Enmity System Explanation and Planned Adjustments

[Camate]

Greetings everyone! As promised, Producer Akihiko Matsui has written up a rather lengthy post about the current state of the enmity system, insight into the inner-workings of the system, and planned adjustments.

Apologies that we couldn’t post this up right away, as we were out of the office yesterday for President's Day! (And the whole team recently just came back after a weeklong business trip!)

So without further ado…




Matsui here. Sorry to keep you all waiting so long.

I'd like to take a moment to explain about the workings of the enmity system, which will include some numbers. Furthermore, I would like to touch on the aspects we are trying to adjust.

Before I get into it, I'd like you all to understand that we will not be revealing all of the formulas and inner workings moving forward. Since we are dealing with the adjustment of the enmity system, which is very large, I feel it necessary to know the fundamentals and where we are coming from, and have decided to make a special exception this time.

Due to this, writing up this post was a bit tricky and there is quite a bit of text. However, in order to deepen the discussion related to enmity, please take a moment and read over the post.
--


The Enmity System


Quantification
The enmity system is such that a monster will attack the player that is threatening them the most. In order to determine which player is the most threatening, the parameter known as enmity is used to make it possible to measure and compare the amount of threat.


Purpose
The enmity system is not in place to make monster AI more intelligent. It's more of a stronger significance for securing battle strategy elements by giving players a means of controlling the monster's target (to some extent).


Types of Enmity (Classification by the method of enmity decay)
Depending on the method of decay, enmity in FFXI is separated into two groups and logged.


Time-volatile Enmity
Enmity which decays over time.


Damage-volatile Enmity
Enmity which decays when players take damage.


Due to the fact that multiple players are generating enmity against a monster, the work of recording enmity is accomplished by creating a list for the characters. (Though I use the term “enmity list” here, this will not be popping up again in this post.) Based on this list, the monster will target (auto-attack target) the player with the highest value of combined time-volatile enmity and damage-volatile enmity.


Enmity related data embedded in actions (commands, magic, etc.)


Classification based on how it influences enmity (direct, indirect, none)
Ignoring the type of actions that have no influence towards enmity, actions are classified into two groups based on how they influence enmity.



Direct
Players perform enmity generating actions towards a monster, and the monster’s enmity for the player increases. This mainly consists of damage and enfeebling type commands.


Indirect
A player performs an action towards another player that already has enmity from a monster, and enmity increases towards the player performing the action. This mainly consists of healing and enhancing type commands.



Classification based on how enmity increases are calculated (fixed, effect dependent)


Fixed
A set value is added to time-volatile enmity and damage-volatile enmity when an action is successful. This is applies to enhancements and enfeebles that generally do not have numerical results.


Effect Dependent
A set calculation is added to time-volatile enmity and damage-volatile enmity proportional to the amount of damage dealt or the amount of HP healed




Finally, the formula


Defining 1 enmity
When we were revamping the enmity system for FFXIV I explained a bit about this, but we start out by calculating 1 enmity= 1 damage. Also, system-wise enmity will not decay.

For FFXI on the other hand, while there is quite a bit of management work for dividing the enmity system into time-volatile enmity and damage-volatile enmity, since this isn't sufficient for the amount of damage of NM battles and such, we adopted a method of using a formula for scaling effect dependent type enmity to fixed type enmity, as well as the use of a decay system.

With that said, 1 enmity has been set based on the principle that the amount of time-volatile enmity that decays in a single second is equal to 60 (Since the developers first began making the game on PS2, this was adopted due to the fact that the smallest unit of frame rate measurement was 1/60 seconds.). For example (I'm hesitant to give numbers, but whatevs), the job command “Provoke” is a fixed-type action, and has 1800 time-volatile enmity. This means that this amount of enmity will decay completely in 30 seconds.


Enmity calculation for effect variations
For each level there is data known as standard damage which is used for enmity calculation.
*This value was made to be almost the same damage value as the baseline value when weapon data is created (240 attack delay sword).



The below is how enmity is calculated at the time of dealing “d” damage:
Time-volatile enmity = 240*d/standard damage
Damage-volatile enmity= 80*d/standard damage
(Standard damage is obtained based on the level of the monster)


In other words, if you are dealing standard damage every 4 seconds, time-volatile enmity is repeatedly decaying from 240 to 0. Also, damage-volatile enmity is 1/3 of the time-volatile enmity (25% of total enmity), and the coefficient value is 80.

Currently the amount of fire power is much higher than the initially set standard, so I feel we need to rectify the situation where it is easy to reach the cap for volatile enmity by revamping the standard damage used for enmity calculations.


Calculation for the amount of decay of damage-volatile enmity
When a player takes “d” damage from a monster, the damage-volatile enmity of a monster towards a player decreases.



Damage-volatile enmity = 1800*d/player's max HP


In other words, when a player takes the same amount of damage as their max HP, enmity decays by 1800 (one Provoke).

*This amount can be modified by the effect of Sentinel.
*1800 might feel a bit rough from the perspective of backline jobs.
If we were to make this value larger, it would make it easier to get rid of enmity by damage taken, but it would make it difficult for tanks to maintain their target when they take damage. If we make adjustments to this, it will be necessary to look into setting up a special rule of sorts.
*For healing magic, the value is half of the above calculation.



Other


Enmity increase from resting
By distancing yourself from the targeted monster at a set distance, it's possible to make the amount of enmity generated from resting zero. The distance is approximately half the distance in which spells can be executed.


Enmity cap
The enmity limit is common for all jobs and the same is true for time-volatile and damage-volatile enmity. As to whether increasing this cap will make it so players don’t get stuck at the enmity cap, since it is only possible work size-wise for us to raise the value approximately three times of what it is currently, this is not an effective way to go.

While there were suggestions to change the cap values for each job, assuming that the suggestions were based on getting stuck at the cap, if this situation were to arise, it would ultimately boil down to whether you can or cannot maintain the target, so for the current conditions we are currently looking at pairing this with something else.



First step for adjustments


Standard damage (time-volatile)
First, we are planning to make adjustments to the standard damage. Since we are able to set the standard damage for each level, it will be possible to only adjust this for high levels without affecting other levels.


Damage-volatile enmity
After adjusting the standard damage, we will make adjustments to damage-volatile enmity.
The ratio of time-volatile enmity and damage-volatile enmity when dealing damage or curing, as well as the amount of enmity decay when a player takes damage will be adjusted.


Individual commands and abilities
If there are problems with fixed-type data we will make adjustments.


Content
The time it takes to defeat a monster with double HP that takes double damage is the same as the amount of time it takes to defeat a monster with 50% HP that takes 50% damage; however, enmity-wise there are large differences. If the damage taken by a monster is suppressed too much, it becomes possible to generate a lot more enmity with actions that have fixed-type enmity as opposed to those that have effect dependent enmity. We will need to check content to see if monster parameters have been set properly with an understanding of these systems.

[Dreamin]

the question is when will this be available on the test server for us to have a look at how the actual changes will feel. might even need to do some organized run against some harder NMs since it appears that the planned changes will be done according to mobs/NMs level.

[Tamarsamar]

Your proposed solution is admittedly quite clever; players are reaching the enmity cap too fast? Simply slow down the rate at which they accrue enmity! Brilliant!

However, I cannot "Like" the post for the following reasons.


Before I get into it, I'd like you all to understand that we will not be revealing all of the formulas and inner workings moving forward. Since we are dealing with the adjustment of the enmity system, which is very large, I feel it necessary to know the fundamentals and where we are coming from, and have decided to make a special exception this time.

. . .

With that said, 1 enmity has been set based on the principle that the amount of time-volatile enmity that decays in a single second is equal to 60 (Since the developers first began making the game on PS2, this was adopted due to the fact that the smallest unit of frame rate measurement was 1/60 seconds.). For example (I'm hesitant to give numbers, but whatevs), the job command “Provoke” is a fixed-type action, and has 1800 time-volatile enmity. This means that this amount of enmity will decay completely in 30 seconds.

The above bolded statements offend me. Has SE learned nothing over the past decade of FFXI as well as the past couple years of failure for FFXIV? Obscurity is the least effective form of security; FFXI's players have only suffered from you withholding the meaning of vital game statistics from them, such as Enmity and the Attack/Defense Ratio.

If you all weren't so stubbornly tight-lipped and more freely shared information in general, then maybe it wouldn't take a decade for you to receive feedback on how poorly implemented certain in-game systems are. I don't think you have any reason to doubt the validity of that statement, given that the implementation of the test server is basically the logical conclusion thereof.

So why do you nonetheless continue with the hush-hush attitude? I would certainly hope that this isn't a matter of immature and stubborn pride, and not wanting to hear that a poor implementation was implemented poorly.

[Genoxd]

The enmity value of provoke was figured out long ago...
Do the devs not realize that we actually have enmity values for many (if not most) of the spells/abilities in the game?

[MarkovChain]

The actual values do not matter. You know you will fix the enmity when a monk engaging a mob doesn't generate more enmity than a provoke after one round (which is what happens currently). You also don't want to reduce the DD enmity generation to the point that cures generates more hate than a few hits. I think you guys can start by halving the damage-volatile enmity and increasing the time-volatile enmity of PLD tools or provoke and increasing the dmg-volatile enmity loss from taking damage by 2x. We all know the plot behind enmity fix is fixing PLD. You won't get anywhere if you don't increase their tools too. PLD/WAR should have a demultiplicated time-volatile enmity on their tools in a matter such that it can generate more hate over time than the best DD (aka a MNK).

[saevel]

Haha we already knew everything they just said. The tables an formulas were figured out a long time ago.

Good to know they've actually identified the issue, insane amounts of CE generated from damage and healing compared to the CE generated from static abilities.

[MarkovChain]

Except cures generate no enmity. Virtually. Cure 5/6 obviously.

[Delvish]

I think Enmity spells, gear, and merits should have an effect on the cap as well as deterioration rate. The game is rife with enmity gear, SCH has two potentially useful spells, and everyone has access to either enmity+ or enmity- through merits. Each of these could serve the purpose of accomplishing the above task if utilized correctly. Naturally this means enmity+ raises the cap and reduces the deterioration rate, while enmity- lowers the cap and increases deterioration rate. Currently all of these only adjust the rate at which enmity is gained.

[Teakwood]

Awesome, sounds like he knows what actually does need to be changed. The NA playerbase at least has had the enmity calculations figured out ages and ages ago and have a pretty firm consensus on what needs to be done, so I really don't understand the secrecy here. That said, this is a definite step in the right direction for the game and I'm glad to read it, from my understanding of the enmity calculations.

[Yinnyth]

I am glad that something is being done for enmity, but a little disappointed that the changes are nothing more than changing a few numbers around to affect how quickly it builds. My hopes were that the changes would enable devs to provide us with more varied and difficult enmity mechanics so we couldn't get away with exactly the same hate-holding techniques for every single fight. "Throw a pld at the boss and slowly deal damage" in every situation is just as bad as "buff up some DDs and zerg it down" in every situation.

All the same, at least they're doing something, and combined with some other changes they're planning, it should give us the option to tank and spank, if we so desire.

[Tamarsamar]

The enmity value of provoke was figured out long ago...
Do the devs not realize that we actually have enmity values for many (if not most) of the spells/abilities in the game?

Given the attitude that I highlighted in my above post, I'm pretty sure that not only do they know about that, but that's the only reason that they gave us any details/values at all . . .

[ManaKing]

There are several new SPs that deal with Enmity rather closely. Is the reason we still haven't gotten new SPs implemented because the Enmity system needed to be overhauled first so that they could be adjusted properly, or are they just not far enough along in actual development?

Will we see the changes to the Enmity system or the new SPs before the release of the expansion?

How about the other topics covered in Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future?

I don't personally need a date so much as I want to know which one is going to come first, any/all of the adjustments or the expansion. It sounds like the Expansion is coming first, but that's just a very unfounded assumption.

[Nebo]

I have to laugh at a company that makes a big reveal/release post like this about formulas and mechanics that have been known to to the player base for years?

It makes me wonder though: Just how out of touch with the player base are you really?

I mean, short of burying your head in the sand, covering your ears with your hands and screaming "la la la la la I'm not listening"....taking literally no interest in any conversations happening about FFXI...Surely you must know that we, the player base, already know these mechanics....right?

See, I think you DO know that we already know these things. The question I have is: Why do you pretend like you don't know that we know this already?

That is a huge statement about your opinion of us...and it isn't good for business. It's a farce. It's a sham. It's a lie. It's disrespectful. But most importantly, it speaks volumes about the state of communication, not just on the forums or the "community" that you have tried to show the illusion of creating to discuss your product, but the effect on more direct marketing communications and other functions of doing business.

You must also know that eventually, should you ever make a success out of FFXIV, the largest segment for that game is going to come from players of FFXI, initially...and their friends, and referrals, etc.

I'll give you another hint: Treating the largest pool of leads you have (for the cash sink [FFXIV] that you have bet all your chips on) with such disrespect...is BAD for business lol. It won't matter how good FXIV is. Competition in this market is fierce and they are doing a much better job than you in this area.

Do yourselves a favor: get on board with this "communication" thing. Your developers are obviously on too busy a development schedule to do it effectively (and quite frankly, it shouldn't be their job to keep the conversation going). Give your "community team" a larger pool of information to work with and empower them to cultivate conversations and content freely, based on that information.

They seem to play the game and have a much greater (cultural and localized) understanding of the issues that you are so good a pissing people off about. Give them the power to participate more in those conversations.

This whole "hush hush...we don't want to give information about this or that." is really a thing of the past. There is a time and place for it, but your timing and placement needs serious reevaluation. ESPECIALLY for a game in this stage of its product life cycle.

[Keyln]

I have to laugh at a company that makes a big reveal/release post like this about formulas and mechanics that have been known to to the player base for years?

It makes me wonder though: Just how out of touch with the player base are you really?

I mean, short of burying your head in the sand, covering your ears with your hands and screaming "la la la la la I'm not listening"....taking literally no interest in any conversations happening about FFXI...Surely you must know that we, the player base, already know these mechanics....right?

See, I think you DO know that we already know these things. The question I have is: Why do you pretend like you don't know that we know this already?

That is a huge statement about your opinion of us...and it isn't good for business. It's a farce. It's a sham. It's a lie. It's disrespectful. But most importantly, it speaks volumes about the state of communication, not just on the forums or the "community" that you have tried to show the illusion of creating to discuss your product, but the effect on more direct marketing communications and other functions of doing business.

You must also know that eventually, should you ever make a success out of FFXIV, the largest segment for that game is going to come from players of FFXI, initially...and their friends, and referrals, etc.

I'll give you another hint: Treating the largest pool of leads you have (for the cash sink [FFXIV] that you have bet all your chips on) with such disrespect...is BAD for business lol. It won't matter how good FXIV is. Competition in this market is fierce and they are doing a much better job than you in this area.

Do yourselves a favor: get on board with this "communication" thing. Your developers are obviously on too busy a development schedule to do it effectively (and quite frankly, it shouldn't be their job to keep the conversation going). Give your "community team" a larger pool of information to work with and empower them to cultivate conversations and content freely, based on that information.

They seem to play the game and have a much greater (cultural and localized) understanding of the issues that you are so good a pissing people off about. Give them the power to participate more in those conversations.

This whole "hush hush...we don't want to give information about this or that." is really a thing of the past. There is a time and place for it, but your timing and placement needs serious reevaluation. ESPECIALLY for a game in this stage of its product life cycle.

Because there are people out there who may not be familiar with the inner workings of the enmity system, and the explanation is for them. You may know it already. Good for you. Doesn't mean other people do.

Now, if you understand the system as well as you say you do, how about coming up with some real suggestions?

[Economizer]

If you all weren't so stubbornly tight-lipped and more freely shared information in general

This was especially frustrating when it came to finding the Cure Formula Changes (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/17433-Cure-Formula-Changes?p=287983#post287983).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not asking them to release every little secret on how new monsters or armor works, maybe the game has some aspects of discovery as a matter of the design. But something so common as cures and we can't even get numbers at the time you're asking for feedback on major tweaks?

We know exactly how they work, we knew before they were implemented to the official servers... but did you have to waste our valuable time reverse engineering some numbers just so we could give you some feedback on it?

I don't even think they listened to any feedback we gave on the new cure formula at all to be blunt, especially since it took us some time to disseminate the information to the Japanese players so they could give feedback as well. When a group of English speaking players are a better source of information on something so banal as how cures work then the development team that speaks the same language, you know you have a major problem.

[Nebo]

Now, if you understand the system as well as you say you do, how about coming up with some real suggestions?

If there were any indication or acknowledgement that the Developers read anything at all on the NA forums, I might.

But it seems likely that they don't read them, or don't get them translated, or don' get them translated accurately due to "emotionally charged tone," or perhaps they just don't give a sh*t what you filthy Gaijin have to say. Who knows? There is never any Acknowledgment or communication at all in that regard so it leaves these unanswered questions in customers' minds...and also to a great deal of dissatisfaction.

But lack of proper analysis, testing and truly great ideas (from people much smarter than I am) on these boards is not the problem.

The problem is lack of communication, acknowledgement, responsiveness, information management, conversation management...blah blah blah.

To that end, I did make a suggestion in the post you quoted. The developers are clearly too busy....developing stuff to do this job with any kind of acceptable level of effectiveness. How many times has the producer himself apologized for not being able to produce forum content on time?

The answer seems simple to me: don't make managing the flow of information (and as a result the conversation) their job. Empower your community team to do what their job SHOULD be to do. Unless the idea of being a not-so-glorified translator really does appeal to them?

[SpankWustler]

The Development Bros seem to really grasp the main issue about enmity: hitting stuff in the face provides way too much of it compared to literally every other type of action. I like that adjusting spells and abilities that produce static amounts of Enmity is still on the table, also.

So, I'm optimistic that the enmity adjustments will go down as well as the Cure formula changes went down. That wasn't a particularly innovative or complex solution, but it worked out great.


Because there are people out there who may not be familiar with the inner workings of the enmity system, and the explanation is for them. You may know it already. Good for you. Doesn't mean other people do.

It's not about whether or not the explanation was needed. It's about treating information that players already know like a super spy's super secrets while providing that explanation.

There's no point in being discrete about information that the playerbase itself has already made available to the playerbase. It would be easier for them and less insulting for our intelligence if they just explained using numbers that both parties already have access to rather than providing such a long and roundabout explanation to avoid revealing information that is no longer secret.


I don't even think they listened to any feedback we gave on the new cure formula at all to be blunt, especially since it took us some time to disseminate the information to the Japanese players so they could give feedback as well. When a group of English speaking players are a better source of information on something so banal as how cures work then the development team that speaks the same language, you know you have a major problem.

They probably listened long enough to note that players felt Cure VI was "even more pointless" and "a bit insane" in regards to its extreme MP inefficiency. This confirmed that they had successfully included something pointless or insane in spite of the general awesomeness of the Cure formula changes. They have a quota to fill.

[Camate]

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for all the posts thus far. We’ve been forwarding them to Producer Matsui who has been reading each and every one. He was planning to make a post last night, but unfortunately he was unable to secure the time, so for the time being I will post in place of him. With that said, the man himself will post in more detail once he has the right amount of free time.

For those of you who took the time to read over the entire post, I think you generally got a good understanding of how the system works, but might have been left feeling “okay, I got it, but what are you guys gonna do?”

To put it really simply, we will be making it so that players do not get stuck at the enmity cap in battle anymore (the current situation where the enmity control system is not functioning properly). Apologies if the main basis of our adjustment plan was not clearly spelled out.

While we have seen a good amount of suggestions for ways to adjust this, we are taking them all into consideration and have various other adjustment plans in mind, but to start out we will first be setting a new standard damage value when Seekers of Adoulin is released. The main reasoning for this is that if we were to cram all of the adjustments in at once, we wouldn’t really have a grasp of where the problems are coming from.

[sweetidealism]

This is an excellent step forward, and I am thoroughly thrilled to hear it.

Now that tanking will be possible again, are there plans to make tanking desirable again? In many of today's events, it seems like it doesn't matter who the monster attacks (so long as it's not attacking a backline job) because nearly all incoming attacks are area of effects that hit all frontline jobs. As a result, having mitigation for just one person doesn't help much. Personally, I would like to see this changed moving forward.

[Mirabelle]

The whole brokenness of enmity is the whole loss of utility of PLD, RNG and BLM in many battles. PLD can't hold hate from hasted/buffed DD. No one wants RNG and BLM to pull mobs away from hasted/buffed DD's because of missed WS's and low defense characters getting AoE'd to death.

So the question for this enmity adjustment: Is it enough to make PLD, BLM and RNG relevant again? Or are they going to be limited as always to the occasional kiting fight where 90% of the battles remain zergs.

[Sasaraixx]

Thank you for the follow-up Camate. It sounds like things will move in the right direction. Could you pass on to the development team to also keep in mind the enmity spells and abilities possessed by SCH, THF and PLD. I hope the changes will not only fix the current enmity cap problem, but also make those spells and abilities have real usefulness.

[SpankWustler]

To put it really simply, we will be making it so that players do not get stuck at the enmity cap in battle anymore (the current situation where the enmity control system is not functioning properly). Apologies if the main basis of our adjustment plan was not clearly spelled out.

It's nice to hear this spelled out so plainly. Thanks!

[Yinnyth]

Thank you for the follow-up Camate. It sounds like things will move in the right direction. Could you pass on to the development team to also keep in mind the enmity spells and abilities possessed by SCH, THF and PLD. I hope the changes will not only fix the current enmity cap problem, but also make those spells and abilities have real usefulness.

(brd merit spells regarding enmity are almost universally considered worthless)

[saevel]

This is an excellent step forward, and I am thoroughly thrilled to hear it.

Now that tanking will be possible again, are there plans to make tanking desirable again? In many of today's events, it seems like it doesn't matter who the monster attacks (so long as it's not attacking a backline job) because nearly all incoming attacks are area of effects that hit all frontline jobs. As a result, having mitigation for just one person doesn't help much. Personally, I would like to see this changed moving forward.

Well they are talking about toning down the monsters offensive power via limiting their level based attack bonus. That should take a huge bite out of incoming aoe damage. They also need to look at toning down the aoe status effect blitz that's constantly happening, there eventually comes a point in time when it's just not worth it to fight something slowly with a "tank" and instead just kill it ASAP. Remember the longer something is alive the more time it has to wipe everyone and the high chance of someone making a mistake and wiping the alliance.

[Volkai]

Players who are complaining about SE's hesitation to write about game mechanics formulas would do well to keep in mind there is a significant difference between players figuring out such things and the company officially confirming them. In particular it is a difference in what SE can do to legally defend themselves if another company were to copy their IP in this regard.


Anyways, it's a pleasure to hear such frank discussion of game mechanics by Matsui, and I look forward to seeing the results of these enmity adjustments.

[Afania]

Because there are people out there who may not be familiar with the inner workings of the enmity system, and the explanation is for them. You may know it already. Good for you. Doesn't mean other people do.

Now, if you understand the system as well as you say you do, how about coming up with some real suggestions?


Ppl been giving suggestions about enmity issue for years, it's just that they won't listen.

[Bahamut]

First, I want to thank Akihiko_Matsui for taking the time to respond to this issue in a way that has shown the improvment of communication between the managment and players of final fantasy and to show information that is deep and meaningful to the gameplay of our characters. Also a thanks to Camate for your work in the forums to reach out with information when possible.

On a quick side note. I had noticed my resting whitemage would get hit after the tanks provoke would wear off, making resting in battles extremly dangerous inside the emmity radius. I have also always noticed since the dunes on my warrior that the damage dealers or casters would take damage if I did not immediatly provoke off of them after the 30 seconds, and how much emmity the self cures of my paladin do at the start of fights can raise that emmity pretty high. This goes into great depth behind these things, so thank you for sharing this.

I want to start by saying that I feel the reason this situation and post by our producer exists, is because of the addition of Abyssea expansion, the amounts of damage that is being done, and the amount of "emmity capping" going on because of it. I think this post by our producer is also saying that they intend to keep the abyssea level of damage dealing where its currently is at for the future of the game, which is why a revamp would be needed to be done to the current system. I'm glad this is being done because alot of people have worked hard to get where they are at in abyssea and this will alieviate the worries of losing that in the next expansion.

As far as the emmity situation goes and how to revamp it, I feel that even with the vast in-depth coverage on the system, there is not even enough data for enfeebles, casting, cures, ect. for me to help out in that process. So I will only do the only thing I can do, which is to support your work revamping the system and give you the time you all deserve on this tough major overhall. Telling us this information makes me feel confident that you all are doing what you can to make a better emmity system for all of your players.

On Another Subject this thread raises:

There was one part of this post that makes me unsure about the future roles of the Paladin and Ninja jobs and raises more questions then before as far as tanking goes and probably deserves a thred of itself but whatevs, here is the quote from the purpose of emmity.

•Purpose - The enmity system is not in place to make monster AI more intelligent. It's more of a stronger significance for securing battle strategy elements by giving players a means of controlling the monster's target (to some extent).

Now the two questions would be, how do you view the future roles of tanking for Paladins and Ninjas as main tank in the game, and/or are we moving to a system where main tanks will play a dimished role of keeping solid emmity during entire fights like we have been seeing more of in the abyssea expansion, with all jobs sharing the tanking role. The second question would be and would also like a response in the future on, after the revamp, would be if the cap is being looked at by managment to also give the Paladin and Ninja tanks a greater emmity then damage dealers once again by any chance?

Thank you for this post.

[Nebo]

I want to start by saying that I feel the reason this situation and post by our producer exists, is because of the addition of Abyssea expansion, the amounts of damage that is being done, and the amount of "enmity capping" going on because of it.

Abyssea is not the reason that the enmity system does not work properly.

But the enmity calculations themselves, imo, are a secondary concern to the fact that tank jobs bring very little value to a fight. The player defense adjustment nerf (I view this as a nerf to DD's riding berserk etc.) along with the enmity adjustments might address this. Then again they might not.

The flaws with the enmity system are exacerbated inside of Abyssea because of the power of Atmas. But the enmity system is broken for the entire game, not just Abyssea.

These issues have also been present since level 75 was the cap. So the level cap increase cannot be solely blamed either.

However, the fact that they raised the level cap and introduced atmas without first addressing the glaring issues with the enmity system, was a mistake. They should have been able to see this result coming a mile away.

I am not appreciative of Mr Matsui's post because he knows we already know the things he posted. Yet he is pretending like he doesn't. Also because he used quite a lot of words to say.....not much of anything.

But for Camate's follow up, thank you. I (and I'm sure everyone else) will be most pleased if they can actually pull off a situation where everyone is not perma stuck at the enmity cap 10 seconds into a battle.

And because it is not enough. The level of communication on these forums is not enough. For Camate to be able to "pass along" information "when possible" is not enough. Because "when possible" is not nearly often enough.

The information that they DO decide to share with us is also not nearly enough.There are people literally starving for information about job and content adjustments...it's like talking to a brick wall. I really might as well be typing this in Word and just save it to my desktop.

Now, most of my posts probably never get in front of a developers eyes, because I'm sure most of them have too much "emotionally charged" tone or disrespect for their liking. But that is sad. Because, in a business such as this, some of the most valuable feedback you will ever receive is from dissatisfied people that actually CARE about your product.

It's also the reason, as a marketing manager, I would fire the moron that made it so that only active accounts could post here. This purposeful "I'm not listening to feedback I don't want to hear" attitude is really hurting this game.

Now, you can't always listen to their suggestions. Most people (myself included) are biased when it comes to things that they care about. But you can listen to their frustration and ask yourself "Why does this dissatisfaction exist?"

You do not have my respect, because you do not now, nor have you ever actively shown interest in answering that question.

[saevel]

The player defense adjustment nerf (I view this as a nerf to DD's riding berserk etc.)

And you'd be horribly wrong in that view.

Their doing two things, first being increasing the monsters Ratio cap to 3.0 from 2.0 for a 50% damage increase at most. The second part their doing is removing the monsters Ratio buff from being higher level then you which reduces their damage by significantly more. The exact amount depends on how much defense you had to start with, the less defense the more significant the reduction.

Assuming your rocking defense exactly equal to the monsters attack and thus can get the monsters Ratio to 1 the change is as follows.

EM - nothing (New ratio / old ratio)
VT (5 levels) - 1.0/1.25 = 20% reduction
IT (8 levels) - 1.0/1.4 = 28.5% reduction
IT+ (10 levels) - 1.0/1.5 = 33.3% reduction
ITGOMGWTF (21 levels) - 1.0/2.05 = 51.2% reduction

Now here is the kicker, neither Berserk nor Last Resort are a big enough change to bring your defense low enough for a 3.0 ratio. With the exception of some stupid high voidwatch (Ig'Alima / Prov Watcher) and Abyssea NMs monsters do not have very high attack. As long as your over 400 or so defense the chances of you even seeing over 2.0 are small so the adjustment to 3.0 cap doesn't effect most players. The only situations it does hurt you are DRK/WAR stacking Berserk / LR and if the monster use's a defense down move. Now a DRK would only need to stack those two abilities on stupidly high level NM's that need 1500~2000 attack to cap ratio on, those very same NM's that you would be getting a reduction on already.

Ultimately the only situation this could possibly be a "nerf" is if your a DRK/WAR and poping Berserk + LR on a EM monster for absolutely no reason. This is assuming of course that SE follows through with their response to give CS MNK special attention in this matter.

[Nebo]

And you'd be horribly wrong in that view

I don't think so.

But that view is based more on their design philosophy with various system changes to enmity and defense, while balancing an entire new expansion worth of content around those changes.

What you are talking about is current endgame (in its decline stage, really). I believe , moving forward, that the development team wants it to be more of a risk than it is currently to ride abilities like berserk without fear of consequence.

I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.

[saevel]

I don't think so.

But that view is based more on their design philosophy with various system changes to enmity and defense, while balancing an entire new expansion worth of content around those changes.

What you are talking about is current endgame (in its decline stage, really). I believe , moving forward, that the development team wants it to be more of a risk than it is currently to ride abilities like berserk without fear of consequence.

I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.


The player defense adjustment nerf (I view this as a nerf to DD's riding berserk etc.)

I just proved mathematically how you are wrong mostly from a lack of understanding Ratio and the scope of the role level difference makes. All you see is an adjustment and immediately freak out without understanding exactly what those adjustments would entail. In order to hit 3.0 ratio the monster would have to have three times the attack of your defense, that is a ridiculously high number for a level 99 character, especially after you consider the most ubiquitous of defense buffs, Protect V (+175 defense).


I could be wrong, but that's what it seems like to me.

You are wrong because your nor informed enough about the mathematics of ratio and LCF to understand what SE even said. The only job their really targeting is DRK/WAR riding Berserk + LR for 2000+ attack at the expense of -50% defense. 2000+ attack is only useful of monsters with 880~900+ defense which are incredibly rare (Mul and Voidwatch not withstanding). Nothing from recent content has anywhere near that much defense, especially after factoring in things like Dia II / Agnon.

[Nebo]

hahahaha. What? Did you read what I posted?

I'm not sure from which dark crevice you are pulling this "freak out" I had about defense ratio but you are also incorrect about my understanding of the formulas.

All I said was that I think their design philosphy is shifting toward increasing the risk associated with riding berserk.

Which by the way, I did not freak out about. I think that's a good thing.

[saevel]

hahahaha. What? Did you read what I posted?

I'm not sure from which dark crevice you are pulling this "freak out" I had about defense ratio but you are also incorrect about my understanding of the formulas.

All I said was that I think their design philosphy is shifting toward increasing the risk associated with riding berserk.

Which by the way, I did not freak out about. I think that's a good thing.

You stated


The player defense adjustment nerf (I view this as a nerf to DD's riding berserk etc.)

I demonstrated how it's not a nerf using the games own formulas.

You tried to disagree and then twist out of your original statements.

My post has zero to do with philosophy or stances, it's merely demonstrating that the defense adjustment is not a nerf. You can stamp cry moan and put your fingers into your ears it won't change anything.

[Nebo]

lmao.

You are absoultely right Saevel. My *whining, crying, stamping, moaning, twisting and freaking out about the defense ratio changes are clearly no match for your mathematical and reading comprehension skills!

You have blown my mind with the level of internet win you have achieved in these posts. I want to personally thank you for making a positive impact on the lives and intelligence of every person who reads them.

Can you be done speaking to me now?

*the afore mentioned whining, crying, stamping, "freak outing" and twisting about the defense ratio do not actually exist aside from inside your mind. But I really didn't want you to feel alone with the voices and numbers in your head.

[saevel]

You still haven't justified how it's a "nerf"....

[Camate]

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for all the feedback on enmity. Just as Producer Matsui has mentioned, we will be performing on-going adjustments to the enmity system and will start by working on laying the groundwork and the essential features.

Once the groundwork has been properly established, we’ll be working on the slightly smaller aspects and after that focus on the minute portions.

This should give you an idea of the progression we have mapped out, but let me shift into a slightly more detailed explanation.

Based on the feedback we have been seeing on the forums, for our next step we will be making adjustments to the static enmity generated from some job abilities and spells around the end of this month. (This is of course pending that there are no major issues along the way.)

With the adjustments we will be reducing the enmity generated by approximately half of the current value.

Additionally, we will be increasing the amount of enmity generated by the white magic spells Reprisal and Foil.

We will let you know the details on which job abilities and spells will be adjusted to have less enmity generation in the coming days, but I wanted to inform you of what we have planned ahead of time.

[Luvbunny]

Thanks for the information Camate - it's great to see that SE is aware of several issues that have been plaguing the game since the last update. However waiting until the end of the month may be too late for a lot of people. Right now the game is nearly unplayable for Pet Jobs including Summoner and Beastmaster. And nearly unplayable for Mages. This recent changes should just be reverted back and put in the test server until further notice.

[Chamaan]

Camate can you ask if the effect of Strobe will be furthered as well? The most surprising thing about the enmity adjustment for me thusfar has been how effective my automaton's been as a tank with just the provoke from Strobe. It would be great if it was made even better, then maybe my puppet could tank for an actual party (not an alliance of course, but like a nice 6 man party).

[Fusionx]

Not sure if its tied into enmity or not but mobs that have aggro'd me (in new areas and old) seem to be on me for much longer than before. Its very hard to get rid of them.

[Phafi]

How will the JA enmity reduction affect sentinel and other PLD JAs?

[hideka]

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for all the feedback on enmity. Just as Producer Matsui has mentioned, we will be performing on-going adjustments to the enmity system and will start by working on laying the groundwork and the essential features.

Once the groundwork has been properly established, we’ll be working on the slightly smaller aspects and after that focus on the minute portions.

This should give you an idea of the progression we have mapped out, but let me shift into a slightly more detailed explanation.

Based on the feedback we have been seeing on the forums, for our next step we will be making adjustments to the static enmity generated from some job abilities and spells around the end of this month. (This is of course pending that there are no major issues along the way.)

With the adjustments we will be reducing the enmity generated by approximately half of the current value.

Additionally, we will be increasing the amount of enmity generated by the white magic spells Reprisal and Foil.

We will let you know the details on which job abilities and spells will be adjusted to have less enmity generation in the coming days, but I wanted to inform you of what we have planned ahead of time.

please remove summoner pet command enmity or reduce it to the point of near nothing. im sick of stuff ignoring garudas melee just because ive used some pet commands.

[Hazankoh]

How will the JA enmity reduction affect sentinel and other PLD JAs?


Greetings everyone!

Based on the feedback we have been seeing on the forums, for our next step we will be making adjustments to the static enmity generated from some job abilities and spells around the end of this month. (This is of course pending that there are no major issues along the way.)

I'd assume pld won't be.

[ManaKing]

BST isn't so bad off because snarl still works, but SMN is pretty much out of luck.

They don't the niche of a super BLM because their recasts are locked unnecessarily high and since they are designed to die or be summoned/unsummoned, they don't keep hate.

SMN is literally one of the biggest stables to the FF series. They obviously need some love, please make it a priority. You are risking brand identity by letting something like SMN fall into obscurity.

[Luvbunny]

BST isn't so bad off because snarl still works, but SMN is pretty much out of luck. SMN is literally one of the biggest stables to the FF series. They obviously need some love, please make it a priority. You are risking brand identity by letting something like SMN fall into obscurity.

Yes enmity on beast is pretty bad actually. When your charmed T mob cannot hold the hate off you, and your mob goes attacking you because you are casting regen 2, aquaveil and blink, yeah it's very bad. You can't also use snarl for charmed pet. It's obvious that SE intend BST to be able to use charm again, most mobs in SoA are very easily charmed without using much CHR gears.

The same goes to SMN, most mob in SoA will die within 3-4 BP Rage at most, but everytime you use BP Rage, mob will come after you guaranteed, even if you are doing entirely nothing but using BP Rage x 3-4 the entire fight. These recent adjustment should be reverted back, put in the test server and properly tested. We are not paying to play a beta version of SoA. And they do have test server to make sure this kind of shenanigans won't happen again.

At least they are aware that there are BIG issues - but waiting till end of the month (pending more issues, which you can guarantee will come up rather soon) to adjust this is not good. They won't even fix the SMN and BST issues, just reducing it by half, meaning the mob will come back to attack you again after 2 BP Rage...... Not very great when you want to explore new areas on your own - perhaps everyone now is required to triple box with PLD and WHM now to go anywhere in SoA areas.

[saevel]

O.o?

I get their reducing the hate from Cure V and other spells / abilities. They really need to increase the CE generation (static enmity is their term) of things like Provoke / Flash and possibly ninja spells. Currently the CE value on those abilities are so low that it renders them functionally useless for holding hate past the first 30~60s. Increase Provoke to ~1000 CE, same with Flash and reduce the hate bleed off via damage by half and there is a chance that certain job will actually tank again.

[ManaKing]

Yes enmity on beast is pretty bad actually. When your charmed T mob cannot hold the hate off you, and your mob goes attacking you because you are casting regen 2, aquaveil and blink, yeah it's very bad. You can't also use snarl for charmed pet. It's obvious that SE intend BST to be able to use charm again, most mobs in SoA are very easily charmed without using much CHR gears.

The same goes to SMN, most mob in SoA will die within 3-4 BP Rage at most, but everytime you use BP Rage, mob will come after you guaranteed, even if you are doing entirely nothing but using BP Rage x 3-4 the entire fight. These recent adjustment should be reverted back, put in the test server and properly tested. We are not paying to play a beta version of SoA. And they do have test server to make sure this kind of shenanigans won't happen again.

At least they are aware that there are BIG issues - but waiting till end of the month (pending more issues, which you can guarantee will come up rather soon) to adjust this is not good. They won't even fix the SMN and BST issues, just reducing it by half, meaning the mob will come back to attack you again after 2 BP Rage...... Not very great when you want to explore new areas on your own - perhaps everyone now is required to triple box with PLD and WHM now to go anywhere in SoA areas.

Working as intended on BST. BST is risk vs reward and cost vs benefit and always has been to one extent or another. BST is an extremely well geared job + you get a pet to work with it. When I can go in and fight with my pet I can gear to accentuate my pets performance or my performance or pick a more moderate approach. It isn't hard to make my pet the hate monger with snarl if I actually take the time to do that. If I didn't do that properly, I'd probably get beat up a lot and post on the forums about how SE ruined my luxury solo job.

The thing is, you don't have to go in with your pet. I don't personally like sending in my pet alone because I don't charm pets so that can get expensive. I'm willing to pay for the output a properly buffed jug pet will output even though it costs me money vs charming pets. My pets will always do the moves I want and will never turn on me. If you want to charm something higher level than you and put it on other terrible things, that is your decision and I will not join you in that decision because it doesn't have the same stability as jug pets. You are intentionally getting potentially higher output pets for free and complaining that they are dangerous. If you don't agree with my summary of your stance you may say as such, but if you agree with it then I don't see how you can complain.

[Luvbunny]

It is not working as intended when reward itself generate TONS of hate while you stand aside letting your pet melee.

It is not working as intended when your T charmed + familiar mob cannot hold hate vs another T normal mob, while you stand aside NOT meleeing.

Pretty much BST and SMN both experiencing enmity problem with their pet and avatar - very noticeable in SoA areas but not very bad at all in Abyssea (almost nothing changed much, you hardly see any difference at all).

[Concerned4FFxi]

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for all the feedback on enmity. Just as Producer Matsui has mentioned, we will be performing on-going adjustments to the enmity system and will start by working on laying the groundwork and the essential features.

Once the groundwork has been properly established, we’ll be working on the slightly smaller aspects and after that focus on the minute portions.

This should give you an idea of the progression we have mapped out, but let me shift into a slightly more detailed explanation.

Based on the feedback we have been seeing on the forums, for our next step we will be making adjustments to the static enmity generated from some job abilities and spells around the end of this month. (This is of course pending that there are no major issues along the way.)

With the adjustments we will be reducing the enmity generated by approximately half of the current value.

Additionally, we will be increasing the amount of enmity generated by the white magic spells Reprisal and Foil.

We will let you know the details on which job abilities and spells will be adjusted to have less enmity generation in the coming days, but I wanted to inform you of what we have planned ahead of time.

PLEASE, make sure the DEV increase the white magic spell Flash's enmity along with the spell Reprisal. And, double the enmity of the job ability Provoke. Thank you /bow

I know this sounds obvious to the players, but please like this suggestion so the DEV don't miss it

[saevel]

PLEASE, make sure the DEV increase the white magic spell Flash's enmity along with the spell Reprisal. And, double the enmity of the job ability Provoke. Thank you /bow

I know this sounds obvious to the players, but please like this suggestion so the DEV don't miss it

Doubling the enmity on provoke wont' do sh!t, they need to completely redo it.

1CE
1800VE

It's that 1CE part that makes it utterly useless after the first 30~60s. Make it 500~1000 CE and we may have a winner.

[Kincard]

I think part of the intent behind provoke's design was that it'd only be used to get initial hate and pull the enemy back whenever you lost hate, which is why it takes 30 seconds for that VE to decay naturally and the ability is on a 30s recast.

I think if they want to preserve that part of the ability, maybe make the VE on Provoke able to break cap? Can also apply that to a couple other moves that only tanks have (Lunge, Shield Bash, Issekigan etc). Basically you would need to continuously use provoke if you wanted to solidify hate.

[saevel]

Won't mean anything. Enmity is determined by both CE and VE being combined. VE is easy to cap, you can assume that all melee's will be at VE cap within a min or two. It's CE that really determines who has hate and being 1000+ CE behind means that no amount of Provoke will get hate on you. Anyone that wants to "tank" needs a solid source of constant CE, which as of now is only damage.

[Tohihroyu]

The same goes to SMN, most mob in SoA will die within 3-4 BP Rage at most, but everytime you use BP Rage, mob will come after you guaranteed, even if you are doing entirely nothing but using BP Rage x 3-4 the entire fight. These recent adjustment should be reverted back, put in the test server and properly tested. We are not paying to play a beta version of SoA. And they do have test server to make sure this kind of shenanigans won't happen again.

Yes, please! I'm sick and tired of having to run near a mob just to use sic, ready or a bp just to make sure the moves goes off without "The [monster] is too far away." Hell you even get on the hate list for using items (like food) like I could be a decent enough distance away use a red curry bun or whatever food and boom the mob turns and goes after me. I like how "Old school" beastmaster solo got brought back...but not this. Also do something about ep monsters hitting like trucks (did Magic attack & acc from mobs get turned up 10x stronger?), dynamis xarc kindred rangers & ninjas SPAMMING Hecatomb Wave every 3-5 seconds at 200+ damage a hit, is this some sort of revenge against players who don't go beastmaster to Dynamis?

As they always say: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. (though in this case its just...breaking it even more)

Forget Provoke...if you want hate eat a pizza >_>

[Luvbunny]

Forget Provoke...if you want hate eat a pizza >_>

Uhm you get hate from doing nothing as Summoner, lol. Just do send pet, and the mob will come back to get you, even if you just stand there idle. Broken is putting it mildly. They really need to take this adjustment back to the drawing board, and put them in the test server for 6 months for thorough testing. We are not PAYING to be a beta tester for the game.

[Camate]

Greetings!

As a follow-up to my previous post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/30629-Enmity-System-Explanation-and-Planned-Adjustments?p=415502&viewfull=1#post415502), we will be making adjustments to job abilities and spells that have a fixed amount of enmity in the upcoming version update.

A majority of spells and abilities will have their enmity reduced by nearly half the current value.

On the other hand, Reprisal and Foil will have their enmity boosted.

Below is the list of abilities and spells that will have their enmity values reduced:


Job Abilities
Benediction / Shadowbind / Barrage / Sharpshot / Heel / Leave / Sic / Stay / Reward / Deactivate


White Magic
Raise / Raise II / Raise III / Arise / Poisona / Paralyna / Blindna / Silena / Stona / Viruna / Cursna / Blink / Stoneskin / Aquaveil / Slow (I & II) / Haste / Paralyze (I & II) / Silence / Barfire / Barblizzard / Baraero/ Barstone / Barthunder / Barwater / Barsleep / Barpoison / Barparalyze / Barsilence / Barblind / Barbreak / Barvirus / Sacrifice / Esuna / Auspice / Repose / Erase / Addle / Temper / Embrava / Enfire (I & II) / Enblizzard (I & II) / Enthunder (I & II) / Enwater (I & II) / Enaero (I & II) / Enstone (I & II) / Enlight / Phalanx (I & II) / Regen (I~V) / Refresh (I & II) / Sandstorm / Rainstorm / Windstorm / Firestorm / Hailstorm / Thunderstorm / Aurorastorm / Voidstorm / Animus Augeo / Animus Minuo / Adloquium


Black Magic
Poison (I & II) / Poisonga / Bio (I~III) / Burn / Frost / Choke / Rasp / Shock / Drown / Retrace / Blaze Spikes / Ice Spikes / Shock Spikes / Sleep (I & II) / Blind (I & II) / Break / Breakga / Bind / Dispel / Absorb-MND / Absorb-CHR / Absorb-VIT / Absorb-AGI / Absorb-INT / Absorb-DEX / Absorb-STR / Absorb-ACC / Absorb-Attri / Endark / Klimaform


Summoning Magic
Carbuncle / Fenrir / Ifrit / Titan / Leviathan / Garuda / Shiva / Ramuh / Diabolos / Alexander / Odin / Fire Spirit / Ice Spirit / Air Spirit / Earth Spirit / Thunder Spirit / Water Spirit / Light Spirit / Dark Spirit


Ninjutsu
Monomi: Ichi / Aisha: Ichi / Utsusemi: Ichi / Utsusemi: Ni / Jubaku: Ichi / Hojo: Ichi / Hojo: Ni / Kurayami: Ichi / Kurayami: Ni / Dokumori: Ichi / Myoshu: Ichi / Migawari: Ichi / Kakka: Ichi / Yurin: Ichi


Songs
Foe Requiem (I~VII) / Horde Lullaby (I & II) / Army’s Paeon (I~VI) / Mage's Ballad (I~III) / Valor Minuet (I~V) / Knight’s Minne (I~V) / Blade Madrigal / Sword Madrigal / Hunter's Prelude / Archer's Prelude / Sheepfoe Mambo / Dragonfoe Mambo / Fowl Aubade / Herb Pastoral / Shining Fantasia / Scop’s Operetta / Puppet’s Operetta / Gold Capriccio / Warding Round / Goblin Gavotte / Advancing March / Victory March / Battlefield Elegy / Carnage Elegy / Enchanting Etude / Spirited Etude / Learned Etude / Quick Etude / Vivacious Etude / Dextrous Etude / Sinewy Etude / Bewitching Etude / Logical Etude / Sage Etude / Swift Etude / Vital Etude / Uncanncy Etude / Herculean Etude / Light Carol (I & II) / Earth Carol (I & II) / Water Carol (I & II) / Wind Carol (I & II) / Fire Carol (I & II) / Ice Carol (I & II) / Lightning Carol (I & II) / Dark Carol (I & II) / Light Threnody / Dark Threnody / Earth Threnody / Water Threnody / Wind Threnody / Fire Threnody / Ice Threnody / Lightning Threnody / Magic Finale / Foe Lullaby (I & II) / Goddess's Hymnus / Maiden's Virelai / Chocobo Mazurka / Raptor Mazurka / Foe Sirvente / Adventurer's Dirge / Sentinel's Scherzo / Pining Nocturne


Geomancy
Indi-Regen / Indi-Poison / Indi-Refresh / Indi-STR / Indi-DEX / Indi-VIT / Indi-AGI / Indi-INT / Indi-CHR / Indi-MND / Indi-Fury / Indi-Barrier / Indi-Acumen / Indi-Fend / Indi-Precision / Indi-Voidance / Indi-Focus / Indi-Attunement / Indi-Wilt / Indi-Frailty / Indi-Fade / Indi-Malaise / Indi-Slip / Indi-Torpor / Indi-Vex / Indi-Languor / Indi-Slow / Indi-Paralyze / Indi-Gravity / Geo-Regen / Geo-Poison / Geo-Refresh / Geo-STR / Geo-DEX / Geo-VIT / Geo-AGI / Geo-INT / Geo-CHR / Geo-MND / Geo-Fury / Geo-Barrier / Geo-Acumen / Geo-Fend / Geo-Precision / Geo-Voidance / Geo-Focus / Geo-Attunement / Geo-Wilt / Geo-Frailty / Geo-Fade / Geo-Malaise / Geo-Slip / Geo-Torpor / Geo-Vex / Geo-Languor / Geo-Slow / Geo-Paralyze / Geo-Gravity

[Tennotsukai]

blue mages forgotten?

[HimuraKenshyn]

blue mages forgotten?


Shhhhhh. Don't mess with our tanking.....

[Kojo]

Foil still doesn't really have much of a duration, so it's basically going to be used as a hate tool that can reduce enemy TP move dmg for 45 seconds after use?

[Cowardlybabooon]

Yeah leave ninja alone too on that. I like using spells for extra hate.

[Nebo]

Why would you reduce enmity values on NIN spells? I thought you development types were on board with NINs being tanks now?

[Antanias]

Looking at that list, I'm now convinced that there's little to no hope for this game.

[Sasaraixx]

What about Summoner Job Abilities?

[Dekar]

Do NOT lower the enmity on NIN's spells. They need them to hold hate. If anything, increase them.

[Mazura]

Unfortunately, while 90% of the proposed changes seem to be going in the right direction, lowering the enmity gained for Ninjutsu enfeebles and enhances is going to hurt their tanking ability. At the moment, Ninjas have to compete against 2 handed DDs using Yonin and what few offensive/enhancing spells they have to maintain hate. If those spells have their enmity cut in half, it's going to make it quite a bit harder to hold hate unless some other aspect of this is being adjusted as well. Even Utsusemi: Ni/Ichi help quite a bit in maintaining hate with Ninja, especially since we cast them repeatedly while tanking. Those spells alone will probably hurt the most to have their enmity chopped in half. If there is some kind of other adjustment that will offset this, would like to know about it, if not, maybe leave the Ninjutsu enmity alone?

[Luvbunny]

Looking at that list, I'm now convinced that there's little to no hope for this game.

I totally agree with you. Why would they reduce ninja tools hate is beyond me.... And they are still not reducing Blood Pact Rage that pretty much transfer hate to Summoner.... Let alone fixing the enmity whackadoodle on Beastmaster.

[Xikeroth]

Okay so... is the objective of the new director to make this game unplayable? Because the majority of the stuff listed here hardly generates much enmity anyways, if it is getting hate maybe you should have a real tank during content. That is always an option you know...

Geomancer I don't know I have seen more hate generated from cure 1 than any of their spells and I am leveling it slowly with a few RUNs.

Job abilities: I can understand some of those listed. However, why reduce BST ability enmity generation? Once upon a time BST took skill and intelligence to play and now its just job a monkey could play, you plan on making it easier for them? So much for the "skilled job" but I guess that died when level cap was raised, that's when the job became easy.

White magic, I can understand some of them such as raise, erase, the SCH spells.. but why reduce enspells and barspells? One of the last things RDM can do anymore that no other mage can do is take a hit and take it well and if setup correctly RDM can tank if it had some enmity generation which is another way RDM can play in some content. Also if you thought about it, keeping barspells as they are if they do generate as much enmity as you claim would only HELP RUN when they casted it. I guess the dev team doesn't look into this now does it.

Black Magic I would say raise the enmity on spikes but lower it on the rest, I can't remember the last time I saw a BLM cast a spikes spell so that's just wasted time, RUN also gets spikes spells.

Summoning Magic Complete agreement here, Never liked how summoner spells, JA's or pet commands generated more enmity than others.

Now for the bad one that makes absolutely zero sense at all.

Ninjutsu

This one makes me greatly question the SE development team

As a NIN the first spell I casted was Kurayami: Ni because it helped secure hate a little better at the start of a fight not just because of the blind effect.

Okay, so... let me understand this you think that some of these spells generate too much enmity? You do realize that once half of these spells land they have no effect until they wear off right? That most ninja won't even cast them until they wear off? So why would you reduce them? What, if any logic do you even have to do this? I am convinced there is no logic in the SE development team half the time. Does the director know what they are doing I am thinking they don't.

Songs

With any half-decent tank/melee you wouldn't generate enough enmity from songs to even get hate until the wipe.


In conclusion:

I am perfectly fine with you raising the enmity on those two spells, they need it, but lowering the enmity on these spells and abilities for the most part is just a terrible, terrible idea.

Maybe you're on a mission to prove everyone wrong, and job balance was NEVER on your list of things to do just like it was before. If it was you'd be making adjustments to things that matter and not the enmity generation on so many spells that don't even generate much enmity in the first place, or in the case of Ninja generate enmity and HELP it to perform better.

I strongly urge you to reconsider some of these changes they are not only unbalanced changes but terrible ideas and poor development at its finest.

RDM/RUN Raise the enmity on enhancing magic spells, would force rdms to stay on their toes and help RUN tank.

NIN: RAISE enmity on NIN enfeeble spells since /NIN never use them, or admit you have no idea what you're doing in terms of game development and balance, you clearly don't.

SMN: I support, but just like moogles in selbina you're doing this update about 5-6 years too late. Cut the enmity on their job abilities and pet commands or the summoning magic enmity cut is completely worthless.

What the SE dev team, especially the new director needs to do is make waves and job revamps for half the jobs in the game, not make small questionable and in this case laughable adjustments that will only frustrate the community.

[Luvbunny]

Hush - the new director is barely legal out of college. He has a lot of learning to do - he does not even play the game properly. Everything here is only working on theory and on paper. And yes they really want us to quit the game and move to FF14 - so in essence the new director's job is "working as intended".

[Xikeroth]

Hush - the new director is barely legal out of college. He has a lot of learning to do - he does not even play the game properly. Everything here is only working on theory and on paper. And yes they really want us to quit the game and move to FF14 - so in essence the new director's job is "working as intended".

I'm planning on doing that regardless but depending on what this "director" does will factor into people continuing to play a game with no real updates. I wont be impressed with this director until they really fix the job balance issues. This game has had zero job balance since launch.

What the director does between now and FFXIV launch will determine if a lot of people, including myself are willing to pay for FFXI and FFXIV

[Alhanelem]

I'm hoping the enmity relating to the summon spells only refers to the enmity gained from their casting...

Why enmity would be reduced for Utsusemi is beyond me. That's kind of what a Ninja tanks with...

[Aldersyde]

Job abilities: I can understand some of those listed. However, why reduce BST ability enmity generation? Once upon a time BST took skill and intelligence to play and now its just job a monkey could play, you plan on making it easier for them?

Maybe because the abilities listed for bst have never been significant sources for enmity generation? If I pull a mob with my pet and he gets in a few combat rounds before I use heel to pull him back, the mob should never make a beeline for me just because I use the pet ability, which is how it works now. It has never, ever worked like that. The only time the mob should come after me when I use heel is when the pet swings and misses and I jump the gun by using the PA too early. The same applies to heel and sic. I could be convinced that reward should draw greater enmity if the HP restored was significant but directing pets to perform simple commands (fall back, stay in one place, use a TP move) should not result in a monster chewing my face off when my pet is doing damage to it and more especially (in the cases of Falcorr and Yuly), when the pet cannot lose enmity rapidly because it isn't taking damage through evasion.

You may think these changes bring about less skillful play from bsts but in reality, having these mechanics broken as they are atm take away the opportunity to play with any degree of skill and finesse. They relegate bst to a position of just being a far weaker WAR with a mediocre dd companion.

[Siven]

Uhh, what about summoner job abilities...?

[Mazura]

One other point I'd like to make. I'm not entirely sure, but I thought that the point of these proposed enmity changes was to fix the recent problem we've had with mages ripping hate off of tanks with simple spells like barspells, self buffs, etc. ? Honestly, any advantage that lowering the enmity gain of those mage spells would have had will be negated in situations with a Ninja tanking due to the equal cut in Ninjutsu magic enmity gain. Though this only applies to situations where a Ninja is tanking, for low man groups that use Ninja all the time this wont really change much, the mages will still peel hate off the Ninja. Again, I suggest, reconsider the enmity changes for ninjutsu spells.

[fernando]

One thing i know is i,on PLD hitting some mob in Adoulin for like 5-6 rounds with a flash, and sentenal used,my whm used cure IV on me and stole hate.........just sayin.

[Caketime]

One thing i know is i,on PLD hitting some mob in Adoulin for like 5-6 rounds with a flash, and sentenal used,my whm used cure IV on me and stole hate.........just sayin.

That afternoon was absurd enough that I shelved WHM temporarily, I hope this upcoming update doesn't just break enmity more.

[xiozen]

Why would you reduce enmity values on NIN spells? I thought you development types were on board with NINs being tanks now?

Hmm, I do recall seeing a post back in 2005... let's see... it said something like this:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Playonline:
---
Changes to Utsusemi and Ranged Attacks
The next version update will make battle more strategic for players who use Utsusemi or ranged attacks.
*Changes to the ninjutsu "Utsusemi"
In the next update, the player's enmity will decrease when a shadow image created by Utsusemi is absorbed by an attack.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So to me at least it makes sense to further reduce enmity gain on ninjutsu.... okay... moving forward in time, these were added:

Job Adjustments and Additions Part I (07/03/2009)

Quote:
A host of job adjustments and additions are in the pipes for the upcoming version update, including formidable new abilities for ninjas. Other jobs, too, are scheduled to benefit from myriad adjustments to magic and abilities. In this, the first part in the job adjustment series of articles, we cast the spotlight on ninjas, Vana'diel's agents of stealth and deception.

New Job Abilities
Accomplished in both offense and defense, the art of ninjutsu has over the years proven to be a favorite among adventurers across the land. Now, with the addition of the following two new abilities, ninjas can further enhance either their efficiency in offense or aptitude in defense as befits the situation.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...666/4666_5.jpg
- Yonin (Lv.40 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Increases enmity and enhances "ninja tool expertise" effect, but impairs accuracy. Grants a bonus to evasion and critical hit rate when in front of target.

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...666/4666_7.jpg
- Innin (Lv.40 Ability Delay: 5 min. Duration: 5 min.)
Reduces enmity and impairs evasion. Grants a bonus to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage when striking target from behind.

- Yonin
Strengthens one's ability to fend off blows from the enemy.
While in effect, Yonin increases enmity and enhances the effect of "ninja tool expertise" in exchange for reduced accuracy. Further bonuses are granted to evasion and critical hit rate when engaging your target from the front.
The potency of the above effects gradually decreases over time.

- Innin
Strengthens one's ability to deal damage to the enemy.
While in effect, Innin lowers enmity in exchange for reduced evasion. Further bonuses are granted to accuracy, critical hit rate, and ninjutsu damage when striking your target from behind.
As with Yonin, the potency of the above effects gradually decreases over time.

*Notes
The effects of both Yonin and Innin are mutually exclusive. Activating one while the other is in effect will result in the nullification of the one originally in effect.
Yonin and Innin have a shared ability delay. For example, a ninja who uses Yonin must wait for five minutes to elapse before either ability becomes usable again.

In implementing these new abilities, the development team has taken into consideration character positioning during party play and many other factors. To ensure a smooth gaming experience for all, testing and adjustments will be carried out to the fullest extent that time permits.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I fail to see anywhere where SE specifically said, Ninja was designed to tank. If that was posted anywhere please provide the information for review.

I see where certain abilities were introduced to add a level of "strategy" but just because the player base used the job as a tank (forever) doesn't mean that was what was intended. Now, if SE turns around and decides not to further decrease enmity gain on ninjutsu spells, (as noted by their most recent announcement), then perhaps its an indicator that they have acknowledged that the player base has elected to utilize the Ninja job as a form of "tank", and are accepting of that designation.

Just my 2-cents worth. XD

[Tennotsukai]

Shhhhhh. Don't mess with our tanking.....

oh.. oops.

[Babekeke]

If Barspells are generating too much enmity... surely the WHM AOE versions should also receive an enmity decrease? Or is WHM now intended to tank; what with barspells, and spamming cure V cureskin on themselves.

As for Utsusemi: This will also reduce the enmity of any DDs/mages going /NIN, so it's not all bad. They should have left the nukes and enfeebles alone though.

[Yinnyth]

That afternoon was absurd enough that I shelved WHM temporarily, I hope this upcoming update doesn't just break enmity more.

When was enmity ever not broken? There has always been something that someone could complain about giving too much or too little enmity.

I agree with your overall hope that these changes will not make things worse than they already are, but considering the previous change, the things Camate listed make sense. We just had hate generated from damage drastically cut, so job abilities and spells which generate static amounts of hate had their enmity generation abilities boosted as a side-effect. All the things listed in Camate's thread (except raise, which is a slight wtf moment) are more effective at holding hate than they used to be, and most of those things, no one wants to hold hate by using them.

The ninjas who want to hold hate raise a valid point in that ninja has a distinct lack of hate tools, and these recent damage-hate nerfs gave them a slight boost. I think the ninjutsu issue should be cured more by NIN's stances, however. Leave the current values as they are, halve them if the NIN is under the effect of innin, double if under the effect of yonin.

Or maybe you could come up with some better, more accurate values for what it should be. My suggestion is just a generalization of how it should work, not perfection.

[Zhronne]

Baramnesia/Baramnesra are missing. Is this on purpose or a mistake?

Also I'm not convinced about the reduced hate on NIN. Altough I guess if a NIN want to tank he still has the option of using the elemental wheel but... wouldn't it have been better leaving the original enmity to those other spells as well?
SE seems to have forgotten over the last years that NIN is a job that, in theory, is supposed to tank as well.

[Yinnyth]

No, they just remembered that if they decrease the hate that damage and cures give, they should also decrease the hate that other actions give. If subbing bard for threnody spam is nerfed, why shouldn't ninjutsu spells be nerfed?

I should mention that I'm not saying I have the perfect answer for this problem. Ninja DOES have troubles holding hate compared to other tank jobs, so the recent damage and cure enmity nerf was a temporary boost to their ability to hold a mob's attention. But Camate's changes are basically knocking ninjutsu back down to what it used to be for hate generation purposes. It's not a nerf, it's just restoring things to the way they used to be.

I should also mention that I would love to see nin given some more options for building hate. But nin is a job that could be played either low-enmity or high-enmity based on its stances. If anything, the effect that the stances have on enmity should be what's changed.

[Kincard]

Frankly Ninjutsu barely sees any use anymore outside of Utsusemi. The debuffs see the light of day assuming you're running low man but then it's not much of a challenge to hold hate low-man, I'm only casting them because there isn't a WHM/RDM/SCHwithsub enfeebling stuff for me. Slow 1 caps higher than Hojo: Ni and presumably a similar thing goes on with blind and paralyze. If they want me to use the spells outside of those situations they need to either strengthen ninjutsu enfeebles or add the San line into the game. If on the other hand I'm in a larger group I won't be playing NIN at all, but even if I did, damage outpaces Ninjutsu's enmity generation by such a large degree it won't even matter.

So while it makes no sense and shows a lot about how the dev team handled NIN it really isn't going to change much about how the job is played. Or not played, I suppose.

[Caketime]

When was enmity ever not broken? There has always been something that someone could complain about giving too much or too little enmity.

It's never been perfect, I never said it was. Feel free to put words in my mouth, however.

[HimuraKenshyn]

Last night was so awesome pally super tanking I died, raised and casted refresh2 on myself and the mob kills me again fing epic system we have at the moment...

[Horadrim]

Last night was so awesome pally super tanking I died, raised and casted refresh2 on myself and the mob kills me again fing epic system we have at the moment...

Super Tanking.... as in Reives?

Reive mobs have unique enmity mechanics, they are specifically designed to be able to hunt down and kill off targets in the area regardless of whether or not they have hate. if you don't believe that, you obviously haven't done a Reive with a BST who doesn't know to sneak/invis before sending a pet in.

[HimuraKenshyn]

Super Tanking.... as in Reives?

Reive mobs have unique enmity mechanics, they are specifically designed to be able to hunt down and kill off targets in the area regardless of whether or not they have hate. if you don't believe that, you obviously haven't done a Reive with a BST who doesn't know to sneak/invis before sending a pet in.

Nope just regular mobs was holding a bunch of links.

[Godofgods]

Below is the list of abilities and spells that will have their enmity values reduced:




White Magic
Raise / Raise II / Raise III / Arise / Poisona / Paralyna / Blindna / Silena / Stona / Viruna / Cursna / Blink / Stoneskin / Aquaveil / Slow (I & II) / Haste / Paralyze (I & II) / Silence / Barfire / Barblizzard / Baraero/ Barstone / Barthunder / Barwater / Barsleep / Barpoison / Barparalyze / Barsilence / Barblind / Barbreak / Barvirus / Sacrifice / Esuna / Auspice / Repose / Erase / Addle / Temper / Embrava / Enfire (I & II) / Enblizzard (I & II) / Enthunder (I & II) / Enwater (I & II) / Enaero (I & II) / Enstone (I & II) / Enlight / Phalanx (I & II) / Regen (I~V) / Refresh (I & II) / Sandstorm / Rainstorm / Windstorm / Firestorm / Hailstorm / Thunderstorm / Aurorastorm / Voidstorm / Animus Augeo / Animus Minuo / Adloquium


How is cure not apart of that?
Reason (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/31754-Enmity-imbalance)

[Elaric]

Job Abilities
Benediction


Here's hoping that Benediction no longer == suicide.

[Demon6324236]

How is cure not apart of that?
Reason (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/31754-Enmity-imbalance)
As a follow-up to my previous post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/30629-Enmity-System-Explanation-and-Planned-Adjustments?p=415502&viewfull=1#post415502), we will be making adjustments to job abilities and spells that have a fixed amount of enmity in the upcoming version update.Cures generate enmity based on the amount cured, thus they do not have a fixed amount of enmity they generate, and are not listed in these changes...

[Yinnyth]

It's never been perfect, I never said it was. Feel free to put words in my mouth, however.

I never said you said it was perfect, apologies if that sounded like the point I was trying to make. I used your quote as little more than a jumping-off point for me to join the conversation so I could slowly push towards the idea that NIN's enmity problems should be fixed with something besides ninjutsu so the option of being a low-enmity ninja DD still exists. Since your original post had nothing to do with ninjas, I thought it would be obvious that I'm not so much touching your post specifically, but the overall attitude of everyone posting here, but I can see how it might be misconstrued. Sorry again.

Kincard raises some good points on last page. Ninjutsu has almost never been used to hold hate because it's really never been very good at holding hate.

[Kombys]

I dont see why they reducing enmity for ninja spells, good ninjas use spells to get hate, and vokes of course

[Yinnyth]

I dont see why they reducing enmity for ninja spells, good ninjas use spells to get hate, and vokes of course

Firstly because the decreases in hate generation from damage and healing caused an indirect boost to these spells ability to build hate. Secondly because due to the nature of the stances that NIN uses, it can be played as a high-enmity tank/debuffer, or a low-enmity DD/debuffer. If they left ninjutsu spells at their current values, playing low-enmity ninja would be harder than it used to be before the enmity changes.

My hope is that they grant ninja some hate tools outside of the standard buffs and debuffs they currently use. Or maybe something unique like a spell that frenzies the enemy and forces them to attack the ninja regardless of current hate values. Obviously, it would need a long recast and short duration though.

[OmnysValefor]

One thing I'd like to see is a trait for PLD that makes our cures generate more enmity. My paladin is hardly a healer, but if I'm saving someone's ass, I should be rewarded. Another option would be to give PLD's cures a trait that lowered their target's enmity.

Enmity changes with adoulin seemed to be heading in the right direction, but a lot of things were broken as well. Bst'ing dynamis built my aegis, but today's the first time I've seen bst in dyna since update, and paralyze was pulling off mobs that falcorr had put some hurt on. Pre-update* once a good Ruinator was snarled onto the pet, the pet was tanking.

Bst was OP in dyna pre-update. Changing the job so that it requires skill is fine. Breaking the job sucks.

And those poor poor summoners... As an Ochain PLD, I'm really not scared of anything, so I take on a VT malboro, a passing smn friend offers help. Well it's a stalemate. I'll never die, but he'll never die. I tell the summoner I'm going to just let it kill me so we can move on. He says ok. I die, Malboro never faces Smn's garuda but goes straight to the summoner and murders him. I get back up and guard the summoner while he stands back up and we move on.

Had Garuda out-hated me, would the malboro have just taken off for the smn? Sad.

[Kincard]

I dont see why they reducing enmity for ninja spells, good ninjas use spells to get hate, and vokes of course

Good Ninjas don't need to use their spells to keep hate.

Good players won't use Ninjas at all.

[Jem]

One thing I'd like to see is a trait for PLD that makes our cures generate more enmity. My paladin is hardly a healer, but if I'm saving someone's ass, I should be rewarded. Another option would be to give PLD's cures a trait that lowered their target's enmity.

PLD's cures "do" generate more enmity currently. RDM WHM SCH all have the Tranquil Heart job trait that lowers enmity of cures based on healing magic skill up to -25% enmity. So PLD effectively generates 25% more enmity with cure IV then RDM WHM SCH given they aren't subbing those jobs.

[OmnysValefor]

PLD's cures "do" generate more enmity currently. RDM WHM SCH all have the Tranquil Heart job trait that lowers enmity of cures based on healing magic skill up to -25% enmity. So PLD effectively generates 25% more enmity with cure IV then RDM WHM SCH given they aren't subbing those jobs.

Right, so my cure IV for 550 generates 206 enmity vs the whm's 550 doing 165. I'm not worried about outhating the WHM, the ragnarok next to me is my concern, and seeing my cure-kit worth its casting time would be nice. No different than ninjas wanting to keep proper hate on their spells rather than seeing them nerfed.

Edit: Also posted below, but as Economizer pointed out, a whm c4 for 550 is awful, I meant to say that was just an example.

Oops. I really meant to point out that a whm would be curing for more. The worst whm's in the game have at least +20% cure potency, more mnd, and questionable healing skill. I was just saying that a mage healing for the same amount.

Apologies.

[Economizer]

Right, so my cure IV for 550 generates 206 enmity vs the whm's 550 doing 165.

If the White Mage isn't curing at least in the neighborhood of 800 HP with a Cure IV, then there is something wrong with your White Mage. Good White Mages should be able to 850 HP fairly easily - curing over 50% more then you are and getting the enmity to match. Scholars with weather boosts can push this number even higher (breaking 950 or even 1000 HP depending on gear).

As a side note, although it can be debatable whether or not stacking enmity would be better, if you go all out on a cure set including using a Sanus Ensis, you can push numbers closer to 680, and if you capped out received cure potency at the cap of 30%, (which is possible but hard without a Corsair unless you feel like dropping your Ochain for an Adamas) that it has you can even push 880 or slightly higher on yourself.

White Mages are best off doing their best to exploit cureskin (which prevents the tank from losing as much enmity from getting hit for damage), while Scholars should be doing their best to exploit Regen V and their Animus spells. Back in the days when the max level was still 75 White Mages that were managing enmity well could even get away with casting in a Flash rotation with the Paladin so that the mob's TP moves were nullified, but I think we might not be able to see this clever and skillful play anymore based on people's reports.

[OmnysValefor]

Oops. I really meant to point out that a whm would be curing for more. The worst whm's in the game have at least +20% cure potency, more mnd, and questionable healing skill. I was just saying that a mage healing for the same amount.

Apologies.

[Camate]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback thus far since my previous post.

We've seen a couple of questions, so I would like to provide some responses.



What about enmity changes for Dia and Helix spells?



Dia
While this is a spell that has a static amount of enmity, the amount of enmity generated is extremely low, so we removed it from the scope of our adjustments.


Helix spells
The enmity for these spells depends on the effect, so it was removed from the scope of our adjustments.

Similar to elemental magic, the enmity generated is proportionate to the damage dealt.




Uhh, what about summoner job abilities…?


Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.

Also, while on the subject of pet jobs, below are some notes about beastmaster's job abilities that were not included on the list:


Ready
This ability does not generate enmity.


Spur/Run Wild
While these abilities have a static amount of enmity generation, they are time volatile, and because the amount is lost every second it was removed from the scope of our adjustments.






Why would you reduce enmity values on NIN spells?


With ninja itself in mind, we understand that it would be best to increase the enmity for ninjutsu.
With that said, we will be going a separate route of adjustment so that ninjas can control enmity better.

However, we've included ninjutsu in the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that red mages who use ninja as their support job could cause the same issues from the past to arise.



blue mages forgotten?

We will not be adjusting enmity on blue magic because we feel that blue mage is a job that can better withstand a beating in the event that they pull hate from the target.




If Barspells are generating too much enmity... surely the WHM AOE versions should also receive an enmity decrease?

The AoE Bar- spells were removed from the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that the amount of enmity is very low. While the enmity depends on the amount of party members, the effect duration is quite long and is normally cast before battle, and if you need to it cast during battle, it's something you can use when Provoke and other front-line job enmity generation methods are being used.

[Areayea]

thank you camate, great to know that BLU and NIN can be effective tanks again :D; however, just 2 quetions (both still regarding SMN); is summoning magic enmity going to be decreased, there is a whole other thread just regarding that question... it seems that most of us smn solo artists are having difficulty keeping enmity on our avatar while camping, due to the fact that we are getting too much enmity just by casting the summons. Second question is you did not include assault in there, is that going to remain the same where it's an introductory very minimal hate generator, or does it produce a lot more now, and we just have to hope the monster gets enmity on us for the pet to auto-attack.

PS I did remember, is it possible that you could make Blood pacts generate more enmity, since that would help solo-summoners/party-summoners have their pets tank?

[Demon6324236]

With ninja itself in mind, we understand that it would be best to increase the enmity for ninjutsu.
With that said, we will be going a separate route of adjustment so that ninjas can control enmity better.

However, we've included ninjutsu in the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that red mages who use ninja as their support job could cause the same issues from the past to arise.>_>

However, we've included ninjutsu in the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that red mages who use ninja as their support job could cause the same issues from the past to arise.;>_>

red mages who use ninja as their support job could cause the same issues from the past to arise.Problems like RDM actually being good and useful you mean!

No but really, you are singling out RDM as your reasoning for this change after you have left the job dead for the last couple years with no sign of making it actually wanted again?

[HimuraKenshyn]

Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.

ORLY something is really bugged then in my book....

[fernando]

I would like to know why, when on beast you let your pet go for a few min's on a mob,you attack hit the mob one time and it turns on me? I turn snarl turn back one hit and bamm attacked again.Even pld going full bore use ab,heal,shield bash,flash,and whm heals and takes all hate.Now i may not be the best pld out there,with the best gear,but this is just wrong!!! Well back to the solo/slow mode till fixed i guess...........just sayin.

[OmnysValefor]

Problems like RDM actually being good and useful you mean!

No but really, you are singling out RDM as your reasoning for this change after you have left the job dead for the last couple years with no sign of making it actually wanted again?

I like how he says "cause the same issues", as if rdm healers/casters were going /nin and spamming ninjutsu just to mess with hate.

It's a lot more honest to say "to prevent rdm from tanking", even though they simultaneously say blu mage can handle hate, so blu's hate generation is fine.

I'd also really appreciate some feedback on curekits and their viability and am pretty disappointed he didn't touch on that at all.

[saevel]

ORLY something is really bugged then in my book....

All actions produce 1 CE minimum so obviously it produces some hate, just not much. The reason pets keep losing hate is because they gimp compared to players. Damage from pets took the same reduction that players received. Whatever hate the pet is generating is being instantly lost when they take damage and so when the SMN use's that 1 CE ability it puts them 1CE over their pet.

[saevel]

I like how he says "cause the same issues", as if rdm healers/casters were going /nin and spamming ninjutsu just to mess with hate.

It's a lot more honest to say "to prevent rdm from tanking", even though they simultaneously say blu mage can handle hate, so blu's hate generation is fine.

I'd also really appreciate some feedback on curekits and their viability and am pretty disappointed he didn't touch on that at all.

*Slams head on desk*

"Cure kits" are exactly the same as they were three months ago. Which is useless. Enmity from healing took the same reduction that damage did and thus is not any better then it was before. Your better off slamming your head into the monsters fist to generate enmity then trying to build it via cure spam.

[OmnysValefor]

*Slams head on desk*

"Cure kits" are exactly the same as they were three months ago. Which is useless. Enmity from healing took the same reduction that damage did and thus is not any better then it was before. Your better off slamming your head into the monsters fist to generate enmity then trying to build it via cure spam.

I know that. But three months ago, tanking was pretty much gone. THey want to fix enmity.. Last time enmity worked, cure kits were a viable part of that. Calm down.

[Demon6324236]

I like how he says "cause the same issues", as if rdm healers/casters were going /nin and spamming ninjutsu just to mess with hate.I think it was more aimed at preventing RDM from tanking like it used to back at 75 when it was a beastly job, if it could hold better hate with those spells basically it would have an advantage in tanking, especially with the lower recast. Problem is, if that were possible at least RDM can take a hit just like BLU like you said, and also RDM might see some use again, where as right now, no one asks for RDM, RDM is the job you take when its offered and you literally have no better options available to you at the time.

[Alhanelem]

Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.What causes a monster to turn to face me when I use them then?

[Vinedrai]

TLDR
1) how dare did you guys use rdm as a tank back then? blasphemy! btw, we are still so terrified by the possibiliy of rdm tanking for some reason.
2) you can use barspells while the tanks are maintaining hate but that doesn't apply to any of those spells and JAs getting their enmity values nerfed, right?... we haz the best logic ever.

[saevel]

I know that. But three months ago, tanking was pretty much gone. THey want to fix enmity.. Last time enmity worked, cure kits were a viable part of that. Calm down.

Cure kits rightfully died a horrible death as the level when up (and their CE multiplier went down).

Please people, for the love of FFXI learn the actual mechanics behind the enmity system. People have already taken tons of their personal time and done all the hard work, you only need to read.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/tag/enmity%20table!

"Heal spam" has never been better then smacking sh1t to generated hate, notably CE. The only time it was ever useful was when the PLD was unbuffed or not engaged. If SE wants to create "real" tanking then their going to have to attack the core of the problem, there are no significant hate generating abilities in the game on a short enough timer to matter. Alter provoke (just example) to generate 500~1000 CE and then it will be a viable hate tool.

[Alhanelem]

thank you camate, great to know that BLU and NIN can be effective tanks again :D; however, just 2 quetions (both still regarding SMN); is summoning magic enmity going to be decreased, there is a whole other thread just regarding that question... it seems that most of us smn solo artists are having difficulty keeping enmity on our avatar while camping, due to the fact that we are getting too much enmity just by casting the summons. Second question is you did not include assault in there, is that going to remain the same where it's an introductory very minimal hate generator, or does it produce a lot more now, and we just have to hope the monster gets enmity on us for the pet to auto-attack.

PS I did remember, is it possible that you could make Blood pacts generate more enmity, since that would help solo-summoners/party-summoners have their pets tank?
Summoning magic never generated much enmity. I assume you are actually asking about pet melee attacks and damage from BPs. A little clarity goes a long way.

[OmnysValefor]

Cure kits rightfully died a horrible death as the level when up (and their CE multiplier went down).

Please people, for the love of FFXI learn the actual mechanics behind the enmity system. People have already taken tons of their personal time and done all the hard work, you only need to read.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/tag/enmity%20table!

"Heal spam" has never been better then smacking sh1t to generated hate, notably CE. The only time it was ever useful was when the PLD was unbuffed or not engaged. If SE wants to create "real" tanking then their going to have to attack the core of the problem, there are no significant hate generating abilities in the game on a short enough timer to matter. Alter provoke (just example) to generate 500~1000 CE and then it will be a viable hate tool.

It was viable during certain parts of the game, particularly when the mob was invincible (or stoneskin) or PD'd? It was a helpful tool when kiting, just like using /nin ichi tool was. Cure kits were used by people who did know the enmity mechanics and why they did work, and when they didn't. PLD sucked against high defense mobs, besides SE's gift of Spirits Within, and much later, Atonement. Mobs could mitigate our offensive power, but how much we could heal for was all on us.

I loved the CE/VE system and that this game has the most complex (not "complicated") hate system of any game I've played. If you're good at it, you could watch it in action and understand exactly why the mob was doing what it was doing.

[sweetidealism]

With ninja itself in mind, we understand that it would be best to increase the enmity for ninjutsu.
With that said, we will be going a separate route of adjustment so that ninjas can control enmity better.

However, we've included ninjutsu in the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that red mages who use ninja as their support job could cause the same issues from the past to arise.



We will not be adjusting enmity on blue magic because we feel that blue mage is a job that can better withstand a beating in the event that they pull hate from the target.

The logic behind these two statements seem contradictory to me. Similar to blue mage, red mage is also very capable of withstanding a beating if they pull hate. Why, then, allow blue mage to potentially tank, but not red mage?

[Infidi]

SMN JAs might not generate emnity, but the damage done from the BPs are going to have to be given SOME amount of more emnity. When I can let Garuda auto attack for two rounds then fire off a BP:Rage and get hate from her from a simple Dia 2 there's gotta be something up? Maybe I'm just crazy? I've done Dia 2 and full round of buffing after a BP in the past and NEVER have gotten hate off my avatar. Of course that was in the past. :P Before update.

Camate, are there any plans to up the emnity of the damage generated from BP:Rage attacks, physical or magical? Or some form of emnity transfer to pet like BST has in snarl?

[Demon6324236]

The logic behind these two statements seem contradictory to me. Similar to blue mage, red mage is also very capable of withstanding a beating if they pull hate. Why, then, allow blue mage to potentially tank, but not red mage?Cause BLU never did what RDM did, it never tanked like a badass or soloed tons of things, so years later we must suffer for our past success.

[Phafi]

Please people, for the love of FFXI learn the actual mechanics behind...

didn't you get mass quoted a bit back to be wrong in everything you stated?

[Lollerblades]

Wait what?! That whole SMN rubbish you posted is wrong Camate, last I checked when I use Blood Pacts I gain hate. So infanct unless my character is bugged, this happens for almost everyone else. You might want to look into it first before disregarding it!

[Yinnyth]

The logic behind these two statements seem contradictory to me. Similar to blue mage, red mage is also very capable of withstanding a beating if they pull hate. Why, then, allow blue mage to potentially tank, but not red mage?

If I'm not mistaken, the difference is that rdm would do it well. Far better than blu would. With access to stronger refresh than blu, massive fast cast bonuses, protect and shell V, phalanx, and self-cures, and utsusemi while subbed nin, rdm is nearly impossible to kill. Handing them hate tools that are more effective than what other jobs have would be irresponsible unless it is your goal to redefine rdm from "jack of all trades, master of none" to "TANK ALL THE THINGS!!"

That being said, looking at the enmity values for ninjutsu (80CE,240VE for debuffs and 1CE,300VE for utsu), I don't see what's so scary about rdm spamming these things. Even with chainspell on, it takes about 3 seconds to cast a spell(accounting for animation delay before you can take another action), and the 300VE from utsu would be gone in 5 seconds.

[hideka]

Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.



I officially call BS. i cannot tell you the number of times ive used retreat AFTER THE AVATAR HAS HIT THE MONSTER, with ZERO prior enmity on my part, and retreat has caused the monster to target me. same with blood pacts wards. ive sent the avatar in, popped BP Ward, and the monster comes flying my way. methinks you need to research this. i think you have these abilities confused with assault, release and avatars favor.

[hideka]

What causes a monster to turn to face me when I use them then?
because he hasnt done the proper research. hes confused with release, Avatars favor, and Assault

[Hashmalum]

The fact that the dev team literally forgot that NIN is even considered a tank in their mad stampede to make sure that RDM could never, ever do anything remotely useful ever again tells me all I need to know about the future of job balance in this game--namely that it doesn't have one. I just unsubscribed. To everyone who's sticking around: good luck, you'll need it.

[Asymptotic]

RDM probably doesn't get adjusted because JPs love RDM

[Horadrim]

All actions produce 1 CE minimum so obviously it produces some hate, just not much. The reason pets keep losing hate is because they gimp compared to players. Damage from pets took the same reduction that players received. Whatever hate the pet is generating is being instantly lost when they take damage and so when the SMN use's that 1 CE ability it puts them 1CE over their pet.

Seems that all pet actions would, therefore, be incredibly volatile, which explains why PUP and its Automaton have such volatile hate relationships.

[RAIST]

Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.

Please, PLEASE, PLEASE have some people thoroughly research this, because it is NOT working that way in practice.

I can let my avatar beat a mob in SoA areas for a bit, and as soon as I fire a BP: Rage, I HAVE EXCEEDED MY PETS HATE and the monster RUNS FOR ME. If it is a physical BP, (like Predator Claws, for example)---IT CAN PREVENT THE BP FROM FIRING, AND I AM NOW ON THE TOP OF THE HATE LIST UNTIL I CAN LAND A BP STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE IT OFF ME.

Again.....PLEASE have someone test, sift through the code....whatever it takes. It may not be INTENDED to generate hate, but I assure you, at present it IS in fact generating LARGE amounts of hate.

If Blood Pacts are not meant to generate hate like this, then it is not working as intended and needs to be addressed ASAP.

[Sasaraixx]

Yes Camate, we'd all like some more explanation regarding the SMN comments. I don't think things are working they way the devs think.

Could we also get a response on whether there are any further changes planned for avatars or Summoners to deal with the out of balance enmity situation between the two?

[Nebo]

lots of stuff from 2005 and NIN not being viewed by SE as a tank

I'm not going to go look it up, but the dev team was quoted as saying something along the lines of "Ninja has cemented its place firmly in the tank role along side Paladins...and something something something"

It may have been at Vanafest...it's out there.

[Calamity]

One thing I find very disheartening about bst right now is, that after years, they finally gave us use for charm again, but due to the enmity changes, we are also now in a world where use of snarl is even more crucial than ever. Meaning you can melee with your jug pet, or stay well out of the fight with your charm pet. Something does need to be adjusting.

[Nebo]

The logic behind these two statements seem contradictory to me. Similar to blue mage, red mage is also very capable of withstanding a beating if they pull hate. Why, then, allow blue mage to potentially tank, but not red mage?

RDM is kinda in the same boat as THF. SE hates them.

"NOOOOO!!!! FILTHY RDM!!!! WHY YOU SORO MY SKY GODS!!!!!???"

RMT Killed THF for us. SE is still spouting bullshit like "We fear the past where you could Steal Gold coin => HIDE => Repeat" for reasons we can't have nice things NOW....even though that technique has not been possible for many, many years....and they have killed everything that was ever good about any thief-like ability the job ever had.

They have deep emotional wounds about the past apparently. Maybe we should get the development bros some counseling so we can get some job adjustments that are actually worth anything?

[saevel]

It was viable during certain parts of the game, particularly when the mob was invincible (or stoneskin) or PD'd? It was a helpful tool when kiting, just like using /nin ichi tool was. Cure kits were used by people who did know the enmity mechanics and why they did work, and when they didn't. PLD sucked against high defense mobs, besides SE's gift of Spirits Within, and much later, Atonement. Mobs could mitigate our offensive power, but how much we could heal for was all on us.

I loved the CE/VE system and that this game has the most complex (not "complicated") hate system of any game I've played. If you're good at it, you could watch it in action and understand exactly why the mob was doing what it was doing.

You might of missed the /RDM boat. (At that time) Bind / Blind spam created more hate then Cure spam could, eventually RDM's started using it to tank and SE swung it's nerf hammer. In either case PLD simply doesn't have enough MP to maintain cure spam unless your getting ballads, which means your not getting march's and thus doing less damage for even less CE generation. Eventually it was dumped as simply not viable though some very old PLD's refuse to accept that.

[Trumpy]

I cant believe this no emnity stuff on bloodpacts. before the changes i could let the avatar hit a couple times and then use a blood pact and get hate. which is always funny when im standin a bit in the distance and the mob comes to me and is suddenly too far for the bloodpact to go off and eats my timer.

also before when i was able to have the pet manage too keep hate occasionally it would lose it the mob would come at me and pound me then pet would get hate again id run away sometimes so far you coudlnt even see the mob and pet and id use stoneskin and the mob would come pound me and it feels like from then on i cant do anything to keep the mob on the pet.

on barspells i dont understand why barenfeebs last so much longer than barelems. when i use barelems they always run out before the fight is done. and i have capped enhancing. but since the expansion came out i swear to you that the barelems are alot shorter than they used to be. Is this intentional? It irritates me more now than it did before the expansion came out.

oh and if its things like rdm/nin ur worried about why lower emnity on ninjutsu that is not subjobable?

[Herby]

As others have pointed out: PLEASE for the love of God check on Blood Pact: Rage and Blood Pact: Ward again! Because they definately generate Enmity. If I assault on a Mob and use BP: Ward as soon as it's claimed, the mob turns IMMEDIATELY to me, the same goes for BP: Rage.

It's pretty unsettling that the Dev Team won't acknowledge that and if it's not intended to generate Hate, then it's bugged. both Abilities (Rage and Ward) in fact generate enough Enmity to make SMN Solo Play (almost) unplayable.

[Luvbunny]

Please adjust Blood Pact Rage for Summoner and enmity overall with Beastmaster. Right now, IT IS NOT WORKING as intended and generate way too much hate for the Summoner. This is no joke, it renders the jobs unplayable. Do acknowledge that it is messed up, and please, no one is "saving face" by avoiding the issue at hand.

[Sargent]

Blood Pacts have always generated Enmity. Dunno how SE think otherwise. Rewind the tape prior to the update....
Pull out Avatar, hit any mob-targetting Blood Pact prior to any action being taken on it, mob attacks you. Why? You generated Enmity on it.

Main issue I see is that avatars are losing hate too quickly due to;
a) Not gaining as much hate
b) The DEF update causing them to take more damage and therefore lose hate faster.

This update will do little to rectify Summoner's current issue (I'm referring solely to Summoner in this instance because I don't play BST/PUP at all and therefore do not know their current situation). What SE need to do is;
- Decrease the amount of damage avatars recieve (increase DEF, add another Stout Servant trait) or simply increase their HP to mitigate Enmity loss
- Either increase avatar enmity directly (Avatar: Enmity gear is not gonna cut it) or increase avatar damage (preferably the latter, the 45 second delay is ridiculous).

[RAIST]

Blood Pacts have always generated Enmity. Dunno how SE think otherwise. Rewind the tape prior to the update....
Pull out Avatar, hit any mob-targetting Blood Pact prior to any action being taken on it, mob attacks you. Why? You generated Enmity on it.

That is not necessarily what is happening here though. An avatar can beat on it for a bit (and I don't mean 2 hits, it can be close to a dozen rounds), and for your first action against the mob since your avatar first hit it, you use a BP and it will come after you. From that point on, nearly ANY action you take puts you at risk again--regardless of how much damage your BP did.

This was NOT the case prior to these changes.

[Sargent]

That is not necessarily what is happening here though. An avatar can beat on it for a bit (and I don't mean 2 hits, it can be close to a dozen rounds), and for your first action against the mob since your avatar first hit it, you use a BP and it will come after you. From that point on, nearly ANY action you take puts you at risk again--regardless of how much damage your BP did.

This was NOT the case prior to these changes.

I'm fully aware of the present situation. I've always been very enmity conscious when soloing on SMN, even to the point of prioitising Regen over Cure to restore HP since I'm used to longer solo fights back at level 75. I'm simply pointing out the fact that the activation of a Blood Pact generates some (if only a little) enmity. Contrary to;


Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.

This is completely false, at least on the Blood Pact part. The evidence in my previous post proves that.

[Cabalabob]

Yeah the blood pacts not pulling enmity is the stupidest thing I've ever heard YOU CAN NOT ONLY TAKE HATE BUT AGGRO A MONSTER JUST BY ACTIVATING BP ABILITIES! Of course they generate enmity! Needs adjustments.

[Nebo]

However, we've included ninjutsu in the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that red mages who use ninja as their support job could cause the same issues from the past to arise.

You mean....issues like the development team stepping in and showing us how to swing by using RDM tanks to kill AV in a super helpful and informative video? ;)

Seriously though: Why are you so scared of RDM tanking?

You've done it. You've killed them. No more pinning, no more tanking. No real enfeebling magic value, no real healing magic value, no real nuking value, no real support value, next to no melee value.

You don't have to be afraid of them any more....just....stop....hitting them.

[ffxititanplayer]

Kicking red mage when it is down? You pay literally no attention to the job for months and months then when you need an excuse for your reasoning "BLAME ALL THE RED MAGES!"

[Kincard]

I get RDM is in a pretty bad place, but even if RDM could generate a ton of enmity using spells few would use them to tank anyway, so like complaining about lowered ninjutsu enmity affecting ninja tanking, its complaining about a problem that doesn't actually exist.

The dev team does need to realize that RDM's other unique functions are really outdated at this point in the game though. Refreshing is useless because of Orison Pantaloons +2 and various refresh gear, their hybrid mage role is overshadowed by SCHs, and they have no unique enfeebles or buffs that matter.

[Vivik]

I love how clueless SE is to what exactly is wrong with SMN. I mean why pay employees to test stuff when people will pay SE to let them test it right? Here's a thought. HAVE SOMEONE GO OUT AND FIGHT A REAVE MOB ON SMN!

[Calintzpso]

I'm currently recording my game-play of the issues people are reporting. I will have two experiment videos once the encoding is complete.

I originally had 3 experiments to try out but I was unable to get the first experiment to go as I had recalled being the issue that many are reporting. I know you all aren't crazy, I had it happen on day one. My only thought is that SE did a ninja edit to avatar + master enmity gain on 1st summon in the traditional solo method we try since but is being quiet about it. I do not doubt it with the plentiful bugs since this expansions launch. Heck, just look back to when the "Spaghetti code" somehow made Sneak Attack only work from the front of a monster only at one time.

I also can confirm from a third party that just did Jailer of Love two days ago, that the release bug is still in the game. Jailer of love summons its minion mobs(in this case, what we call Sharks/Rays), and as they beat on the tank in the form of "Super Tanking" If a summoner "Releases" their pet within enmity generation range which many will say is 24-26 Yalms before any other action is taken on the minions, the minions(sharks/rays) will swarm the summoner and most likely, murder the summoner faster then you can type WTF Mate?!.

EDIT: In the case of Reive's and Summoners. It has been established that any claim by anyone on a monster or objective object(Rocks/Roots/Nests) sets the monsters into an alert state. Where they do not necessarily link but will link to you. You become the mobile Aggro ring, which can be kept inert with the combination of Sneak/Invisible, I am not sure if Alliance hate also persists and would bypass this tho, making Sneak/Invisible useless if applied before/after an alliance member aggros. Pets appear to be immune to this, possibly due to the fact they can't have a mobile aggro ring? Pray SE doesn't develop a way to combat this, as it is the most viable way to progress through a zone when you are stuck alone/solo on a pet job.

[Yinnyth]

The AoE Bar- spells were removed from the scope of our adjustments due to the fact that the amount of enmity is very low. While the enmity depends on the amount of party members, the effect duration is quite long and is normally cast before battle, and if you need to it cast during battle, it's something you can use when Provoke and other front-line job enmity generation methods are being used.

I neglected to bring this up earlier because I thought for certain someone else would, but bar<element> spells don't last nearly as long as they used to.

For those of you not currently in the know, barspells used to last 3-5 minutes depending on your enhancing skill. After the release of SoA, barspells last 150 seconds (2.5 minutes) seemingly regardless of enhancing skill.

I'm not sure if anyone has submitted a bug report on this yet. I'm not sure if it was an intended change or not. But I am sure that the average boss fight lasts slightly longer than 2.5 minutes.

Edit: Thank you, Calintpso. Clicking the link associated with your "Every GM ever" signature showed me that they are aware of the problem, and hopefully it will be addressed soon. Barspell duration, not how much trouble you have in reives.

[Revati]

Can they nerf warrior's berserk? I'm concerned that a redmage might be able to raise their attack stat with this ability and outdamage blackmages with claustrum.

[THD]

Blood Pacts, Retreat, and Release do not generate enmity, and as such were not included in the list.

I believe you are incorrect. Initiating blood pacts (at least RAGE) WILL generate enmity, which is an issue, more so for soloing.

EXAMPLE: I cast Shiva. I assault, the mob won't attack me, but I'm added on the hate list. Shiva misses the mob with a melee attack. If I use Blood Pact: Rage-Heavenly Strike, that mob WILL turn on me and attack me, until Shiva pulls hate back off me.

I've been soloing on SMN since 2005, so I've adapted my strategies to compensate for the shift in hate. So I know at least the Rage Blood Pacts store some sort of enmity on me.

P.S. When will Cait Sith be released?

[Asymptotic]

I suppose I must post this here too!

It's a fundamental misunderstanding of how things work. Enmity is divided into two categories

VE (Volatile Enmity or Time Volatile Enmity) and CE (Cumulative Enmity or Non-Decaying Enmity)

VE decays rapidly but CE only decays when taking damage. When you are on the enemy's hate list, every action you perform generates at least 1CE. Avatars do not build enmity very well because they do pisspoor damage (since damage enmity got nerfed) and (I think) have some odd HP mechanic they use for calculating enmity loss when taking damage. As a result, avatars are generally sitting at very low enmity so using any job ability or spell will send the mob on a rampage toward the summoner. When they say "these abilities do not generate any enmity" they mean "they do not generate any enmity beyond the absolute minimum systematically possible."

Ultimately though, this is what we, as a player base whole whined and complained for them to do for quite a while. We asked them to make holding hate by auto-attack harder, and they gave it to us! So it's left to us to adapt our playstyles and figure out what we need to do to compensate. (Same goes for the defense update - when I find out who the f*** complained that defense actually needed to be an important stat...)

That aside, it's unlikely that SE cares because SMNs soloing alongside their avatars is probably not their vision of the job.

[HimuraKenshyn]

So basically new system equals death of pet tanking period if the player pretty much looks cross-eyed at the mob which is the most f up game design on hate ever. No wonder shit is whacky and super tanking blows chunks lol... Seems the damage taken lost of enmity is out of whack by a long shot...

[Infidi]

Avatar's auto attack needs to be redone seperatly or something. Even if they don't want us meleeing beside our summons, we need to be able to keep them on an enemy without having to worry about getting hate from a job ability, when that's the only Emnity generated. I think even just upping the Emnity the avatars get from the BP's damage or buff itself would go a long way. Example: The same hate casting Haste would generate for us, Hastega would generate for the summon. Or do you guys think it would be simpler to have the avatar's auto attack calculate hate a different way? I think both would be awesome. :D The only time I ever meleed with my summon was in Abyssea for a staff trial or something. I know some people enjoy attacking alongside their chosen summon, so it would be up to SE's vision for the job, I suppose.

Suffice to say SOMETHING has to be done seperatly for pets. As for BST, I'm not sure the vision for them would be either. Having to spam Snarl I guess gives them some kind of hate control. At least in new areas. I've had a couple BST friends say the Emnity is still fine inside Dynamis. Maybe they just got lucky. :D

[Siven]

I'm inclined to agree with the rest of the people in this post, thus my original comment. Whether or not the summoner abilities 'produce no enmity', some byproduct is causing summoner hate to be completely unmanageable and it sure isn't summoning magic - usually the pet is already out by the time an enemy is engaged. Please look into this further, ESPECIALLY with the new defense changes, a summoner's pet is the only thing between them and certain death.

[OmnysValefor]

For the summoner issues, here's a precise scenario.

Ochain PLD/DNC in 43% DT, with phalanx (my solo ohshi set) + smn with Garuda

I did all of my own healing. While I was getting hit for 0 or low numbers, each hit was draining 29~ hp from me, so much of what I was doing was healing. Ameretat never even looked at Garuda.

Due to a drain tp move, the drain samba effect, and I don't know what, we concluded we couldn't win. I put on twilight and told smn I was going to die, and I'd raise him if it was necessary.

I died, Ameretat turned and went for summoner. Never bothered to touch Garuda even for a second.

[Camate]

Greetings,

The information mentioned yesterday about summoner's abilities and Blood Pacts not creating hate seems to have raised some questions, so I'd like to follow up on it.

To be precise, Blood Pacts have a non-volatile enmity value of 1. It's been arranged this way so that some enmity remains on the summoner when having a pet perform an action against a monster. If we were to make it so enmity was not placed on the summoner, once the enmity from the avatar is gone, it would cause bugs to occur (such as monsters becoming unclaimed). It's very similar to the way linked monsters don't come after the summoner once the avatar has vanished (except it would happen to the monster you perform the Blood Pact on).

In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the summoner.

As an adjustment, we are looking into the below:


When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

The above adjustment is not a job ability adjustment; it will be a change to the process occurring in the programming, so please give us a bit of time for this.

We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

[Annalise]

In another Dev post awhile back, Camate told Beastmasters that they couldn't zone with their jug pets because Summoner's Avatar's don't zone with the summoner, and that BST and SMN have shorter recasts than PUP and DRG and thus that is why they (PUP and DRG) can zone with their pets, and SMN and BST cannot. Clearly, the bolded part is false.

Saying that bloodpacts don't generate enmity is clearly another case of the development team being clueless about a job in their own game. Assault -> successful hit -> bloodpact would not give the summoner enmity if that were the case.

[Asymptotic]

Did you not read the dev post immediately before your post you or something?

Quoted because people only look at the last page:


Greetings,

The information mentioned yesterday about summoner's abilities and Blood Pacts not creating hate seems to have raised some questions, so I'd like to follow up on it.

To be precise, Blood Pacts have a non-volatile enmity value of 1. It's been arranged this way so that some enmity remains on the summoner when having a pet perform an action against a monster. If we were to make it so enmity was not placed on the summoner, once the enmity from the avatar is gone, it would cause bugs to occur (such as monsters becoming unclaimed). It's very similar to the way linked monsters don't come after the summoner once the avatar has vanished (except it would happen to the monster you perform the Blood Pact on).

In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the avatar.

As an adjustment, we are looking into the below:


When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

The above adjustment is not a job ability adjustment; it will be a change to the process occurring in the programming, so please give us a bit of time for this.

We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

[Infidi]

On a somewhat different, but relevant note: Anyone know if there's any new pet: Emnity+ gear in the .dats?

[HimuraKenshyn]

With the new system seems best to have capped pet -dt gear full time.

[Sasaraixx]

We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

This part is very troubling. The dev team decided to move with hurting SMN solo play based on reasoning that is faulty and not remotely a cause for concern.

Avatars pulling hate in a party setting is almost never a problem. Any situation where it would be, you likely won't have your avatar out at all to begin with. And in the few situations that is not the case, it's merely a matter of proper positioning and timing. Group dynamics. We like that kind of thing, right?

It also ignores the fact that 1. it is pretty difficult to pull hate anyway, 2. there are times when it would be beneficial to the party for the avatar to pull hate, and 3.it is very easy to remedy the problem by simply releasing the avatar. Let's also not forget that avatars have no hate generating capabilities, terrible DOT, and very little survivability outside of their elemental resistances. They would in no way interfere with tanking duties. In the rare situation where a party found itself with the avatar tanking, they would likely want to keep it that way so they can regroup.

The dev team wants to push party play and coordination but fail to realize that this is one of the (few) ways SMN can contribute to this dynamic. They just don't seem to have a grasp of how the job is played, solo or otherwise.

Please reconsider adjusting enmity for avatars. As things currently stand, SMN solo and small group play has been severly compromised. Giving avatars increased enmity traits an/or decreasing their rate of enmity decay would benefit and not hurt party dynamics.

[Annalise]

Did you not read the dev post immediately before your post you or something?

Quoted because people only look at the last page:

Actually, when I was posting, Camate's post wasn't there. Our posts are only 8 minutes apart. I had written something else but then deleted it. I noticed his post after mine was already posted. I actually read every single post in the thread.

[Absinthe]

Please don't forget to fix the enmity on PUP while you're at it. You recently improved our automaton positioning, and now every time my poor WHM Zero casts a spell on a monster or tosses me a cure, he get's walloped! If this is by design, you need to redesign. ^^

EDIT: Just wanted to echo some sentiments from above, please don't force PUP to party. Nobody invites us.

[Luvbunny]

Thank you Camate for finally giving us a proper explanation on the issue. And another big thanks for the developers finally aware that THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM for pet jobs - hopefully the updates will be implemented at the end of the month and not months ahead. The last thing we need is more people "rage quit" because updates and fixes are very slow coming.

[Areayea]

This part is very troubling. The dev team decided to move with hurting SMN solo play based on reasoning that is faulty and not remotely a cause for concern.

Avatars pulling hate in a party setting is almost never a problem. Any situation where it would be, you likely won't have your avatar out at all to begin with. And in the few situations that is not the case, it's merely a matter of proper positioning and timing. Group dynamos. We like that kind of thing, right?

It also ignores the fact that it is, 1. Pretty difficult to pull hate anyway, 2. there are times when it would be beneficial to the party for the avatar to pull hate, and 3. very easy to remedy the problem by simply releasing the avatar. Lets also not forget that avatars have no hate generating capabilities, terrible DOT, and very little survivability outside of their elemental resistances. They would in no way interfere with tanking duties. In the rare situation where a party found itself with the avatar tanking, they would likely want to keep it that way so they can regroup.

The dev team wants to push party play and coordination but fail to realize that this is one of the (few) ways SMN can contribute to this dynamic. They just don't seem to have a grasp of how the job is played, solo or otherwise.

Please reconsider adjusting enmity for avatars.

not sure if you understood, but from what I read, they want to basically make a snarl for Summoners... I'd love to have a disposable tank anyday...

Edit: for solo play you'd want your avatar to have all the hate anyway, and yes the prevention of glitch by assault getting 1 non volatile enmity is necessary... however for solo play I believe that a snarl would be perfect, for parties I think snarl would still be perfect, esp if it's like an emergency where you're tank is about to die and the whm can't keep up... ect. great time displacer.

[RalphTheGalka]

Has anything beneficial come out of these adjustments so far? It seems like it's been nothing but a train wreck so far for most jobs. Roll it back and go back to the drawing boards. And actually test it this time.

[HimuraKenshyn]

Has anything beneficial come out of these adjustments so far? It seems like it's been nothing but a train wreck so far for most jobs. Roll it back and go back to the drawing boards. And actually test it this time.

A lot more XP loss so peeps actually have to get XP again >.>...

[Sasaraixx]

not sure if you understood, but from what I read, they want to basically make a snarl for Summoners... I'd love to have a disposable tank anyday...

Edit: for solo play you'd want your avatar to have all the hate anyway, and yes the prevention of glitch by assault getting 1 non volatile enmity is necessary... however for solo play I believe that a snarl would be perfect, for parties I think snarl would still be perfect, esp if it's like an emergency where you're tank is about to die and the whm can't keep up... ect. great time displacer.

I do not think we read the same post because I saw nothing in it that mentioned adding any ability for SMN, let alone Snarl. The only adjustment note I read was the following:

"When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)"

If they want to give SMN a Snarl-like ability on a reasonable timer, then I'm all for it. That would do very little for the party issues I mentioned earlier however. You as a SMN are likely to have very little hate to transfer to your avatar. It would not turn your avatar into a tank in an emergency situation.

[Sargent]

As an adjustment, we are looking into the below:


When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

"Oh, right. Blood Pacts do generate hate! Lets change that so our previous statement is more or less correct."

In all seriousness, I'm welcoming this adjustment, means unless you activate the Blood Pact prior to the avatar attacking the mob, Blood Pact will now be hate free (since the Summoner is put on the hate list as soon as the avatar attacks the mob).
Only thing Summoner's will have to watch out for when soloing is excessive Cures.

[Karah]

Hello,

Thanks for the feedback thus far since my previous post.

We've seen a couple of questions, so I would like to provide some responses.



Camate, I know that you're just the messenger... but what is this absolute nonsense?

Barspells being cast before the battle is true... but you dont WANT US killing things in 3 minutes... OF COURSE we're going to have to re-apply bar's MID FIGHT...

ARE YOU SERIOUS about giving rdm/nin a hard time about POSSIBLY tanking something again?
If RUN can (it really can't it sucks ((IMO)) tank something... it's really silly to cripple RDM from having it's tools as well.

The summoner/Beastmaster remarks are just flat out incorrect. Abhorrently wrong. > this one was actually addressed, but how do you even make that mistake in the first place...

[Trumpy]

someone mentioned that no one mentioned barspells new duration. i totally did. And im hopefuly they fix it. i think all barspells should last the same time. makes no sense that barparalyze should last 5 minutes and barwater last 3 minutes. They should both last 5 mins, cause i always have to go in to recast. and now its even shorter and it really irks me. Auspice as well is way way too short. especially if i am dual boxing i cant stop and run in with my whm just to auspice again. i dont even bother with is usually anymore. even if i am only playin on my whm i dont.

[SpankWustler]

someone mentioned that no one mentioned barspells new duration. i totally did. And im hopefuly they fix it. i think all barspells should last the same time. makes no sense that barparalyze should last 5 minutes and barwater last 3 minutes. They should both last 5 mins, cause i always have to go in to recast. and now its even shorter and it really irks me.

This is a known bug. (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/243-Known-Issues?p=411899&viewfull=1#post411899)

I'm hopeful that the list is just being allowed to grow so it can all be fixed at the end of this month, rather than because the Flying Spaghetti Code Monster has eaten every unpaid intern sent to combat it.

[Edyth]

Greetings,

The information mentioned yesterday about summoner's abilities and Blood Pacts not creating hate seems to have raised some questions, so I'd like to follow up on it.

To be precise, Blood Pacts have a non-volatile enmity value of 1. It's been arranged this way so that some enmity remains on the summoner when having a pet perform an action against a monster. If we were to make it so enmity was not placed on the summoner, once the enmity from the avatar is gone, it would cause bugs to occur (such as monsters becoming unclaimed). It's very similar to the way linked monsters don't come after the summoner once the avatar has vanished (except it would happen to the monster you perform the Blood Pact on).

In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the avatar.

As an adjustment, we are looking into the below:


When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

The above adjustment is not a job ability adjustment; it will be a change to the process occurring in the programming, so please give us a bit of time for this.

We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

Camate, I thank you for the swift transmission to the development team, I thank them for their swift reply, and I thank you for your swift translation of that reply.

Could you relay also the following information:

*The situations where an avatar taking hate is undesirable are so few that they should not be considered. With unparalleled recast speed, no weakened status, and no items required to summon them, nothing in FFXI is more dispensable than an avatar's life. A new one will be back in mere seconds, and it'll be in tip-top shape, unlike the bloody, bruised avatar who just died. Avatars' damage resistance is also outstanding.
*It would be nice to have a job trait to increase avatars' enmity, or a provoke-type ability for one or all avatars. The Eidolon Alexander in FFXIII has an ability called Lofty Challenge that does just this: that ability could be a universal avatar command akin to Avatar's Favor, or it could also be a Blood Pact: Ward if balance requires it. Because, story-wise and (for the most part) battle-wise, the six sleeping gods (the protocrystal bunch) are superior to the 5 terrestrial avatars (Carbuncle, Fenrir, Diabolos, Bahamut, and Phoenix), I think it would be great if all six sleeping gods had this as a Ward, with the name "Lofty Challenge" signifying their supremacy.

*Other enmity issue: nobody wants Ninjutsu to generate less hate. I'd prefer the enmity for Ninjutsu to be doubled rather than halved.

[RAIST]

Greetings,

The information mentioned yesterday about summoner's abilities and Blood Pacts not creating hate seems to have raised some questions, so I'd like to follow up on it.

To be precise, Blood Pacts have a non-volatile enmity value of 1. It's been arranged this way so that some enmity remains on the summoner when having a pet perform an action against a monster. If we were to make it so enmity was not placed on the summoner, once the enmity from the avatar is gone, it would cause bugs to occur (such as monsters becoming unclaimed). It's very similar to the way linked monsters don't come after the summoner once the avatar has vanished (except it would happen to the monster you perform the Blood Pact on).

In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the avatar.

As an adjustment, we are looking into the below:


When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

The above adjustment is not a job ability adjustment; it will be a change to the process occurring in the programming, so please give us a bit of time for this.

We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

I think this may have been mt'ed---think it should read:

In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the summoner.

As that is what appears to be happening.

Not sure if this will be a proper fix though. If we are talking of increases by only 1 point each time the way it is currently, then it should no longer be an issue after the first BP: Rage that lands for decent damage. Unfortunately, as it stands right now, it can happen again when you fire your next BP: Rage. The avatar should have generated sufficient enmity by then to offset a few more points of enmity being added to the summoner from the second BP. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case as it is now. There may be a bigger issue at play causing the hate to be skewed so heavily towards the summoner that this removal of 1 point increases per BP does not resolve.

Will just have to see how it all pans out I guess. Just not very confident this will resolve the erratic hate issues well enough, requiring further adjustments.

The idea about giving avatars a +enmity trait like BST pets would be the more appropriate solution that you guys should work on adding as well. Once implemented, this could have it's strength adjusted appropriately to achieve the desired level of balance--if it initially is too strong/too weak it could more or lease just have it's value raised/lowered. (by the way, that is what was mentioned....a trait for the avatars, not a Snarl like ability. This would be an inherent trait to the avatars themselves, like Stout Servant).

[Calintzpso]

The Test Videos I performed have been uploaded.

Three Experiment in short #1 experiment was not uploaded as Fraps takes a LOAD of space for every minute recording. I could not get the monster to seek me out over the course of a 8 minute battle constantly healing my pet with items and wards when I did not resummon the avatar via the traditional: distance between me and the monster/avatar - Resummon, in order to not gain any hate. I didn't attack with the pet, I just stood next to it and issued Blood Pacts.

So Experiment #1 was not uploaded or recorded.

Experiment #2: Youtube: http://youtu.be/VlnC5e5WAlM

I summoned my avatar and began my assault onto the monster. I then used a blood pact and gave myself plenty of distance to re-summon as to not gain any more enmity then my initial attack or be in danger while soloing. I allowed my re-summoned avatar to resume battle VIA auto attack. Upon using a blood pact: Rage The monster shifted towards me but was quickly quelled by my avatars attack. Over constant reuse of this tactic of run and gun with re-summoned via Distance fighting. It will come to a point where the initial auto attack from the avatar would not faze the monster until it has taken a few hits at me. This supports what Camate has said about how after the initial attack we gain 1 non-volatile, and if they make it so after the initial aggression has given that 1 point we gain no more, then the monsters shouldn't ever look at us through extended use of the tactic shown in the video so long as our pets re-engage and we don't gain anymore enmity in its range.

Experiment #3: Youtube: http://youtu.be/nOXGtnY3sz0

This experiment was to show how battling along side our pets, or just pets in general of all jobs now hold no Enmity from the master just about anymore and cannot be done(except in the case of BST Jug pets and Snarl).

It shows that Pets deteriorate their volatile enmity way to fast and needs to be adjusted from what it once was, or they need to have a more solid non-volatile added to their attack rounds and possibly Special Attacks(Ready/Sic/Rages).

I waited 10 rounds of attack, entered battle and whiffed, and you can tell the monster was pissed for a moment, I gained apparently a massive short burst of Volatile Enmity from missing which is completely stupid in my opinion. Just in general it shows that supporting your pet in battle on any pet job shy of Snarl Jug users, is not viable at all as the pets burn Volatile way to fast, and gain the lowest non-volatile I've ever seen in the history of the game.

[Yinnyth]

The problem to me appears to be that they balanced hate gain from damage towards an endgame player with good gear and good buffs. The reason pet jobs are suffering now is the same reason they've always suffered: a pet simply cannot match the damage output of a real player, so their hate deteriorates into nothing.

The fix I would like to see for this problem is not necessarily more enmity for pets or abilities which help them hold hate, but giving pets the same advantage players have. Mostly, the ability for a pet to be buffed and more gear which boosts pet as much as gear currently boosts players.

[Vivik]

Why not just roll back the enmity system until it's working properly instead of making the player-base deal with this crap? It was obviously rolled out before it was ready and has been causing much more problems than "fixes". Scrap it and start over if you have to but do something soon.

Yet another notch in SEs "fix what's not broken" belt.

[Demon6324236]

Why not just roll back the enmity system until it's working properly instead of making the player-base deal with this crap? It was obviously rolled out before it was ready and has been causing much more problems than "fixes". Scrap it and start over if you have to but do something soon.Rolling it back does nothing, no one uses the test server, not even SE, so nothing is tested to see if it works well, and no changes are made, the only way for real changes to be made actively and accurately is to put it on the live servers and see how it plays out, then adjust it accordingly.


Yet another notch in SEs "fix what's not broken" belt.Enmity has been broken for a very... very... long time, its not fixing what's not broken.

[Vivik]

Rolling it back does nothing, no one uses the test server, not even SE, so nothing is tested to see if it works well, and no changes are made, the only way for real changes to be made actively and accurately is to put it on the live servers and see how it plays out, then adjust it accordingly.

Enmity has been broken for a very... very... long time, its not fixing what's not broken.

I'm speaking in terms of pets only. Sorry should have been a bit more clear in my post.

I agree that enmity has been broken for a long time. It just seems like with every fix lately there have been huge problems which any other professional gaming company would have caught in testing. It just makes SE look like amateurs.

[RushLynx]

Your proposed solution is admittedly quite clever; players are reaching the enmity cap too fast? Simply slow down the rate at which they accrue enmity! Brilliant!

However, I cannot "Like" the post for the following reasons.



The above bolded statements offend me. Has SE learned nothing over the past decade of FFXI as well as the past couple years of failure for FFXIV? Obscurity is the least effective form of security; FFXI's players have only suffered from you withholding the meaning of vital game statistics from them, such as Enmity and the Attack/Defense Ratio.

If you all weren't so stubbornly tight-lipped and more freely shared information in general, then maybe it wouldn't take a decade for you to receive feedback on how poorly implemented certain in-game systems are. I don't think you have any reason to doubt the validity of that statement, given that the implementation of the test server is basically the logical conclusion thereof.

So why do you nonetheless continue with the hush-hush attitude? I would certainly hope that this isn't a matter of immature and stubborn pride, and not wanting to hear that a poor implementation was implemented poorly.

They don't want to give out specific formulas and values because it would make the game infinitely easier and more predictable... People already do plenty of calculations on their own ahead of time... I can open a spreadsheet on my desktop right now and tell you all about my cure amounts, magic damage, damage taken, DA/TA rates, TP/hit supposing various haste and spell effects, etc supposing I were to go obtain or buy various pieces of equipment... It makes it very easy for people to prove/conclude what is the "best" setup for various situations... No one wants that to happen, it completely ruins the game. And yet it's only natural that people continuously experiment and try to derive these formulas on their own, thus there are tons of wiki pages and forums scattered around on collective input and data analysis trying to figure this stuff out... there's still a limit to the amount of data you can divulge through experimentation as a player, and they want to keep it that way... I want them to keep it that way too, because I hate elitists who insist on having the best of the best and the most optimal setup all the time...

People already use Windower to automate their battles... let's say the complete details of the enmity system were given here... What's stopping anyone from making a Windower plugin that would just completely automate a whole battle dual-boxed such that enmity would be perfectly balanced at all times? Suddenly the whole game is just watching a program exploit another program..? Yay... what fun... short of this everyone will just have their alliances exact enmity values constantly displayed beside their names like they already do TP and MP... no wait, don't cast that cure, wait a few seconds for his voke, his enmity isn't high enough yet... LAME.

[Economizer]

there's still a limit to the amount of data you can divulge through experimentation as a player

Yes and no, but for the purposes of your views, no.

We knew everything there was to know about enmity with the exception of specific job abilities or spells nobody bothered to test (the only reason this has changed - very temporarily - is because there was an update). We know everything about how nuking damage is calculated, and have specific numbers for the majority of nukes players can cast. We know just about everything about Cure spells and Curaga spells, even the obscure way they act as nukes.

We know enough that we often have to correct the Community Representatives or puzzle at why they're approaching something we've known for with extreme caution.

If there is something we don't know, it is because we haven't tried hard enough, or it is something that actually is hard to test (the overwhelming majority of which begins and ends with Treasure Hunter, and occasionally the way obscure mobs are spawned).

And if you think that revealing how the game works in detail would make FFXI less of a game, I counter that we knew exactly how much enmity was being dealt out and how it was decaying, we knew how much our cures would cure for, we knew how much the damage dealer would hit the mob for, we knew exactly how the mob's special abilities worked and when it would use them... but did this make us use bots? ...did this make us use one defined setup no matter what? ... did this make us not argue about which macro sets were the best for our job abilities (e.g. should I be going for recast reduction or enmity reduction on my cures)?

The answer to all of those is no, because your premise is wrong, knowing more about the game does not make it inferior, in part because that wasn't the case before, but also because if the game was bad while knowing everything about the mechanics it would be bad even if we didn't know the mechanics.

You can know everything about the rules of Chess, but that does not diminish the game. Players aren't even asking SE to tell them everything about every little mob in the game (the real puzzles), they're just asking for some straightforward answers to straightforward questions about basic game mechanics.

[RushLynx]

... but did this make us use bots?

Where were you in, idk, 2005... when it was impossible to claim an NM without the use of a specialized mule with altered game files and provoke to bot claim for your LS? You know, the issue that was so huge that they had to make a new system, still in place today, for spawns whereby you can't claim for a randomized amount of time after it spawns? When that didn't completely work they made lots of drops rare/ex and moved their previous trade-able versions to BCNMs, where they still exist today? What about when position and speed hacking was popular? And Fish-botting? The issue that was so huge they had to completely redo fishing so that it was more difficult to bot?


Players aren't even asking SE to tell them everything about every little mob in the game (the real puzzles), they're just asking for some straightforward answers to straightforward questions about basic game mechanics.

Part of my quote, which was the bolded quote from the OP, was excluded... but most of my post was regarding his objection to the OP's reluctance to provide specific values for things such as Provoke... Admit it, if we knew these things there would already be a windower plugin that displayed exact enmity values for everyone in the alliance... We automate our macros to adjust for things such as day and weather effects without having to do anything special, why wouldn't we automate it to delay spell casting until the necessary enmity values were present?

Your post seems to insinuate that SE is unaware that we've figured a lot of these things out... like they don't know about our wiki pages and forums... like they have no idea that we conduct this extensive research into finding these sorts of things out... They do know, and obviously they recognize that we are missing some pieces... In fact, in FFXIV's redesign they are encouraging this sort of discussion by designing the new Lodestone to support player-created wikis and discussions of this sort... in the most recent update they mentioned making a mobile app so people could access such content while playing on the PS3/4... They want us to talk about these sorts of things, but they don't want to hand us every little detail because that's when people start exploiting things...

[Areayea]

Originally posted by Camate: We had looked into taking another approach by adding an enmity+ stat to avatars like beastmaster's familiars have, and to ease up on the enmity lost when taking damage; however, this was geared more towards solo play and there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles, so we decided to adopt the adjustment mentioned above.

that's where i took i think they may give smn's snarl... if that truly is the case, it is why I said that avatars can be an emergatank, but otherwise i believe that this would give summoners a huge use again...

[Economizer]

it was impossible to claim an NM without the use of a specialized mule with altered game files and provoke to bot claim for your LS?

That has nothing to do with understanding game mechanics at all.


but most of my post was regarding his objection to the OP's reluctance to provide specific values for things such as Provoke... Admit it, if we knew these things there would already be a windower plugin that displayed exact enmity values for everyone in the alliance...

I don't use third party tools since they're against the terms of service, but I keep myself aware of their functions. As such I'd like to give a bit of an explanation of how such third party tools function from a fairly academic standpoint to better serve this conversation.

Basically, the third party tool that you're referring to has a feature known as plug-ins (one I would hope SE emulates to some extent with the revamped UI they have planned). These plug-ins allow the player to add functionality to the base of the third party tools. These plug-ins are limited to the information the player's game client has access to and any information from non-SE sources (such as the databases that the websites FFXIAH and Guildwork use).

In this way there is a plug-in that shows TP of party and alliance members. Now, there are two ways this could theoretically be done. One could be to calculate how much Store TP and total delay each player has and count each hit they perform, however this is impossible for party members since you cannot know how much Store TP they have at any given moment, and parsing the chat log to determine hits is not always ideal. Keep in mind that self-calculating this number is impossible, this will come back in a minute. The second method that could theoretically be possible is if the client was sent information about party and alliance member's TP already but it isn't shown. This is the case and this is roughly how the plug-in in question performs its function.

Now, keeping in mind that self-calculating TP build of other party members is impossible due to Store TP not being something you could realistically check in real time, try to imagine Enmity as being perfectly solved - you still wouldn't know because you can't check how much enmity gear any particular player is wearing. From there we have to wonder about if the number is sent to the client, however I don't believe this is the case.

So even if we knew the formula down to each Provoke, we wouldn't be able to have a third party tool keep track of enmity unless the data was already being provided to the client. But let's go deeper, did we know how much enmity a Provoke gave before the sparse numbers they gave us (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/30629-Enmity-System-Explanation-and-Planned-Adjustments?p=402769&viewfull=1#post402769)?

We knew. (http://kanican.livejournal.com/14209.html)

Note the date on that. We've known exact numbers with certainty for over five years. It has been incredibly public knowledge and we modeled the enmity model and knew everything about it short of new spells and job abilities we never bothered to test after the level cap increase, not that it would have been particularly hard to figure things out. Even now it is only a matter of someone actually doing the testing to figure out the new values.

And there is nothing SE can realistically do about it to stop us from figuring it out again.


Your post seems to insinuate that SE is unaware that we've figured a lot of these things out...

It does not. We wouldn't puzzle over why they restrict information to us that we already know if we thought they shouldn't know we know. It isn't like they can't read plain English.


but they don't want to hand us every little detail because that's when people start exploiting things...

If the game mechanics are exploitable in undesirable ways then whether or not we know about it explicitly is moot, players will eventually exploit it. Wouldn't it be better to have a system that isn't exploitable in an undesired manner regardless of if the players understand how to play the game or not?

[HimuraKenshyn]

I vote a roll back hell anything is better than this cluster blank we have atm. I don't recall my healer ever getting this boned at all before >.>....

[saevel]

I vote a roll back hell anything is better than this cluster blank we have atm. I don't recall my healer ever getting this boned at all before >.>....

If your healer is pulling hate then your doing something horribly wrong. Healing took the exact same reduction that damage did in CE accumulation. Healing and damage both accrue 30% of the enmity they did prior to the update, so if their pulling hate then either your doing a really sh!tty job of hitting the target, or their spamming Cure V instead of Cure IV / Curaga's.

Seriously how sh!tty are you playing? Pet jobs I can understand due to pets not wearing gear, using gear swap macros, using food, buff abilities or receiving mage support buffs and generally having the stats of a nearly naked player. If an actual player is having trouble keeping hate off a healer then their definitely doing something wrong.

[HimuraKenshyn]

If your healer is pulling hate then your doing something horribly wrong. Healing took the exact same reduction that damage did in CE accumulation. Healing and damage both accrue 30% of the enmity they did prior to the update, so if their pulling hate then either your doing a really sh!tty job of hitting the target, or their spamming Cure V instead of Cure IV / Curaga's.

Seriously how sh!tty are you playing? Pet jobs I can understand due to pets not wearing gear, using gear swap macros, using food, buff abilities or receiving mage support buffs and generally having the stats of a nearly naked player. If an actual player is having trouble keeping hate off a healer then their definitely doing something wrong.

Yep shitty when I raised casted refresh 2 on myself while pally supertanking and mob turned and killed me certainly was the worst thing ever >.>...

Three characters fell cleaving and the mobs goes after the sch its been a fun ride as of late... Shit never happened before this crap was implemented seeing whacky hate all over this mofo to be honest.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/31754-Enmity-imbalance

[Camate]

Greetings everyone,


I think this may have been mt'ed...I think it should read:


When this happens, the target will go after the summoner.


You are correct, sir. Sorry about that! I've corrected my post.

Now then…

A lot of you have been commenting about the point made yesterday that mentioned “there are times when it would be best for avatars not to take hate during party battles,” so I wanted to give a little more insight and explanation for the development team’s reasoning behind this.

In the event that we add enmity to avatars, there may be situations that occur where executing a Blood Pact will cause the avatar to pull hate and make the monster face the opposite direction from the tank, or turn in a way that would be detrimental to the backline jobs. In order to avoid any unwanted movement of the target when executing Blood Pacts, the development team decided to go with the approach mentioned yesterday, so that Blood Pacts could be used without worrying about this.

Finally, I’d like to just reiterate the main points again.


The issue we would like to remedy
In the case that the avatar's enmity has a minimum value of 1 for both non-volatile and volatile enmity, when executing a Blood Pact, the summoner will receive +1 to their non-volatile enmity, making a total of 2 non-volatile and 1 volatile enmity. When this happens, the target will go after the summoner.


Planned adjustment to remedy the issue
When the summoner has enmity, they will not receive +1 to non-volatile enmity when executing a Blood Pact. (The +1 to non-volatile enmity will only occur when the summoner's enmity value is 0.)

[Alhanelem]

In the event that we add enmity to avatars, there may be situations that occur where executing a Blood Pact will cause the avatar to pull hate and make the monster face the opposite direction from the tank, or turn in a way that would be detrimental to the backline jobs. In order to avoid any unwanted movement of the target when executing Blood Pacts, the development team decided to go with the approach mentioned yesterday, so that Blood Pacts could be used without worrying about this. I can understand this (and this was a notable problem back in the days of Fafnir and some of the old HNMs) but wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just make the change and ask for players to be more careful about their blood pact timing and positioning? Because there was a time (as I mentioned) where this was a common issue, but it could be avoided with skillful play.

The tweak you're describing is certainly a welcome change, but the real problem right now is just how little enmity avatars seem to be generating, even with really powerful attacks. I used to be able to do a shattersoul with the empyrean staff after a good predator claws and not take hate til the next BP was ready. Now even very little things like enhancing magic and smaller cures can sometimes pull hate.

[Trumpy]

way to be insulting savael

[Motenten]

I can understand this (and this was a notable problem back in the days of Fafnir and some of the old HNMs) but wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just make the change and ask for players to be more careful about their blood pact timing and positioning? Because there was a time (as I mentioned) where this was a common issue, but it could be avoided with skillful play.

If it was just the player, adjusting the timing and position would be easy. But avatars (or any pet) tend to not be quite so easily adjusted; their pathing isn't exactly the greatest. To get the avatar exactly to where you want it, the smn would have to run into the fight and around the mob til they found just the right spot before issuing the assault order, which wastes time and needlessly puts the smn in the line of fire.

So I can understand where that's not the 'solution' that they'd want to offer players.

[Tennotsukai]

I can understand this (and this was a notable problem back in the days of Fafnir and some of the old HNMs) but wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just make the change and ask for players to be more careful about their blood pact timing and positioning? Because there was a time (as I mentioned) where this was a common issue, but it could be avoided with skillful play.

The tweak you're describing is certainly a welcome change, but the real problem right now is just how little enmity avatars seem to be generating, even with really powerful attacks. I used to be able to do a shattersoul with the empyrean staff after a good predator claws and not take hate til the next BP was ready. Now even very little things like enhancing magic and smaller cures can sometimes pull hate.

This is very true to what summoners are currently dealing with. Perhaps, a new ja?

[Tennotsukai]

way to be insulting savael

he is always this way, i believe.

[Areayea]

THANK YOU CAMATE, that's a great adjustment, however i still do believe that a "Snarl" type job ability for summoners would be very useful, as for the turning, back in the day (like 07~) when Hydra/Cerberus/Khimera were the kings, I as a good smn, used to be able to know how the avatar was going to map out it's path, so I made sure that it was at the hydra's feet (as to not set off serpentine tail), and at the correct feet of the head I was attacking, so that it would fall off with predator claws. for wyrms, it was much simpler because it was easier to position, my point is Matsui wants to revive skillful play, I think that the addition to that job ability would make career summoners have to use skillful play once again.

[Acacia]

The problem with SMN is not that job abilities generate enmity, it has always been that way. Players get boosts to there defense and attack with equipment but pets get almost none (+5~15 atk/def makes no difference at level 99). The problem is that avatars are bleeding enmity faster then they can generate it and there is no way to boosts their defense, attack or attributes in order to mitigate this problem. Even the enmity generated by a 2.5k dmg Heavenly Strike will be gone within a few hits from the monster.

Why is it that players got some very powerful new weapons and armor to fit these new enmity changes but pet jobs have almost no armor that boosts atk/def of their pet? Not to mention there is NO armor at all that gives any attribute boosts to pets.

[Vinedrai]

it is very unlikely for an avatar to pull hate unless the party is wiping (or plain sucks) to begin with and when that happens, all the backline jobs would have to reposition themselves anyway so that the avatar(s) can hold the mob as safely as possible at least briefly while the party is recovering. also, if you use a BP that would pull that much hate in a bad moment and die or cause the deaths of backline, then it is totally your fault and you should blame yourself before the enmity system...

[Ophannus]

Why is it that players got some very powerful new weapons and armor to fit these new enmity changes but pet jobs have almost no armor that boosts atk/def of their pet? Not to mention there is NO armor at all that gives any attribute boosts to pets.

The defense/attack/survivability of a pet is commensurate with how 'cheap' they are.

BST pets have the most longevity because they cost gil and have a 5min recast. Avatars have the least longevity/hp because they are throw-away pets, they can be resummoned any time.

[Acacia]

The defense/attack/survivability of a pet is commensurate with how 'cheap' they are.

BST pets have the most longevity because they cost gil and have a 5min recast. Avatars have the least longevity/hp because they are throw-away pets, they can be resummoned any time.That made sense before the update because the gap between avatars stats and player stats was in good balance. Now players are getting much larger boosts to their attack/defense/attributes so the gap between avatars and players is much larger then before. Then with the enmity changes it makes that gap seem even larger.

[Sasaraixx]

that's where i took i think they may give smn's snarl... if that truly is the case, it is why I said that avatars can be an emergatank, but otherwise i believe that this would give summoners a huge use again...

That referred to giving avatars a trait, not giving SMN's a JA.

[Sasaraixx]

In the event that we add enmity to avatars, there may be situations that occur where executing a Blood Pact will cause the avatar to pull hate and make the monster face the opposite direction from the tank, or turn in a way that would be detrimental to the backline jobs. In order to avoid any unwanted movement of the target when executing Blood Pacts, the development team decided to go with the approach mentioned yesterday, so that Blood Pacts could be used without worrying about this.

And as we have all said, this concern is not serious enough to warrant not correcting the enmity issues that effect SMN's when they are playing solo or in small groups. I say it is not serious for 2 reasons: 1. the situations in which the avatar is likely to even pull hate and detrimentally effect the party are few and 2. the "problem" can be easily managed by either timing your Blood Pacts more carefully or making sure their positioning is correct. We don't mind actually having to use some skill to play our jobs effectively. Unless the dev team was planning a massive +enmity trait for avatars, I don't see how this is a problem.

And lastly, while the adjustments to Blood Pact enmity are very nice, they still won't solve the enmity problems we've been talking about. Unless you expect the SMN to do nothing but issue Blood Pact commands (and granted their were some situations where that was the case prior to the adjustments), the avatar *still* will not be able to keep hate off of the SMN or the other party members if playing in a small group.

I implore you to bring our concerns back to the dev team again. As you can see, almost all of the Summoners on both the Japanese and English forums are unhappy with the current situation and the planned adjustment. If the dev team thinks that adding a +enmity trait to avatars would be too much, perhaps they could considering adjusting the rate of decay of enmity for damage avatars do. Or perhaps they can add some kind of trait or job ability to the Summoner itself. Please, I ask that you reconsider this. This has the potential to ruin a pretty important aspect of play for the job.

[FrankReynolds]

In order to avoid any unwanted movement of the target when executing Blood Pacts, the development team decided to go with the approach mentioned yesterday, so that Blood Pacts could be used without worrying about this.


Ahhh... so this is for when you are killing a monster with nothing but bells as weapons and you don't want the avatar pulling hate off of the black mage that is tanking? /sarcasm

Avatars almost never pull hate in a group. This is a non issue. Please don't let them proceed based on this logic.

[saevel]

way to be insulting savael

Its the honest truth, if people can't face it then that's their issue.

That poster, along with most of the rest, have a severe lack of understanding how hate works in FFXI. That leads to some really dumb sh!t being said. "Super tanking" for example involves holding monsters without performing any action on them. This way your healer does not accumulate enmity by healing them as they don't have any hate on the monsters. If someone is "pulling" hate off a super tank then either the super tank f8cked up horribly, or that player did an action on the monster. The only known way to cause mobs to ignore the super tank involves a enmity glitch where a pet job releases their pet and in turn generates 1CE on everything in the area causing the monsters to ignore the super tank (who's at 0 TE) and go after that pet job.

His reference to healers suddenly pulling hate is a joke, Cure II / III / IV / Curaga all took the same enmity reduction that melee hits and WS's did. The only way a healer could pull hate is if the melee's are doing so little damage as to generate less TE then the healers cures do, which would of been the same problem three months ago as it is now.

The only cure that's been unbalanced is Cure V, which I would advice all WHM's to stop using. Cure V's static enmity was designed around level 60 CE coefficient levels. At target level 60 1HP cured would create 0.870 CE and 5.22 VE (it's usually CE x6). At level 75 it was 0.727 CE and 4.36 VE. At level 99 (pre patch) it was 0.579 CE and 3.47 VE per HP cured. Now it's 0.173 CE and 1.041 VE per HP cured. Cure V generates a static 400 CE and 700 VE. It becomes pretty obvious that it's a very bad idea to use it. Cure IV for 850 would generate 147 CE and 884 VE for 1031 TE. That Cure V would generate 1100 TE with 400 of it being CE which only goes down when you get hit. It's now far better to use Cure III / IV and Regen for healing then it is to spam Cure V as you'll eventually reach very high levels of CE.

All of this information is easily available at

http://kanican.livejournal.com/tag/enmity%20table!

People only need to stop being lazy and actually read.

[Volkai]

I'm hoping the enmity relating to the summon spells only refers to the enmity gained from their casting...

Why enmity would be reduced for Utsusemi is beyond me. That's kind of what a Ninja tanks with...

Kind of looks like they want to encourage the use of Elemental Ninjutsu spells for tanking / keeping hate.

[Areayea]

That referred to giving avatars a trait, not giving SMN's a JA.

it could be a good idea >.> for a JA I mean

[Raksha]

The only cure that's been unbalanced is Cure V, which I would advice all WHM's to stop using. Cure V's static enmity was designed around level 60 CE coefficient levels. At target level 60 1HP cured would create 0.870 CE and 5.22 VE (it's usually CE x6). At level 75 it was 0.727 CE and 4.36 VE. At level 99 (pre patch) it was 0.579 CE and 3.47 VE per HP cured. Now it's 0.173 CE and 1.041 VE per HP cured. Cure V generates a static 400 CE and 700 VE. It becomes pretty obvious that it's a very bad idea to use it. Cure IV for 850 would generate 147 CE and 884 VE for 1031 TE. That Cure V would generate 1100 TE with 400 of it being CE which only goes down when you get hit. It's now far better to use Cure III / IV and Regen for healing then it is to spam Cure V as you'll eventually reach very high levels of CE.

All of this information is easily available at

http://kanican.livejournal.com/tag/enmity%20table!

People only need to stop being lazy and actually read.



I smell WHM tanking!

[Economizer]

I smell WHM tanking!

With no mage food (+10 MND or INT doesn't count) meaning White Mages everywhere should be eating defense food, cureskin (since Afflatus Misery sucks despite being based around getting hit), decent magic defense stats, a bunch of high enmity spells (Curaga - especially IV/V, Cure V, Cure VI, Flash), and a way to generate MP (Dagan, Mythic Boon, or Starlight), we might just have a tank, especially if we see more of those super high defense Breastplates for White Mage in the future.

To top it all off, we have a guarantee from SE they won't lower the enmity on Cure VI.

[Caketime]

I'm a fan of tacos already, this just makes them more appealing.

[saevel]

With no mage food (+10 MND or INT doesn't count) meaning White Mages everywhere should be eating defense food, cureskin (since Afflatus Misery sucks despite being based around getting hit), decent magic defense stats, a bunch of high enmity spells (Curaga - especially IV/V, Cure V, Cure VI, Flash), and a way to generate MP (Dagan, Mythic Boon, or Starlight), we might just have a tank, especially if we see more of those super high defense Breastplates for White Mage in the future.

To top it all off, we have a guarantee from SE they won't lower the enmity on Cure VI.

Well Curaga IV/V took the same enmity hit that the other cures did so unless it's early in the fight your melee's should have higher TE. The above values were before tranquil heart or -enmity gear and I suspect SE will be updating Cure V eventually.

[Raksha]

Tranquil Heart scales with Healing skill, so you could just swap out all of your healing skill (for +enmity gear, if whm gets any of that).

[Economizer]

Well Curaga IV/V took the same enmity hit that the other cures did

I misspoke about Curaga IV since it is based on -C- but Curaga V gives 300CE/500VE if BGwiki is to be believed (actually that might be pretty terrible if your goal is to pull hate if you compare it to Cure VI's 400CE/800VE, but on the other hand it is more MP efficient in the right situations).


Tranquil Heart scales with Healing skill, so you could just swap out all of your healing skill (for +enmity gear, if whm gets any of that).

Until such a time where Afflatus Misery's effects (which are based on getting hit) are better then cureskin, it will suck a bit to take off your Orison Bliaud +2 with it's 20 skill boost, but if you're like me you already have a baseline 440 Healing Magic without any gear in the first place, so there isn't much to be done about Tranquil Heart. It would also suck to take off your AF3+2 pants (luckily that doesn't have skill and there are no leg or body slot pieces, at least without augments, that have any enmity+ for White Mage).

Ignoring weapon slot items, a White Mage could get about +40 enmity in gear (good luck getting space to macro that all in).

Another issue is that White Mage's damage mitigation (as to avoid losing enmity) is crap. White Mage is one of the few jobs without native parrying (compare this to jobs like SCHOLAR and remember there is no justice or logic in the world at times), and evades like a brick. Additionally Shield is essentially crap unless you're a Paladin, although White Mage does get Shield Defense Bonus and at least gets a Genbu's Shield. We're also no Red Mage when it comes to PDT gear selection.

Despite all these setbacks I have thoughts that perhaps that this could be possible. Unlike our close friends the Red Mage, White Mage hasn't been targeted for extreme enmity reduction to prevent tanking, and with the lack of options in mage food it might just be wise to eat defense food and carry a set to straight tank a mob should things go bad for your party. Now only if movement speed gear for White Mage was easier to obtain...

[Sasaraixx]

Any follow-up from the dev team regarding our concerns about the avatar enmity issues?