What will become of Red Mage v1.0?

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The notion that we matter less than the THFs, DNCs, NINs and BSTs that aren't getting invited to events (that should be making threads stating their issues instead of standing back or heckle the melee camp) is just as, if not more, absurd.

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How the heck did you get the notion RDM matters less? I read that as a RDM shouldn't out DD THF, DNC, NIN, or BST. You might want to reread that because I honestly can't see how you're getting that they should matter less.

A RDM can melee, at a decent rate is it anything to brag about? Not really but how can you expect that considering everything a RDM can already do at decent levels (you know "jack of all jobs"). It shouldn't be able to do melee damage above those jobs let alone on par.

That said even if it could out damage those jobs you still wouldn't be getting invites from the player base that thinks RDM is useless.

Edit: The only way a RDM will become desirable to the community that has deemed it useless is something along the lines of:

Double the potency of enfeebles from RDM (Maybe even triple it).
Demi. 25-50% HP
Stop.
Give it melee damage on par with SAM/DRK/MNK/WAR.

Outside of something that extreme the community that has outcast it won't see value in it. If you don't see how any of those combined with everything else a RDM can do isn't broken or over powered then you're crazy.

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Originally Posted by Zagen

I read that as a RDM shouldn't out DD THF, DNC, NIN, or BST.

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You're right, and I apologize. I misread it. My reply should have been "what's absurd is that you somehow got the idea that we are asking to out-damage BST, THF, NIN and DNC".

My point on them having to post about their jobs' issues stands.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

You're right, and I apologize. I misread it. My reply should have been "what's absurd is that you somehow got the idea that we are asking to out-damage BST, THF, NIN and DNC".

My point on them having to post about their jobs' issues stands.

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BST and NIN especially, but most of the 1handers are suffering on "competent" damage. If you want to do such damage, you're asking for more than them.

Since they should do more damage than you, they're still preferable in a dd spot to your rdm. I'm not trying to argue, but that's the facts. You can't exactly be swapping to staves while you're trying to tp, and too many rdm's might enfeeble at he beginning but NUMBERS would keep them from refreshing enfeebles, or tossing hastes, or refreshing anyone.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

The question should be "why not?".

If you notice, everything mentioned so far has been melee-related. I doubt any of us would ask for a return of ye olde "kite+DoT+Nuke" soloing, which encompassed all RDM soloing pre-Abyssea. I personally want the sword to be more useful and RDM to be kept in mind and treated as a melee mage. Right now the job is an afterthought, and has been treated as such since the Abyssea era.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

You're right, and I apologize. I misread it. My reply should have been "what's absurd is that you somehow got the idea that we are asking to out-damage BST, THF, NIN and DNC".

My point on them having to post about their jobs' issues stands.

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Here's my core question: Why should your desire to have rdm's melee buffed take precedence over all the other problems with this game? Why should the devs give attention to rdm's ability to melee when the ability of 1h jobs is lacking across the board? Why should they focus on rdm melee when pet jobs are fundamentally broken and in desperate need of repair, and have been since before abyssea? Why should rdm's ability to melee take priority over the fact that the one thing rdm is great at is still so lacking?

I'm so tired of hearing people say "rdm is the jack of all trades, master of none." because it absolutely is not, and as far as FFXI is concerned, has never been. Rdm is a hybrid job, with its focus being enfeebling. Rdm is not the only hybrid job. Nin is a hybrid job. Blu is a hybrid job. Cor is a hybrid job. Pup is a hybrid job. Dnc is a hybrid job. Sch is a hybrid job. In FFXI, there is no such thing as a Jack of all trades. None of the hybrid jobs can fill every party role, and there's no reason rdm should be excluded from that.

Nin was supposed to be a cross between rng and blm, that the players turned into a bizarre thf-war blend through shadow tanking.

Blu can melee well, and has a wide range of unique damage in the form of physical magic. In the right circumstances, it can also play a decent healer, and has some support abilities, both in the form of buffs and debuffs.

Cor is predominantly a buffer, but has decent ranged damage potential, and even has some magical damage abilities.

Pup has really strong melee that's only really held back by the puppet, and it can trade some of its melee strength for the ability to support the party through healing, or to supply magical and physical damage simultaneously. (Note: Drk is not this. There's a pretty big difference between a godly Gsword and lolT3nukeswithhorriblenukinggearselection, and decent h2h and MABheavy T5 nukes).

Dnc can both melee on par with a ninja or a thf, and support the party through limited buffs, debuffs, and powerful, if limited, healing.

Sch can bounce between playing the roles of a healer, and a magic damage dealer, as well as limited buffing ability.

Rdm can heal and nuke, and is the king of enfeebling (when it matters), and has limited meleeing ability, as well as possessing some ability to tank.

Think of party roles (from SE's job-design perspective) like this:
Melee DD (Primary: War, Mnk, Sam, Drk, Drg)
Ranged DD (Primary: Rng)
Magical DD (Primary: Blm)
Tank (Primary: Pld)
Healer (Primary: Whm)
Offensive Support (Debuffs) (Primary: Rdm)
Defensive Support (Buffs) (Primary: Brd)
Utility (Primary: Thf)

The non-hybrid jobs all have one focus, one secondary focus, and most have a tertiary focus too (ex: Whm has healing, then buffing, then debuffing; War has Melee DD, and Tanking; Thf is supposed to be Utility focused with melee DD as its secondary, but it's poorly designed and implemented.). They might be able to fill other roles in a pinch, if they live and breathe the boyscout motto ("Always be prepared", because I'm sure that there has to be someone here that doesn't know it.), but that doesn't happen often, if ever. The hybrid jobs, on the other hand, trade their ability to be the best at any one thing for their ability to multiple roles effectively. The more roles a job can do well, the less effective they are at all their roles. That's how SE designs this shit, and it makes sense from a logical stand point, so they've stuck to it, despite it failing when it comes to actually putting it to work.

So, in other words, if you want to be better at meleeing, you'll have to become worse at healing, nuking, and enfeebling, otherwise the job will be "unbalanced". This is what SE will decide, and then they'll waste time debating how to rebalance it, when they could instead focus on other, more important shit.

It's not that I'm against rdm melee. It's that I don't think that, with so many other far more relevant areas of the game desperately needing attention, the devs should waste their goddamn time pandering to the complaints of one small group of rdms who want to be a little better at using swords.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

BST and NIN especially, but most of the 1handers are suffering on "competent" damage. If you want to do such damage, you're asking for more than them.

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As I said, if NIN and BST have issues they should be making posts about it to discuss the issues. THF also has issues that I wish were dealt with and fixed by the devs.

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Originally Posted by Theytak

Here's my core question: Why should your desire to have rdm's melee buffed take precedence over all the other problems with this game?

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Since the rest of your post was built on this poorly-developed observation, all I'll say is that we never said anything about our desired melee adjustments taking precedence over every other issue in FFXI. Neither the OP, Demon, or myself presented it as such.

I saw your post about issues with PUP and wholeheartedly support it. I also support posts and criticisms made on THF, SMN, and NIN, as I understand those jobs also have problems of their own. Kindly get off the melee camp's case about wanting their issues addressed and fixed.

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Originally Posted by Duelle

As I said, if NIN and BST have issues they should be making posts about it to discuss the issues. THF also has issues that I wish were dealt with and fixed by the devs.
Since the rest of your post was built on this poorly-developed observation, all I'll say is that we never said anything about our desired melee adjustments taking precedence over every other issue in FFXI. Neither the OP, Demon, or myself presented it as such.

I saw your post about issues with PUP and wholeheartedly support it. Kindly get off the melee camp's case about wanting their issues addressed and fixed.

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You completely missed my point. By taking this topic and discussing it here, in the general forum, it's clear that you are trying to bring rdm melee to the dev's immediate attention, whether you will admit it, or even realize that implication, or not. If you wanna discuss rdm melee and what it needs, go do it in the rdm forum, with the other rdms, where it the other, more important issues don't have to directly compete with it for attention.

That's part of the problem with the official forums, though.

Honestly, you guys just need to accept that the time that you'll be able to have a rdm melee thread brought to the devs attention without numerous, vocal, well constructed arguments against it is a long, long, long way off in the future.

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Originally Posted by Theytak

So, in other words, if you want to be better at meleeing, you'll have to become worse at healing, nuking, and enfeebling, otherwise the job will be "unbalanced". This is what SE will decide, and then they'll waste time debating how to rebalance it, when they could instead focus on other, more important shit.

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Flawed way to look at it I think. Look at most games which allow you to create a character based on stats. Many games start you with, say, 100 points, then as you raise a stat higher the amount of points to raise it get higher, so at first you can add 1 STR for 1 point, then another for 1 point, then another for 2 points, and so on. When you look at balance, that makes sense, you can focus in one thing but your other stats will be lacking a ton. In RDM's case, we round it out by putting many points in many things, but we cap nothing, its like we have 60~70% of our points in everything, while we have nothing above that, and most jobs are at something like 90~100% in most of their important stats.

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It's not that I'm against rdm melee. It's that I don't think that, with so many other far more relevant areas of the game desperately needing attention, the devs should waste their goddamn time pandering to the complaints of one small group of rdms who want to be a little better at using swords.

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You are not against it you say, but at the same time you make it sound as though entertaining the idea and having SE put us on some light DD gear would be a waste of time. To me, that seems contradictory in itself because you are against the idea of them putting time into it, not necessarily the idea of RDM's meleeing but rather the act of them improving it if it takes away from your updates you personally want. That would be like me saying I am not against PUP being a great job, I am simply against SE putting time into fixing the job in a way it would be of use.

It would be a waste of time

RDM's best place is with the healers and blm's.

There are numerous more important issues, chief among them a list of dd that should be buffed before se glances at what rdm can do with a sword, and other sword melee jobs. There are also plenty of things an rdm can melee, solo, but rdm is too good at every other aspect of the game, it doesn't have to be everything.

I wanted pld's to do more damage. Made two threads, between two forums, people disagreed, I let it go (I wanted a stance thing, like sam or nin, technically, have.).

I played pld before aby, and after I built aegis, I played it in aby where it was approrpriate. After I built ochain, I played it more. I know the love of a job and the hope it will be better, but I also know that pld is what it is and adoulin is fixing some gross negligence with the direction of the game. I don't even care that pld's weren't tanking but it's an abomination that nobody but the last person to hit the mob was tanking, more or less.

What about thf? SE has officially said that thf should tp in TH gear when TH is the reason thf is there. That's a pretty powerful kick in the you-know-where.

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Originally Posted by OmnysValefor

It would be a waste of time

RDM's best place is with the healers and blm's.

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Then the job should be deleted in its entirety because we already have a job which does what you are suggesting, its called Scholar. We are not a blend of simply WHM and BLM, that is what SCH is, just like DRK is a blend of WAR and BLM while PLD is a WAR and WHM, we are a blend of all 3, a WAR, a WHM, and a BLM. That is the reason we have a large number of combat skills, we can do many things, as we are meant to, we are supposed to do everything, yes, that is our job, but we are supposed to do it in a way that puts us in a position of a hybrid, one where front line combat is possible while supportive abilities are of use as well. Look at BLU, it is how a hybrid should be, a job who can support and fight on the front lines at the same time, people recognize that it can, and does, and so it is invited for such a duty, does anyone invite RDM for that same reason? No, thats why its a fundamental flaw of our job.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

Flawed way to look at it I think. Look at most games which allow you to create a character based on stats. Many games start you with, say, 100 points, then as you raise a stat higher the amount of points to raise it get higher, so at first you can add 1 STR for 1 point, then another for 1 point, then another for 2 points, and so on. When you look at balance, that makes sense, you can focus in one thing but your other stats will be lacking a ton. In RDM's case, we round it out by putting many points in many things, but we cap nothing, its like we have 60~70% of our points in everything, while we have nothing above that, and most jobs are at something like 90~100% in most of their important stats.

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I didn't say it wasn't flawed, or that I agree with it, but based on 8 years of play, and 8 years of dealing with SE, it's pretty clear, in my opinion, that that's how the devs think.

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Originally Posted by Demon6324236

You are not against it you say, but at the same time you make it sound as though entertaining the idea and having SE put us on some light DD gear would be a waste of time. To me, that seems contradictory in itself because you are against the idea of them putting time into it, not necessarily the idea of RDM's meleeing but rather the act of them improving it if it takes away from your updates you personally want. That would be like me saying I am not against PUP being a great job, I am simply against SE putting time into fixing the job in a way it would be of use.

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I'm not against SE doing whatever with rdm melee. I am against SE doing whatever with rdm melee right now, when their time would be better spent working on other, far more content-relevant issues and/or the major worries and problems that a significantly larger portion of the player base has to deal with than just the small crowd of rdms who want to be better with swords even though no one will ever invite them to melee no matter how good SE makes them.