Enmity System Explanation and Planned Adjustments

RDM probably doesn't get adjusted because JPs love RDM

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Originally Posted by saevel

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.

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

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

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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.

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?

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Originally Posted by xiozen

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

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by sweetidealism

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?

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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?

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

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.

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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.

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?

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.

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.

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).

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by RAIST

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.

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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;

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Originally Posted by Camate

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

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

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.

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Originally Posted by Camate

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.

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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.

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!"

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.

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!

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.

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Originally Posted by Camate

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Camate

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

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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?

I suppose I must post this here too!

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Originally Posted by Asymptotic

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.

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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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Quoted because people only look at the last page:

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Originally Posted by 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 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.

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

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

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Asymptotic

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

Quoted because people only look at the last page:

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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.

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by Sasaraixx

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.

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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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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