SoA content for ALL 20 jobs...

[Hayward]

Before the Developers even think of announcing the starting content for Seekers of Adoulin, I'd like to know whether or not they have acted positively in creating content and events that are proof against the exclusion of nearly 3/4 of the jobs in the game by "professional" forum sites and the sheep who parrot their talking points. This was the only aspect of Abyssea that rubbed me the wrong way and is what keeps me from even thinking about Voidwatch (anyone saying they haven't seen "R/M/E DD only" shouts is an unbelievably bad liar).

I want to see content that is accessible to any and every job, whether their weapons are Relic, Empyrean, Mythic, Magian, or just store-bought. Exclusionary content at this point will only accelerate the demise of this franchise.

[Slaxx]

No matter what the developers create a quick and efficient strategy will soon be developed. People who want to clear the content quickly and efficiently will use these strategies. If you want to complete content with a less than optimal set-up then you are free to set up your own runs. People who use these strategies are not sheep, they are some of the few capable of researching a fight and getting a group together for it. Personally if I'm farming seals with my Linkshell then a sub-optimum set-up is fine. I'm helping a friend and we're hanging out in between pops, chatting etc. If I'm doing seals with a pick up group of people I don't know I definitely am more inclined to just get it over with. The fastest way to get it over with is bringing the optimal group.

Voidwatch is by far the most job diversity friendly event in the history of the game, if you think otherwise then you don't really know what you're talking about. Yes, there are "R/M/E only" shouts but they are by no means the only shouts out there. I am often able to join those groups, on my Dragoon, with no R/M/E. Will every job be useful for every event? Of course not,that's a pipe dream and to think otherwise is beyond foolish.

What it comes down to is even if any job can contribute to an event there will often be a job that can contribute more, which speeds up completion, which means people are finished faster. They can then tackle the content again for another chance at rewards or move on with there day. Personally I'd almost always rather get more done for a chance to better my character than get less done and not advance my personal or (in the case of my Linknshell) group goals.

[Spiritreaver]

<IMO valid concern>



Might as well have the dev team build a better human while you are at it.

Sorry if that comes off as flip, but it really doesn't matter how well content is setup out of the gate, its still going to be used by gamers. And gamers are just human beings.

[Alhanelem]

edit: well yeah I agree with you but creating content where literally every job is "useful" is a nearly impossible task without resorting to weird gmmicks.

[Sotek]

there will be 22 jobs and of course there will be content for all of them. Unless you mean "where all of them are useful" but that's an almost impossible task without silly gimmicks.

Would a WoE/Limbus style event with paths designed for specific job combinations be a silly gimmick? Several different paths (which they can continually add to, which is perfect for a launch event) with only certain jobs being able to enter certain paths and the rewards being for those jobs only, with an overarching final Proto-Ultima/Omega style boss path.

I certainly wouldn't want the entire game to play like that, but it would be a welcome change to something like Nyzul Isle where every job wants to obtain the rewards but only a handful are ever going to be worthwhile for it. If they actually balance such an event properly they could actually make it quite enjoyable with alternative strategies; various jobs can have multiple roles which such an event can highlight, and of course there are plenty of aspects of some jobs which are out right worthless most of the time which they can practically balance the event around.

[Alhanelem]

i can't say I wouldn't mind a series of dungeons or whatever that specifically required a certain job combination (and specifically rewarded those jobs), but if the only way to make various jobs feel wanted is to arbitrarily lock out this job and that job from a particular fight is still a kind of a lame way to make those jobs more used. There already exist solo battlefields that change depending on the job you are, and that's cool and all, but I want to be invited to a party on <insert job here> because it is beneficial, not because SE said only this job (or set of jobs) is allowed to participate.

In other words, its a problem that's more solvable by the right job adjustments than by specifically tailoring content- I suppose you could argue, however, that SE is better at making content to include specific jobs than actually making those jobs used more in general.

[hiko]

No matter what the developers create a quick and efficient strategy will soon be developed. People who want to clear the content quickly and efficiently will use these strategies. If you want to complete content with a less than optimal set-up then you are free to set up your own runs. People who use these strategies are not sheep, they are some of the few capable of researching a fight and getting a group together for it. Personally if I'm farming seals with my Linkshell then a sub-optimum set-up is fine. I'm helping a friend and we're hanging out in between pops, chatting etc. If I'm doing seals with a pick up group of people I don't know I definitely am more inclined to just get it over with. The fastest way to get it over with is bringing the optimal group.

Voidwatch is by far the most job diversity friendly event in the history of the game, if you think otherwise then you don't really know what you're talking about. Yes, there are "R/M/E only" shouts but they are by no means the only shouts out there. I am often able to join those groups, on my Dragoon, with no R/M/E. Will every job be useful for every event? Of course not,that's a pipe dream and to think otherwise is beyond foolish.

What it comes down to is even if any job can contribute to an event there will often be a job that can contribute more, which speeds up completion, which means people are finished faster. They can then tackle the content again for another chance at rewards or move on with there day. Personally I'd almost always rather get more done for a chance to better my character than get less done and not advance my personal or (in the case of my Linknshell) group goals.imo the issue is not that " there will often be a job that can contribute more," but that those jobs are the same for every event, and other jobs are useless in every event


Would a WoE/Limbus style event with paths designed for specific job combinations be a silly gimmick? Several different paths (which they can continually add to, which is perfect for a launch event) with only certain jobs being able to enter certain paths and the rewards being for those jobs only, with an overarching final Proto-Ultima/Omega style boss path.



half agree. having event where unwanted jobs shine is nice, having people unable to help/play with friends because they don't have said jobs and can't even enter the area isn't

[Kincard]

People need to learn to distinguish the difference between barring people without REMs and barring certain jobs. REMs becoming required only happened because SE made it so much easier to obtain them. Back when relics were something only very, very few people had it would've been absurd to ask that even one member of your party have one. If it wasn't REMs, it'd be something else (Armor). Other games have this built into dungeon seekers by just having items have their own item level values. It's just something that will naturally happen if you have some items be better than other items. The only real reason you didn't see it happen back at 75 cap as often was because there was so little good gear to really choose from.

You could say that they should design content that can be beaten without REMs, but the fact is that most of the current stuff in the game CAN be beaten without REMs, it's just that nobody wants to because they can find someone who does have one just spending a couple extra minutes looking.

[Eri]

..... saying they haven't seen "R/M/E DD only" shouts is an unbelievably bad liar


I was on Sylph Server until quite recently and saw those shouts. However, since i transfered to Odin i didn't see them!
This may be due to my Japanese play hours thou...

[Caketime]

This sort of content would likely come in the form of solo or duo quests, as soon as a full party comes into play people want to just throw more WARs at it and refuse to listen to any alternatives. That's the problem with so many jobs, the devs give all of the required tools to a few jobs and the rest are told to sit on the sidelines or spend time building a Relic or Emp and leveling + gearing an entire job just to participate in a single piece of content for maybe 1 or 2 upgrades to another job.

I think it's crap that we have so much variety in job choice yet we only ever use a few of those for anything but farming while the few that have all of the necessary abilities and weapon proficiencies get to do all of the content in the game. Devs might as well just delete everything after the initial 6 jobs and replace the RDM and THF slots with SAM and DRK.

[Alhanelem]

You could say that they should design content that can be beaten without REMs, but the fact is that most of the current stuff in the game CAN be beaten without REMs
I've never seen a shout requiring REMs either

I would rather the "unwanted jobs" be improved and be wanted because they're good at something, not because they are specifically designated to be on deck for a particular fight. A few thoughts on issues

DRG- Well, i personally don't see any big issues with DRG, but they keep spending DRG adjustments on tweaking the wyvern in various ways that don't really help anybody. If it doesn't make the wyvern or the DRG actually stronger, it's not really helping much.
PUP- PUP has come a long way but one of the major issues holding it back is nearly unfixable without a major redesign: Job ability delay. PUP has to spam more job abilities than anyone, and this drastically reduce's the jobs DPS if the abilities are used- but not using them ALSO hurts DPS.
DNC: Three words, shared recast timers. Also recast time for flourish 3s is way too long
SMN: Three words, blood pact timer. OH yay, we get to temporarily solve this issue once per hour with a new SP ability! yay!
THF: Has issues but I don't really know much about THF nor how to solve its issues

[Mefuki]

...as soon as a full party comes into play people want to just throw more WARs at it and refuse to listen to any alternatives.

In addition to the points you made, SE has been further compounding the problem by making all endgame events timed. It discourages experimentation and highly encourages very specific job usage (regardless if people actually want to play that job) and zerg tactics.

[Yrusama]

Think of it this way. In FF Tactics you tend to use a certain group of characters for their effectiveness in battle. Even if your whole party is at level cap, you find only certain members useful. Think of how left out those other characters would feel if they could.

In Tactics, you bring a THF in because you want items from a boss, but thereafter might switch him to DRG for more damage. You might also bring in a SMN to cast Golem on the party for stoneskin if the enemy uses mostly melee hits, but would otherwise leave them out or have them on a different job.

In FFX I rarely used Lulu. Shes a great BLM early on, but when you get to the point where the only differences between characters are their overdrives and weapon bonuses, her overdrive just doesn't cut it compared to Wakka's or Khimari's. With this in mind, no wonder she's so broody: she doesn't get enough exercise.

Party leaders in MMOs have to make these same decisions. What jobs/subjobs are going to get the win faster, let alone get it at all? Fortunately I get whatever I need on WHM because it's rare that someone would turn down a healer.

[Caketime]

In FFT players tend to use the most efficient combination of abilities and then make like 8 copies of those across multiple characters so the actual jobs of those characters only dictate what the unit looks like, in the end the damage is the same. The problem in that game and this one is that there are some abilities that shit all over the other ones, so why would anyone waste their time with anything but the best possible combo? Why would you waste your time with the Summoner when you can invest in the Oracle or Samurai's ridiculously potent abilities?

The real issue here is that the game is hopelessly unbalanced and has been for a very long time. Adding new trinkets and novelty junk on top of already broken stuff isn't the answer either, it just creates a bigger mess. The fact that Embrava and PD were ever even considered to be added in the first place is amazing, but that was also after Doom auras, which are equally wtf. Why you would even add things like that to a game where you're forced to basically do nothing as "punishment" for death is beyond my comprehension. Add super weapons to this equation, which aren't actually needed but make the process of standing there and sighing heavily while your Elf beats on yet another reskinned NM named after a Mesopotamian demon that eats babies slightly faster, and the mess grows ever larger.

[Alhanelem]

Party leaders in MMOs have to make these same decisions. What jobs/subjobs are going to get the win faster, let alone get it at all? Fortunately I get whatever I need on WHM because it's rare that someone would turn down a healer. I don't usually make those kinds of decisions. I'll take anyone as long as the core composition (of roles, not specific jobs) is there. I don't care if it takes 2 minutes longer to win a 20 minute fight, I care about it being an enjoyable experience.

[Afania]

I don't usually make those kinds of decisions. I'll take anyone as long as the core composition (of roles, not specific jobs) is there. I don't care if it takes 2 minutes longer to win a 20 minute fight, I care about it being an enjoyable experience.

Besides Odin2, there are no 20 min fight in this game atm I think.


THF: Has issues but I don't really know much about THF nor how to solve its issues

THF is just fine.

[Calatilla]

Besides Odin2, there are no 20 min fight in this game atm I think.



THF is just fine.

No it isnt

[Kincard]

No it isnt

QFT

Best solution to THF is to remove Treasure Hunter altogether, increase drop rate globally and focus on THF's role as a DD (While fixing all other 1H DDs while you're at it).

If TH has to exist, don't make that basically the only reason THF exists.

[Zirael]

[...]

You could say that they should design content that can be beaten without REMs, but the fact is that most of the current stuff in the game CAN be beaten without REMs, it's just that nobody wants to because they can find someone who does have one just spending a couple extra minutes looking.
In the past (just after Legion was released) SE said that they design ALL content to be beatable without special weapons (R/E/M), but after the new producer came here and started all that talk about certain people shouldn't be beating ADL/Legion/Odin2 etc. because their gear is too weak, I'm not sure if they will continue that design approach.

[Kincard]

ADL, Legion and Odin 2 are all perfectly beatable without REMs, it's just that for ADL you would probably need to bring more people to kill him within the PD time limit (Thus making it less worthwhile), Legion you'd farm less bosses per run (Arise/Meteor/Honors increase in price), and you'd need more people to beat Odin 2 in a timely manner.

When people say that things are "impossible", they really mean "it's impossible to continue beating them in the same way we do now". People beat ADL and Odin 2 with way fewer people than the player limit is allowed for them, and I suspect people exceeded their expectations in terms of how many Legion Bosses they are able to farm.

The worst problems would come from the case of ADL, where it would drive up the ridiculous costs of marrow even more.

[Afania]

QFT

Best solution to THF is to remove Treasure Hunter altogether, increase drop rate globally and focus on THF's role as a DD (While fixing all other 1H DDs while you're at it).

If TH has to exist, don't make that basically the only reason THF exists.

We're in the age when most players have 5~10 jobs, lving 1 job and gear it to functionable takes 2 weeks to 3 months(3 months if needing relic for avg players) What's the point to "fix" DD jobs for them to catch up when we know ppl gonna spend a few weeks and use another job that does more dmg? You will never fix them unless some of their aspect is game changing.

[Kincard]

3 months for an average player to make a relic? If I do Dynamis every single day sure- you might say 2 hours a day isn't very much, but that's only if you assume I do nothing but play Dynamis every single day. If you add in other events (If someone is only doing Dynamis then they have no real reason to require a relic to begin with- you don't need a relic to farm Dynamis), that's a playtime of well over 2 hours a day. Unless I'm on vacation I doubt the average person has the time (or the patience) to relic up a job they don't even like just so they can play a certain event.

Aside from that, I should be able to play a job I simply enjoy playing in any endgame without severely crippling my group. Whenever I make groups with my friends, I do everything I can to let people come on jobs they enjoy playing even if it results in slightly worse results, because at the end of the day, we're playing to have fun. You shouldn't do something dumb like making a party of 6 THFs and go whack on something with massive AoE damage but you shouldn't be severely punished for taking a DRG or PUP instead of a WAR to Legion, either.

They can't make every job's DPS identical, no, but they should make classes that fill that role have their differences reduced to insignificance. Even the craziest min-maxer playing the game isn't obsessing over whether they should take a DRK or a WAR because the difference is simply negligible in the grand scheme of things. The problem isn't that there is a gap between DPS jobs, but rather that the gap is so large that it would severely cripple your run if you took anything but the 2 or 3 jobs that regularly top the DPS charts (generally SAM, WAR, DRK). Other games generally do not run into this issue because when their devs say balance, they obviously know what the word actually means.

Like, WAR and DRK both get really high DPS numbers but obviously there are cases where one will beat the other. There are very few, if any, cases where you'll see someone looking for a DPS and then tell a DRK he needs to have WAR leveled to participate (Aside from procs which are tailored to make you bring a variety of jobs anyway). The same isn't true if I want to DPS on DNC, THF, NIN, DRG etc. A THF dual wielding a Mandau and Twashtar 99 geared in Hexed-1 and perfect gear shouldn't be being out-DPSed by a WAR wielding a Laceratrice or Dies Irae using AF3+2 and AH gear.

You could argue that those listed jobs have utility to make up for it, but that would be ignoring the "utility" the top DPS jobs bring too- WARs can swap between multiple weapon classes quite easily and are very effective at dealing area melee damage, DRKs provide absorb spells and have several unique spells of their own.

tl;dr, the philosophy should be "balance DPS, then add unique utility to every job" instead of "make utility take the place of having higher DPS".

[Caketime]

Speaking of procs, they are terrible. It's as if the devs were discussing ways to change battles and instead of doing anything significant they add a system that serves only to annoy the hell out of people in the name of job variety, while at the same time failing to achieve said variety. The only real problem here is procs involving WS are almost completely taken care of by a single WAR so job variety is pretty much moot unless the proc is only possible via weapons the WAR can't use. The "almost strategy" aspect of procs looks good on paper and that's about it.

DPS balance can be addressed pretty easily, by scaling one handed weapons to be more on par with the 2 handers. Not 100% equal, but it shouldn't be to the point where single handed weapon users are told to change to a 2h job or go sit in the corner.

Also, leveling and gearing a job + getting it a relic just for a single event is dumb as hell, the fact that people do exactly that is evidence enough that this game is marred by poor design. Nobody should have to play a job they don't like, forcing it with "commandos only" style events alienates anyone that likes to play support or otherwise designates them as the lamp bitch. SE wants to support group play and a friendly open community yet they design events with an antisocial basement dweller philosophy that supports one party setup every time.

[Alhanelem]

THF is just fine. how come I never see one in a party then? Hell, i've seen more PUPs and SMNs than THFs in parties. Nobody takes THF for any reason other than TH, and in the biggest content right now, voidwatch, does TH even do anything?


Aside from that, I should be able to play a job I simply enjoy playing in any endgame without severely crippling my group. Whenever I make groups with my friends, I do everything I can to let people come on jobs they enjoy playing even if it results in slightly worse results, because at the end of the day, we're playing to have fun. You shouldn't do something dumb like making a party of 6 THFs and go whack on something with massive AoE damage but you shouldn't be severely punished for taking a DRG or PUP instead of a WAR to Legion, either.quoted for complete and utter truth.

[Keyln]

No it isnt

Yes it is.

[Spiritreaver]

We're in the age when most players have 5~10 jobs, lving 1 job and gear it to functionable takes 2 weeks to 3 months(3 months if needing relic for avg players) What's the point to "fix" DD jobs for them to catch up when we know ppl gonna spend a few weeks and use another job that does more dmg? You will never fix them unless some of their aspect is game changing.

That is a flawed argument. Running with your way of thinking, why fix anything at all if there is a conceivable alternate way of doing it.

As i implied before about the OP, as long as humans are humans, ppl will always try and make one solution to a problem the only one right way. But that does NOT mean that suggestions for change should just be shrugged off. Specifically in an MMO like FFXI, nothing is ever going to be perfect, changes are always going to be needed as time goes on.

IMO glad the devs aren't like you, they'd just erase every job not WAR, WHM, and BLM and call it a day.

[Afania]

how come I never see one in a party then? Hell, i've seen more PUPs and SMNs than THFs in parties. Nobody takes THF for any reason other than TH, and in the biggest content right now, voidwatch, does TH even do anything?

quoted for complete and utter truth.

You used VW as example, why don't you use other example that ppl do take THF, which is pretty much everything else that's not VW(including legion, salvage2, meeble, dyna and so on).



That is a flawed argument. Running with your way of thinking, why fix anything at all if there is a conceivable alternate way of doing it.

As i implied before about the OP, as long as humans are humans, ppl will always try and make one solution to a problem the only one right way. But that does NOT mean that suggestions for change should just be shrugged off. Specifically in an MMO like FFXI, nothing is ever going to be perfect, changes are always going to be needed as time goes on.

IMO glad the devs aren't like you, they'd just erase every job not WAR, WHM, and BLM and call it a day.

And my point is that it's something that will never be "fixed", as players will always go most optimal setup, especially when 1 job takes weeks to gear up. There are plenty of things that needs to be fixed, should be fixed, but making every job have same chance of getting to event is last thing dev resource should go to. Dev been trying to "fix" it by all sorts of weird ways, such as VW proc, lower difficulty for content, or even punish pt with 3 ppl in meeble cuz 6 ppl gets more points etc, because "so that everyone can enjoy the content on any job"(You should be reward more if you can lowman the content, not getting punished)

And that just makes the game less fun and less challenging over all.





3 months for an average player to make a relic? If I do Dynamis every single day sure- you might say 2 hours a day isn't very much, but that's only if you assume I do nothing but play Dynamis every single day. If you add in other events (If someone is only doing Dynamis then they have no real reason to require a relic to begin with- you don't need a relic to farm Dynamis), that's a playtime of well over 2 hours a day. Unless I'm on vacation I doubt the average person has the time (or the patience) to relic up a job they don't even like just so they can play a certain event.


Most of the players I know of actively working on relic spent about 3 months to finish 1. Some are faster some are slower, but the slower one usually isn't actively working on one, just do it on spare time etc. If you do it on spare time, then it doesn't count as actively working on it of course :p

[Calatilla]

Yes it is.

SE hides behind treasure hunter as an excuse to leave THF trailing behind when treasure hunter is largly ineffective in most endgame events.

If Treasure hunter really is the defining reason for why THF even exists then get rid of the Taru Sash Augment, Bounty shot and BLU's TH trait, and any other form of TH that isnt THF specific, because if that's the only reason for the job to exist then it should be the only job to have it.

[Spiritreaver]

And my point is that it's something that will never be "fixed", as players will always go most optimal setup, especially when 1 job takes weeks to gear up. There are plenty of things that needs to be fixed, should be fixed, but making every job have same chance of getting to event is last thing dev resource should go to. Dev been trying to "fix" it by all sorts of weird ways, such as VW proc, lower difficulty for content, or even punish pt with 3 ppl in meeble cuz 6 ppl gets more points etc, because "so that everyone can enjoy the content on any job"(You should be reward more if you can lowman the content, not getting punished)

And that just makes the game less fun and less challenging over all.

So since stuff will never be fixed, SE should go back to their old way of doing things? You know make event, job, whatever; and when it doesn't work they abandon it and introduce something else that kinda does what the original thing was supposed to?

* RDM isn't the hybrid you envisioned? Old SE way was(and kind is, so meh. but w/e...) let's NOT build on the areas its mainly lacking-let's add new jobs to embody those ideals. Enter BLU then later SCH. RDM left to languish.

* Besieged not exactly working as intended? Old SE way, leave it broke for years and introduce a whole new expansion that takes another stab at it - enter Campaign.

Could do more, but really even you should get my point by now. SE is now, after the better part of a decade, finally trying to adjust in a much more timely fashion. Not to forget actually trying to open some sort of dialog with the player base. I've been pretty critical of SE in the past here and elsewhere, but they are finally headed in the direction of the right track and if taking time to actually try to balance jobs(not that it will ever happen to anyone's full satisfaction), i'm all for it.

[Ryce]

I have been turned away from VW once or twice for not having a relic, but I've been invited to the group 98/100 times. I think it's great how job-diversity-friendly the event is. That being said, we definitely need more content that encourages the use of any job you want.

How about an assault-like event for low man groups that parses the jobs in your group and populates the area accordingly. There could be a special set of mobs matched to each job (maybe grouped by family) and a boss that has weaknesses (and strengths) based on the players' jobs. Naturally, the enemies triggered by some jobs would be weaker than those spawned by other jobs (true balance is hard to find), so players would identify the "preferred jobs". This could be countered by a global system (similar to Dominion) that would effect available drops/pops based on mob family levels.

Example: WHM, MNK, WAR turns out to be the most efficient group. This group causes frogs, worms, and rabbits to spawn. All these mobs are squishy, so most groups enter with this set up. With each clear, however, these mob families level up and become harder for the next group. In addition, the likeliness of the frog NM (which drops the uber WHM gear) spawning decreases substantially. The only way to reduce the level of the frogs, and increase the visibility of the frog NM, is to raise the level of other mob families. This is done by clearing the even with other jobs.

This is an over-simplification, but I think you get the idea. A dynamic battle system like this would not only allow for, but encourage the use of every job in the game.

[Alhanelem]

You used VW as example, why don't you use other example that ppl do take THF, which is pretty much everything else that's not VW(including legion, salvage2, meeble, dyna and so on).except that the only reason ppl take thf to other events is the same reason nobody takes them to VW- treasure hunter. when was the last time you said "oh, we really need a thf for this fight?" THF needs more survival skills... idk, maybe if you could avoid certain kinds of special attacks by standing behind somebody (because you're stealthy and hiding you can avoid something)- that would be useful and it would synergize well with trick attack. You'd be able to stay up close more and be able to do more damage while also helping the party.

Kinda off topic, but a random idea. THF really does need a few improvements, just as the other jobs i mentioned.

[Afania]

except that the only reason ppl take thf to other events is the same reason nobody takes them to VW- treasure hunter. when was the last time you said "oh, we really need a thf for this fight?" THF needs more survival skills... idk, maybe if you could avoid certain kinds of special attacks by standing behind somebody (because you're stealthy and hiding you can avoid something)- that would be useful and it would synergize well with trick attack.

That doesn't mean THF's gonna get invited either. FFXI has always been, you invite a job for 1 game changing aspect, or no invite at all. Like how RDM at 75 got invite cuz of refresh(and dead right away once refresh no longer need), THF got invite cuz of TH, RNG got invite cuz of relic WS, SMN got invite cuz of PD etc. And the utility of THF(or insert your job that wants invite here) will need a make or break skill to get into the pt. It is the curse of a job system with 20+ jobs, and there are little that can be fixed, besides lower the gap of every job's output....and even then min-maxer still gonna invite stronger jobs.

[saevel]

With 20 jobs it's simply not possible to have them all equally "useful". Some will be more useful then others, and those that are not on the top of the stack will not get invited unless they build groups with their close friends. RNK and GEO will only worsen this problem further as there is no more room for "DD's", enfeebling is a joke and there is no additional support needed between BRD and SMN. "Tanks" are a joke almost as bad as enfeebling so no love there, and SE has only created one truly useful hybrid *cough* BLU.

Take Salvage II for example. It's really not that hard to do, a party of six can easily get all possible NM's, kill both mega boss's and farm plenty of alexandrite. Six people means you can bring any combination that includes at least one THF, WHM and pure DD leaving room for three PUP, BST, RDM, SMN, DRG, ect. People realize this and instead of bringing six they bring the three required jobs (THF, WHM and Pure DD) and divide the loot three ways instead of six. Some people even go so far as to bring their own mules inside and basically solo / dou the zone so as to divide the loot by an even smaller number.

Abyssea, a party of six could rapidly farm lights, pops and destroy any NM with a wide range of procs available. People rapidly figured out that you could get nearly the same effect with a group of four (WHM BLM THF +other) and end up only dividing the loot by three to four rather then by six. Some people went so far as to bring their own mules for some of those jobs and solo / dou everything to divide the loot up by an even smaller pool.

This is what happens when you have a shared loot system, people want to obtain the maximum loot / reward possible so they'll bring the absolute minimum number of people required to complete the content reliably. The only solution to this is to have an individual loot system, enter voidwatch. That system doesn't penalize you for bringing more people and actually rewards you for bringing a diverse set of jobs. The primary problem with that system was not the loot system itself but the artificially low drop rates and SE refusing to add the option for someone to share their drop with other alliance members.

So taking all that into account, no matter what SE does, players will always seek to maximize loot acquisition rate and will do whatever it takes regardless of what the snowflakes think.

[Kincard]

It is the curse of a job system with 20+ jobs, and there are little that can be fixed, besides lower the gap of every job's output....and even then min-maxer still gonna invite stronger jobs.

You need to realize that physical melee DPS jobs are far easier to fix than mage jobs are at this point. Like I said, people rarely distinguish between the amount of damage a WAR or DRK can put out because the point is that it's enough.

Ultimately most of the large gaps between the jobs come down to a two things:

1. Ratio handicap on 1Hers
2. Job Abilities

First is self-explanatory. The second is that WAR and DRK get things like Berserk and Last Resort respectively, both incredibly powerful damage-boost abilities, while being able to keep Hasso. This puts them ahead of other 2H jobs like DRG/SAM which has to sacrifice large amounts of attack to keep Hasso.

Here's a very quick comparison, by the way.
Under the buffs of 2x March, Madrigal2, Minuet5, Boost-STR and Haste:
A WAR/SAM with wielding a Shamash with good gear (Ravager+2, Phorcys, a couple AH+1) can deal 149.444 DPS to Ig-Alima.
A NIN/WAR wielding a Kannagi 99 offhanding a Fire Arisui maintaining a 30% ODD with Innin up while wearing the most perfect possible gear (Hexed-1 etc) a Ninja deal 99.144 DPS to Ig-Alima.

Both are the same race, and using the same food. When Stalwart's goes up, it becomes 243.976 VS 188.793. In both cases this is an huge gap. That's the problem- the gap is way too large. If it was something like 150 VS 140 or even 130 DPS maybe it wouldn't be ideal to have a NIN around DPSing, but you wouldn't totally cripple your party. You don't even need to look at tiny differences in gearsets and whatnot to know that something is horribly unbalanced when one job can be sporting the best possible gear and is still being outdamaged by another class that is wearing a very average weapon using above-average gear.

[saevel]

Kin that is a very poor target to use, the stupid amounts of LCF are what give you such a large damage disparity. LCF was the previous method they nerfed players damage output as there is no way to overcome it. Pick targets that are +7~8 levels worth and the damage gap close's significantly to the point where the WAR actually has too much attack. Go into the EM ~ T world and DW suddenly jumps up and can actually outpace 2H in total damage output (situation depending). It's artifacts of the damage system being balanced at level 50 and SE never really giving it a good overhaul.

[Alhanelem]

So taking all that into account, no matter what SE does, players will always seek to maximize loot acquisition rate and will do whatever it takes regardless of what the snowflakes think. Ah, so people who play less popular jobs are "snowflakes" now, eh?

This isn't about throwing the poor little guys a bone. This is about making a good, balanced game that doesn't have allegedly useless content. There shouldn't be "useless" jobs. People should be willing to form a party with whichever person sends them a tell based on their competency and role, rather than specific job. Some of those "snowflakes" you refer to are perfectly good and skilled players just looking for a little more variety in their game experience.

[Kincard]

A very poor target to use is high level endgame monsters, which are pretty much the only place people care about your damage output enough to bar people? Uh huh. Are you actually going somewhere with that point, or are you just being picky for the sake of being picky? You even yourself point out that it's a flawed system so I'm not even sure what you're trying to say- my exact goal was to prove that it's a flawed system.

If I was to heavily push things in favor of the NIN by giving them 0 buffs aside from white magic haste against a target like a DC Nightmare monster, those same characters would be doing:

Shamash WAR: 234.354 DPS
Kannagi NIN: 307.998 DPS

Hurray, the NIN is winning right? Oh wait, I forgot, I gave the Warrior a mediocre weapon. Let's try giving him a Ukonvasara 99 instead:

Ukon WAR: 303.969 DPS

Well dang, that sure killed that whole "one handers greatly win in low buffs" myth pretty quickly. Keep in mind I still haven't given the WAR any Hexed gear while the NIN is decked in the absolute perfect gear that can be achieved, with one piece that is nearly impossible to locate (Khepri Jacket).

[saevel]

Ah, so people who play less popular jobs are "snowflakes" now, eh?

This isn't about throwing the poor little guys a bone. This is about making a good, balanced game that doesn't have allegedly useless content. There shouldn't be "useless" jobs. People should be willing to form a party with whichever person sends them a tell based on their competency and role, rather than specific job. Some of those "snowflakes" you refer to are perfectly good and skilled players just looking for a little more variety in their game experience.

Snowflakes are people who refuse to do things like others because they won't want to be "mainstream". The guy who wants to do voidwatch on PUP for example.

There is absolutely no way to balance a game around 20 (soon 22) jobs, simply not going to happen. Solo content will favor hybrid jobs, party content will favor specialized jobs. Why would I bring a PUP to well .. anything, when I can bring a pure DD instead? So now we're at a point where every single job must be the exact same or you get some being selected over others. This isn't new to FFXI, every MMO must balance multiple class's. What makes FFXI different is a character "respec" is just a trip to the moghouse away. There is zero excuse for people not to have a useful job these days. Heck WHM, BRD and MNK are all three easily leveled and geared and those are three of the most desired jobs with MNK being heavily favored for low man content.

Simply put, your asking for the impossible then getting pissed when SE developers, being human, fail to deliver your impossible demand.

So in short, yes it is too much to ask. Might as well demand the world be a utopia with no crime, greed or strife while your at it.

[Caketime]

So taking all that into account, no matter what SE does, players will always seek to maximize loot acquisition rate and will do whatever it takes regardless of what the snowflakes think.

People would also do this same thing if the jobs were more balanced, what's your point? Greed is human nature, no amount of job adjusting will ever change that.

[Alhanelem]

Snowflakes are people who refuse to do things like others because they won't want to be "mainstream". The guy who wants to do voidwatch on PUP for example.You're missing the point. All jobs should be valued in a balanced manner. there shouldn't even BE "mainstream" and non-mainstream jobs. That person who wants to do voidwatch in PUP should be able to particpate in it and do a perfectly fine job- not because someone feels sorry and wants to invite someone who isn't "mainstream," but because they are actually effective enough to contribute. The whole point of this thread is that all jobs should be wanted- not just have 5 that are "mainstream" and the rest used only as filler.

Think about it. making parties for content would be so much easier if we didn't have to say " 3/6 WAR WHM MNK only" but could say "2 attacker and support" instead.


Simply put, your asking for the impossible then getting pissed when SE developers, being human, fail to deliver your impossible demand.It's not impossible. You don't have to make all jobs the same. All it takes is some bug fixing and number tweaking. This isn't "MAKE ALL JOBS 100% EQUAL DAMMIT", it's "make all jobs viable for a majority of content." There is no point at all in having 22 jobs in the game if only 5 of them are "mainstream." That's not even 25% of the jobs. That's a pathetic rate. Few if any other MMOs have it so bad. Out of FFXIV's 7 main combat jobs, only one was used measurably less than the others, and even then, it wasn't "unwanted," it just had more specialized uses but really shined in those situations.

[Kincard]

we're at a point where every single job must be the exact same or you get some being selected over others

Are you seriously not seeing the difference between "Make classes identical" and "Make it so that a more popular job isn't doing 50% more DPS than a less popular one"?

You're making a serious straw man argument here. It isn't annoying because it isn't perfect. It's annoying because it truly is horribly balanced.

[saevel]

A very poor target to use is high level endgame monsters, which are pretty much the only place people care about your damage output enough to bar people? Uh huh. Are you actually going somewhere with that point, or are you just being picky for the sake of being picky? You even yourself point out that it's a flawed system so I'm not even sure what you're trying to say- my exact goal was to prove that it's a flawed system.

If I was to heavily push things in favor of the NIN by giving them 0 buffs aside from white magic haste against a target like a DC Nightmare monster, those same characters would be doing:

Shamash WAR: 234.354 DPS
Kannagi NIN: 307.998 DPS

Hurray, the NIN is winning right? Oh wait, I forgot, I gave the Warrior a mediocre weapon. Let's try giving him a Ukonvasara 99 instead:

Ukon WAR: 303.969 DPS

Well dang, that sure killed that whole "one handers greatly win in low buffs" myth pretty quickly.

Where the hell did I say that? I only mentioned that 1H can outpace 2H when the target is EM~T. You can stack on multiple buffs and the 1H stays slightly ahead due to how fSTR works when combined with DW. That changes when you approach capped haste though, so toss in a SV march BRD or embrava and the 2H jumps ahead. This is due to the delay floor being 20% and the advantage from DW goes away once you hit that.

High end targets are a bad comparison because right now only three jobs can deal reasonable amounts of damage to them. WAR, DRK and SAM are you only real choices and only with specific setups. If a DRG has a mythic then they can get on that list. Those fights cater specifically to high DPS jobs as we pile on insane amounts of buffs and send them off with infinite fanatics spam or SCH stun locking / PD (if used). Horribly unbalanced content that SE expected us to lose to repeatedly.

The point is to illustrate how your complaining about the damage formula without understanding why it's the way it is. Making demands without understanding that ends up being rather childish (mommy why can't I have a pony for christmas!). Prior to the 2H update the 1H DW peeps were crushing everyone. I was there when WAR's and DRK's would go /NIN and use Axe's. The damage formula heavily favors fast hitting weapons due to the nature of fSTR. The change in the Ratio caps was done to balance out 1H and 2H damage, and it did exactly that. What SE failed to realize was that the players would take it to the extreme and seek to exploit the 12.5% higher cap for 2H's on targets with higher LCF.

2.25 vs 2.0 isn't much of a difference. 1.7 vs 1.45 (level 110 monster) is a bit more and the biggest crotch kicker is 1.2 vs 0.95 (level 120 monster). The solution isn't to rearrange the damage formula which will almost certainly result in an overall nerf to 2H instead of a boost to 1H (remember we weren't supposed to be killing those NM's anyway). It's to stop making level 120 NMs for us to fight.

[Caketime]

We should just stop complaining, build Rags and level WAR. Maybe then the devs will nerf it in the hopes that we'll use the "snowflakes".

[saevel]

Are you seriously not seeing the difference between "Make classes identical" and "Make it so that a more popular job isn't doing 50% more DPS than a less popular one"?

You're making a serious straw man argument here. It isn't annoying because it isn't perfect. It's annoying because it truly is horribly balanced.

People are demanding that SE create content that "values" all 20 (soon 22) jobs without resorting to "gimmicks" like weakness procs. That is impossible unless all jobs of a given category are functionally equal. I have several examples of events starting with six players and going down to two ~ three players (with a dual box or two). Nothing is stopping you from doing events with slightly larger groups so that you can bring your PUP or RDM along. Of course you won't do it because like those you lambast you too are greedy and want maximum loot. There option is there whether you take it or not.

[Kincard]

The point is to illustrate how your complaining about the damage formula without understanding why it's the way it is.

Hurr durr:


1. Ratio handicap on 1Hers

That includes level correction penalties on ratio. You're just being hostile for no reason. Get over yourself.


Nothing is stopping you from doing events with slightly larger groups so that you can bring your PUP or RDM along.

Are you just being dense on purpose? If I need to bring a larger group because a specific job is dead weight then obviously there's a balance problem.

I'm not even sure what your point is. You're basically agreeing that the game is horribly balanced, but you come in here being combative against people you technically agree with because you feel the need to white knight the dev team. Hate to break it to you, but these forums were created for the specific purpose of discussing flaws of the game in the hopes that they can be fixed in some way.

[Alhanelem]

Wow did 5 ppl really post in the time it took for me to write that? grrr i hate when I get stuck at the end of a page...


That is impossible unless all jobs of a given category are functionally equal.No. You don't get it. Jobs don't have to be 100% identical/equal to be valued. We're not asking for perfection, we're asking for reasonable effort in balance. right now the game isn't even close to being within the realm of remotely balanced.

[saevel]

We should just stop complaining, build Rags and level WAR. Maybe then the devs will nerf it in the hopes that we'll use the "snowflakes".

Strawman, there are several jobs that are viable. There are only a few that are viable in every situation and these predictably are the specialist jobs. The specialist healer (WHM), the specialist DD's (WAR/DRK/SAM/MNK) and the specialist buffers (BRD). THF gets a special mention as it's the "get moar loot" specialist. Outside of that many jobs will fit in based on different situations, and there is were we have the sticking point. People want to play their chosen job on all content, which is impossible with 20(22) jobs. I tend to use my BLU over 99 Rag WAR in Salvage II as we already have a pure DD (the MNK) and the additional utility of the BLU outweighs the additional damage I would get from being a pure DD. In a similar situation someone soloing or douing something large and dangerous might want to bring that same PUP or BST that was earlier not allowed into the voidwatch shout. Those jobs while having less damage output then the specialist's have pets which can aid in tanking and overall survivability. Same with the previously mentioned Kanagi NIN. A specialist DD may have more damage potential but the NIN will stay alive longer and has better defensive abilities, there are situations where you want those defensive abilities and can afford to sacrifice potential damage output.


Everyone here is taking an incredibly narrow point of view that the only thing that matters is potential damage output. This is only true in a few events, problem being that SE seems to have preferred these events for the last year or so and thus anyone not a DD specialist was left on the side. Prior to that was Abyssea, an event that potential damage output was largely ignored and the only thing that mattered was getting procs for "moar loot". Proc jobs became favored, WAR's were wanted for their diverse skills not their damage output.

[Kincard]

In old-style MMOs like this, it'll ultimately still break down to how well your job fills in one of the roles of the holy trinity (Well, I guess a fourth is support so CORs and BRDs get some piece of the pie). That is what needs to be fixed, IMO. The easiest role to fill (and the one you need most of anyway) is DPS. Like I said earlier, you need to look at the utility function (TH, Proccing, etc) as separate entities to core gameplay roles (Tank, DPS, Heal). As long as a job can fill one of these roles very well, it'll basically be acceptable (not best) in any large-scale event. After all, people arn't picky in DRK vs WAR. Nobody takes WARs to Legion so they can Fell Cleave and nobody takes DRKs to Legion so they can dread spikes.

This is why I think equalizing DPS across many classes isn't really a bad thing, because you can still have unique utilities between jobs, but you won't have a situation where you have filled in all your required utility slots and you go, "Well, we need a generic DPS job, now we have to pick one of the three jobs out of 22 that can actually fill that 'generic' role."

[saevel]

Hurr durr:



That includes level correction penalties on ratio. You're just being hostile for no reason. Get over yourself.



Are you just being dense on purpose? If I need to bring a larger group because a specific job is dead weight then obviously there's a balance problem.

I'm not even sure what your point is. You're basically agreeing that the game is horribly balanced, but you come in here being combative against people you technically agree with because you feel the need to white knight the dev team. Hate to break it to you, but these forums were created for the specific purpose of discussing flaws of the game in the hopes that they can be fixed in some way.

I broke your argument down (along with others) and now you guys just pissed. Your basically asking SE to "bring PUP's to Legion" which would require that damage output be no longer a factor. At that point it's no longer FFXI and some flash based web FTP MMO. As long as your fighting level 120 NMs then you will be using the highest damage jobs available to you, even if the damage lead is only 10~20%.

My point is to illustrate the incredible childishness that people are demonstrating. You essentially asking for the impossible (make all 22 jobs relevant) then getting angry when that impossibility doesn't happen. It sounds awfully lot like the grade school kid demanding a pony for Christmas

[Kincard]

I broke your argument down (along with others) and now you guys just pissed.

Misinterpreting an argument and breaking it down are two very different things, unfortunately for you. You still haven't explained in the least why this is "impossible" other than just stating it ad nauseum. If you are going to continue to make thinly veiled ad hominem attacks instead of making actual points like the actual child here, then I think we're done.

(By the way, awesome use of the 'u mad' argument, clearly you are putting your intellect on full display)


you will be using the highest damage jobs available to you, even if the damage lead is only 10~20%

If people seriously cared that much they would bar Ukon WARs from Legion and demand to take only Ragnarok WARs instead (~5% difference, decently large).

[Caketime]

The only thing making it not possible to play all content with one job is the "terrible imbalance" aspect of the game we've been talking about. We have 20 jobs Saevel, and you listed 6 as being viable for events. 6 out of 20 is absolutely terrible, and it can be done better. All you've done so far is insist that there's no way to balance the game when you yourself don't know that for sure, you just have an incredibly biased opinion. I understand that you're still bitter about RDM, but you're making insulting comments and all we're trying to do is have a discussion. Cut it out. Or better yet, please enlighten us snowflakes as to exactly why it's not possible to balance the game and why I should just shut up and level a meathead DD job.

[Kincard]

Saevel's clearly not interested in an actual discussion, he has proved here and elsewhere multiple times that he never bothers completely reading/comprehending a post before he posts in response to it. I suppose it's just as likely he's incapable of doing that, though.

[saevel]

Misinterpreting an argument and breaking it down are two very different things, unfortunately for you. You still haven't explained in the least why this is "impossible" other than just stating it ad nauseum. If you are going to continue to make thinly veiled ad hominem attacks instead of making actual points like the actual child here, then I think we're done.

(By the way, awesome use of the 'u mad' argument, clearly you are putting your intellect on full display)



If people seriously cared that much they would bar Ukon WARs from Legion and demand to take only Ragnarok WARs instead (~5% difference, decently large).

Demonstrates you don't know much about Legion. The difference between them is much greater then 5% due to Legion NMs have critical defense bonus that nerfs Ukon. Legion is about throwing as many Rag's against the targets as possible while having three SCH/BLM's cycle stun to prevent it from acting.

I've stated it several times that balancing is impossible as each job would have to be identical to the others. Otherwise you get winners and losers based on who has access to what exploitable combo. Raise NIN's damge to 90% of a Rag WAR's damage and suddenly you have a DD who not only has high DPS but also increased survivability, why bring a Rag WAR when a Kanagi NIN (theoretically) would do 90% the damage while taking less damage overall. Won't change anything like Legion as damage intake isn't a concern but on anything else it would make Ninja broken.

Thus you haven't changed the primary complaint (not bringing NIN / PUP's to Legion) while breaking both jobs in everything else. On top of that a system wide change to make 1H on the same level as 2H vs level 120 NM's would then make 1H crushingly overpowered on anything 100~105.

See not as easy as you thought, law of unintended consequences being what it is. There was a time when 1H and 2H damage used the exact same damage formula and 1H pretty much won every time. Apoc's higher haste cap (prior to haste gear being so easy to cap) being one of the few exceptions to that rule. Now the true culprit to all this is LCF's static penalty to your damage, it becomes obscenely noticeable at higher levels. Changing that would fundamentally alter the balance across the entire game and I would bet that it would be for the worse not the better.

Ultimately asking for all jobs to be relevant to all content is silly and childish. Most MMO's struggle with four to six class combos and your asking SE's developers to balance out twenty two. Mind as well expect world peace first.

Now what you guys should be asking for, and I was hoping the light bulb would eventually go on (my expectations are too high I know), is that SE implement a wide variety of content that doesn't penalize slightly larger group setups. Salvage 2 was a decent start, it doesn't require a super specific setup though you want (WHM + THF + Pure DD) as a minimum. The unlock system kinda favors smaller groups for the first two floors and the loot system definitely favors smaller groups, but otherwise the event is pretty non-discriminatory. Of course this goes back to what I said earlier, any event that could be cleared by a relaxed 5~6 player group can be cleared by a min/maxed three player group. If they implement 120 super NM's then it'll be Rag WAR spammage, if they implement meebles / salvage II type content then it'll be groups of three to four players doing it.

Not much room outside of that, welcome to modern MMO's so glad you could join us after ten years.

[saevel]

The only thing making it not possible to play all content with one job is the "terrible imbalance" aspect of the game we've been talking about. We have 20 jobs Saevel, and you listed 6 as being viable for events. 6 out of 20 is absolutely terrible, and it can be done better. All you've done so far is insist that there's no way to balance the game when you yourself don't know that for sure, you just have an incredibly biased opinion. I understand that you're still bitter about RDM, but you're making insulting comments and all we're trying to do is have a discussion. Cut it out. Or better yet, please enlighten us snowflakes as to exactly why it's not possible to balance the game and why I should just shut up and level a meathead DD job.

I'm being honest and frank with all of you. You've put blinders on and refused to acknowledge that there really is only a few ways to go about doing anything without getting "gimmicky". In all honestly you can really only have five to six jobs in any game before you run into balance issues. You have "Healer Specialist", "DD Specialist", "Tank Specialist" and then room for one or two Hybrids, you could also tack in "Magic DD Specialist" if the game's engine allows for that. That is why in FFXI you see the exact same specialist jobs over and over again. It's not some great developmental failure on SE's part as every MMO ever made has to deal with this.

There are only so many ways to "kill stuff, get loot".

[Kincard]

Demonstrates you don't know much about Legion. The difference between them is much greater then 5% due to Legion NMs have critical defense bonus that nerfs Ukon.

I'm perfectly aware of the crit penalty, thanks. There have been numerous parses and I have read several parses that had Ukon WARs parsing about 5% behind Rag WARs. It's a large amount to be sure, but most leaders simply don't care about the little things as long as the run goes well. If you play to win as much as you can, good for you, that's not what the discussion is about.


Legion is about throwing as many Rag's against the targets as possible

Once again, missing the point. Rag does better but no LS leader is going to tell someone they can't come on WAR because they have an Ukon instead of a Rag. After a certain point people just don't care as much about he differences in DPS as long as they can win the event decently reliably.


Raise NIN's damge to 90% of a Rag WAR's damage and suddenly you have a DD who not only has high DPS but also increased survivability, why bring a Rag WAR when a Kanagi NIN (theoretically) would do 90% the damage while taking less damage overall. Won't change anything like Legion as damage intake isn't a concern but on anything else it would make Ninja broken.

You are contradicting yourself. On the one hand, you are saying that you should maximize your DPS as much as possible by taking as many Rags as possible, then you are saying that raising another job that trades DPS for some survivability (Really not that much anyway since most of the stuff in Legion has tons of AoEs and Migawari has a long cast/recast) is preferable. Isn't that what class balance is? I trade some offense for defense. Yes, there would be intricacies in the game mechanics to be ironed out, but you're proposing that they just lazily leave the system in its flawed state. That's just...what?

If it "doesn't matter" in your view, how does that make it broken?


On top of that a system wide change to make 1H on the same level as 2H vs level 120 NM's would then make 1H crushingly overpowered on anything 100~105.

Because they couldn't possible change the game in a way so that one-handers arn't as heavily punished on really high level monsters but only slightly change the way mid-level monsters are handled?


Ultimately asking for all jobs to be relevant to all content is silly and childish.

Once again you have missed the point. Nobody is saying all 20 jobs have to be the best at everything in every event. We're simply asking that all 20 jobs can fill some kind of role in all events, even if it's not ideal, without basically being dead weight. There's something called a middle ground, and there isn't one. That is what needs to be fixed. How you continuously miss this point when it's been stated in almost every response to you is baffling indeed.

[saevel]

I'm perfectly aware of the crit penalty, thanks. There have been numerous parses and I have read several parses that had Ukon WARs parsing about 5% behind Rag WARs. It's a large amount to be sure, but most leaders simply don't care about the little things as long as the run goes well. If you play to win as much as you can, good for you, that's not what the discussion is about.



Once again, missing the point. Rag does better but no LS leader is going to tell someone they can't come on WAR because they have an Ukon instead of a Rag. After a certain point people just don't care as much about he differences in DPS as long as they can win the event decently reliably.



You are contradicting yourself. On the one hand, you are saying that you should maximize your DPS as much as possible by taking as many Rags as possible, then you are saying that raising another job that trades DPS for some survivability (Really not that much anyway since most of the stuff in Legion has tons of AoEs and Migawari has a long cast/recast) is preferable. Isn't that what class balance is? I trade some offense for defense. Yes, there would be intricacies in the game mechanics to be ironed out, but you're proposing that they just lazily leave the system in its flawed state. That's just...what?

If it "doesn't matter" in your view, how does that make it broken?

Your evading the issue about Legion, it's a whole helluva lot higher then 5%. Mathed out it's more like 15% or more. Also you've entered into the mode where you refuse to see the other persons point because it'll directly conflict with your own, so this conversation can't go any further. I used Ninja as a perfect example, "fixing" it's damage to be 90% of a "Pure DD" doesn't alleviate your primary concern (taking your NIN or PUP into Mul and killing third wave) while unbalancing everything that's not fighting level 120 NMs.


Because they couldn't possible change the game in a way so that one-handers arn't as heavily punished on really high level monsters but only slightly change the way mid-level monsters are handled?

Your refusing to see the game outside of "Damage ONRY!!!! MAKE MY NIN HIT HARDERER!!!", there are various types of events and low man events places more focus on survivability then damage. Enhancing a single aspect of a job without taking into consideration other aspects is how you get a broken game to begin with.

But lets go deeper into this rabbit hole. There was once a time when LCF didn't exist, at least for one particular type of damage. Ranged attacks used to hit IT the exact same as EM and the result was RNG spam for everything. RNG was the bandwagon job of choice, until SE nerfed it into the ground. What you just asked for was altering LCF which is one of the foundations of the games current balance. The only difference between a level 99, 110 and 120 monster is the amount of LCF it receives. Basically your now asking for SE to alter LCF to favor 1H at higher numbers which would result in a trickle down effect of making everything stupid easy. Legion would suddenly become a joke as would most content, this would result in SE nerfing it and we'd be in a worse situation then currently. Everyone's damage would suck equally not just 1h's.

Have you actually attempted to run math and see what could be changed or are you, like most others, just poping your mouth off and asking for more ponys? I know I have and the results are no matter what you do, 2H always stays ahead of 1H and by a far enough margin to be significant for strategy. You make it insignificant and things become stupid easy to the point of abyssea levels. The only way to arrive at a happy medium is to simply not include stupid level 120 NMs and then to lighten the LCF above 5 to 0.03 such that a monster 11 levels above would have 0.43 penalty instead of 0.55, it's not much but it evens things out a bit. This change would make Legion, PW and anything 110~120 easy though.


Once again you have missed the point. Nobody is saying all 20 jobs have to be the best at everything in every event. We're simply asking that all 20 jobs can fill some kind of role in all events, even if it's not ideal, without basically being dead weight. There's something called a middle ground, and there isn't one. That is what needs to be fixed. How you continuously miss this point when it's been stated in almost every response to you is baffling indeed.

No such thing as a "middle ground" in a MMO. That's like saying there is "middle ground" for a WS or TP gear item, it's either best in slot or it's not. A job is either the best for it's slot or it's not, period. Voidwatch is the place where "everyone can be useful" as procs matter, otherwise your either the best choice or not (out of whats available).

[Teraniku]

Quote Originally Posted by Calatilla View Post
No it isnt

Yes it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

[Kincard]

Your evading the issue about Legion, it's a whole helluva lot higher then 5%. Mathed out it's more like 15% or more.

When you math out Kogarasumaru it supposedly crushes all sorts of competition but in application players that have parsed their mythics have found that to be false. The number crunching will only take you so far, especially since you're in turtling gear half the time in Legion and that screws up a bunch of calculations anyway. Parses have shown Ukon WARs parsing within 5% of Rag WARs. Call them crappy players or whatever you want, that doesn't make it less valid.


Also you've entered into the mode where you refuse to see the other persons point because it'll directly conflict with your own, so this conversation can't go any further.

I don't think I need to point out how hypocritical this statement is when you've been unbudging on your stance without a single time even suggesting you're comprehending any of the posts you are reading.


there are various types of events and low man events places more focus on survivability then damage

If we're just going to focus on one job specifically, outside of Migawari blocking very specific types of attacks there is almost nothing a NIN can tank that a WAR can't at this point in the game. You don't seem to realize that WAR is a very powerful job even if you played it defensively because of retaliation.


Have you actually attempted to run math and see what could be changed or are you, like most others, just poping your mouth off and asking for more ponys? I know I have and the results are no matter what you do

I wasn't aware that you were privy to the game's source code and could eliminate every possibility of ways they could alter the game so that greater job balance could be achieved. It doesn't matter if the changes cannot fit into the game's current formulas/framework. They have altered formulas in the past. If it is unfeasible, then let them be the judge of that, they don't need you to speak for them. You're just being an alarmist and suggesting that any attempt at balancing would result in a catastrophe in the game's balance.


No such thing as a "middle ground" in a MMO. That's like saying there is "middle ground" for a WS or TP gear item, it's either best in slot or it's not.

I thought there was a limit on how much someone could miss the point. The "middle ground" is where I can take someone on a job that isn't ideal to an event without crippling the run, similar to how I can take a Ukon WAR instead of a Rag WAR to Legion without ruining the run. How are you having this much trouble comprehending this concept? Even taking your ridiculous claim of 15% advantage to Rag, that's still a lot less than the 30%+ advantage WARs and DRKs have over other jobs like DRG, NIN, THF, BLU or MNK.

[Caketime]

I'm being honest and frank with all of you. You've put blinders on and refused to acknowledge that there really is only a few ways to go about doing anything without getting "gimmicky". In all honestly you can really only have five to six jobs in any game before you run into balance issues. You have "Healer Specialist", "DD Specialist", "Tank Specialist" and then room for one or two Hybrids, you could also tack in "Magic DD Specialist" if the game's engine allows for that. That is why in FFXI you see the exact same specialist jobs over and over again. It's not some great developmental failure on SE's part as every MMO ever made has to deal with this.

There are only so many ways to "kill stuff, get loot".

Repeating "It's not going to work, balance is unpossible, just trust me on this" over and over isn't proving your point. Also, the imbalance here is a developmental failure on SE's part for deciding to create oodles of content focusing on doing as much damage as possible in a short time and then loading down a few jobs with abilities and weapon proficiencies/skills that do huge damage, while at the same time decreeing that all others shall suck it.

[Alhanelem]

My point is to illustrate the incredible childishness that people are demonstrating. You essentially asking for the impossible (make all 22 jobs relevant) then getting angry when that impossibility doesn't happenMaking every job relevant to a majority of content (not necessarily all) is not impossible. Nobody here is looking for perfection- only improvements.

Also, +1 to above post.

[Afania]

You're missing the point. All jobs should be valued in a balanced manner. there shouldn't even BE "mainstream" and non-mainstream jobs. That person who wants to do voidwatch in PUP should be able to particpate in it and do a perfectly fine job- not because someone feels sorry and wants to invite someone who isn't "mainstream," but because they are actually effective enough to contribute. The whole point of this thread is that all jobs should be wanted- not just have 5 that are "mainstream" and the rest used only as filler.


Nobody stops you from inviting a PUP to VW, and it is effective enough on things like T3. BUT if you put a PUP v.s another WAR or DRK, WAR or DRK probably gonna parse higher.

And unless they make PUP and WAR DRK have identical DPS(which isn't possbile), the one parse highest will get invite. The reason why X job doesn't get invite over Y job, is mostly because using Y job makes the mob die a bit faster. That's why job balance will never be adjusted, there's always someone stay at the top, someone falls behind. Some jobs don't get invited, is the result of min-maxing and human nature(you want more efficent event) to begin with.

[Alhanelem]

Nobody stops you from inviting a PUP to VW, and it is effective enough on things like T3. BUT if you put a PUP v.s another WAR or DRK, WAR or DRK probably gonna parse higher.That's not in dispute, but people shouldn't refuse to invite them and regard them as trash just because someone else can parse better numbers. If you can beat the NM and get the job done and it doesn't have a drastic impact on the time it takes then there isn't any reason not to let a ready and able competent player skilled in his job play.

Parses can suck a *$&%. In the end, voidwatch is *somewhat* friendly to letting all jobs play because the more people that participate the more loot is generated (unlike most content where people play with as few people as possible because they don't want to have to share the loot)- which is Voidwatch's one saving grace for me personally.


That's why job balance will never be adjusted, there's always someone stay at the top, someone falls behind.This is only partially true. Yes, there will always be a best and worst. The key to good balance is to minimize the difference without simultaneously taking away from what makes each one unique. You can balance jobs to the point where the difference isn't enough for most people to notice, then you can invite any of those jobs, because as long as theyre playing their job correctly, it won't matter much which one you choose, they will all be capable of contributing.

[Kincard]

A lot of people don't seem to understand what is being asked for isn't for jobs to have identical damage, and say that's impossible. Uh, yeah, we know that. Look at almost any other MMO on the market with proper balance, they usually have tons of different classes for Tank/DPS/Heal as well, but in the ones that are well balanced if your only goal is to get someone to fill a generic role, it won't matter which one of the classes you get because the differences are small. This is why the people that seem to insist that it's somehow impossible to balance classes in terms of damage are either lacking in imagination or intelligence.

If, on the other hand, you are looking for a specific ability, you would look for one class in particular.

This is how XI's class balance should be considered. If I want a DPS class in general, it shouldn't matter if I want a WAR, DRK, SAM, PUP, DRG or THF. If on, the other hand, I want to debuff the monster's AGI to increase the party's crit rate, I would get a DRK. If I want someone who can debuff dragons, I'd get a DRG, or I'd get a WAR if I expect to run into many crowds of monsters that can be easily group-tanked. This isn't that hard of a concept to grasp. Jobs do not lose all unique function just because things can deal the close to the same amount of damage as them.

Yes, there will always be people who will want the absolute best DPS in any situation. That has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation, because the problem isn't that these jobs arn't the best, it's that they don't even function tolerably as these roles at all.

[Afania]

That's not in dispute, but people shouldn't refuse to invite them and regard them as trash just because someone else can parse better numbers. If you can beat the NM and get the job done and it doesn't have a drastic impact on the time it takes then there isn't any reason not to let a ready and able competent player skilled in his job play.

Parses can suck a *$&%. In the end, voidwatch is *somewhat* friendly to letting all jobs play because the more people that participate the more loot is generated (unlike most content where people play with as few people as possible because they don't want to have to share the loot)- which is Voidwatch's one saving grace for me personally.


Since you don't care about the minor difference in killing speed, why don't you invite a PUP already? PUP is completely capable of getting VW done just fine. The only difference is killing speed, which you don't care. So what's so need fix about job balance when you don't care about the kill speed already?

[Caketime]

Since you don't care about the minor difference in killing speed, why don't you invite a PUP already? PUP is completely capable of getting VW done just fine. The only difference is killing speed, which you don't care. So what's so need fix about job balance when you don't care about the kill speed already?

He already said that wasn't the point. Hurr durr.

[Ramaza]

That's not in dispute, but people shouldn't refuse to invite them and regard them as trash just because someone else can parse better numbers. If you can beat the NM and get the job done and it doesn't have a drastic impact on the time it takes then there isn't any reason not to let a ready and able competent player skilled in his job play.

Parses can suck a *$&%. In the end, voidwatch is *somewhat* friendly to letting all jobs play because the more people that participate the more loot is generated (unlike most content where people play with as few people as possible because they don't want to have to share the loot)- which is Voidwatch's one saving grace for me personally.

This is only partially true. Yes, there will always be a best and worst. The key to good balance is to minimize the difference without simultaneously taking away from what makes each one unique. You can balance jobs to the point where the difference isn't enough for most people to notice, then you can invite any of those jobs, because as long as theyre playing their job correctly, it won't matter much which one you choose, they will all be capable of contributing.

Just to add on to this it also wouldn't hurt if these "proc" systems they've become so fond of were more inclusive, instead of exclusive. Jobs like RDM, who have nothing unique to them to proc with, and THFs who can't compete with the mainstream jobs have a hard time earning place in a Voidwatchter alliance because of this.

[Babekeke]

SoA content for ALL 20 jobs...

So, which 2 are you excluding? o.0


As for inviting jobs for VW, I'm more than happy to invite anyone on any job whether they have a r/m/e or not, as long as there's a nice even spread of jobs to cover most procs.

9 times out of 10, the proc party gets all the magic procs required to cap red and keep the fanatics flowing, but 1/10 this doesn't happen, and this is when the 'average' player is generally better than the e-peen 99 r/m/e war/drk/sam. The reason being, the average player sees 'H2H 5' in his chat log and switches to H2H (if on a job that wasn't mnk or pup) and shouts out the procs he/she can do and has done.

Mr E-peen on the other hand is spamming tachi: shoha/resolution/ukko's fury and doesn't even realise that red is only on 150. Eventually realising something is wrong, they start shouting 'no more temps, I need cures!' until either they die, or the mob dies. I've seen this more times than I care to remember, and after the fight the reason is usually "I can't see what procs are because I have no filters on so that I can parse".

If only the parse had a menu for who was the biggest idiot in that fight :)

So yeah, I'm not saying everyone with a pimped out DD job is like that, but certainly the people with less-well geared jobs tend to proc more so that they feel like they're doing something. I even started asking ukon wars if they have all their other weapons available to proc, should we need it, and I'll kick them if they don't own an axe.

[Afania]

So, which 2 are you excluding? o.0


As for inviting jobs for VW, I'm more than happy to invite anyone on any job whether they have a r/m/e or not, as long as there's a nice even spread of jobs to cover most procs.

9 times out of 10, the proc party gets all the magic procs required to cap red and keep the fanatics flowing, but 1/10 this doesn't happen, and this is when the 'average' player is generally better than the e-peen 99 r/m/e war/drk/sam. The reason being, the average player sees 'H2H 5' in his chat log and switches to H2H (if on a job that wasn't mnk or pup) and shouts out the procs he/she can do and has done.

Mr E-peen on the other hand is spamming tachi: shoha/resolution/ukko's fury and doesn't even realise that red is only on 150. Eventually realising something is wrong, they start shouting 'no more temps, I need cures!' until either they die, or the mob dies. I've seen this more times than I care to remember, and after the fight the reason is usually "I can't see what procs are because I have no filters on so that I can parse".

If only the parse had a menu for who was the biggest idiot in that fight :)

So yeah, I'm not saying everyone with a pimped out DD job is like that, but certainly the people with less-well geared jobs tend to proc more so that they feel like they're doing something. I even started asking ukon wars if they have all their other weapons available to proc, should we need it, and I'll kick them if they don't own an axe.

It seems that you're biased toward parsing, and I can't help but to clarify a couple of points a bit. Although not sure if this is legit discussion on official forum(I don't use 3rd pt tool myself, but many ppl I know that does use it so I guess I know a little bit about it)

1. Proc> dealing dmg?
Yes and no. Generally all VW, including higher tier one, should be dead in less than 2 min. If the fight last longer than 3 min, that's usually the main reason why VW pt wipe or ppl die.

I'm not saying proc isn't important, it is. But generally you only need 1~2 HQ/EV to cap red. If you need more than 1~2 proc, then your pt is killing too slow, and shouldn't sacrifice dmg for proc. Thus you shouldn't proc if you see mob HP at 5% and fana still have 30 sec left, and shouldn't sacrifice output to do NQ proc. The longer you kill a mob, the more proc you need, thus ideally you should lower the proc you need by killing faster.

The only VW that may have proc problem is T3, since they often die too fast, especially Akvan thanks to magic barrier if you didn't try to stun it. Everything else it's hard to imagine sacrifice dmg for proc is a good idea considering majority of PUG still takes longer than 3 min to kill T6+ prov NM.

Also, it is completely correct that lesser geared DDs focus on proc while strongest DD keep dealing dmg. If you ask stronger/better geared DD to work on proc or even NQ proc, you're just prolonging the fight for no reason.

2. If you parse you can't see /p chat?
You should be able to, but again it's not something we should talk about on official forum XD Just go watch other ppl's youtube video and you'll see.


3. "If only the parse had a menu for who was the biggest idiot in that fight"

If you really parse, and if you really study parse result carefully, you can see who is the idiot, and vice versa: How do you know if a player is performing properly if you don't parse and have filter on?

Parse shows all the WS they do, the items they use, the acc they have, the magic they cast, so if your WAR only do 4 WS entire fight everyone else do 15, you know your WAR is slacking. If you see your WAR have 50% acc when everyone else at 95%, you know your WAR isn't skilled(thus unable to proc well too) If you see your WAR only uses Ukko and not procing, or only do all proc but not using any dmg WS, then you know you shouldn't invite him(a good WAR knows when to proc, when not to proc, instead of just DD and don't proc, nor just do proc and don't DD)

It is exactly the opposite, parse gives more clear info regarding your pt member's performance compare with eyeball.

[Babekeke]

#1. I don't parse. I see no benefit from it, especially since I'm usually BLM or BRD in VW anyway.

#2 if you re-read what I posted above, you'll see that I was saying 90% of the time, the procs flow, and so does the damage, and the fight is easy.

HOWEVER: on occasion, you see shit like EV axe ws, Automation 3, pet ability 3, ice avatar 3, nin dark 3 (on a mob immune to dark enfeebs >.>). In this situation you'll have to agree, that you need that EV axe proc, and no amount of ukko's furys is going to help to cap red if you don't get it. (I'm assuming no smn bst or pup in the group, of course)

[Vyvian]

I think the reason why the system isn't as balanced as people would like is that it's doing exactly what it was intended to. This isn't like WoW where once you picked a job that character is stuck on it forever and you have to reroll, necessitating some kind of "balance" between the matching class roles. If PUP is bad for legion, don't go PUP, seems to be the dev mentality.

The natural response to this is, "well WAR is useful for everything", or "but PUP isn't ever wanted." I think the problem with this statement is people tend to filter out everything that isn't endgame events, and I don't think the dev team thinks this way. PUPs and BSTs can solo things, DNC has great utility in lowman, I wouldn't want to bring WAR to a duo dynamis, some people may and that's perfectly fine, but to me that just sounds like a pain.

Since they haven't done anything to balance their jobs for the last 8 years, I'm pretty confident that their opinion is if you think the job you are playing is not useful, level a new job or do something else.

Endgame events are generally done with a larger scale of people, so it makes far more sense to use "extremes" and balance out the setup by assigning different roles, then to use lukewarm jobs and potentially have 1 or more areas lacking at the end of the day.

[Jackstin]

That would be fine but storage limitations mean that you are going to be limited on how many jobs you can gear up to VW level.

[Alhanelem]

Since they haven't done anything to balance their jobs for the last 8 years, I'm pretty confident that their opinion is if you think the job you are playing is not useful, level a new job or do something else.Its less that they haven't (they have) and more that what they've done hasn't been especially effective in most cases.

[Afania]

#1. I don't parse. I see no benefit from it, especially since I'm usually BLM or BRD in VW anyway.

#2 if you re-read what I posted above, you'll see that I was saying 90% of the time, the procs flow, and so does the damage, and the fight is easy.

HOWEVER: on occasion, you see shit like EV axe ws, Automation 3, pet ability 3, ice avatar 3, nin dark 3 (on a mob immune to dark enfeebs >.>). In this situation you'll have to agree, that you need that EV axe proc, and no amount of ukko's furys is going to help to cap red if you don't get it. (I'm assuming no smn bst or pup in the group, of course)


And if you read what I said above, I disagree with your opinion regarding parsing and was saying that parse does help pt lead organize the run and estimate pt capability. You playing BRD or BLM is irrelevant, it's not about who wins and deal most %, but it's about being able to tell who is doing the job properly. I'm not against proc at all, you don't need to repeat that and tell me how important procs are.



It has nothing to do with jobs you play, and if you're not pt lead you probably won't get benefit from it. But for someone who makes /shout pt often, and often makes higher tier /shout pt, parse helps a lot. There are a lot of ppl I know that often complained that they joined prov /shout pt and wiped or takes hours to finish BCx3+dragon run, and when they joined mine(I don't invite more than 3 ppl who don't do very well, and always ensure there's enough output to deal 350k dmg in 1.5~3 min), they often praise how fast and smooth the runs are. Most players would rather join a pt that can end every KI BC in 2~3 min(although a bit harder to end 1 BC in 2~3 min now that buff lock is nerfed) and dragon zerg in 1.5 min, not spending 1+ hr for 3 BC+dragon.

There are still a lot of /shout pt that wiped in prov, or takes hours to get it done, or wipe to B.rex with weakening item, mainly because pt lead have no ability to identify who is doing the job properly who isn't. It's the same thing as running a company, if you hire ppl that don't do the job right, your company won't work very well. Do you hire just anyone in your company? Of course not, you hire ppl that fits the position and get the job done well.

And there's just no way I can tell who is good who isn't if I don't collect parse data. Pt lead knowing pt capability, and knows how much dmg the ally can do in 2~3 min, is the key to have a fast and smooth run in higher tier, probably irrelevant in T3 I agree, but T6+prov? I'm just gonna disagree with you.

[Prrsha]

In FFT players tend to use the most efficient combination of abilities and then make like 8 copies of those across multiple characters so the actual jobs of those characters only dictate what the unit looks like, in the end the damage is the same. The problem in that game and this one is that there are some abilities that shit all over the other ones, so why would anyone waste their time with anything but the best possible combo? Why would you waste your time with the Summoner when you can invest in the Oracle or Samurai's ridiculously potent abilities?

The real issue here is that the game is hopelessly unbalanced and has been for a very long time. Adding new trinkets and novelty junk on top of already broken stuff isn't the answer either, it just creates a bigger mess. The fact that Embrava and PD were ever even considered to be added in the first place is amazing, but that was also after Doom auras, which are equally wtf. Why you would even add things like that to a game where you're forced to basically do nothing as "punishment" for death is beyond my comprehension. Add super weapons to this equation, which aren't actually needed but make the process of standing there and sighing heavily while your Elf beats on yet another reskinned NM named after a Mesopotamian demon that eats babies slightly faster, and the mess grows ever larger.


3 months for an average player to make a relic? If I do Dynamis every single day sure- you might say 2 hours a day isn't very much, but that's only if you assume I do nothing but play Dynamis every single day. If you add in other events (If someone is only doing Dynamis then they have no real reason to require a relic to begin with- you don't need a relic to farm Dynamis), that's a playtime of well over 2 hours a day. Unless I'm on vacation I doubt the average person has the time (or the patience) to relic up a job they don't even like just so they can play a certain event.

Aside from that, I should be able to play a job I simply enjoy playing in any endgame without severely crippling my group. Whenever I make groups with my friends, I do everything I can to let people come on jobs they enjoy playing even if it results in slightly worse results, because at the end of the day, we're playing to have fun. You shouldn't do something dumb like making a party of 6 THFs and go whack on something with massive AoE damage but you shouldn't be severely punished for taking a DRG or PUP instead of a WAR to Legion, either.

They can't make every job's DPS identical, no, but they should make classes that fill that role have their differences reduced to insignificance. Even the craziest min-maxer playing the game isn't obsessing over whether they should take a DRK or a WAR because the difference is simply negligible in the grand scheme of things. The problem isn't that there is a gap between DPS jobs, but rather that the gap is so large that it would severely cripple your run if you took anything but the 2 or 3 jobs that regularly top the DPS charts (generally SAM, WAR, DRK). Other games generally do not run into this issue because when their devs say balance, they obviously know what the word actually means.

Like, WAR and DRK both get really high DPS numbers but obviously there are cases where one will beat the other. There are very few, if any, cases where you'll see someone looking for a DPS and then tell a DRK he needs to have WAR leveled to participate (Aside from procs which are tailored to make you bring a variety of jobs anyway). The same isn't true if I want to DPS on DNC, THF, NIN, DRG etc. A THF dual wielding a Mandau and Twashtar 99 geared in Hexed-1 and perfect gear shouldn't be being out-DPSed by a WAR wielding a Laceratrice or Dies Irae using AF3+2 and AH gear.

You could argue that those listed jobs have utility to make up for it, but that would be ignoring the "utility" the top DPS jobs bring too- WARs can swap between multiple weapon classes quite easily and are very effective at dealing area melee damage, DRKs provide absorb spells and have several unique spells of their own.

tl;dr, the philosophy should be "balance DPS, then add unique utility to every job" instead of "make utility take the place of having higher DPS".


Repeating "It's not going to work, balance is unpossible, just trust me on this" over and over isn't proving your point. Also, the imbalance here is a developmental failure on SE's part for deciding to create oodles of content focusing on doing as much damage as possible in a short time and then loading down a few jobs with abilities and weapon proficiencies/skills that do huge damage, while at the same time decreeing that all others shall suck it.

Well summed up and explained.

[Prrsha]

We're not asking for perfection, we're asking for reasonable effort in balance. right now the game isn't even close to being within the realm of remotely balanced.

And Tanaka was complained about for his brand of balance... now people are starting to miss it?

[Demon6324236]

I highly doubt anyone is asking for more content with .1~.5% drop rates on high level NMs which require 6~18 people. Also doubt anyone is asking for NMs that nearly 1shot you with any attack, or give out 5 status ailments in 1 TP, have AoE 5-count doom+weakness, or anything else of the sort. So far as I know, that was part of his balance, and something no one I know, is asking to see again.

As many have said before, most, or all, of the content we have right now and have gotten recently has been influenced by Tanaka, so really its the same kinda balance we are talking about now that people hate. Zerg content is 90% of what we have at the moment, really all of it is, some things like Meebles are not always zerg, some are objectives, but many objectives are just zergs as well, kill all of this, kill these certain things, still zergs, just wrapped in an objective to make it look different.

[Prrsha]

As many have said before, most, or all, of the content we have right now and have gotten recently has been influenced by Tanaka.

I agree with you except for that sentence. He was just a puppethead for FFXI for the past year. It has been reveiled in many interviews that he claimed he let the dev staff "do their stuff" on both 11 and 14 while he was barely handling both due to illness and work overload.

[Rambus]

Before the Developers even think of announcing the starting content for Seekers of Adoulin, I'd like to know whether or not they have acted positively in creating content and events that are proof against the exclusion of nearly 3/4 of the jobs in the game by "professional" forum sites and the sheep who parrot their talking points. This was the only aspect of Abyssea that rubbed me the wrong way and is what keeps me from even thinking about Voidwatch (anyone saying they haven't seen "R/M/E DD only" shouts is an unbelievably bad liar).

I want to see content that is accessible to any and every job, whether their weapons are Relic, Empyrean, Mythic, Magian, or just store-bought. Exclusionary content at this point will only accelerate the demise of this franchise.

This issue is going to be made worse since it is not 20 jobs but 22 jobs or w/e with that out.

FFXI has too meany jobs and wow does fine with like 6?

a pt is 6 people, a full all is 18 people and the total job count is 22 .... I do not think it takes much thought why that is stupid.

[Kincard]

I think the reason why the system isn't as balanced as people would like is that it's doing exactly what it was intended to. This isn't like WoW where once you picked a job that character is stuck on it forever and you have to reroll, necessitating some kind of "balance" between the matching class roles. If PUP is bad for legion, don't go PUP, seems to be the dev mentality.

From a gameplay perspective, it makes sense to make certain jobs better for certain events for that reason in some ways, but I think they screwed up the way the reward structure works if they wanted it to work like that.

The problem is that if I was to play a single job, it means I have to eventually play content that the job is poor at running in in order to gear even that job properly, because they just stick items that are good for x job randomly between each event. I'm running an event a job is not good at on another job that IS good at it so I can gear the job that isn't good at just so it can continue being not good at it...wat.

For example, take the two pulse weapons in Legion (Without considering the fact that they're both mediocre for a second). Neither MNK nor NIN are particularly effective in Legion (MNK can do okayish, NIN is laughable). Let's say I only have MNK and NIN leveled...now I have to level WAR, skill it, then go around gearing it a lot just so I can get one more piece of gear for my MNK or NIN that won't even help me run said event better.


And Tanaka was complained about for his brand of balance... now people are starting to miss it?

I don't think anybody misses the balance attributed to Tanaka because I know I certainly wasn't satisfied back then either.

[Camiie]

I think the reason why the system isn't as balanced as people would like is that it's doing exactly what it was intended to. This isn't like WoW where once you picked a job that character is stuck on it forever and you have to reroll, necessitating some kind of "balance" between the matching class roles. If PUP is bad for legion, don't go PUP, seems to be the dev mentality.

My problem is with that mentality. I've never accepted "working as intended" as being synonymous with working as it should, and I definitely don't in this case.

To me, each job should be handled as if it's the only job available to someone's character. Does that mean every job should somehow be able to take on every possible role on its own? Of course not. BUT, when I utilize all that my job has to offer within its primary role, I should be on par with any other job performing the same role. That doesn't make all jobs the same. It just means they follow separate paths to reach the same goal. For hybrid jobs, I'll admit I don't have all the answers there, but it's obvious SE has never had the answers either. I think they definitely need to become more defined somehow.


The natural response to this is, "well WAR is useful for everything", or "but PUP isn't ever wanted." I think the problem with this statement is people tend to filter out everything that isn't endgame events, and I don't think the dev team thinks this way. PUPs and BSTs can solo things, DNC has great utility in lowman, I wouldn't want to bring WAR to a duo dynamis, some people may and that's perfectly fine, but to me that just sounds like a pain.

To anyone who came into the game wanting to play and master one specific job and do everything on that job, the system in place right now is a gigantic middle finger. I don't think it should be that way. If someone wants to play DNC and fight the biggest baddest NM in the hardest event around they should be able to do so. They should be able to contribute in a way that is considered valuable and certainly not detrimental. Combine their buffs/debuffs/healing/damage and you end up with a job that's just as welcome in that slot as one who just does damage or just buffs. I don't know why that would be so horrible.


Since they haven't done anything to balance their jobs for the last 8 years, I'm pretty confident that their opinion is if you think the job you are playing is not useful, level a new job or do something else.

And I'm sure that's great for the devs. People waste time leveling what turns out to be a generally useless job and then have to go back and level other jobs just to get through higher-end content. Now, at what point do they start thinking about what's good for the players?


Endgame events are generally done with a larger scale of people, so it makes far more sense to use "extremes" and balance out the setup by assigning different roles, then to use lukewarm jobs and potentially have 1 or more areas lacking at the end of the day.

It should be much harder to decide which jobs to take to an endgame event. The majority of jobs shouldn't be off the table from the outset. If you want to "foster skillful play" get a party leader's proverbial gears turning about what he prefers to take to the fight before he's even started shouting.

[Vyvian]

Its less that they haven't (they have) and more that what they've done hasn't been especially effective in most cases.

I don't really agree, they've put out some bug fixes and playability improvements but the status quo hasn't really changed. WAR has always been somewhere near the top with SAM. DRK and MNK have usually been accepted near the top. DRG has always been considered a substandard 2 hander for as long as I've been playing. THF hasn't ever done good damage, RNG was good once and then the distance nerf came and they became a "specific fight only" job. WHM has always been the most capable healer in an alliance, the only real balance shift there was in the realm of 6 man exp parties when refresh became less important.

I think the only really significant "balance change" update that ever came about was the 2 hander buff and its subsequent nerf because they overdid it, and I think they only did that because they realized everyone was subbing nin and dual wielding axes instead of using 2 handed weapons like they intended. I suppose the move away from using tanks at all and just DD sponging could be considered a balance shift as well.

[Alhanelem]

Throughout ToAU it was pretty much SAM SAM SAM SAM for everything. People took WARs but SAM was always far, far preferred over any other DD.


WHM has always been the most capable healer in an allianceNo it hasn't lol. RDM used to be chosen over WHM all the time. SCH coming out didn't help that at all either.


DRK and MNK have usually been accepted near the top.DRK has never been near the top, except situationally for kclub zergs.

PUP and DRG both gradually moved up from god-awful to "still under-powered but useable."

They've made lots of changes and improvements over the years, but it's usually too little, too late. The time it takes them to realize there's a problem and then fix it is atrocious. Then they don't always go as far as they say they will. e.g. they said they were going to make PUP HTH skill A rank, but then only made it B+ when MNKs were never really in any danger of being dethroned.

[Vyvian]

I think my experience was different than yours.


Throughout ToAU it was pretty much SAM SAM SAM SAM for everything. People took WARs but SAM was always far, far preferred over any other DD.
In anything I've ever parsed they parsed nearly identically in almost every situation that allows for unhindered DD. Generally the only parse variances came from who I knew was a better player, and that went both ways between the jobs. Once the 2 hander buff came out, everyone I dealt with wanted to use WAR SAM DRK and MNK pretty interchangeably for anything I was involved with. Admittedly that wasn't kings, but I did every other end game event when it was current.


No it hasn't lol. RDM used to be chosen over WHM all the time. SCH coming out didn't help that at all either.
WHMs had superior control of status fixes, enmity management, aoe healing, and spent less mp per hp healed, and all you had to do was give them a refresh. 1 WHM and 1 RDM had better control of healing than 2 RDMs ever did in my experience. As for sch coming out, it made a very large difference in getting invited to merit parties. It also made the rest of endgame easier as WHM because it further accentuated WHM's advantages by improving mp efficiency further and giving a bit fast cast at the same time. RDMs could've subbed SCH and gained some benefits but in the circles I was with that wasn't really accepted.


DRK has never been near the top, except situationally for kclub zergs.
The only DRK I really played with had a relic, so maybe that's why I felt good about DRKs.


PUP and DRG both gradually moved up from god-awful to "still under-powered but useable."
I agree with this statement, but it doesn't diverge from my original point. In the status quo they're still in the same place, less desireable than the other jobs. Should they be equal? Warrior had loldefender as a defensive skill and DRK had gear that increased the damage they took and souleater. SAM was admittedly OP with a strong offensive output and amazing defensive skills, an oddball of the bunch, but generally the jobs with the ability to reduce or avoid damage, do less damage as a result. DRG could drop hate with jumps, MNK had passive avoidance with counter, NIN had utsusemi.

[detlef]

There was a time when RDM was on top for healing due to the limited sources of refresh. WHM was viewed as too high maintenance, and cure bombing was neither feasible nor necessary.

[Afania]

Throughout ToAU it was pretty much SAM SAM SAM SAM for everything. People took WARs but SAM was always far, far preferred over any other DD.

No it hasn't lol. RDM used to be chosen over WHM all the time. SCH coming out didn't help that at all either.

DRK has never been near the top, except situationally for kclub zergs.

PUP and DRG both gradually moved up from god-awful to "still under-powered but useable."

They've made lots of changes and improvements over the years, but it's usually too little, too late. The time it takes them to realize there's a problem and then fix it is atrocious. Then they don't always go as far as they say they will. e.g. they said they were going to make PUP HTH skill A rank, but then only made it B+ when MNKs were never really in any danger of being dethroned.

Pretty sure I've seen DRK parsed very high too, although that's relic DRK.

SAM is bandwagon because it's easier to gear like today's DRK, so avg endgame player with no relic or super pimp gear can do pretty well(like how today's DRK can do very well with an OAT).

What everyone want in /shout doesn't mean it's always the best. A lot of times ppl just want X job because it's easier to get decently geared X job when you don't know who are you getting, even if Y job can do better with certain gears.

RDM chosen over WHM only happen in 6 person pt. Anything bigger than 6 person, like Einherjar etc, you'd have both.

[Alhanelem]

The biggest problem right now is, and has been for a while, SMN. As far as endgame goes, SMN is a one-trick pony, and that one trick is being nerfed. SMN is getting a new SP ability that will temporarily relieve the biggest problem they have for a mere 30 seconds: The BP timer. Even after the rage/ward split, SMN is just idle while other people are beating the crap out of stuff and supporting. The only ways SMN can augment its performance at all really is to either 1) melee to increase damage output, or 2) cure people on subjob to increase support capability. Neither of these things really does enough to bring SMN to the same level as other jobs for either a source of damage OR a support. Get rid of the BP timer/make it really short; or (because of timer limitations) implement a charge system, so that at least SMN can do some burst damage or get multiple buffs up.

You may have seen me being a proponent of melee on SMN; the reason I do this is because i feel like I have to, just to bring the job up a little bit. People shouldn't *have* to do this to strengthen the job, as fun as it is for me to play it this way. It should be strong already. Doesn't Summoner usually have a reputation of power in most FF games?

[Mercilessturtle]

Your evading the issue about Legion, it's a whole helluva lot higher then 5%. Mathed out it's more like 15% or more.

You are mathing wrong then. It is actually ~3% assuming the ukon war isn't a moron and gears for str instead of crit damage on ukkos. Ragnarok is overpowered because of 2 things, resolution and 14% crit rate. The crit rate being removed in mul hurts ragnarok badly, not just ukon. It is worth mentioning that a bravura upheaval war isn't very far behind either, another 2-3%.

[saevel]

You are mathing wrong then. It is actually ~3% assuming the ukon war isn't a moron and gears for str instead of crit damage on ukkos. Ragnarok is overpowered because of 2 things, resolution and 14% crit rate. The crit rate being removed in mul hurts ragnarok badly, not just ukon. It is worth mentioning that a bravura upheaval war isn't very far behind either, another 2-3%.

Except that's not how Mul works. The NM's have Critical evasion bonus for a flat -%, Rag's crit bonus will put the user over floored crit hit rate, more if their doing BR cycle. Crit isn't ignored in Mul, it's simply reduced by a flat value which tends to hurt anyone who use's a predominately critical based WS.

[Mercilessturtle]

You may wish to consider that if you are going to act like you are saying something contradictory in every reply you ever make, actually saying something contradictory would be a good idea.

[Sapphires]

There are more jobs than there are available slots in an 18 person alliance.
Someone (job) is always going to have to sit out.

Learn to play and love more than just 1 job, or prepare to be disappointed.

[Demon6324236]

There are more jobs than there are available slots in an 18 person alliance.
Someone (job) is always going to have to sit out.This is true, however, there is not only 1 thing to do in the entire game, while there are many events there are just as many jobs left out of things entirely. There is no event RDM, PUP, or DRG are particularly amazing in when compared to other jobs, while there is also no event that a WAR or DRK is terrible for.

[Caketime]

Who has just one job anymore?

[Demon6324236]

I do not have just one job, however I main RDM, and like DRG, my GF's 2nd fav job is PUP. These 3 jobs are mostly ignored, and left out of events, while I do have DRK, she has BLM, its not always something we want to play, especially in my case where my main job is left out.

[Alhanelem]

Who has just one job anymore?
Mostly just newer players, I have 5 jobs and none of them are particularly popular for anything except SCH, and that popularity is about to go up in smoke in the next update.

[Camiie]

There are more jobs than there are available slots in an 18 person alliance.
Someone (job) is always going to have to sit out.

Learn to play and love more than just 1 job, or prepare to be disappointed.

There are a lot more than 2-4 jobs that get left out of those 18-person alliances.

[Ramaza]

There are a lot more than 2-4 jobs that get left out of those 18-person alliances.
Pretty much this. I'd be all for coming to endgame events as something other then BLM or SAM or BLU, but no one wants my RDM, or NIN, or BST a good portion of the time. You could include DNC as well, but I basically gave up on the job for the same reason its not getting to invites to endgame events either.

The job balance is in the toilet right now and all the endgame events are basically rigged in favor of the jobs that are on the winning side of the balance issue. It's all great and good to tell someone to level multiple jobs, but variety is the spice of life and not everyone is going to want to come XXX every time something needs to be killed. And for people to recommend past content as a solution aren't seeing the whole picture. At this point in time even IF a RDM could do lets say Limbus, or Dynamis, or Zeni Notorious Monster, or KS99 BC's solo, so too could most jobs in the game, and do it faster/Safer in a lot of other instances (such as BLU and SCH etc).

People who think balance is impossible have either no imagination at all for game development, or have never played any other MMO other than FFXI. Balance is very possible without having every class feel exactly the same/do the same damage.

[Afania]

Pretty much this. I'd be all for coming to endgame events as something other then BLM or SAM or BLU, but no one wants my RDM, or NIN, or BST a good portion of the time. You could include DNC as well, but I basically gave up on the job for the same reason its not getting to invites to endgame events either.

The job balance is in the toilet right now and all the endgame events are basically rigged in favor of the jobs that are on the winning side of the balance issue. It's all great and good to tell someone to level multiple jobs, but variety is the spice of life and not everyone is going to want to come XXX every time something needs to be killed. And for people to recommend past content as a solution aren't seeing the whole picture. At this point in time even IF a RDM could do lets say Limbus, or Dynamis, or Zeni Notorious Monster, or KS99 BC's solo, so too could most jobs in the game, and do it faster/Safer in a lot of other instances (such as BLU and SCH etc).

People who think balance is impossible have either no imagination at all for game development, or have never played any other MMO other than FFXI. Balance is very possible without having every class feel exactly the same/do the same damage.

If you play other MMO, most MMO out there there are players cried about X class sucked all the time, I mean, all the time.

And they often have less classes than FFXI.

[Alhanelem]

If you play other MMO, most MMO out there there are players cried about X class sucked all the time, I mean, all the time.

And they often have less classes than FFXI.
Well, the standard for balance is higher when you through serious PvP into the mix (probably why they never really took ballista seriously, they knew they'd never achieve solid balance), so this is where it becomes crying that your class parses the lowest, even when its <1% off what the number one class can do and it's a class that heals or supports in PvE...

[saevel]

People who think balance is impossible have either no imagination at all for game development, or have never played any other MMO other than FFXI. Balance is very possible without having every class feel exactly the same/do the same damage.

It's precisely because I've played many MMO's that I know balancing 20+ class's is impossible. I've already stated it at length but games can at most support ~6 class's prior to balance becoming an issue.

Pure Physical DPS
Pure Magic DPS
Pure Healer
Pure Tank

Then one to two hybrids or pet class's.

After you got that you end up with class's competing with each other for "the best damage" or "the best healing". Ultimately the developers end up playing a game of whack-a-mole where each cycle has them buff / nerf a different set of class's. One cycle the Warrior is the best DPS, then it's the Rogue, then it's the Hunter, then it's the Ret Pally, then it's the Warlock and so on / so forth. Players will constantly look to exploit various statistics to create builds that over-achieve. Once it's discovered there is a natural inclination to use those over-achieving builds in content, people who are not capable of those builds resent it and cry for a nerf / buff. Dev's come in and do such but in doing so effect some other aspect that is rapidly discovered and again another over-achieving build is created. Rinse-wash repeat.

[Kincard]

Ultimately the developers end up playing a game of whack-a-mole where each cycle has them buff / nerf a different set of class's...Players will constantly look to exploit various statistics to create builds that over-achieve.

Yes, that is true...it's also true that in many well balanced MMOs the gap between various builds isn't 30% or more, which is the case with FFXI's situation, which you seem to be ignoring. People will clear pretty much every bit of content without specifically building a party of Ret Pallies/Hunters/Rogue/Popular Build etc, because the gap is almost never large enough for most people to bother looking for those builds specifically, and when it is, it is rightfully nerfed. I want to see you do the same thing with FFXI's Legion making an alliance of NINs as your tanks/holders and THFs, MNKs, and BLUs as your DPSs. I am not asking for perfect, 100% everyone does the same numerical damage balance. Nobody is stupid enough to ask for that.

And you're acting like making the developers play a game of cat-and-mouse with finding game mechanic exploits is somehow a bad thing. The first thing is that the alternative is for them to sit on their thumbs about it, which is hardly a better alternative, and the second is that the players often take a while to find out what superior builds actually are.

Also, it's often the case that in FFXI's particular situation, the search for superior builds has almost always been within the same circle of two-hander jobs, because a lot of the problems stem from how two-hander damage in general is calculated, and then you have the issue of lack of powerful JAs like Berserk or Last Resort combined with Hasso on other than 2 or 3 jobs further widening the gap.

[Rustic]

There was a time when RDM was on top for healing due to the limited sources of refresh. WHM was viewed as too high maintenance, and cure bombing was neither feasible nor necessary.

This. Now WHM/RDM can just take care of themselves.

The problem lies in that what once was the domain of a specific job, what made it valued- has become something subjobs can bring to another job instead- and nothing in the 76-99 range has replaced them, which narrows things down. If I was the devs, I'd be looking at abilities and spells in that level range that make people go "Oh, THAT'S what you need <job>" for!

If content becomes nothing but DPS + heal vs. monster, then logically that's what jobs get the nod, every time- along with whatever (staggers/TH) generates the most loot. Everyone else gets left on the doorstep.

The solutions are many, but one part of the problem is that so much of what makes a given job unique was allowed to bleed into subjobbing it. Being able to mix and match a lot of L35+ JA's and such was the wet dreams of many a L75-era player, and lo and behold it happened.

Make the jobs unique again, or we're in the MMO standard holy trinity of DPS, tank, heal + guy who pokes the mob for TH.

[Kincard]

In an old style MMO like this the holy trinity is basically unavoidable. Making jobs unique does not have to be restricted to being within those roles though, and making a holy trinity role a job's defining role is probably a bad idea when there's so many of them.

[detlef]

Pretty much this. I'd be all for coming to endgame events as something other then BLM or SAM or BLU, but no one wants my RDM, or NIN, or BST a good portion of the time. You could include DNC as well, but I basically gave up on the job for the same reason its not getting to invites to endgame events either.The thing is, your NIN is incredible in Abyssea. Your BST is great in Dynamis. As for your RDM, I can't really help you too much there, although it is and always has been a very good Salvage healing job.

[Rustic]

Who has just one job anymore?

More like "Who can afford to have just one job anymore?"

And that's a problem. All jobs, when you hit endgame, should have value, and brute force generation shouldn't be the winner.

Encounters should frequently have "Man, if we had <job> on this run, it'd have been a lot smoother. There should be "speed bumps" that while they don't stop people, they do slow them down. Spam physical DPS on a mob? "Reflects/redirects attack" effect that needs dispelling, like waaay back when we were slapping crawlers and crabs around and every time the thing Cocooned up, you needed removal to keep the exp chain going. Mobs that have huge -PDT/-MDT that's weakened by debuffing them. Mobs that have nasty special or even normal attacks/defenses that cripples a player (TP/MP drains or "Weakness Spikes", for example) but has no effect on pets/autos/drakes, leaving them fighting each other on more even terms. Something that forces a mix of effort besides "Hit it with a bigger axe."

[Ramaza]

The thing is, your NIN is incredible in Abyssea. Your BST is great in Dynamis. As for your RDM, I can't really help you too much there, although it is and always has been a very good Salvage healing job.
But thats the thing though, I don't wanna play my NIN in just abyssea, I wanna take it to Voidwatcher. I don't wanna play my BST in just Dynamis, I wanna take it to Legion, and the same goes for my RDM. Old content is not the solution to make jobs that are being sidelined viable again.

[Prrsha]

The solutions are many, but one part of the problem is that so much of what makes a given job unique was allowed to bleed into subjobbing it. Being able to mix and match a lot of L35+ JA's and such was the wet dreams of many a L75-era player, and lo and behold it happened.

Subjobs are what make FFXI an unique MMORPG... it is also its curse as it makes job uniqueness go down the toilet. The devs should really look at removing certain abilities for a job when it is subbed (spells included).

[Ramaza]

In an old style MMO like this the holy trinity is basically unavoidable. Making jobs unique does not have to be restricted to being within those roles though, and making a holy trinity role a job's defining role is probably a bad idea when there's so many of them.

This man gets it. Uniqueness can still be had even in the holy trinity.

[saevel]

Yes, that is true...it's also true that in many well balanced MMOs the gap between various builds isn't 30% or more, which is the case with FFXI's situation, which you seem to be ignoring. People will clear pretty much every bit of content without specifically building a party of Ret Pallies/Hunters/Rogue/Popular Build etc, because the gap is almost never large enough for most people to bother looking for those builds specifically, and when it is, it is rightfully nerfed. I want to see you do the same thing with FFXI's Legion making an alliance of NINs as your tanks/holders and THFs, MNKs, and BLUs as your DPSs. I am not asking for perfect, 100% everyone does the same numerical damage balance. Nobody is stupid enough to ask for that.

And you're acting like making the developers play a game of cat-and-mouse with finding game mechanic exploits is somehow a bad thing. The first thing is that the alternative is for them to sit on their thumbs about it, which is hardly a better alternative, and the second is that the players often take a while to find out what superior builds actually are.

Also, it's often the case that in FFXI's particular situation, the search for superior builds has almost always been within the same circle of two-hander jobs, because a lot of the problems stem from how two-hander damage in general is calculated, and then you have the issue of lack of powerful JAs like Berserk or Last Resort combined with Hasso on other than 2 or 3 jobs further widening the gap.

If you only chose one job in FFXI then what your saying is true. Fortunately (or not depending) we can walk to our pet moogle and *BAM* instantly respec / change jobs. This ends up exasperating the problem by enabling high end players to always be capable of doing the "near perfect" setup. Why would anyone bring a non-perfect job when they can change to the perfect job or be replaced by someone else. The only time this is no longer an issue is when the jobs in question are so similar that their functionally identical in 90% of cases. DRK vs WAR for example.

There are only so many knobs and dials you can introduce to create variety, ultimately we all smack things really hard to get loot. There are only so many ways you can smack a pinata to get the candy.

[Caketime]

The ability to change jobs is great. The inabiity to quickly transfer gear and the limited space with which to store said gear makes a simple job change a little more complicated than just harassing my moogle and then going off to have fun. I only play a few jobs but gearing them has taken up all of my storage slots, I have 3 mules just to hold all of my gear, situational pieces that aren't often used as well as full sets I use often.

So while I can just change to the "perfect" job, it can only be one that I have well geared and due to our inventory restrictions I can only reliably gear a few jobs before hitting a brick wall in terms of space requirements. Anyone else playing faces the same situation, and they have to hope that at least one of their jobs is desirable for X or Y event.

Addendum: Job changes should not be the only workaround for poor game balance.

[Alhanelem]

Addendum: Job changes should not be the only workaround for poor game balance. Of course not, content needs to be designed with the effects of each job in consideration. But it's impossible for content to completely compensate for <insert job here>'s shortcomings, without resorting to cheap/cheesy gimmicks (e.g. this monster takes 200% damage from automatons, or Steps and Flourishes are 2x as effective against this monster, and is immune to great axe weaponskills)

[Kincard]

If you only chose one job in FFXI then what your saying is true. Fortunately (or not depending) we can walk to our pet moogle and *BAM* instantly respec / change jobs. This ends up exasperating the problem by enabling high end players to always be capable of doing the "near perfect" setup. Why would anyone bring a non-perfect job when they can change to the perfect job or be replaced by someone else. The only time this is no longer an issue is when the jobs in question are so similar that their functionally identical in 90% of cases. DRK vs WAR for example.

Except you can apply that logic to other games because other games don't charge extra for more characters.

"Why take x person when we can take y person?"
"Why take x character when you can hop onto your y toon instead?"

In other games it's pretty normal for people to play multiple characters in compensation for the fact that a job change system doesn't exist. The same logic would apply, but it doesn't because there generally isn't that gigantic gap between classes like this game has.

And, WAR vs DRK, as you said, are pretty much functionally identical when it comes down to just filling in a holy trinity role (in this case damage). They still have unique function such as fell cleave, multiple high skill weapons VS absorb spells and twilight scythe etc. This should be the philosophy when designing other Damage jobs. Make them capable of dealing damage, and then add unique things to their role to make sure not every job is the same. It's precisely because that there's only so many ways to crack the pinata that it's important to try to make it so that everyone can function as the bat in about the same manner when that's the main attraction. I can use either a golf club or a bat of the same length to crack the pinata about the same, but when i go play baseball or golf obviously I"ll choose one over the other.

[detlef]

But thats the thing though, I don't wanna play my NIN in just abyssea, I wanna take it to Voidwatcher. I don't wanna play my BST in just Dynamis, I wanna take it to Legion, and the same goes for my RDM. Old content is not the solution to make jobs that are being sidelined viable again.The issue with Legion is the time limit and the essentially unending waves of mobs. If there was just one NM that had to be killed within 30 minutes and "perfect" groups could kill it in 5-10 minutes, then sure there could be a place for any job. Time would never be a factor, and it wouldn't matter how quickly or efficiently you killed it so long as you didn't time out. However, Legion does reward kill speed with additional NMs to kill. In such an environment, while anything less than the best can still be competent or somewhat competitive, you'd always be hurting yourself by bringing a NIN, BST, or RDM instead of something else.

Legion is only one event though and it is unique in that regard in today's game.

[Camiie]

Legion is only one event though and it is unique in that regard in today's game.

So basically the ultimate endgame large group activity is only meant for a handful of jobs no matter how much time, gil, and effort one may put into one of the unfavorite jobs. It's OK though because some of those unwanted jobs might be good for some other thing. Is that about the size of it? That sounds kind of stupid to me.

[detlef]

Oh I agree. I prefer the old model of slightly easier, more forgiving battlefields with a more forgiving time limit. I also prefer being rewarded for killing something rather than being rewarded for how quickly it was killed.

But again, Legion is only one event in the game and for the vast majority of players, you aren't missing anything by not participating.

[Afania]

Oh I agree. I prefer the old model of slightly easier, more forgiving battlefields with a more forgiving time limit. I also prefer being rewarded for killing something rather than being rewarded for how quickly it was killed.

But again, Legion is only one event in the game and for the vast majority of players, you aren't missing anything by not participating.

You don't get a chance to obtain awesome gears in legion unless you find a LS to merc for you. So you can't really say "you aren't missing anything by not participating".