New 2-hour Abilities

[saevel]

Yeah, Scherzo is for the mages.

One nice fix for ADL would be to lower the range of his AoEs which seems to be some outlandish number like 40+ yalms. My LS messed around with some non-PD strats for ADL and the biggest problem was that there was just no way to be taking part in the fight without taking huge damage and getting hit with enfeebs. If you could have a tank pull one ADL out of range so you only had to worry about 1 TP move at a time that would be tremendous. Increasing the delay on Teraslash and Dynamic Implosion to something much more stunnable would go a long ways as well. I think with those changes you could fight him and his clones indefinitely until you found the right one.

ADL was designed as an ultimate "cheap boss". It's Tanaka's shinying baby, the Neo-Shrinyu / Ozma of FFXI (amongst other esteemed company). In the past we CSS'd DL while we zerged him to prevent him from instantly killing everyone. In ADL's case he's forced to splint and you can only CSS one of this clones yet during that initial damage phase everyone us taking stupid damage amounts. As experienced ADL killers know, if you try to kill him too fast he'll just pop three clones so a pure CSS zerg isn't' possible. Your basically down to using PD (we use an outside SCH with their 2hr locked on the ??? for embrava) to absorb his stupid damage output while you kill him. No PD and your mages will just instantly die on the first oblivion smash / terra slash / dyna implosion / ect..

They'd have to nerf the range on ALL his abilities down to 15~19 yalms in order for him to be killed without a serious dose of luck. A strategy we've incorporated is having a BLU in another party spamming HB / SL / TS / WoR to slow him down. Stuns don't always stick, now do they stick for long, but it does slow him down and keep people alive longer.

[saevel]

Heh thought you guys would get a kick out of this.

Tanaka's Bible

and

Players Responce to Tanaka's Bible

Then finally

Tanaka's answer to the Players responce

[Dragoy]

A couple of days late bye... for years upon years I have been saying that the 2 hour wait is unneeded, and that it should be reduced to preferably 30 minutes, or at least, 45-60. I had to read the post quite a few times to believe in that it is actually, finally, being thought upon!

I guess anything and everything really is possible. ^^

Not that I believe my word(s) have been seen, but it is nice to see that there are at least some people within the developer ranks who think the same way. So even if it is early to say this, I say thank you, for it will certainly improve my gaming experience if I am still playing at the time. It's not really a big deal all in all, but sometimes it is the small things that matter the most!

Even if I were not to play at the time, I will still look from afar with great interest, how the world of Vana'diel evolves.


Likewise, deciding to separate the new abilities from each other (recast timers) I agree just as well, and I guess anyone could have seen the Embrava and Perfect Defense 'nerfs' coming. It will not affect me, I guess, since I've never even been cast Embrava upon, and only a few times have I been under the effect of Perfect Defense. Obviously I do not do NYzul Isle Investigation II nor Legion due to obvious reasons.

While I do not have any suggestions and thoughts to share really before I can do more testing, I just wanted to say: ありがとう, because I like the direction this is going (for now at least).

It will also be interesting to see if anything will finally be done about the 'locking of buffs' as well with the changes to content that heavily seem to depend upon Embrava and Perfect Defense, since that surely is not intended game-play...


Blubb!

[Martel]

As far as ADL, won't Sam's new SP ability negate almost all his attacks? or am I reading that wrong?

Even if it does, that gets you one ADL, per ~5 DD's 2hours. Whereas PD can be given to the pt, so you can use the same DDs and cycle SMNs.

I don't think SAM is the answer to post PD ADL. <,<

[Insaniac]

They'd have to nerf the range on ALL his abilities down to 15~19 yalms in order for him to be killed without a serious dose of luck.

That's pretty much what I was suggesting. They could leave implosion at around 30' but make it a long wind up. It's fine for there to be FU moves but there needs to be a way to overcome them that doesn't involve being invincible. Being able to tank/stun one ADL off to the side and just let it re-split into 2 if you pick the wrong one would still make for an interesting and fun fight that still required some amount of strategy and paying attention.

As for the BLU stuns, I think you are just asking to get a "no effect" on shock squall. You really should only need 1 shock squall per ADL. If you fire it at around 30% he should be dead before he's out of stun.

[Tamarsamar]

One thing that I liked about Matsui's post is that he actually grasps the concept of "game balance." Game balance (in terms of a PvE game like FFXI) is impossible when the game is a constant arms race between the players and newer, more strongerer and double-unkillable mobs. That's actually the exact opposite of game balance, where the game becomes a farce of its former self reduced to one dominant strategy at a time.

It certainly didn't help that in FFXI's earlier years, balance heavily relied upon players not knowing what certain statistics did. Turning "Attack" into damage is a needlessly convoluted process, as a prime example (versus, say, Magic Attack Bonus for spell damage, though Magic Resistance is pretty convoluted itself).

What game balance actually is, to get back to my original point, is ensuring that the game doesn't reduce to the ridiculous arms race mentioned above. Always "more power" a la Tim Taylor will eventually cause your game to collapse (also a la Tim Taylor). The players are actually the crux of this problem for the game designer: they will always pursue what's the most powerful option for them. You fix the TP return on Weapon Skills so Monks can't Asuran Fists back-to-back-to-back, and the players ruthlessly and relentlessly sing a years-long dirge on the "nerfing" of Dragoon's Penta Thrust WS. I feel that lately (over the past few years), the dev team has been too scared of player feedback to cut back on innate player power any more, barring obvious extreme situations, and has instead pursued balance between the jobs with buffs buffs and yet more buffs. In pursuit of making more challenging content, more and more obscenely powerful monsters are designed to compete with the players. And the players whine and complain for more buffs.

This continues ad infinitum in a vicious cycle until someone says "enough is enough." While what Matsui has said regarding PD and Embrava is all-in-all a rather modestly proposed cutback, it's an important step in the right direction. If Matsui is the man to say "enough," to rein the game back under control before players are ambushed by Hundred Fist TP-Draining Enfeeble-immune mobs in Adoulin, the game can only benefit in the long run as a result.

[saevel]

The concept behind EVERY FFXI BOSS

FFXI BOSS's

[saevel]

That's pretty much what I was suggesting. They could leave implosion at around 30' but make it a long wind up. It's fine for there to be FU moves but there needs to be a way to overcome them that doesn't involve being invincible. Being able to tank/stun one ADL off to the side and just let it re-split into 2 if you pick the wrong one would still make for an interesting and fun fight that still required some amount of strategy and paying attention.

As for the BLU stuns, I think you are just asking to get a "no effect" on shock squall. You really should only need 1 shock squall per ADL. If you fire it at around 30% he should be dead before he's out of stun.

We've run into problems with SMN's actually surviving to use SS. Our SMNs tend to be outside of the melee party where their vulnerable to all his stupid moves. The 15 foot range on pet commands further screws with us.

Also we have incredibly bad luck with picking the wrong one. We now plan on killing both clones at a minimum, sometimes more. The most I've ever seen up is four clones, usually after a sudden implosion when we've tried to kill it to fast.

[Sasaraixx]

Hyperbole much ....

SMN has Shock Squall and as others have said, it's pretty amazing provided the SMN has their skill capped. SMN could stand to have those stupid timers lowered to 30s or less though. Also needs it's buffs duration set to 3~5min so that they could use them more frequently.

SCH is wow ... if you seriously so ignorant as to think SCH has "no use in end game" then there's nothing anyone can say to convince you otherwise.

Otherwise there are indeed jobs that are left out due to their near uselessness, none of those jobs were mentioned in this recent info and if anything having their "2hrs" on a 30min timer might make them a bit more useful.

No, It wasn't. And you don't think so either because you actually go on to agree with me. Contradict yourself much? Or perhaps you should choose which sections you quote more carefully.

I already mentioned Shock Squall. Your point is redundant.

SCH uses . . . outside of Embrava and perhaps Alacrity stunning, what have you got? Go.

SCH with it's Regen V + nearly infinite mp makes it a better healer than WHM in alot of places and also makes it take the spot as second healer. (not to mention SCH/BLM is an amazing stunner)

I would agree with you if White Mages running out of MP was a serious problem or there was actually a need for second healers.

[Insaniac]

We've run into problems with SMN's actually surviving to use SS. Our SMNs tend to be outside of the melee party where their vulnerable to all his stupid moves. The 15 foot range on pet commands further screws with us.

Also we have incredibly bad luck with picking the wrong one. We now plan on killing both clones at a minimum, sometimes more. The most I've ever seen up is four clones, usually after a sudden implosion when we've tried to kill it to fast.

Have your PD smn bring a vile elixir/+1. Your non-PDed smns should be able to recover from the first volley by the time the PD SMNs Shock Squall wears.