What is this "game balance" you speak of?

[Hayward]

We've heard the excuses from developers about why jobs that need fixes don't get them. Paladins can't have decent damage potential for maintaining hate because it would upset the "game balance" (thank a self-interested melee for covering the devs on this one). Red Mages can't have even halfway-decent damage potential because of "game balance" (thank a "Pink Mage" for covering the devs on this one). No job can have new Weapon Skills that do meaningful damage because of "game balance" (thank insecure Empyrean weapon owners for covering the devs on this one).

It is getting a bit unnerving hearing these developers crying "wolf" ("game balance" in this case) whenever we ask for some changes to jobs that need them. It is getting equally unnerving seeing certain posters backing them up simply to maintain some invented sense of superiority.

[Juri_Licious]

I'm starting to think SE Devs actually do play the game but, only jobs like WHM, WAR, BLU & BLM. Maybe that's why they get all the attention?

One thing else to mention is, why is Square Enix so afraid to buff certain classes that need it?
If for some magical reason they become overpowered, they can always patch a nerf later.

They don't need to be afraid to risk failure with jobs. (Not including the failure they've been doing with certain jobs)

[Vold]

Personally I'm surprised they aren't making the weapon skills in line with others or better. Would certainly shut some people up about Empyreans when their relic is at least #1 with stats. So what if everyone could do the same #1 WS. I don't think anyone ever did a Excalibur for it's WS strength.

I know what I said before about this subject but whatever. Just let the weapon stats matter rather than the stats AND weapon skill. Damn, it's merited weapon skills. Just do it. One of them is already more powerful than the rest of their kind. And they take a trillion merits to cap. Just DO IT. Make them powerful. And solve the "relic/mythic crisis" over night. Here's your chance. It's never going to happen without their weapon skills matching Empyreans. ALL of them. So just do it already and move on.

[Laxedrane]

I can understand them not wanting them to be as strong as empyreon or the stronger nyzul weaponskills. However have they seriously not stop to think what they are asking from us? We can only choose 3 if we want the maximun damage and we have to dump 100 merits into each one. Yet they are balancing it against skills we get at level 65-70 that we simply get for being at that skill level? Really?

They need to make a choice here. If their decision is to balance them on with the common mans best weaponskills then they should not be involved in the merit system at all. Becuase, What are we merited them for? So I can have a more consistent hexa strike with the same animation but the final hit? However in the end hexa has the potential to do more damage becuase of the critical hit aspect of the weaponskill? So I am dumping 100 merits into this weaponskill, changing all my current gear for what exactly?

Hell club doesn't even get a special effect. H2H got plague, Polearm got critical evasion down, even though it's square excuse for keeping that skill mostly worthless sword got ignores defense. Club got nothing. At first I thought it was square saying fuck you to white mage melee as per usual. However I got on the test server and was like holy balls the damage, then thought, "Oh, they just made it a really strong weaponskill no special effect needed." Now they are nerfing it down to hexa strike level.

If your gonna keep going down this road square just take the merit part of the equation out. Because it would be unbalanced for you to ask us to do all this much for weaponskills that are meant to compete for ones we only get for being that skill level.

[Luvbunny]

There is no such thing as "game balance" - it's their sad poor excuse to do half ass job and then maybe, just maybe, in later dates to "correct" them to count as "content update". But look at it on the bright side - now everyone can quit and come back in 6 months or more and nothing much will change since with Tanaka leading the team (again) - you can expect no progress for years. Save your money - play other games - don't bother buying SE products - they certainly do not care what we think, and continue releasing inferior crap products and "content updates" that is utter garbage.

[Xellith]

There is no such thing as "game balance" - it's their sad poor excuse to do half ass job and then maybe, just maybe, in later dates to "correct" them to count as "content update". But look at it on the bright side - now everyone can quit and come back in 6 months or more and nothing much will change since with Tanaka leading the team (again) - you can expect no progress for years. Save your money - play other games - don't bother buying SE products - they certainly do not care what we think, and continue releasing inferior crap products and "content updates" that is utter garbage.

Gonna try EVE Online when my subscription runs out. Can you suggest anything else to try? That or I might just go "outside".

[Nightfyre]

Ask this guy, he seems to know a lot about the topic.

[Urteil]

Ask this guy, he seems to know a lot about the topic.

I wish he'd go join the team for Hello Kitty Online.

[Scribble]

I hate threads like this.

Anyway, it doesn't make any sense to try and balance the game yet. Bear in mind that we just gained 25 levels in about a year and a half after being at 75 for years; a level that most of the game's mechanics are based around. Since we'd been getting level increases about every 4 months it was pointless to try and balance the game.

Think of it this way:

Lets say you ate way too many rolanberry pies so you're trying to lose some weight for the summer. You start a training regimen and the pounds are flying off. Now, you don't go to the store every week and get a new pair of jeans knowing that they won't fit you the next week do you? What do you do? You get a belt and hold up what you have for now until your weight stabilizes.

Same concept here. Give all the changes a little time to settle in. We got a test server and I'm sure they'll continue to use it to balance the game in the future.

[Zemarin]

Balance....

Make a WS that's Strong Like *insert 60 weaponskill* and closes Darkness like *insert weak lvl 70-75 WS* but doesn't out do *insert emp weaponskill* and has a special effects like *insert lvl 80~ WS*