Fostering Skillful Play

[saevel]

@Yinnyth

You idea is very flawed, if the DD's have to "hold back" then they will simply remove the tank and become the *tanks*, which is what is happening now. There is absolutely no such thing as "hate control", at least not the way we think about it (SAM/THF's running around like idiots). In most other MMO's the various squishy class's have some form of enmity reduction that they use strategically to ensure their no where near the top of the NM's hate list. Melee's are expected to have survival abilities so that they don't die faster then the healers can heal them and "tanks" are expected to hold the monsters attention throughout the fight.

If DD's have to "hold back" then eventually people will figure out that DD's can wear DT/PDT gear and suddenly why the f*ck needs a shitty PLD using a sh!tty sword and board. Instead throw in another DD and have everyone crank their damage to full and plow the NM away while spamming curaga's. The NM dies much faster so your have less overall damage intake, MP isn't an issue as it's dead long before the healers supply is gone, and your win rate goes way up as the amount of time the NM's AI spends deciding to screw you is minimized. Where as a long drawn out fight where the melee's only run in to WS affords the NM's AI multiple opportunity's to roll an 11 and just kill you. That or your going to run out of time as all your damage is limited to the PLD's output, which is a very bad place to be.

Also your extremely misinformed about high powered aoe's. If everyone is getting hit by the attack, then why do you even bother with a tank that specializes in reduced damage. Sure the tank only took 50 damage from that attack, too bad everyone else took 1500 and half the mages are dead. In that scenario throw the tank out since their not doing you a damn lick of good, insert another DD and plow it into the ground while spamming aoe cures.

We're talking about what is required for an effective "tank" to work and there is absolutely nothing about FFXI that makes it different from any other MMO in this regard. The system must allow for the designated "tank" to hold the NM's primary attention and to absorb it's more deadly attacks while allowing it to be killed. If these conditions are not met then you don't have a tank, instead you have a liability. If anyone has to stand around with their thumb up their arse or everyone is getting smacked around by aoe's targeted at the "tank", then you don't have a tank and should replace them with a DD and go full out.

The entire reason the players of FFXI resort to DD zerg tactics is that simply put, it works. There is a concept amongst engineers known as KISS. The strategy that is the simplest and most straightforward is usually the best one as it has the least number of places where something could go wrong or a mistake could be made. To acquire loot we must kill something, sometimes activating some sort of weakness system. We will find the simplest and most direct method to accomplishing it.

[Yinnyth]

You idea is very flawed, if the DD's have to "hold back" then they will simply remove the tank and become the *tanks*, which is what is happening now.

The tank jobs, by nature, need to be better at taking a beating than the DDs. If the DDs can survive the thrashing the enemy puts out, then enmity is not the problem. Who cares if PLDs can hold hate 100% of the time if they do no damage and die every bit as easily as the DDs? The PLD would be dead weight.

If DD's have to "hold back" then eventually people will figure out that DD's can wear DT/PDT gear and suddenly why the f*ck needs a shitty PLD using a sh!tty sword and board.

If they're prioritizing defensive gear and abilities instead of pumping everything they can into pure damage, then they're no longer a DD. At that point, they're the tank because they're focused on staying alive and keeping hate.

Also your extremely misinformed about high powered aoe's. If everyone is getting hit by the attack, then why do you even bother with a tank that specializes in reduced damage.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I want the AoEs to have a gimmick to them. Like fulmination having a long charge-up so you can stun it, but it kicks your ass if you don't. Or making it so oblivion smash has a much smaller AoE so the mages survive and can remove the para/silence/bind from the DDs. Or making it so gates of hades is more powerful, but the enemy telegraphs that they're going to use it 15 seconds before it's used so you can get all your defenses up. The idea is that I want gimmicks for the AoEs so plans can be made for how to deal with them which don't involve perfect defense, embrava, scherzo/EA, and/or killing the enemy super fast so he can't use it again.

I agree with you that AoEs are used too frequently as a cure-all to make the battle harder. Removing the AoEs completely for the game is not the solution I want. Even following your suggested changes, zergs would still be the law of the land. DDs never have a chance of pulling hate and no fear of getting hit by an AoE? They just keep doing everything they can to do damage with no variation in the battle at all from start to finish.