ATTN: Community Reps/Dev Team: PUPs of Vanadiel DEMAND a response on Automaton A.I.!

Wow... Camate... I suddenly want to finish leveling PUP.

As a side note: Activate/Deactivate is an accepted strategy? I never would have guessed the Devs were ok with this -- I thought it was just something they overlooked.

With regards to the Silence issue.

its not that they cast on monsters that resist it -- they will cast it on a monster that has no spells, but has MP; such as Crab.

No one has any complaints with abilities being resisted -- that happens, and while its unfortunate, its no worse than a missed weapon skill. The problem is when the automaton wastes its lengthy casting cycle on a spell that has no purpose or effect whether it hits or misses.

Separating out the magic types (Dark, Elemental, Enfeebling, Healing) and giving each its own timer will help this, but its still something that should be looked into.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

Thats a lot of information. I'm sad that Maneuvers will continue to severely hinder the Damage of the Master, But if you can revamp attachments to make it worthwhile like you say, i don't see it being a problem!

Also, "Negative aspects of Tactical processor". Um, Camate, what does a Tactical Processor do D:? Can you please ask them that?

We'd all like to know :(. We know its negatives (Overload Rate) but not its positives.. :X

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The problem isn't maneuvers, the problem is that maneuvers are pet abilities. There shouldn't be an animation attached to the Puppetmaster. The Automaton, when activating a maneuver, should get that little steam animation from the PUP special emote (as a kind of "kicking into gear" indication) so that it doesn't distract from the PUP's attack cycles.

The Auto deals most of the damage, but the PUP's ability to maintain decent DPS is pretty important too. In situations where the automaton is just nuking, losing DPS because you have to freshen up your maneuvers hurts the PUP overall. Maneuvers don't need to be fixed, the annoying animation just needs to change.

I'm happy to hear these news but one thing bugs me

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We are looking into changing the automaton behavior. Since this is something that we have received a lot of feedback about we will be looking into it, but since the workings of the automaton logic are so complex it will take some time.

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Like 4 more years? Come on...

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Originally Posted by Neonii

Not to be off topic but does that mean smn concerns have been passed on? we would love even this much acknowledgement over on smn topics.

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.... Didn't the post you quoted pretty much explain that they are making their rounds and a lack of a response is pretty much them trying to find a solid answer for the questions presented...? Please don't be needy, they'll be coming to the SMN forums with info as soon as they have it to give.

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Originally Posted by Horadrim

.... Didn't the post you quoted pretty much explain that they are making their rounds and a lack of a response is pretty much them trying to find a solid answer for the questions presented...? Please don't be needy, they'll be coming to the SMN forums with info as soon as they have it to give.

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Thank you for clearing that up for me. Lets start the timer until info shows up on the smn topics ok?

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The problem isn't maneuvers, the problem is that maneuvers are pet abilities. There shouldn't be an animation attached to the Puppetmaster. The Automaton, when activating a maneuver, should get that little steam animation from the PUP special emote (as a kind of "kicking into gear" indication) so that it doesn't distract from the PUP's attack cycles.

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I agree its a Pet Ability, But so is Restoring Breath, Bloodpacts, Avatars Favor, Assault, Snarl, ready, etc. If they update pup this way they'd need to update all pet jobs this way, which would take some work and im sure its probably nigh impossible :|

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The Auto deals most of the damage, but the PUP's ability to maintain decent DPS is pretty important too. In situations where the automaton is just nuking, losing DPS because you have to freshen up your maneuvers hurts the PUP overall. Maneuvers don't need to be fixed, the annoying animation just needs to change.

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I don't think my automaton has ever once Outdamaged me in combat on normal enemies or NMs :X

Unless we're talking about Ranged fights where I only use BLM automaton. ( i can think of Voidwatch as a possible example, bad AoEs, etc), then yah its possible.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

I agree its a Pet Ability, But so is Restoring Breath, Bloodpacts, Avatars Favor, Assault, Snarl, ready, etc. If they update pup this way they'd need to update all pet jobs this way, which would take some work and im sure its probably nigh impossible :|

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The problem lay in maneuvers being needed to be used often.

Unlike SMN, PUP is meant to be a team which means auto + master damage. The rub is that the more you use maneuvers, the more JA delay you have building up which leads to damage loss.

Yes, other DD have the same issues with their JAs but unlike those DD PUPs lose alot by not putting up those maneuvers.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

I agree its a Pet Ability, But so is Restoring Breath, Bloodpacts, Avatars Favor, Assault, Snarl, ready, etc. If they update pup this way they'd need to update all pet jobs this way, which would take some work and im sure its probably nigh impossible :|

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Dragoon's Wyvern is barely a pet -- it just responds to what the Dragoon does with special abilities and attacks on its own. You can't issue any commands to it at all. The DRG does all of the work and the Wyvern is literally just an additional effect that can die.

Summoner is a different story because Summoner typically isn't going to be meleeing enemies.

Beastmaster's stand alone damage isn't as bad as Puppetmasters is (excluding situations where you have top of the line gear), and Beastmaster's entire relationship with its pets is to the effect of throwing them at things and not caring what really happens (within range of how convenient or inconvenient it would be for the BST himself.) -- Aside from that, BST's JA's are direct commands to preform actions and/or receive perpetual bonus effects. PUP's JAs are status effects that have to be refreshed constantly and in a much more complex fashion to maintain the automaton's maximum efficiency.

The way I see pet jobs in FFXI are a ratio of damage. DRG and BST are on the "player deals more" side of the damage spectrum, while PUP and SMN are on the Pet deals more side of things.

PUP suffers a lot from not using its abilities and it suffers for using them in lacking player DPS.

Erm maneuvers arent a pet ability.

Think of it like this:
Court Jester makes the triangle face (activates Fire Maneuver)
Court Jester does a jig (activates wind maneuver)

Etc, basically we are doing a dance maneuver and its telling our pet how it should be acting.

You guys seem to be getting the impression I don't want Maneuvers updated/adjusted. When actually i have a thread in the PUP job forums dedicated to just that.

At this point? PUP is more like DRG than BST is.

The master properly buffed will destroy the automaton in damage, like DRG would.

BST is in limbo. The pet is hardier than PUP, DRG or SMN and can be healed every minute but in party play both the pet and master come up short, especially against strong foes.

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while PUP are on the Pet deals more side of things.

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No.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

You guys seem to be getting the impression I don't want Maneuvers updated/adjusted. When actually i have a thread in the PUP job forums dedicated to just that.

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Oh no, I know your stance, I was just trying to make what I'm thinking about clear. :O!

[qoute]Erm maneuvers arent a pet ability.

Think of it like this:
Court Jester makes the triangle face (activates Fire Maneuver)
Court Jester does a jig (activates wind maneuver)

Etc, basically we are doing a dance maneuver and its telling our pet how it should be acting.[/quote]

We're not talking about what they represent, we're talking about what they are programmed as. I agree, Maneuvers should be slight gestures and motions, because PUPs are jesters and performers, not fighters.

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Originally Posted by Sparthos

At this point? PUP is more like DRG than BST is.

The master properly buffed will destroy the automaton in damage, like DRG would.

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Yeah, and I think that's stupid. Why should the master be better? The center of the job is the automaton, there's no reason for the master to be better than them -- we're like Monks with pets at that point.

if I want to be a monk, I'll just play as one as avoid the hassle.

choosing when to weapon skill will be amazing. Hopefully we can actually choose the weaponskill also. WE cause so much ruby in abyessa right now. Splitting up timers of enfeebling, NA and cures would solve the cure issue too/almost.

but looks like a lot of this is in the right direction. new +3 lubricant is nice but it won't help much. Maybe the repair recast should be trimmed back a bit like reward is. I see no difference in being able to heal a puppet as much as a bst pet.

I also see nothing about pets receiving buffs,

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Originally Posted by Horadrim

Yeah, and I think that's stupid. Why should the master be better? The center of the job is the automaton, there's no reason for the master to be better than them -- we're like Monks with pets at that point.

if I want to be a monk, I'll just play as one as avoid the hassle.

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The last time the automaton was better than the master, Puppetmaster had C skill h2h capping at 225 @75. Those were dark days for PUP.... dark, dark days indeed.

SE billed PUP as an all-purpose DD. A versatile machine capable of handling a variety of situations. The closest analogue would be Blue Mage.

The problem lay in the faults of the automaton. The healer pet properly tweaked should be able to act as a pocket healer to complement a DD pup or double down on a support PUP but as we see, that isn't exactly what you get.

This is partly why I believe SE chose to improve the master - it's simply easier to do.

Camate,

You keep mentioning that the Dev Team is considering a lot of fixes utilizing new attachments. Are there any plans on increasing the number of attachments that can be installed at one time? Currently we only have 12 attachment slots, but more and more attachments mean we have to continue to either get creative with installing them, or lose some of our favorite abilities and traits outright, or just not use the new ones at all.

The only other job that has to actually lose traits to use others is Blue Mage, and they have significantly more spell slots than our Automatons have attachment slots.

Curing / Status Ailment AI - Would it be possible to have an ability to force the Automaton to Cure like with DRG's new Wyvern Commands? If rewriting the AI is too complex, would this be a happy middle?

Animators - Do these do anything other than a few hidden stats? If not, can they do something more?

Tactical Processor - Adding this comment simply to make it visible because people that don't even play FFXI want to know what this does.

Automaton Arsenal - I'm not sure how easy this would be to implement, but would it be possible to see a plug-and-play weapon system for the Automatons? For example, for 90 levels Sharpshot has used the same crossbow with the same bolts. To add to the customization of our little friends, a stronger / slower crossbow could be attached, or a weaker / faster one.

Thank you for reading and considering my questions and ideas.

I agree, some more slots, maybe as level increases, would be nice, much like blu points.

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Originally Posted by Sparthos

The last time the automaton was better than the master, Puppetmaster had C skill h2h capping at 225 @75. Those were dark days for PUP.... dark, dark days indeed.

SE billed PUP as an all-purpose DD. A versatile machine capable of handling a variety of situations. The closest analogue would be Blue Mage.

The problem lay in the faults of the automaton. The healer pet properly tweaked should be able to act as a pocket healer to complement a DD pup or double down on a support PUP but as we see, that isn't exactly what you get.

This is partly why I believe SE chose to improve the master - it's simply easier to do.

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I agree -- but at the end of the day those problems are quite simply a lack of control.

Why can't we tell our automaton to focus on healing someone else? Why can't maneuvers be commands that suggest actions towards specific targets? Light Maneuver the Paladin (Casts a Cure or Erase, or Flashes the mob targeting the PLD), Dark Maneuver the mob (dispels or drain/aspirs the mobs).

Suggestive control, however indirect, is still control. And while the control we have now is suggestive as well, its just not potent enough to get the job done.

Finally - some good info.

Something that was said more than once: let animators be throwing weapons. We have throwing skill. We always need to equip them, taking away the chance of putting other stuff in ammo slot. Combine the two things and give them some utility!

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Originally Posted by Camate

First we will be revamping attachments that need adjustments. After that we will take a look at the balance and look into this.

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A major reduction to the drum magazine would be enough:

Wind x0 = 12 seconds

Wind x1 = 9 seconds

Wind x2 = 6 seconds

Wind x3 = 4 seconds

Wind x3 would rarely be up considering overloads.

Another fix would be to take out the melee attacks entirely to speed up ranged attacks as mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Horadrim

The problem isn't maneuvers, the problem is that maneuvers are pet abilities. There shouldn't be an animation attached to the Puppetmaster. The Automaton, when activating a maneuver, should get that little steam animation from the PUP special emote (as a kind of "kicking into gear" indication) so that it doesn't distract from the PUP's attack cycles.

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Yes they are pet abilities but more precisely they are pet commands, all pet JA's have the master initiate some kind of animation, furthermore in the maneuvers case they actually give you a physical buff unlike alot of the other pet jobs. not to say it would be nice if using pet commands would forego the animation, however just wanted point out you're not entirely correct.

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Wind x3 = 4 seconds

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Not even Rangers don't shoot that fast. That's pushing it a little too far.

That said the trum magazine will still mostly suck unless the accuracy penalty is removed or reduced.

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Not even Rangers don't shoot that fast. That's pushing it a little too far.

That said the trum magazine will still mostly suck unless the accuracy penalty is removed or reduced.

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Would 5 seconds be better for you? I was only following their formula of 3 > 3 > 3 > 2

Regardless, it seems like the simplest fix imo. They could adjust the acc penalty also or remove it entirely.

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Originally Posted by Frapp

Tactical Processor - Adding this comment simply to make it visible because people that don't even play FFXI want to know what this does.

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I'm never going to play PUP but I would love to know what the Tactical Processor does. People have been asking about this thing for years, it's like the AV strategy of attachments.

When asked about lights and the brew in Abyssea SE comes right out and tells us what it does, but we've been asking about the tactical processor for years now and still nothing.

maybe they don't know, they fired the guy that worked on it, its been a black box ever since.

while we're speculating xD the guy was working on damage gauge, about to implement the last bit of coding to prioritize curing over status debuffs came back from lunch to see the pink slip dangling from his monitor.

Note: As a veteran pup who took a break from the game right as these forums started up, please forgive my apparent newbishness/lack of posting cred.

In response to Camate's post from the dev team: It's great that you guys are reading and responding. Some of the answers I was very happy to see, however others I feel need to be addressed as though the original question was misunderstood, or something else entirely. Anything not quoted from Camate's post I was happy to see and having nothing but thank you to say as a response.

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Originally Posted by Camate

The maneuver duration, recast time, and overload are all balanced very subtly; through maneuvers, the automaton’s operability, as well as the frame and attachments, are largely affected. Due to this, we plan to create balance by adding and adjusting attachments and abilities without changing the operations of the base maneuvers.

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This is nice on paper, but adding more attachments really should not be the go-to solution, unless you also plan on increasing the elemental capacity of all of the frames and heads, and/or intend to increase the amount of slots we have to equip attachments. As it stands now, the bulk of the practical attachment fits have been essentially set in stone since the release of the Ashu Talif attachments. Adding more attachments as fixes for things that the pup community considers problems means that we'll lose something from our normal, comfortable play style in order to fix something that we consider "it's working as intended" to be the wrong answer for. With some things, it's fine, or even a great idea, but with others, it just won't help.

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Originally Posted by Camate

We understand that there are times this is inconvenient for ranged/mage frames. We will look into increasing the distance for using Deploy.

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I'm also really happy to see this, but I'd ask that you also adjust the range at which the puppet decides to run in and melee. Being able to deploy my mage frame from a distance greater than we already get would be awesome, but totally useless since any distance beyond just the max range causes the very squishy, very low HP mage frame to run in gung ho and start trying to act like it's suddenly a warrior. The scene is rather cute, but the fact that it normally results in the puppet dying is annoying.

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Originally Posted by Camate

With the current system, Scanner will detect resist rates, so by using a Scanner it should make it so your automaton does not cast this.
However, if there is even a small chance that the monster uses magic, the automaton will start to cast silence. The chance of there being a bug related to this isn’t impossible, so we will be checking on this.

Also, if you have any feedback such as “I don’t want silence to be cast on enemies that are highly resistant to silence” (ex: Make it so it doesn’t cast silence when the resist rate is over 60%) please make sure to let us know.

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[/QUOTE]

NPC fellows do not cast silence on crabs, beetles, DRK type skeletons, or any other mob that has mp but doesn't use it. The fact that the puppet does cast on said mobs is what we want fixed. Also, I would think that wanting the puppet to know not to cast silence on something that's highly resistant or immune to silence would go hand in hand with said desire :/

Actually, given that puppet -seems- to know when not to cast something that will be resisted in terms of elemental/dark magic, wouldn't it make sense for the puppet to already have the same behavior for enfeebles?

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Originally Posted by Camate

We are looking into changing the automaton behavior. Since this is something that we have received a lot of feedback about we will be looking into it, but since the workings of the automaton logic are so complex it will take some time.

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I'm sure you're well aware, but this desire for cure focusing stems from the fact that for some silly reason, our puppets become homicidal towards us if we fight against something that likes to use enfeebling magic. By this, I mean that if I am at 5% HP, while still having the monster's attention, and being blind, if my puppet is about to cast a spell on me, it will not cast Cure VI. It won't cast Cure I. No matter what I'm fighting, no matter how badly injured I am, my puppet absolutely HAS to cast blindna on me first. There is no exception to this rule. None. This applies to all -na able status effects. THAT is the problem, and one that pup has been asking to have fixed since the release of the soulsoother head.

I can respect that it's a complex issue, but it's something we've been reporting as a bug since 2006, and we have never received a "that your puppet wants to make sure your not blind, even if it costs you your life is how we intended it to work" response. I'm sorry if I sound a little ungrateful, but 5 years to fix an obvious bug that has been complained and talked about throughout said 5 years is somewhat... absurd :/

Also, while I'm at it, it would be GREATLY appreciated if you guys could look in to lowering the HP%/MP% that trigger Soulreaver's aspir/drain priority. They are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to high, and now that we have Aspir II, letting the soulreaver puppet sit out (rather than using deactivate/activate, which isn't always a useable strategy) is pointless, because after the second nuke, it spends the next hour casting aspir II, then Aspir, then aspir II, then aspir, then aspir II, then aspir, and occasionally, if you're lucky, you'll get one nuke between 3-4 aspir volleys. All of this despite the fact that the puppet is sitting on 74% mp after 2 nukes... And PLEASE don't try to fix this with an attachment, there's not room for another attachment in the nuking set up.

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Originally Posted by Camate

We plan on revamping attachment stats, so there is a possibility that we make it so that there is no consumption of maneuvers. This doesn’t mean that we will be adjusting every attachment for this, but we will be looking at each one separately. If you have any feedback please let us know!

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I'll wait and see how this turns out, I'm not sure whether it sounds promising or worrisome. However, if you make it so eraser only consumes light maneuvers I'd be a pretty happy galka.

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Originally Posted by Camate

We will be performing adjustments on attachments that need adjusting as necessary.

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Same answer as the last one? I guess it's basically the same question, though. By the way, can you please tell us what in the world Tactical Processor is/was supposed to do aside from make our puppet overload? It's one of the original attachments, and despite that we still have absolutely no idea what it does, because any and every logical conclusion that can be drawn from it's description has been tested and found to be unaffected by the attachment. Was there some purpose to it that managed to escape our imaginations, or is it just bugged?

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Originally Posted by Camate

We are thinking about making adjustments in the form of attachments, not on the automaton or puppetmaster side. For example, how does implementing Strobe II sound?

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Strobe II sounds pretty pointless since if a puppet is going to tank it's going to need to be able to do decent damage, and adding another fire attachment for a small hate spike is counter-productive to that (Tension Springs I and II and attuner are important to maximizing valoredge's damage output, and losing any of them for strobe isn't going to help VE keep hate)

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Originally Posted by Camate

Currently, we are thinking more in the direction of implementing superior lubricant, such as Lubricant +3, instead of directly increasing the physical resistance.

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oh, please for the love of god, no more consumables. Repair is already horrible on inventory space, and annoyingly expensive (though it's a lot better than it used to be <3), and on top of that I normally carry 5-6 different sets of gear for my pup, all of which are frequently used, the last thing I need is MORE consumables to buff my pet.

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Originally Posted by Camate

First we will be revamping attachments that need adjustments. After that we will take a look at the balance and look into this.

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ok, well, do make sure TO look into this, because sharpshot takes way to long between shots. It's pretty bad that the ranger based puppet has to melee if it is to do any respectable amount of damage.

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Originally Posted by Camate

We definitely understand. Since automatons are different than player characters, and it is difficult to adjust the positioning of the automaton, we are looking into easing up or even eliminating the distance factor.

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Wait, I thought you guys fixed this already O.o

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Originally Posted by Camate

The damage is calculated as a special WS, however, we will be looking into making this easier to use while making use of its special properties since we hear a lot of people saying it keeps doing zero damage…

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Please do something about it. The ws calculates damage based on the amount of HP the very squishy mage frame that can and will heal itself is missing. Everything about that is counterproductive and redundant. The last thing any pup wants is for their mp intensive mage frame to be losing HP since that means deactivating will cause a headache of the 20 minute activate timer (that is really way to long) or dealing with deus-repair-praythepuppetdoesn'tgethit-deactivate-activate-praythepuppetdoesntgethit. I mean, even if it was just based on the amount of MP missing instead of HP, it'd be useful.

Ok, I've said my peace. I'm definitely happy to see the devs responding to us, and I'm glad to see some of the things that need fixed will get fixed.

p.s. I do not like you, 10000 character limit. You suppress my innate wordiness!

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Originally Posted by Horadrim

The Auto deals most of the damage, but the PUP's ability to maintain decent DPS is pretty important too. In situations where the automaton is just nuking, losing DPS because you have to freshen up your maneuvers hurts the PUP overall. Maneuvers don't need to be fixed, the annoying animation just needs to change.

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No, the automaton does like 1/20th the damage of the master, it is really pathetic. This is why using maneuvers so frequently is such a problem, the master is 95% of the damage, and you have to cut your damage by 10% just to get a boost to the 5% the automaton does. I doubt they can remove the delay, all JAs work the same way, having a delay built in like that allows gear swaps to function correctly without messing up your tp gear.

Camate: Thanks for the info, but I have to say the "no we won't fix maneuvers" thing basically means pup will always stay bottom of the barrel. I realize there has to be a balance so that you can't keep up 3 of the same maneuver all the time, but saying "pups have to lose 10% of their damage keeping up maneuvers, tough luck" is pretty brutal.

How about a JA that makes maneuvers last 5 times as long, but also give 5 times as much "burden" or whatever you want to call the "make you overload" thing? That way it stays just as hard to keep up triple wind maneuvers when DDing, we don't lose so much damage to ability delay, and it doesn't break the way things are now. Like if you were using the blm frame and wanted to spam ice maneuvers, you just don't use the new ability and your maneuver duration and burden stay the way they are now. Make the new JA be a 5 minute duration/recast type deal.

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Originally Posted by Theytak

Wait, I thought you guys fixed this already O.o

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They removed the acc penalty, but not the attack penalty. At least, the patch notes said they removed the acc penalty, I haven't tested to be sure that is true. I have tested the attack penalty however, and it is definitely still there.

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Originally Posted by Mercilessturtle

No, the automaton does like 1/20th the damage of the master, it is really pathetic. This is why using maneuvers so frequently is such a problem, the master is 95% of the damage, and you have to cut your damage by 10% just to get a boost to the 5% the automaton does. I doubt they can remove the delay, all JAs work the same way, having a delay built in like that allows gear swaps to function correctly without messing up your tp gear.

Camate: Thanks for the info, but I have to say the "no we won't fix maneuvers" thing basically means pup will always stay bottom of the barrel. I realize there has to be a balance so that you can't keep up 3 of the same maneuver all the time, but saying "pups have to lose 10% of their damage keeping up maneuvers, tough luck" is pretty brutal.

How about a JA that makes maneuvers last 5 times as long, but also give 5 times as much "burden" or whatever you want to call the "make you overload" thing? That way it stays just as hard to keep up triple wind maneuvers when DDing, we don't lose so much damage to ability delay, and it doesn't break the way things are now. Like if you were using the blm frame and wanted to spam ice maneuvers, you just don't use the new ability and your maneuver duration and burden stay the way they are now. Make the new JA be a 5 minute duration/recast type deal.

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Honestly, the 2sec delay caused by using JAs is only going to have a noticeable effect on a pup's DPS in min-max situations, among min-max players who care about minute differences in over all dps. I'd wager about 75-80% of the game's playerbase doesn't care about min-maxing, and another 14-19% only use min-max stats as a guideline for playing. That leaves a minuscule 1-5% of the populace who actually play the game entirely around min-maxing their gear to squeeze out that last tenth of a percent in their dps. The reason they're not planning on changing maneuvers is because it's only that 1-5% of the populace who actually cares about how they affect dps, and the rest are just griping for the sake of convenience, when in reality maneuvers as they are are actually rather balanced for the bulk of the playerbase.

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Originally Posted by Helel

I think you misunderstood what is being requested. The automaton will attempt to silence ANYTHING with mp, such as a crab, which never casts any spells. I haven't played PUP in a long time, but it was always very annoying to watch it continually silence crabs for no reason. This does need to be fixed. Perhaps allowing the automaton to cast silence only after it sees the mob cast would be ideal.

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This, this, a million times this ^

There are many things retarded about puppet AI- casting silence on stuff that doesn't cast spells just because it has MP, casting aspir on stuff with such enormous dark resist that the puppet actually loses MP in doing so (and wastes an entire spell which is annoying like crazy since the puppet waits half an hour to cast again [hyperbole]), and the aforementioned soulsoother casting silena on the pup when he's at 3 HP and being attacked.

The ideal would be some sort of user-programmable gambit system for the puppet (from ff12), but I can't imagine what sort of nightmare that would be attempting to code that in. Perhaps the ability to simply remove certain spells from a puppet's spellbook so you can... oh, I don't know... stop your puppet from casting fire-based spells on something that absorbs fire damage?!

I honestly think it would be better to just give the pup more direct control over their puppet instead of just patching the AI piece by piece. There will always be little things here or there that are annoying about AI behavior, but if the player has more control, they can work to fix those problems themselves in whichever situation they find themselves in. Please take that into consideration when fixing pet jobs; don't patch AI, give the players to power to fix it themselves on a situation by situation basis.

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Originally Posted by Theytak

Honestly, the 2sec delay caused by using JAs is only going to have a noticeable effect on a pup's DPS in min-max situations, among min-max players who care about minute differences in over all dps.

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6 seconds being deleted out of every 60 seconds is 10%. You lose 10% of your damage keeping maneuvers up. Period. It has nothing to do with min-maxing. Just because you don't know or care what is going on, doesn't mean it is ok for a job to lose 10% of their damage having to spam JAs that give less than 10% damage in return.

Having a clue is not a bad thing. Paying attention to what you are doing is not a bad thing. Being able to do basic grade school arithmetic is not a bad thing. Quit acting like anyone who bothers to understand the current state of pup is a terrible person for wanting to actually do decent damage instead of being stuck in "gimp monk with a funny looking wyvern" land.

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Originally Posted by Mercilessturtle

No, the automaton does like 1/20th the damage of the master, it is really pathetic. This is why using maneuvers so frequently is such a problem, the master is 95% of the damage, and you have to cut your damage by 10% just to get a boost to the 5% the automaton does. I doubt they can remove the delay, all JAs work the same way, having a delay built in like that allows gear swaps to function correctly without messing up your tp gear.

Camate: Thanks for the info, but I have to say the "no we won't fix maneuvers" thing basically means pup will always stay bottom of the barrel. I realize there has to be a balance so that you can't keep up 3 of the same maneuver all the time, but saying "pups have to lose 10% of their damage keeping up maneuvers, tough luck" is pretty brutal.

How about a JA that makes maneuvers last 5 times as long, but also give 5 times as much "burden" or whatever you want to call the "make you overload" thing? That way it stays just as hard to keep up triple wind maneuvers when DDing, we don't lose so much damage to ability delay, and it doesn't break the way things are now. Like if you were using the blm frame and wanted to spam ice maneuvers, you just don't use the new ability and your maneuver duration and burden stay the way they are now. Make the new JA be a 5 minute duration/recast type deal.

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the automation AI and what not aside..THIS.. THIS A MILLION TIMES OVER. I swear if they did something like this and gave you more control of your pet via maneuvers..i think i would be in love with this job.
The quoted suggestion seems like a great thing to implement, just make it a "stance" with a decent duration and shortish recast like most other jobs have already (hasso seigan rapid shot solace misery composure etc etc)
It is sad that the way to be the more productive DDer i have to neglect my pet currently.

I know i am still hoping for a fix to the puppet behavior (is it really that hard to have a trigger for when we want silence or blindna etc?) but is there any hopes to have an auto-assist function for pets? as in you engage > pet atks? i always felt the way the NPC or DRG's pet behaved friendlier towards their master..and before ppl throw the "its a puppet you have to control it" realize it is more like a robot then a puppet! it cast at his own rate, and clearly ignores us when we beg him for cures >.>

auto assist is a slippery slope. its much better to select what you want your pet to fight, than for it to choose based on what you're doing. having to engage something on drg and run out of range to leave your wyvern on it is a bit annoying, when a simple command attack or stay would be more useful in the situation. (specificaly for survivability)

that said, i feel another adjustment that might serve well to be implemented, is the ability to deploy on player characters, that might open up some options for pups to be more useful, aside from the straight damage dealer.

as for -na spells, they are triggered by water maneuvers to cast on other players, they should remain on water maneuvers for us as well. if i need a paralyna in red hp, i rather get cured, while fighting to put up a water, than die, because the light maneuver triggered the wrong thing. i believe on top of the cast priority change, this would be a simple long term fix.

changing what maneuvers trigger spells may not be the best course of action, but i see it as the most realistic option, from the coding stand point. this could apply to silence, drain/aspir etc. they are already triggered when certain maneuvers are used. but if these were required for the puppet to use them, i think that would solve some headaches, without the need to add more attachments that we cant afford to equip due to the maxed out slots/ele. capacity.

what we really do need is a new frame, or at the very least, the ability to merit elemental capacities in the upcoming lvl 99 merit system. adding more attachments wont solve all our issues, without being able to use them, they will just multiply problems instead of relieve them.

(as for tactical processor, last i heard it was rumored to effect recast/cooldown of other JA and attachments ~ ala: shield bash stoneskin provoke flash etc)

My thoughts:

Tactical Processor: Yes, we want an answer to this. What does it do? Specifics. Now.

Attachment space: Can we get some new attachment space? 12 attachments is hardly enough, and I find myself unable to choose between which ones I need to use. It would be nice that if more attachments are going to be added that more attachment space be made. Also, don't forget about the elemental factors.

Maneuvers: One idea I have is to have an ability that will allow me to put in multiple maneuvers at once (perhaps similar to DNC's Presto ability). I wouldn't mind a counter-balance, like an increase chance of overload or something.

Drum Magazine: One thing I would like to see is instead of losing accuracy, lose ranged attack either. That way, it becomes a good attachment for building TP.

Tactical Processor: Mentioned twice because I want to know. What Does It Do?

If i'm not mistaken the puppet also doesn't recognize Immunities, I don't know the inner work about NM's Immunities but against NMs that have MP and cast magic but Immune to silence the puppet will continue cast Silence ..forever.. with Scanner..example:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Teekesselchen

Scanner is bugged and they always knew this, but never fixed it for some reason.

Also, it appears as if they have no fraking clue what Tact processor does and are afraid to admit it lol.

Something tells me the guy who made Tactical Processor got fired and no one knows what it does now >_>

Quote:

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Make it so my automaton does not keep casting silence on monsters that are not affected by silence.

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Quote:

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With the current system, Scanner will detect resist rates, so by using a Scanner it should make it so your automaton does not cast this.
However, if there is even a small chance that the monster uses magic, the automaton will start to cast silence. The chance of there being a bug related to this isn’t impossible, so we will be checking on this.

Also, if you have any feedback such as “I don’t want silence to be cast on enemies that are highly resistant to silence” (ex: Make it so it doesn’t cast silence when the resist rate is over 60%) please make sure to let us know.

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Skeleton Warriors in KRT, for example. They never cast, but Koumei keeps silencing them. I've had similar issues with other non-casting Skeletons, Crabs and Beetles in the past, but that particular one has been since Grounds of Valor was added, as I was doing page 7, and being annoyed by Koumei casting silence on Skeleton Warriors when I had Ice and Wind active.

The other side of the silence problem is that while the automaton will happily spam silence on non-casting crabs and the like because they have mp, they will never cast silence on any NIN or BRD mobs because they lack mp.

• Since I'm posting I'll add my vote to what does the tactical processor do?
• Automatons should be smart enough not to cast a spell that will heal a mob just because that spell is the least resisted.
• While new attachments are great and all, they should not be used to patch general/AI problems especially when were so limited by slots and elemental capacity.

After reading all of these issues, you really have to sit back and realize how moronic the old development team had to be in designing pup. Never thought of the magic mortar one where damage is based on how little hp it has, on a frame that can cure itself.

There really were a lot of stupid decisions made in the past, bugs that were fixed a few times abut still exist. Testing not properly done etc. Hopefully this group isn't as lazy, although the answer for helping puppet survive is to add another lubricant is kind of lazy and dumb. although a higher cure is handy for VE it doesn't change the fact that repair is too long of a timer.