Expansion (Seekers of Adoulin) to have PvP content?

[kingfury]

@kf,

Totally understand where your coming from, I just don't see SE putting the necessary time and resources it requires into it. There are still so many things broke in the game right now that they haven't even bothered to fix.

What I mean by basic battle mechanics are things like attack vs defense, magic, PDT / MDT and gear swaps. Removing gear swaps nerfs the magic based users, hence the melee jobs spiking up to the top. People talk about strategy but honestly when we only have ~1600 HP it would be trivial for any DD to whack that down. That forces everyone to wear PDT and it just kinda snowballs from there.

Currently the top three for one on one are RDM, PLD and BLU. It's due to their survivability and vast array for cheap moves (RDM and BLU). In order to "balance" against that you'd have to reduce the effectiveness of those moves, yet if you do that those jobs suddenly become crap compared to the melee's. I mentioned the above melees for group play, they would just gang up on one opponent and immediately kill them, then move on to another, while the enemy team does the same to them. Bringing a healer wouldn't work as they would be the first person to immediately die and would leave one team with 3 melee's vs 4 melees.

It just gets stupid as each scenario is played out, players will always seek the fastest and most "efficient" way to win not the "way it was meant to be played". FFXI just has too many holes in it.

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I hear ya and again, I agree, but apparently they are in fact investing in the Play as Monster system so they could be fixing a few things about the system in order to make that system work. I was saying earlier that I was wondering if they're going to lock gear swapping for the players that are the fighting the monster player for the same reason they locked it for our other current PvP systems. If they do in fact allow gear swaps for those players, the problem will be no different on the players playing the monsters, and they'll quickly lose their target lock on whichever target does so.

The strange thing is, that new "/display head off" command can make a helmet invisible on a player character yet still maintain the stats system side. Why cant the Devs create an invisible target that can be locked onto within our floating name text that can be invisible player side and remain regardless if we gear swap or not? Yes even if we've have "/names" toggled off, it would resemble the new /display head functionality in that the information is of course "still there" but just invisible. Seems like an easy solution since our names remain even during gear swapping.

In regards to the battle mechanics, players would indeed need HP in the upwards 6k+ range and the -PDT/-MDT to take the spike damage from Damage Dealers and Mages down a bit to allow players a chance to even survive long enough to make any battle contributions. The "gang up on the important guy" strategy would however be apart of the game no matter what I'm afraid. It's apart of most war/battle strategies in the real world in fact; "Taking out the most integral part of your combatants army to cripple their ability to fight smoothly". Every team would have to devise an opposing strategy to this logic before entering into battle.

To address the "effectiveness of certain spells", like the bump to -PDT/-MDT that would help to ease the spike damage from Damage dealers in the official mode of play, I suggested this in the OP:

"Curbing The Effect of Certain Magic Spells
All magic spells and TP moves during PvP matches that inflict Stun, Petrification, Bind, Silence, Gravity, or Sleep will have a maximum duration of up to 5 seconds. Players will rapidly build resistance after being effected by these types of status effects multiple times until finally becoming immune.

[kingfury]

The problem isn't that FFXI is kind of imbalanced. It is imbalanced completely past the point that those sorts of measures actually are going to be viable ways of fixing the problems. Every class would basically need separate stats and abilities to make true PvP viable.

The problem with FFXI's current system is that the relative offense, defense, and support capabilities against targets with player level stats is completely disproportionate. It isn't just a matter of adjusting X ability by 4.5% or increasing the recast on Y ability by 50%. When it comes to a PvP setting, some classes are always going to bring far, far more to the table than others. "Working together" doesn't fix all the problems.

Not a lot of people want to see content implemented that inherently is only going to allow specific jobs to be competitive. Most people would rather see content designed to keep as many jobs as possible at least vaguely competitive. This is also an almost exclusively PvE game that has been out for ten years. No PvP content is going to attract that many players and most PvP focused players never bothered with this game in the first place.

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Unfortunate, but true. Thanks for the feedback /

The 1st point in bold, however, is based on if players are unable to gear swap and are fighting based on their native ffxi battle parameters which I've agreed would need to be altered greatly to make PvP viable and fair. If players were allowed the same flexibility to gear swap and plan accordingly should they find themselves facing one of those job classes that are built to last along with some added help to HP, -PDT/-MDT, curbing certain spells/TP moves and refresh/regen, there could be a chance they could fairly contend with enough skill.

The 2nd point is completely based on the Devs ability to create a "fair system" that players can enjoy. That, and what Sparthos posted earlier--

The success or failure of monster PvP will come down to how deep the gameplay is, how fair combinations are and what the incentive are to keep individuals at it.

The "Fun factor" of most competitive PvP games comes down to having either equal footing, or having the chance to plan ahead to create that equal footing should the players want to increase the difficulty by choosing to play with a character that is slower or unable to cast magic vs a faster character or a mage.

[kingfury]

Usualy I berate people for asking for PvP in a game that's designed around coop play, but you left in the mithra nut shot, so I can't be mad at you KF. lol

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(^.^) /laugh

[Mathieu]

The 1st point in bold, however, is based on if players are unable to gear swap and are fighting based on their native ffxi battle parameters which I've agreed would need to be altered greatly to make PvP viable and fair. If players were allowed the same flexibility to gear swap and plan accordingly should they find themselves facing one of those job classes that are built to last along with some added help to HP, -PDT/-MDT, curbing certain spells/TP moves and refresh/regen, there could be a chance they could fairly contend with enough skill.

The 2nd point is completely based on the Devs ability to create a "fair system" that players can enjoy. That, and what Sparthos posted earlier--

The "Fun factor" of most competitive PvP games comes down to having either equal footing, or having the chance to plan ahead to create that equal footing should the players want to increase the difficulty by choosing to play with a character that is slower or unable to cast magic vs a faster character or a mage.

No, they aren't you are trying to put words in my mouth. No amount of preparation can change the core aspects and abilities of how the classes work. Play a Bard then play a Red Mage, then try to say with a straight face that sufficient preparation and equipment selection is going to prevent the Bard from becoming a greasy smear if a semi-competent Red Mage decides they are a threat. Red Mages have multiple ways of stopping them from getting songs off and huge windows to do it. Red Mages also have vastly superior defenses against Bard debuffs.

Again, it's not a matter of adjusting some minor effects to abilities. Many abilities are simply useless or irrelevant against players. Certain things that don't matter against AI opponents are crippling against a human opponent. Hate control abilities are completely irrelevant. Removing out core abilities, which is required to make an even vaguely balanced PvP environment, just upsets anyone that wants to play the class.

[kingfury]

No, they aren't you are trying to put words in my mouth. No amount of preparation can change the core aspects and abilities of how the classes work. Play a Bard then play a Red Mage, then try to say with a straight face that sufficient preparation and equipment selection is going to prevent the Bard from becoming a greasy smear if a semi-competent Red Mage decides they are a threat. Red Mages have multiple ways of stopping them from getting songs off and huge windows to do it. Red Mages also have vastly superior defenses against Bard debuffs.

Again, it's not a matter of adjusting some minor effects to abilities. Many abilities are simply useless or irrelevant against players. Certain things that don't matter against AI opponents are crippling against a human opponent. Hate control abilities are completely irrelevant. Removing out core abilities, which is required to make an even vaguely balanced PvP environment, just upsets anyone that wants to play the class.

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Not putting words in your mouth, just driving home the point that with preparation (AND battle system enhancements) that BRD could possibly have a fighting chance to survive a RDMs onslaught.

Unfortunately, I can't speak with an educated tone on either job's full potential to overcome the other if a die hard player was at the helm controlling each in a heated PvP match that allowed them the full array of battle variety as if they were fighting under normal circumstances. I just know that if nothing else, over the years, ffxi players have continued to push the parameters of what certain jobs designed for one thing can do outside of that design.

Again, that doesn't mean that a WHM can MATCH the exact Damage Dealing prowess of that of a WAR, but with enough skill (and planning/balanced system help), that WHM can not only survive a WAR's barrage but also dish out a nice amount of damage if equipped properly to do so. Would it mean they're designed to do so based on their "core aspects" of the current ffxi battle system? No, not really, but it is possible. (I have played WHM extensively enough to speak on that jobs potential ^^)

[airsparrowhawk]

Personally I'd just like to see some sort of competitive element in FFXI, it feels that once players reach the end game it's all about the best gear or merit combinations, a leaderboard for something would be nice, aside from BCNM time records. It doesn't necessarily have to be direct PVP either, just some way to distinguish the top player(s) per job, linkshell(s) per job, player(s) per server and linkshell(s) per server would be nice.

[Secondplanet]

People who are against pvp just don't want to directly compete against other players and suffer embarrassment, because they'd rather have the indirect competition that we deal with in addition to each new battlefield event that just happens to play the exact same way every time. This game's pvp systems are actually quite deep and highly strategical, their cumbersome minigames not included. Years ago SE stated they support the idea of pvp but with the requirement that it offer something more than simply playing whack a mole with one another, that's where we got Ballista and Brenner. Schedules, island reservations, these things ruined pvp for FFXI. The spirit of competition and want to stab your fellow adventurers until they stop moving should be more than enough to do that without so many variables thrown in to convolute the situation. OP's idea is simple, and awesome.

Sorry but this kind of response is arrogance at its best, I did the limited PVP on this game before. Unless you sub nin at the time you weren't gonna get anywhere. Too many jobs are highly overpowered that it would be a pissing match more then an actual fight that has anything close to strategy. I remember someone using brd with hoards lullaby to sleep the other party then a sam came up with full tp and killed our whm with 1 shot. I know about using poison to prevent this but for people with stone skin that didn't work.

Summoner wouldn't do anywhere close to good in this, you'd just ignor our avatar use movement speed bonus gear and chase us down.

But on a side note isn't there that Colosseum in whitegate that never got used?

[Sunrider]

I've always found players' collective reaction to PVP to be rather interesting.

This game attracts in droves players that profess to loathe PVP... but have readily competed with each other in the past over timed spawns and battlefields. I'm sure it would make for an amusing study from both sociological and psychological standpoints.

Saevel raised the most important point in devs willingness to commit to quality PVP content, which has been sporadic at best. Adjustments to Ballista and Brenner, since their inception, have been half-hearted, and they utterly failed to follow through with the PVP arena that was rumoured to debut in Aht Urgan. They seem more interested in making players compete indirectly, rather than allowing direct competition simply in the spirit thereof.

A secondary concern is class balance. Simply put, some jobs are more ideal for PVP than others; hybrids like RDM, BLU, and even DNC would dominate duel-type PVP, where more specialized classes like WAR or WHM could best place their hopes in team fights where they could take out those better-equipped classes with help. The exclusionary phenomena we experience in events would carry over, except that without PVP offering rewards such as treasure the likes of that found in Voidwatch or Legion, the PVP content would be left to languish.

[Caketime]

Summoner wouldn't do anywhere close to good in this, you'd just ignor our avatar use movement speed bonus gear and chase us down.

Learn to play.

[Secondplanet]

Learn to play.

i play the job very well thank you, but if you have a war chasing you with full tp lets see how long you'll survive when they use a emp/relic/myth weaponskill on you, unless you have earthern armor on with its limited duration your dead.