Encumbrence = Lose 20 levels.

[Danita]

Every time I get hit with Encumbrance, I go from level 119 fighting something that hits me for 120 per hit, to level 99 and taking 1200 per hit.

I understand that Encumbrance should remove gear to make things harder, but now it's effectively removing my levels as well. Can you please set this so that the effect does not strip off iLVL gear? I don't understand why my level 119 character fights a level 99 monster no better than it did at level 99. This would not be the case if I had gained my levels legitimately, and not from gear. It's frustrating and upsetting, and I'm sure that Encumbrance = Delevel 20 times is a bug you have overlooked.

Thank you.

[Deifact]

I'm sure that Encumbrance = Delevel 20 times is a bug you have overlooked.


Pretty much sums up the dev team in a sentence

[Mirage]

I told them to just quit with the item levels while it still wasn't too late. I think they might not really care, though.

[FaeQueenCory]

It's an unintended side effect of having >99 "levels" handled through gear....
One that I don't think can ever be remedied due to the game's engine and the way the iLv system works... but I can't truly say for sure... because I am not intimate with the game's code.

I'm not really sure what else to say on the matter other than... *shrug*

[Vivivivi]

Level down (status effect) isn't new to the Final Fantasy series, however I agree encumbrance causing level down is probably worth looking into adjusting.

[FrankReynolds]

Encumbrance and Ilevel are both really crappy game mechanics. They could have used merits to avoid this whole situation.

[Okipuit]

We realize that enemy abilities that remove equipment or give an encumbrance effect have larger impacts now that we've implemented the item level system, and as such, moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much. If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

On the other hand, content that was released prior to Seekers of Adoulin has been balanced properly so that it can be cleared even when getting hit with abilities that remove your equipment or give an encumbrance effect, so we do not have any plans to make adjustments to this content.

[Gannon]

Why not just make encumbrance curable?

[Kaisha]

Fix the encumbrance so it only locks out 2-3 random pieces of equipment at most, like some normal mobs do, not your entire set of gear.

[Danita]

If it stripped off no more than:
neck, ear1, ear2, ring1, ring2, waist, and back item (and reset your TP to zero), then it would be an Encumberence which would have the effect they wanted without being the horribly debilitating, instant-death maneuver that it currently is.

At any rate, thank you SE reps for taking the time to reply to this. I'm impressed with the new spirit of community interaction.

[Ang]

I'd like to point out that its not just encumbrance that presents a huge problem with the iLvl gear...Its becomes a problem every time you need to macro in a different gear set to use with certain magic spells or job abilities which happens much more frequently than being afflicted with encumbrance. For example, to use dark magic spells on my dark knight, I replace every equipped item except weapon and ammo slots, which means I lose about 550 defense, 71 VIT(roughly the same amount in other attribute slots) and about 400 HP....Thats not a good thing when you're fighting NM's like Tojil and he one-shots you very easily. This is a huge oversight and needs to be fixed, if we wouldve just been able to level up normally to 120 or w/e this wouldnt be a problem.This ILvl system is horrible, please do something about it SE....

[Kristal]

For example, to use dark magic spells on my dark knight, I replace every equipped item except weapon and ammo slots, which means I lose about 550 defense, 71 VIT(roughly the same amount in other attribute slots) and about 400 HP....Thats not a good thing when you're fighting NM's like Tojil and he one-shots you very easily. This is a huge oversight and needs to be fixed, if we wouldve just been able to level up normally to 120 or w/e this wouldnt be a problem.This ILvl system is horrible, please do something about it SE....

You need to update your macros then. Don't swap out ilvl gear unless it's with other ilvl gear.
It's not different from tanking a mob with maxed PDT gear, then using a macro to change into squishy cast gear to get a few % better results from a spell.

More gear needs to be added for sure, particularly gear with job specific stats (Adoulin AF's for all jobs) so we don't have to macro lvl 50-99 gear, but players have to read the signs and adjust as the game changes.
I want my quaddamage crits back on PUP, but that's not going to happen unless SE adds new gear with old effects.

[Kristal]

We realize that enemy abilities that remove equipment or give an encumbrance effect have larger impacts now that we've implemented the item level system, and as such, moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much. If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.


One of the Mummers' Coalition tasks requires players to seek out slugs in Rala Waterways and get hit by their encumbrance move, which strips ALL gear for a considerable time. This was added before the item level system, but I think it would be a good idea to add some limiter to these slime-scattering slugs and their scandalous striptease specials...

Perhaps limit encumbrance based on the level of the mob. If a lvl 110 slug uses Fuscous Ooze, it will not remove any item level 111 and above gear.

Or use a point system, where an encumbrance move can remove x levels of gear (ie, 50 points worth of items, where item level 99 and below is 1 point and lvl 120 is 21 points.) Wearing a lot of high itemlevel gear thus reduces the effect.

Another idea is to not remove gear, but negate all it's stats except for item level. (Preventing all gear swaps to and from affected slots.)

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

It can be avoided by doing the fight on a Watersday during the waning gibbous moon while facing northwest-by-north and standing exactly 8.735 yalms away from the target, all while under the status effect of Deodorize. Whether or not the weather needs to be a heatwave or just a hot spell has not yet been verified (since 2006).

[Ang]

You need to update your macros then. Don't swap out ilvl gear unless it's with other ilvl gear.
It's not different from tanking a mob with maxed PDT gear, then using a macro to change into squishy cast gear to get a few % better results from a spell.

More gear needs to be added for sure, particularly gear with job specific stats (Adoulin AF's for all jobs) so we don't have to macro lvl 50-99 gear, but players have to read the signs and adjust as the game changes.
I want my quaddamage crits back on PUP, but that's not going to happen unless SE adds new gear with old effects.

I would update macro except there is no Ilvl gear with dark magic skill on it. If I stopped using all that dark magic skill gear it would mean losing more than "just a few % better results from a spelL It means losing over 100 dark magic skill, a little over 50 attack from endark, over 30% potency from absorb spells and most importantly every spell that is cast gets resisted. A dark knight that cant use its spells is basically a gimp warrior... only use Ilvl gear? thats gotta be a joke...should whm's stop using all their cure potency gear? should mnks stop using HP gear?
There are so many other situations where "old gear" is needed and it really sucks you have to lose 20 levels in order to use it.

[Danita]

Today:
Stone III 59, Stonega III 145, Stonega II 52, Hit 126, Hit 120, Hit 128, Hit 63, 175 Quake Blast (level down to naked 99), Hit 540, Stonega III 657, Hit 281 (Dead). Up to that point, I was fighting ~8 normal monsters and 2 bosses, after that point I died near instantly.

It's a shame that this is working as intended.

[Rubeus]

It can be avoided by doing the fight on a Watersday during the waning gibbous moon while facing northwest-by-north and standing exactly 8.735 yalms away from the target, all while under the status effect of Deodorize. Whether or not the weather needs to be a heatwave or just a hot spell has not yet been verified (since 2006).

you forgot to add in that you can't have buffs (including food and signet) on (with the obvious exception of deodorize, which will wear if you attack/are attacked), it must be between 6:00 am and 10:00 am game time, it can't be during a conquest tally or the hourly updates, it only works if you have aquan earring on, and of course if you have the 4 king suite Cardian Cards in your inventory that can't hurt either. Certainly doing every quest in the game involving amorphs HAS to add about 1% chance of success, as well. more information is needed as to whether or not you can use the spell deodorize or if deodorizers are better.

xD

[Demon6324236]

Just be honest people. This was simply another oversight on our 'level up' through gear. You made an overpowered enfeeble to remove every piece of gear a person is wearing, then made gear the only way to become strong enough to fight any of the enemies being released. You say 'moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much' which implies, they can still use them. Moving forward, by which I assume you mean, new NMs in Adoulin, be them old or new races, we would be crushed if we got hit with this attack even a single time.

My Defense on a naked job is under 200 for most, even with Protect V you are going to be looking at 375 or so Defense, up against a NM with what? 1k Attack? 1.5k Attack? They would easily cap the Attack/Defense ratio on us which you changed when Adoulin came out so they could cap at 4 times our defense. Effectively what you are telling us in a nutshell is, like many other TP moves, but to a more extreme extent in my opinion, if we do not prevent this move by stunning or some other method, we might as well give up the instant it hits us, because after that it will only proceed to kill us all very quickly. Not to mention by the way, a naked player has no use now. Spells have no accuracy without our massive magic accuracy gear, nothing can be hit due to their high evasion, we have no weapons, so on. So yeah, instead of trying to make is less completely stupid and overpowered, why not just A, remove this status ailment completely, as it was a bad idea to begin with, or B, balance it to work with Item Levels, not only in new content, on new mobs, but on old content too. If you want to simulate the effect of having leveled as you claim to want to, you can not cut corners like this in a way that it adversely effects your players in a negative way so much so that it makes it unplayable in some instances. There's no reason my level 113~119 RDM should be deleveled to level 99 while fighting a NM because it uses a move to take my cloths off, at least before Adoulin, it only removed our gear, but our levels too, is to much...

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

you forgot to add...

I can't believe I forgot to include the all-important Luck Egg.

[Louispv]

Velk SE. You put them all over. The love to use, back-to-back, their ws that removes your weapons and keeps you from re-equipping them, with a duration long enough that it stays up permanently. So not only can we not damage them in any way because we lose 200 accuracy and attack, but DRG and BST are extra screwed since our pets immediately drop 20 levels as soon as the weapons come off, too.

You really shouldn't have gone with I-levels at all, but now that you have, you really need to remove this status effect from the game entirely.

[Deifact]

Encumbrance and any abilities that remove equipment are really molesty... like the mob is going to have its way with you...

[FaeQueenCory]

Velk SE. You put them all over. The love to use, back-to-back, their ws that removes your weapons and keeps you from re-equipping them, with a duration long enough that it stays up permanently. So not only can we not damage them in any way because we lose 200 accuracy and attack, but DRG and BST are extra screwed since our pets immediately drop 20 levels as soon as the weapons come off, too.

You really shouldn't have gone with I-levels at all, but now that you have, you really need to remove this status effect from the game entirely.
Or at the very least keep it only in the areas where it doesn't matter. (like Abyssea. Dropping from 120 to 99 isn't that big of a deal. Sure it sucks, but it's not like the instadeath it is in Adoulin.)

[Rustic]

Honestly, the best solution would be simply negating all effects BUT item level in a given equipment slot from Encumbrance/gear "strip" attacks, rather than physically removing the gear in question.

At that point, we aren't being deleveled by declothing.

Also, stuff like the aforementioned DRK points towards a serious need for AF4 along the lines of what RUN and GEO have now. Job-specific effects are both powerful and needed- alternatively, slapping said JSE into secondary slots where item level isn't going to be such an issue, such as belts and rings/earrings/neck.

[Camiie]

Just change Encumberance to Cucumberance. Instead of being stripped of gear, you're turned into a pickle for a short amount of time.

[Karah]

Been doing some Walk of Echoes, since well, there isn't shit else to do, and just wanted to comment on how absolutely retarded encumbrance is now.

I go from getting hit for 100 or less, to 1200 after being hit by typhean rage, in essence, becoming encumbered is instant death.

And it's not like you can do anything about it, you can't put on PDT gear, you're stripped. You can't run because enemies are faster than you. You can't do anything, even if you get cured nothing can cure fast enough to cover 1200 damage every attack.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Yeah yeah, necrobump.


On the other hand, content that was released prior to Seekers of Adoulin has been balanced properly

It was balanced properly for an alliance. The presence of Encumbrance is effectively a level cap, and capped content doesn't draw people like that any more.

[Raydeus]

Encumberance is as cheap as it gets, just replace it with Insta-Death already.

Fracking Ballistic Kick BS. @$#% (╯｀Д´）╯︵ ┻━┻


Edit >
Lamia's ability Torrent is ok though.

[Mirage]

No matter how bad something is, you'll never make an SE representative admit that their employees made a mistake.

[Raydeus]

I think it had it's place back when people fought in parties, but nowadays if you are low man/solo-ing it is just way too cheap of a tactic. orz

[Selindrile]

We realize that enemy abilities that remove equipment or give an encumbrance effect have larger impacts now that we've implemented the item level system, and as such, moving forward we will be doing our best to make sure that these kind of abilities are not used by monsters as much. If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

On the other hand, content that was released prior to Seekers of Adoulin has been balanced properly so that it can be cleared even when getting hit with abilities that remove your equipment or give an encumbrance effect, so we do not have any plans to make adjustments to this content.

Whelp, new Skirmish has Maroliths and Iron Giants, which strip clothes and start aoe-wrecking everyone, GG Okipuit, GG.

[Leonardus]

Tried out the new Skirmish last night.

First two NMs we encountered stripped our gear.

Incredibly frustrating.

[Blah]

All I really want to know is....WHY CAN'T WE DO IT TO THEM???

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

All I really want to know is....WHY CAN'T WE DO IT TO THEM???

Because naked orcs and goblins.

[Blah]

Because naked orcs and goblins.

Not quite remember? Goblins and other beastmen do have "gear" too. Goblins have their gobbiebags and of course goblin masks and armor, orcs have their weapons and I believe orcish plates and scales, Yagudo have necklaces, etc, etc all stuff that can technically encumber them and make them defenseless or at the very least dramatically drop their attack/ accuracy if not allow us to one shot them like they do us.

[Mirage]

That's not his point. He's jokingly saying that he doesn't want to see naked goblins and orcs.

[Blah]

Lol technically we have to anyway...I ain't gonna say what I thought those bags were the orcs carry behind them near their tails

[Calatilla]

If SE don't want to get rid of encumberence entirely they should at least take away the duration. Getting all your armour blown off probably won't hurt as much if you can instantly put it all back on again. not being able to equip ANY gear for what, almost a full min? Most people don't survive that long.

[Demonjustin]

If SE don't want to get rid of encumberence entirely they should at least take away the duration. Getting all your armour blown off probably won't hurt as much if you can instantly put it all back on again. not being able to equip ANY gear for what, almost a full min? Most people don't survive that long.I would say 5 seconds for non-hate wipers, at least some duration or the majority of the community will not be affected even. For the ones that wipe hate, I think we should get a max of 15~20 seconds. But ideally, this kind of ailment shouldn't even exist in the first place, it's a cheap ass gimmick, nothing more.

[Mirage]

Partial encumberance is "somewhat ok", complete encumberance is just unfair.

As a compromize with the dev team, how about being able to "resist" encumberance? If we are a lot higher level than the NM, and also wear gear with a bunch of item levels and evasion and magic evasion, we could be able to resist a full strip down to just 1-2?

Here's an example on how it could work game-mechanically: Do a "physical hit" check for each equipment piece that encumberance tries to remove. Every time the player evades (or parries, or shield blocks, or guards) one of these hits, that equipment slot is not disabled. With maxed evasion against a full-strip encumberance, that would on average mean losing around 3 pieces of gear, due to evasion caps. Far less brutal than losing all 16 (or 14-15), especially if some of the pieces aren't armor, but just accessories.

[Alexandero]

I don't know why everyone is trying to fix this by saying, "Well, at least let it just decrease our stats", or, "Only take some things from us". Here is a better idea...

REMOVE IT FROM THE GAME

...and fire whatever idiot came up with this idea. On what planet is stripping away someones gear and weapons, at any point, a fair way to make a game? At least if I get doomed I can possibly remove it with holy water. Here is a new idea, just let random meteors fall from the sky too and insta kill people as they are out adventuring. Or level 99 goblins that hide in the bushes and jump out and backstab the poor little level 15 taru running by on his way to the dunes. Why not? If you are just going to cheat on your end you may as well go all out. Just because you program the game you now have some kind of God complex and just want to pick on the players, huh? This is straight up, no way around it, cheating on your part SE. You program a game and don't give the players any chance to survive it. It is especially uncool knowing the amount of gil it cost to even get in one. Oh, sorry, I was wrong, we actually do have a chance to survive it, it is just a secret only the dev team knows. Cheaters.

[Mirage]

I don't know why everyone is trying to fix this by saying, "Well, at least let it just decrease our stats", or, "Only take some things from us". Here is a better idea...

REMOVE IT FROM THE GAME

Because it's unrealistic to expect SE to go along with that. If you ask for things that are never gonna happen, all you're gonna get is complete disappointment.

[Kurotenshi]

Whichever dev came up w/ the idea to allow monsters to strip players naked is just creepy....

Also:

If you encounter monsters that can use these type of abilities, we'll be sure to provide methods to avoid them or prevent them from using it.

Having to rely on a gimmick to win a fight is NOT fun... sure.. it's cute every once in a while... (odin requiring /kneel to avoid Zantetsuken), but doing this all the time is just stupid. Soloing the ironclad in altepa today as RUN, I got him down to 20% while keeping HP at 100% using the new curative ability. All of a sudden, he uses Ballistic Kick which strips my gear and drops me to ~75 HP. I immediately use the curative ability once more, but despite a ~500 HP cure, I get hit for 400 (and stunned) then hit for 350 and dead... This is on content released prior to Seakers of Adoulin. This HAS NOT been balanced properly for a job that is supposed to be equivalent to level 117. Sure.. If you're naked, you should take more damage than if you're properly geared. BUT you should take damage equivalent to what someone ~20 levels below the level you're supposed to represent should take...

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Soloing the ironclad in altepa today as RUN, I got him down to 20% while keeping HP at 100% using the new curative ability. All of a sudden, he uses Ballistic Kick which strips my gear and drops me to ~75 HP.

Ballistic Kick comes with a hate reset as well. As I mentioned in response to Okipuit's response of "It's balanced!!1!!111" it was balanced for an alliance. But since nobody likes getting hit with Encumbrance to begin with, you're pretty much guaranteed to be stuck soloing.

[Kurotenshi]

Hate resets are another thing in this game that I have an issue with, personally. It's a stupid mechanic that does nothing but screw over tanks even more than they already are being screwed.

*edit* and no, anything in abyssea has been easily duo-able since pre-SoA. The problem is that being stripped of gear should NOT drop your level.... It's a HUGE problem caused by trying to prevent a very small one.

[Zarchery]

Whelp, new Skirmish has Maroliths and Iron Giants, which strip clothes and start aoe-wrecking everyone, GG Okipuit, GG.

Not to mention the latest Seekers of Adoulin mission battle.

This is a fight against a marolith who summons gargouille helpers. The gargouilles are weak and the marolith isn't too bad either. It's actually a pretty easy fight....

...until it gets down to 1%. Then it uses some awful move that does Draw-In, AoE damage, and Encumbrence. My six man group went from having an easy fight to nearly wiping. We made it out by the skin of our teeth because the THF somehow evaded the encumbrance move, popped Perfect Dodge, and finished it off. To add insult to injury, as soon as the fight ended and we left the arena, Reraise wore off on everyone so we all had to homepoint. I don't care about the resulting XP loss, but after you finish this fight you have to get a cutscene that's like a 2 minute walk away from where you fought it. The forced homepointing added a good 10 minutes to everyone's travels.

So you have a fight, released just last month, that has an all party encumbrance as literally the only challenge to it. This appears to be the exact opposite of what Okipuit was saying.

[Demonjustin]

Ballistic Kick comes with a hate reset as well.Just want to point out, a hate reset on normal mobs would sort of balance this a bit, after all, since the monster wouldn't be hitting those who were hit with it, they could have a chance to run away and live while the party continues to fight. What makes Ballistic Kick an even larger pain than the norm is the fact that Ironclads aren't just normal monsters, they are monsters with AoE attacks for normal attacks. I have seen multiple instances in Skirmish now where a party member gets hit with Ballistic Kick, then the Ironclad simply performs a normal attack on another party member that would stun or knockback normally and instantly 1-shots the hateless DD since it's AoE by default. If it were simply a normal monster or a NM who fights like a normal monster like for instance Pixies it would be a different story, but in this case it's just even more broken.