing from the dragoon. For a creature that is meant to make up for dragoon's weaker attack and wses compared to other 2handers it does a poor job of it. Even our merited ability, Angon is rendered worthless as the defense down accounts for little when melees are capping their fSTR in many situations. Even worst any dragoon with Gungnir are discouraged to use it as Gungnir's additional effect overwrites it even though it is less potent. The new SP effect while it sounds promising only helps staunch the problem that is Dragoon's inability to deal damage in high buff situations when compared to others. As the devs have recognized the system's JA delay causes it to be less then one would imagine and the new proposed idea to split Jump timers ultimately hurts the job showing the short sightedness of the suggestion as it doesn't consider the job as a whole.

Certainly Dragoon has received a lot of attention over the year but ultimately has not yet earned a place in the alliance of any of those who seek to maximize their probably of victory in endgame events leading the job to be left to the side lines with many other jobs.

[Luvbunny]

The best fix for wvyern is to have a stout servant 3 on it so they take very little damage. Increase their damage output, and make it so that they resist magic AOE by 90%. I mean let's face it, the little pet is adding very little to the job anyway, either make it somewhat useful and not die every 2 mnts or revamp the job completely. This is classic example of the developer still trapped in pre-abyssea world of lvl 75, completely clueless on how real people play their game, and utterly oblivious on how the end game works.

[Lokithor]

Thf vision is a failure and execution of that failed vision is also (maybe thankfully) a failure. There is no value to manipulate enmity when enmity is so broken now. Steal and despoil are complete jokes because mobs have nothing of value to steal. Treasure hunter seems to be the only role that SE thinks Thf is useful for, as shown in their recent announcement about how TH progression works and their expectation that Thf full time gimp gear that gives TH+.

Seriously thinking it's time to move on.

[MarkovChain]

vanadiel census. Job that suck last, aka those that urgely need ajustement.
DD ranking (from census)

1 Monk 18%
2 Warrior 16.23%

a DD that's not very good but used a lot due to TH
*******************************
3 Thief 13%
*******************************
DD that suck and urgely needed ajustements
**********************************
4 Ninja 9.62%
5 Beastmaster 7.25%
6 Samurai 7.1%
7 Dark Knight 6.8%
8 Ranger 6.63%
9 Dragoon 6.1%
10 Blue Mage 5.72%
11 Puppetmaster 3.72%
***********************************

Do we have the impression that those DD have been made less gimp ? I think only drk doesn't completely suck now thanks to resolution and relic, however they still put out less damage than war and monk, and sacrifice a lot to achieve this (souleater, subjob). However all other DD except those 4 (MNK,WAR,DRK,THF) are completely useless, and totally suck, there is no reason to use them ever basically. I mean look at SAM or DRG, if you math out you find that their mythic is good/awesome yet when you consider that they do 40% more damage that their relic couterpart, you realise how unbalanced the DD are.

[Dragonlord]

Just because a job isn't popular doesn't mean its not a good damage dealer. You have to consider barriers to entry for each job. Blu and Pup can do more damage than given credit for (up until legion level opponents), but they're 2 of the hardest jobs to start up due to farming spells/buying attachments, and a steeper learning curve. Nin's popularity was most likely more akin to its ability to red proc and solo in abyssea.

Drk is one of the best DDs currently, so idk why you think they need urgent adjustments, people just don't like the job as much. Sam is also in fair standing. Its not a ragnarok war, but its above drg and probably mnk on most targets.

[Phogg]

Also would like to add to my F rating that BST keeps getting new pets right? Only, why is SE so ridiculous with their implementation of the new pets?

Want an uncapped aquan pet? Here's a pugil! Good luck getting any though, considering you have to get a fish no one goes after since they changed hippograph recipe which was also ridiculous. Oh, and you can't just use that fish, you have to get lucky getting an entirely different fish from Inside the belly.

Amazingly, only 5 of the required fish have sold on Phoenix since august, who would have thought? Why, that's enough to supply the entire server with 20 whole pets! (assuming none are broken synths, which we all know won't happen).

Apparently the plan for BST is to give up the use of charm entirely, and replace that with fishing skill. wtf

[Dreamin]

Giving them an F would be too kind in my opinion as to what has been delivered and what was promised.

[Ophannus]

Need to revamp Relic/Mythics/Empyrean weapon skills/stats for certain jobs. Start by making Gungnir worth a damn, followed by overhauling Camlann's Torment and Quietus. No point in 'ignoring defense' because other jobs get weapon skills with "Damage varies with TP" BUT THEN ALSO HAVE A HIDDEN ATTACK BONUS MODIFIER TOO SO THEY ALSO "IGNORE DEFENSE". The highlight of Camlanns/Quietus is that it has Ignores Defense Varies with TP so the base power of the remains static at all levels, but then Shoha increases damage with more TP and additionally it has an Attack Bonus(Attack Bonus=Ignores Defense).

[MarkovChain]

Just because a job isn't popular doesn't mean its not a good damage dealer. You have to consider barriers to entry for each job. Blu and Pup can do more damage than given credit for (up until legion level opponents), but they're 2 of the hardest jobs to start up due to farming spells/buying attachments, and a steeper learning curve. Nin's popularity was most likely more akin to its ability to red proc and solo in abyssea.

Drk is one of the best DDs currently, so idk why you think they need urgent adjustments, people just don't like the job as much. Sam is also in fair standing. Its not a ragnarok war, but its above drg and probably mnk on most targets.

This is stastical evidence. People don't play pup because it sucks it's not a matter or having or not the best attachement. Bring a job to the max is extremely expensive regardless of the job. When you play on a level so that you have a relic 99 (say) or en empy 99, the money spend on attachement is compeltely neglectable. Plus they are easily farmable and by noway needed to play efficiently. cor and pup are last because they suck basically, there is never a reason to prefer cor over brd, which considerably limits the spots opened for a cor and pretty much exludes them from any non 18 man event.

[Caketime]

BST - Grade F. We've seen some new pets, but most of them don't have squat in the way of group friendly abilities, the Frog can solo Balaur and other low tier NMs easily but otherwise does nothing, and I haven't been able to test out how fail dat fish is. Not looking forward to the price tag there, especially for a niche jug pet that will likely just leave me out of some gil and frustrated. There are some bright spots like Gerard, but he's a rare mollusc in that he sets things on fire, steals pants and doesn't afraid.

We were promised group orientation, to me that sounded like they were going to revamp our existing abilities and maybe add some new ones to make us more viable for group play. Instead we got Spur and Run Wild, neither of which supports group play. Well, maybe Spur kind of does if you use it to spam Wild Carrot with Lulu, but nobody relies on that as a viable tactic and instead opts to bring a proper healer. Spur by itself is rather dubious, if you're saving up for 3 charge Ready moves you'll have over 100TP anyway, it only helps with the initial climb to 100.

Run Wild is still being tested I believe, but we do know that it provides Regen, and it's rumored to provide Haste but 5 minute samples make it hard to prove either way. The best part of that ability is the pet dies, often in the middle of a fight, which makes it more of a liability and not worth wasting macro space for.

Our new SP ability in its current form is hilarious. I can understand the concept of sacrifice, but for Stoneskin? All an enemy has to do is melee with added effect: dispel and then follow it with a generic TP move to cause instant death, what's the point in eliminating our defense to gain a garbage buff that we would be better off not using in the first place with slight preparation?

If I had to design an ability that required sacrificing the pet but gave the BST some sort of boon that would make the sacrifice worthwhile, I would make it a pet haste and attack buff that lasts 5 minutes like Run Wild, but doesn't suck completely. I would also make it stack with Run Wild, so that pets could actually do just that for 5 minutes. So we'd get a bull in a china shop for 5 minutes, then the pet's poor little heart bursts and we have to pull a new buddy out of our invisible backpack. Of course, that would be a fun thing and we can't have fun in this game because it isn't balanced.

[Leonardus]

Going to execute some tough love here.
Warning: Another BST complaint.

SE is a "110%" Company, so let's start them at Grade: (S)

Beastmaster: (Vision Review)
+20pt: Variety of pets. Seems to be increasing.
-10pt: ...Said jugpets are often expensive/annoying to make.
-20pt: "More party abilities." Where? Killer Instinct?
-10pt: Summon-Style Pets. Where? How?
-20pt: "More pet-specific abilities." Where? Run Wild?
-10pt: "Revised Familiar." Where? Details? Worried.
-08pt: "Feral Sacrifice." Why? No Thanks.

Grade: 52% (F)

Suggestions:
*Rework Spur, Rework Run Wild
*Charmed Pets need to at least, have Snarl
*Method to use jugpet's "locked" TP Abilities
*Faster/More Ready Charges to keep pace with battles

[Mokeil]

I'll go ahead and weigh in on the job I know best: Summoner.


Vision
Mystics who conjure avatars to fight by their sides, then sit back and enjoy the show while paying close attention to their MP as their minions deliver devastating blows to adversaries and provide aid to allies

We intend to make it easier for avatars to wreak havoc upon enemies, but also emphasize how vital the act of managing the source of their magical powers is to summoners.

Example Adjustments

* A new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts.
* Introducing the avatars Cait Sith and Atomos.

TL;DR version first.
Grade: F
Why: A few points for Shock Squall, but 0s in everything else. Stated expectations were not met, nor do there seem to be plans to have them met in any sort of identifiable time frame.

The Long version.
I've got to give SE a flat out F for this. Since the Manifesto was posted, here's what Summoner has gotten:
(NOTE: I am also generously including the updates that were added just before the Manifesto was released)
Four new Wards: Soothing Ruby, Shock Squall, Heavenward Howl, and Pavor Nocturnus. (These were mostly a consequence of the level raise. They are largely Lame, especially for what should be our final and most potent abilities. I bet most people really only remember one of these even exists.)

A modification to one of our Merits: Elemental Perpetuation now gives -3 per merit, instead of -1. (I'm not even sure why they made this change. See below for why!)

Another modification to that previously mentioned merit: It is now basically Fast Cast for Avatars. (This came along only a mere month after the previous change. Seriously. They even told us when it was changed the first time that it would be changed again the next month.)

Elemental Spirits: They now have dirt cheap perpetuation, and access to their appropriate Tier V nuking spell. (They had to add the elemental spells in separate for us, instead off adding them organically as the level caps were raised. How messed up is that? Also, cruddy AI mechanics still relegate these guys to very niche uses outside of Disposable Battery.)

Recast Time for avatars: This is lowered to 5 seconds. (I have yet to hear one single word of praise on this.)

Wards are now no longer interrupted if the enemy you are fighting dies mid-activation. (This should have been done years ago. Useful, but several years overdue.)

Out of all of that, only one thing of real note was given to us - Shock Squall. Shock Squall is pretty darn nifty. It is also the only thing that hits the stated goal of having us "wreak havoc upon enemies".

At level 99 we are still using the same Rage commands were were using back at 75. OK, to be fair, Carby, Fenrir, and Diabolos were all given new magical damage pacts (before the Manifesto was written), true, but the damage on them is laughable. We are also, at level 99 still tied to the same 45 second Blood Pact timer we were tied to back at 75. Everyone else has gotten all sorts of nifty Haste and Fast Cast options to increase their output (both damage and support), but not us. What gives?

In addition, while our other Post-75 Wards are fairly decent, they, too, were given to us before the Manifesto. Also, our Pre-75 Wards are pretty much a joke now. Only Hastega and the curative ones are worth using. We pay more MP for our Wards and get less effect out of them than anyone with SCH (main or sub) gets with comparable effects (Blink, Stoneskin, and Phalanx are three easily demonstrated examples). Until these things get boosted, we can't really do that "provide aid to allies" thing that SE says they want us to do.

As for the proposed examples listed? We're still waiting for some sign of one of these to show up in the near future. They've been dangling Cait Sith in front of us for over a year and a half now. When is it due out? No one knows! Its been indefinitely delayed while other things get taken care of. Oh, but we now have a 30 second video of it punching something. Yay.

Now, I think they're hoping we'll accept Astral Conduit (the new Summoner SP ability) as a substitute for "a new ability that expends an additional amount of MP to shorten the recast time for blood pacts". But while Conduit is really nice, it is only usable once an hour. It does nothing outside of burst/zerg situations to help us stay even partly competitive outside of that 30 second once per hour time frame.

[Ophannus]

Dragoon A-

-Increased HP, Parrying and Evasion
This was welcomed. I was always annoyed since 2003 that DRG's evasion and parrying was so low despite our(at the time) lightweight armor class. Why would a lightweight mobile warrior be able to dodge less than a heavily armored knight(PLD evasion vs DRG evasion). The HP boost helps our survivability as well as increases Wyvern Breath Potency(both elemental and healing breath) since Wyverns are DRG jobs and benefit from this.

Spirit Surge Adjustment
-They actually made this one of the top 2hours now due to the 25% JA Haste. DRG is one of 2 or 3 jobs that can reach the delay cap now.

-Jump timers reduced
Godsend. Increased our damage by a very nice margin.

-Stardiver
Drakesbane was good but only in Abyssea. Outside of Abyssea, Drakesbane is very weak, Stardiver is a solid STR based WS(finally...a STR based multihit without an attack penalty for DRG!)

-New Jumps
These changed DRG into a more offensive job from how we were at 75.

-New Traits
Conserve TP is pretty decent, it often goes unnoticed, but according to JPWiki, DRG gets Conserve TP V at level 97 with a 27% proc rate.(Starts at 15% when DRG first gets it, scales up +3% per trait).

-Steady Wing and Wyvern DT-%
Amazing! Steady Wing is a godsend and wyverns are extremely durable now. The only time my Wyvern dies these days is when I die but that's a different issue.

-Introduction of Smiting Breath and Restoring Breath
This is a huge game changer. This allows DRG to force elemental breath when the target is either immune to physical damage or if the DRG doesn't wanna engage but can run by, use Smiting and add a little magic damage on the target. In abyssea with the right gear and buffs, could do almost 1.2k+ Smiting Breaths. Restoring Breath is super amazingly good. No other melee can self cure like DRG does. Way better than Chakra. A DRG with a Heal Breath set can rock 1k Healing Breaths and the fact that it can work on other party members makes DRG awesome for lowmanning things like Dyna/Assaults etc without sacrificing an offensive sub.


-Change to Empathy and introduction of Healing Breath IV
Another welcomed change. This enhances our Healing Breath and Elemental breath potency by like 15% or so and gives the Wyvern a decent boost in attributes. Healing Breath IV is a 2 second cast Cure VI for 0 MP and enmity, 60 second recast when /SAM or /Melee is amazing, no other melee can self cure like DRG can.

-Remove Plague
So useful when soloing things that plague us and take our MP.

-Spirit Link Buffs
The Regen effect is highly potent. 90 second duration of 33/tick regen and Spirit Link timer being reduced from 3 min to 90 seconds is extremely useful. I like how SL transfers 50% of the Wyvern's TP and I wish I could use this attribute of the JA more often. Maybe if they give us a pet command that inhibits wyverns from using breaths after WS and only when smiting breath is used (does like no damage to new NMs anyway) then DRGs can use their wyverns as a TP battery every 90 seconds.



I have to say I'm impressed with the changes they've made for DRG these past 2 years, it's more than I could have asked for and exeeded expectation. The only things DRG really needs is an Attack Boost JA,,switching Crit Defense Bonus with Crit Attack Bonus, a Pet command to stop breaths after each ws and finally remove breath damage taken% from new NMs so that breaths stop dealing 20 damage to them. Also I'm glad they made DRG more offensive instead of giving Wyverns the ability to enfeeble the target, that would have been lame/useless unless potent. Dragoon is by and large a lot stronger than we were before, it's just that WAR and DRK are stronger due to their abilities which enhance weapon skills. If DRG could get a 25% attack buff and still /SAM and receive the same buffs as the WAR or DRK, Stardiver is so on par with Resolution, look at the attributes of Stardiver and Resolution, they're pretty close. It's crap like Souleater/buttloads of Attack that make Resolution do more than Stardiver(along with DRK being able to keep up 25% JA haste for 3minutes and DRG's 25% haste is their 2hr -_-)

[Ophannus]

How can you rate BST so badly. BST is 800x better at 99 than they were at 75. The pets they have now are amazingly strong. Sure they're not popular for legion and stuff but I've seen Falcor hit endgame NMs for 300-500 damage which is proportionately more than what CourierCarrie was hitting Nidhogg for at 75. The Ready system is pretty amazing too.

[Ophannus]

Also people need to lighten the hell up.


Giving them an F would be too kind in my opinion as to what has been delivered and what was promised.

NOTHING WAS PROMISED!


*Multiple example adjustmentｓ follow each job vision. These are provided merely to illustrate the general direction we intend to take each job—actual adjustmentｓ implemented may differ from what is written.




LEARN2READ

[Tanama]

Seconded. I hope the above quote is translated and shown to the development team. All of that would be a very welcome additions to Dragoon.

[Caketime]

How can you rate BST so badly. BST is 800x better at 99 than they were at 75. The pets they have now are amazingly strong. Sure they're not popular for legion and stuff but I've seen Falcor hit endgame NMs for 300-500 damage which is proportionately more than what CourierCarrie was hitting Nidhogg for at 75. The Ready system is pretty amazing too.

Ready has done little to contribute to group play, useful as it is. Unfortunately, most of the available Ready moves are generic TP moves and are good at little aside from single target damage. We need more Ready moves that carry additional effects or buff the party to be more group oriented, we are currently not desired for group content because we bring nothing to the table. We do less damage than a 2 hander DD and our survival depends on a pet that can't be buffed or interacted with by the party in any way. All we can contribute is Axe damage and Ready moves, so we're basically a wasted slot in an alliance for most things.

[Ophannus]

Well it's hard to give BST pets aoe buffs for parties or larger damage TP movies, that would be encroaching into the territory of SMNs. The fact that you guys can melee better than SMN and your pets deal more melee damage than SMN is fairly balanced. The Avatars do little melee damage but have big bloodpact damage and aoe abilities, but the SMN itself can't melee. On the other hand jug pets have poorer TP moves but per hit deal more than an avatar and BST has better melee potential themselves.

[Caketime]

Well it's hard to give BST pets aoe buffs for parties or larger damage TP movies, that would be encroaching into the territory of SMNs. The fact that you guys can melee better than SMN and your pets deal more melee damage than SMN is fairly balanced. The Avatars do little melee damage but have big bloodpact damage and aoe abilities, but the SMN itself can't melee. On the other hand jug pets have poorer TP moves but per hit deal more than an avatar and BST has better melee potential themselves.

It's only hard because you say it's hard, both jobs get owned by SCH for AoE buffs all day long, SMN remains group viable despite that fact while BST does not and has not been group viable for years. Also, on the subject of melee, your argument does not take into account the fact that the two jobs are quite different in how they are played. So yes, the SMN is worse off in one aspect of battle, but the job is primarily a caster anyway so why does it matter that the SMN is inferior in melee combat? Does that fact somehow support your assertion that BST should not get any sort of group friendly abilities whatsoever, because it will diminish the worth of SMN bloodpacts in some way?

[Koroma]

I'm just going to reply yo the jobs i actually play.

BST 2/10

I wasn't in support of this idea but SE wrote: "we'd like to see beastmasters shed their reputation as lone wolves by endowing their pets with more abilities that provide assistance to party members." they've not given us even 1 of said ability.
2ndly they called us charmers and did nothing to improve charm.

BLU 9/10

They lived up to their promise but i'd like to see more then a couple HNM spells.

SMN 0/10
Didn't do a single thing it lists.

RNG 5/10

Gave us 1 of the 3 listed but the ideas for rng were bad to start with.

[Camiie]

Also people need to lighten the hell up.


NOTHING WAS PROMISED!


You should apply to be a Community Rep. With responses like that you're practically one already. Might as well get paid for it.

[Aldersyde]

This is stastical evidence. People don't play pup because it sucks it's not a matter or having or not the best attachement. Bring a job to the max is extremely expensive regardless of the job. When you play on a level so that you have a relic 99 (say) or en empy 99, the money spend on attachement is compeltely neglectable. Plus they are easily farmable and by noway needed to play efficiently. cor and pup are last because they suck basically, there is never a reason to prefer cor over brd, which considerably limits the spots opened for a cor and pretty much exludes them from any non 18 man event.

Statistics are meaningless if you have no idea on how to interpret them within their context. You don't seem to know how to do that, there's a lot of dumb in your post.

[Aldersyde]

Going to execute some tough love here.
Warning: Another BST complaint.

SE is a "110%" Company, so let's start them at Grade: (S)

Beastmaster: (Vision Review)
+20pt: Variety of pets. Seems to be increasing.
-10pt: ...Said jugpets are often expensive/annoying to make.
-20pt: "More party abilities." Where? Killer Instinct?
-10pt: Summon-Style Pets. Where? How?
-20pt: "More pet-specific abilities." Where? Run Wild?
-10pt: "Revised Familiar." Where? Details? Worried.
-08pt: "Feral Sacrifice." Why? No Thanks.

Grade: 52% (F)

Suggestions:
*Rework Spur, Rework Run Wild
*Charmed Pets need to at least, have Snarl
*Method to use jugpet's "locked" TP Abilities
*Faster/More Ready Charges to keep pace with battles

I agree with most everything you're saying but I have to point out that Familiar was revised with added pet haste... you do need augmented relic +2 pants to do it though (although it may be SE's intent to rework abilities through gear).

There's a variety of pets but some are locked behind stupidly rare ingredients, like the pugil. Just reiterating this point most other bsts are making. SE, stop doing this.

[Caketime]

Augmented +2 pants are the answer to Familiar being reworked? Half assed development right there, fix the problem with pants.

[Aldersyde]

Augmented +2 pants are the answer to Familiar being reworked? Half assed development right there, fix the problem with pants.

I never said it was good development. I'm just pointing out that from the dev's standpoint, they may believe they revised abilities through gear. Familiar did get a significant revision. Pet Haste +10% for forty minutes? That's a pretty big revision (and boost) to the ability, just saying.

What SE really needs to do is cut it out with this jackass genie bullshit. Give us pets without ingredients which are totally asinine to gather. Rework the abilities that suck without having to augment them with gear grinding.

[Caketime]

Pants are not a proper solution to reworking garbage abilities.

[Calatilla]

I`ll give them an F for RDM. Their vision was BS to begin with, RDM was never a support specialist and you can't turn your PT members into demi gods with self cast only spells. RDM hasn't moved since lv75 and SE don't seem to be in any rush to change that.

[Leonardus]

I agree with most everything you're saying but I have to point out that Familiar was revised with added pet haste... you do need augmented relic +2 pants to do it though (although it may be SE's intent to rework abilities through gear).

There's a variety of pets but some are locked behind stupidly rare ingredients, like the pugil. Just reiterating this point most other bsts are making. SE, stop doing this.

Indeed, the augment is nice, I have it, but I don't think that was the adjustment.

TurbidToloi (the pugil/jagil) is a good example of why we all have to get on here and whine sometimes. There is nothing quite like seeing a new advertised pet in their update, logging in and finding out "you're not going to be using this, ever."

[vienne]

Bit off topic, but its related in my eyes....In overall SE has been slacking alot and as a long time player it looks like they dont know anymore which way they are going. Recently i looked at the latest roadmap (the one that was released around the time they said SoA was comming i think) and very little that was on that roadmap actually got implemented. I can understand that creating new content and adjusting excisting jobs might take time but it would help alot if they would communicate a bit more with us, why do they even have these fora? give us some info on whats being worked on a bit more and stop being so vague about it. A new director came along and everyone thought there would be more communication but there's not. Players got excited bout the new expansion but we've gotten almost no info on it, i dont feel very excited anymore cause of the lack of info, why dont you give us a random cs from time to time?
Anyone ever checked the message when you log in? the latest post was in june >.>
I've always been a patient person and good work takes time but this is getting rediculous.

And for jobs and promises... if there was a Z in rating >.> rdm

[Urteil]

DRK: 1/10


Everything that was good save Nethervoid and Endark was already in existence.

Scarlet Delirium nets them a -2.

So -1/10 for Dark Knight.

[Kitkat]

Have to say I'm disappointed with current content for various reasons. Various jobs have transformed from what they once were, where some are in a perpetual state of uselessness. What few jobs that have transformed to formidable uses are now going to be nerfed for being too useful, while useless jobs are getting even more useless.

Rdm has been in a state of uselessness since cap increase over 80 and arguably even before that due to poor Tier II merit options (who gives spells as an option that a job should have learned naturally int he first place then limits their overall utility to a 10 point distribution of potency?). What little enhancements they have received in the way of Gain-spells/Saboteur/Temper and better melee gear options, doesn't help the job in any setting beyond solo play due to large scale boss fights being overly immune or spam happy with TP style moves that Enfeebles do not stop from occurring.

Thf is a job that is supposed to alter enmity by stealing it from other members or place it on other members, but to this extent it would mean there has to be a revamped enmity system where DD/Mages are not capping hate at the same level as a tank job (specificly Pld and new future tank Runic Fencer). Alternatively it would mean that hate stolen off other characters needs to be set beyond 25/50% and that mobs do not frequently use hate reset moves. There are just too many instances where expected tank jobs can't be tank jobs because hate resets are too frequent or reaching enmity cap is too easy.

Any current content needs to go through more stringent QA than it currently is. Half envisioned content should not be making it to live servers that then require 2-3 updates 3-6 months down the road due to inadequate or unreal expectations. Any MMO player can understand the need to prolong content, but at the same time they also understand that making it reasonable to a well geared (not exceptionally geared) individual is a key to success. Another key to success is to ensure it doesn't dramatically ostracize the utility/options of other jobs also, which SE has done a wonderful job of doing as of current with a handful of jobs. If you aren't and X, Y, or Z job with near exceptional gear you aren't desired while alternatively if you are a G, H, or I job and exceptionally geared you aren't desired because your job has nothing to offer in most any content currently popular.

To this I grade SE as follows:
Hype: A - You do a wonderful job of hyping up changes to jobs and addition of content planned down the road. Each change is told in a way that ensures that drastic changes to balance of currently underrated jobs and new battlefield content with distinguishing rewards is looming over the horizon.
Content: F+ - Content released constantly has issues that must be revisited down the road and adjusted. Various job adjustments make little to no sense and too much rehashed content that doesn't offer that good of rewards in comparison to difficulty.
Feedback response: D+ - While community reps do what they are able, to relay information to developers and community, there is a lot that feels to be lost in translation or seems to fall on deaf ears. Current new SP, final endgame lv99 weapon upgrades, disadvantageous adjustments to jobs, and poorly rehashed revamps of older content being the most dominate of these issues. Honestly, if it weren't for community reps passing information back and forth this grade would be lower.

[Ophannus]

Scarlet Delirium, while poorly executed is still free damage at basically no cost. Sure you could use it and then take 50 damage and only have your damage boosted a tiny margin but then again when they nerf Perfect Defense, I doubt whether a DRK would be taking 50 damage from a TP move anymore. I'm sure if popped before engaging a mob and the DRK takes a nice 1200 damage TP move, you get a surefire boost to your damage basically for free, and it ignores def/vit, it's a straight multiplier.

If you lose 50% of your HP you deal 25% more damage for 3 minutes, that's pretty powerful if you ask me. Hell even if you only take 300 damage from a regular auto-attack directed at you, with 1600 HP max HP , that should still be a ~9% damage boost for 3 minutes. That still ought to be more or less better than what a Berserk would give you especially if your attack is already hitting a ceiling with SV Minuetx3 and Last Resort+Food, Dia III and Angon.

[Kristal]

I rank it a G. (Not for "G"ood.. G is a rank below F but above H(=0), but only automatons can get it: ValorShot (R), ValorWaker (M), StormShot (R), SharpWaker (M))
Reason: Refusing to change the overly complicated PUP SP2 and then replace a meh-ish RDM SP2 with some utter garbage that makes me want to delevel the job in Port Jeuno from disgust...

[Ophannus]

I think PUP gets a C+ or at least a B. They did increase PUP h2h, give them better h2h weapons and let them have Verethagna. Cooldown is useful and they did fix numerous attachment effects including armor plate and analyzer.

[Vold]

They've made their advancements for jobs but overall they are still sitting at a F score. This is mostly because it's impossible to balance FFXI jobs without breaking things which has been proven for 10 years now. Ultimately all the Manifesto was good for was to dwell about what they'd like to see happen, because they know it's not very likely. It was done to keep player's attention too, I guess. But that's about it. I mean if it wasn't already done by now then goodluck to ever getting it done with a new expansion around that I'm sure will be released 30% done.

Part of the problem is they aren't willing to at least test the waters on certain changes. They make a LOT of assumptions about what we the players will do with blank.

[Taint2]

Scarlet Delirium, while poorly executed is still free damage at basically no cost. Sure you could use it and then take 50 damage and only have your damage boosted a tiny margin but then again when they nerf Perfect Defense, I doubt whether a DRK would be taking 50 damage from a TP move anymore. I'm sure if popped before engaging a mob and the DRK takes a nice 1200 damage TP move, you get a surefire boost to your damage basically for free, and it ignores def/vit, it's a straight multiplier.

If you lose 50% of your HP you deal 25% more damage for 3 minutes, that's pretty powerful if you ask me. Hell even if you only take 300 damage from a regular auto-attack directed at you, with 1600 HP max HP , that should still be a ~9% damage boost for 3 minutes. That still ought to be more or less better than what a Berserk would give you especially if your attack is already hitting a ceiling with SV Minuetx3 and Last Resort+Food, Dia III and Angon.



JA delay would like a word with you.

Right after you are done talking to SD about how he actually works.

[Ophannus]

Meh it still lasts for a minute and takes 2 seconds to activate, it's still a positive net gain if you eat a TP move in those 3 minutes which is highly likely anyway unless you got PD on, which won't be the case for very long.

[Taint2]

Meh it still lasts for a minute and takes 2 seconds to activate, it's still a positive net gain if you eat a TP move in those 3 minutes which is highly likely anyway unless you got PD on, which won't be the case for very long.



The bigger problem is it does very little to actual damage. I have never seen much testing but its not attack like LR/Zerk. It seems like a base damage increase, even when I take 75% damage its hard to notice.

[SpankWustler]

No letter grades here, just my usual schizophrenic esoterica.

In most cases, I blame broad-sweeping game mechanics rather than anything specific to one job for various short-comings. Lots of the second-string melee jobs are demigods now compared to what they were at 75, which doesn't matter because there's still no place for second-string melee jobs to use their eccentricities to shine like crazy diamonds. Part of me wants to mention Dynamis as a place for these jobs, but the other part has done Dynamis and feels that using BOX STEP and BOX STEP and THAT FLOURISH WITH A LOW RECAST I FORGET THE NAME OF while having adequate evasion doesn't feel like shining.

Similarly, Paladin is more like a rock than ever but this doesn't mean it has a niche. Black Mage can do more damage than ever, by far, but this doesn't mean magic damage itself has a large enough niche. I feel like a lot of jobs could make an about-face similar to that performed by Ranger when people discovered it could be useful in all chambers of Legion, if an environment were created where they could prosper. The problem may not be the jobs themselves, since most jobs HAVE gotten better across the board.

In the case of Red Mage, though, I do feel like updates to the job itself have fallen short. The job has gained literally no new, unique spells (akin to Adloqium, Urine: Itchy, Meteor, etc.) and the Development Bros seem to have a distorted view of enfeebling magic's effects akin to a thirteen year old boy's distorted view of the female anatomy and psyche.

And here's the schizophrenic esoterica...


Right after you are done talking to SD about how he actually works.

Scarlet Delirium sits in a hard plastic chair with metal legs, with a large scar on his left temple, drooling from the right side of his mouth. Scarlet Delirium, his chair, and one identical chair, are the only things in the sanitized visiting room of the facility.

Someone sits in the identical chair. Scarlet Delirium stares at someone with insensate eyes, like a fish out of water for about two minutes.

"How do you work?" someone asks Scarlet Delirium.

"Sometimes like a bumblebee, but never in the Spring," he answers calmly.

"So...Any particular reason you're so similar to Afflatus Misery in how you function?" someone presses him.

"I TOOK THE PEACHES TO MR. COLONELCY LAST THURSDAY! THERE WAS A WORM IN ONE OF THEM! IT BIT ME!" Scarlet Delirium screams.

A middle-aged Japanese man enters the room, wearing a shirt and tie but nothing below the waist whatsoever, and states calmly, "We very nearly lost Scarlet Delirium while we where trying to code him. He lived to see implementation, but he's...like this."

[Teraniku]

Let's break it down by jobs with a grade for each:

WAR

Vision Grade: B

*WARs are great DD's and are fairly close to the team's vision, just not quite there yet*

MNK

Vision Grade: A-

*MNKs are almost perfect with the team's vision, but may be slightly overpowered*

WHM

Vision Grade: A+

*The one job they have perfectly right, and are finally attempting to add at least a resist charm spell (Charmna)*



BLM

Vision Grade: B-

*Great Magical DD's but the need a 5-10 min ability that allows them to overcome all Magical resistance on a mob for a single spell, since that's all the Dev team seems to know how to do anymore with new content mobs*

RDM

Vision Grade: F (@ lvl 99)

*RDM while a nice Jack of all trades character currently, Their enhancements are lacking, and when every mob resists every debuff even if the RDMs skill is capped and merited, something is wrong*

THF

Vision Grade: D

*While not as in the dog house as RDM currently is, nobody brings a THF along to do Hate control anymore, it's more for Treasure Hunter than anything else*

PLD

Vision Grade: D

*I would have given it an F but as far as PLDs problems are more on the Enmity system rather than the job itself. A PLD shouldn't have to have 2 Relics (Ochain or Aegis) (Almace / Excalibur / Burtgang) to be invited to any end game content*

DRK

Vision Grade: B

*DRKs are decent damage dealers, just need to up their survivability a bit.*

BST

Vision Grade: F

*If BSTs would be able to charm relevantly lvl equivalent monsters then my grade would be much higher, since a BST should be able to do this, even in Abyssea & Dynamis*

BRD

Vision Grade: B

*Too many levels of the same song, do the same adjustment that they did with the Cure spell line (tying potency to healing Skill) by making BRD song potency relevant to instrument skill and it would be appreciated*

RNG

Vision Grade: C

*Give them back the almost BLM levels of Damage and you'd see RNG be relevant again, most unnecessary nerf ever*

SAM

Vision Grade: A+

*The Devs most favored job*

NIN

Vision Grade C+

Hardly ever see NINs use tools other than Utsusemi anymore, granted the really good ones do, but it still suffers from the same problem that RDM does in that the debuffs are almost useless to use*

DRG

Vision Grade: B

*Decent DD's but Wyvern needs more survivability*

SMN

Vision Grade: C-

*SMNs need their Astral Flow Blood Pacts adjusted to be usable @ 99 (Which they say is going to happen). Promised new avatars and 2 years later still no Cait Sith or Atomos. BP timer is way too long. Our mp is our limiting factor to being an over powered DD, let us actually use our abilities and contribute to damage by either putting all the rage abilities on separate timers or lowering the BP timer in general*

BLU

Vision Grade: B+

*Plenty of abilities and configurations make BLU the most versatile job in the game, just keep adding more enemy skills to be usable*

COR

Vision Grade: C+

*COR needs something to make them more relevant on the Battlefield but I can't really think of an effective solution at the moment*

PUP

Vision Grade: B

*As the job that has received the most amount of love from the dev team, it's in a pretty good, though not perfect state*

DNC

Vision Grade: A-

*Great job all around, fills multiple roles very well*

SCH

Vision Grade: B

*make the use of the Element Storm spells relevant*

[Hayward]

Warrior: A. Everything's in order here for all Warriors, not just the Ukonvasara bandwagon-jumpers.

Monk: A. See above.

Thief: C. TH can't be the only draw for this job, guys.

White Mage: A. Does what it's designed to do in spades. No complaints here.

Red Mage: D. Pick up the slack on this job's fighting side, folks. Stop worrying about bruising other jobs' egos and make those weapon skills mean something to a Red Mage. Also, consider some new enfeebles and a Job Trait that can bypass immunities.


Black Mage: B. Good stuff here, but ease up on the Magic Defense of monsters.

Paladin: B. Decent additions, but the question of enmity maintenance remains. Also, Ochain/Aegis should never determine the usefulness of the job. That is absurd for any other job.

Bard: C. It still does what it does, but fewer and fewer people seem to notice. There need to be songs that stand out from the rest.

Dragoon: A. Good work here to address the wyvern issue. WS damage seems ordinary compared to the other 2-hand weapons.

Dark Knight: B. Good damage and some decent new tricks, but durability is still an issue.

Samurai: A. Good stuff all around without going too crazy.

Ninja: B. Good, but nothing much of note stands out. Universal tools were sorely needed.

Ranger: C. OK, new ammo is nice but how about making the materials more available to crafters? The expense to keep up just isn't worth it long-term.

Summoner: C. New avatars are nice, but irrelevant in my view. Avatar damage scaling is still an issue and melee damage is below par for the delay. The new support BPs are good, but there needs to be some final physical Rage pacts superior to their level 70 counterparts. Now that Perpetuation is no longer an issue at 99, these issues should be looked at more closely than ever.

Blue Mage: A. Very good and diverse selection of new spells and a nice array of traits added on.

Puppetmaster: B. This effort should be put into every job. WHM Automaton's AI is still a bit sketchy, but not much else to complain about/

Corsair: B. Not very much to complain about, but Armageddon shouldn't single-handedly define the job.

Scholar: B. I'm going to play devil's advocate and applaud S-E for dialing back Embrava some, but only as long as the job's other attributes are made to stand out more prominently.

Beastmaster: C. Better jugs are nice, but the job really should be able to charm higher-level monsters that aren't in Abyssea if they so choose. More offensive Job Traits would be welcome to boost the master's power.

[Calatilla]

Thief: C. TH can't be the only draw for this job, guys.



^^ This, especially since you seem to like to give TH to every other job in some form or another, IF all you deem THF worthy of is TH, stop giving it out to other jobs.

[FrankReynolds]

The following quote was written in July 2011.


Examine the quote above and give the Dev-Team a letter-grade from A to F on their performance thus far. Explain why and state what you think they should do to improve upon the manifesto. You can grade each job and it's progess individually if you like.

Be as clear as possible and try not to write a wall of text so that the community team can better direct your posts to the dev-team.

As a bonus, type your vision of your favorite job(s) if you don't agree with what was laid out in the manifesto.

I'm gonna go ahead and give them an F.

While a few jobs are real good right now, none of them really fit that vision very well. Most importantly though, the devs seem to be actively doing the opposite of what is expected / desired almost every chance they get. Occasionally they will start off by saying something like "oh, you don't like that idea? we'll go back and change it." which makes everyone happy for about 10 seconds, until we realize that they are about to follow it up by changing what we didn't like to something even worse.