Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

[Carth]

Currently, the development team plans to have the proposed Last Resort haste benefit only apply to two-handed weapons. The reason being is there are already a number of benefits that single-handed weapons posses such as dual wield, martial arts, etc.

Not wanting to mince words, this is a very, very dumb idea. It was stated that 1-handers need a leg up to compete with 2-handers yet the dev team decides to give more options to 2-handers. It boggles my mind how they've come to this conclusion.

The reason behind this is even worse, however. Yes, we have Enhance DW options, but 1-handed users are unable to compete 2-handers anyway, mainly due to less damage-based abilities. /DRK would've at least made this an option to explore, but now 1-handers don't even get the chance to experiment.

[MarkovChain]

If you want to buff one hander there is only one choice : buffing /NIN or /WAR somehow. I'd personally go with increasing the benefit of STR on the weapon which will act as a DMG boost. Might also consider a JA that buffs STR/DEX/AGI that can be up 100%.

[Karbuncle]

I don't much like the idea of what they're proposing for Merit Weaponskills, If only because they already nerf-Balanced a few of them to be "As powerful" As level 60 weaponskills when you cap them with merits (5/5).

If we're going down this path, unnerf Ruinator and Realmrazer, so that even at 1 merit with this new proposed update, they'd be worth using.

As of right now, Having 1 merit would be like having 3 in the old system... Which, They all still really sucked at 3/5 merits. 5/5 Is still going to be the only means of making them useful. Even 4/5 is going to leave you wanting. Square really doesn't seem to understand no one enjoys knowing they're gimping themselves in the name of diversity.

I just don't see very many (good) players going down the "1/5" or "3/5" Path with this new proposed adjustment... 5/5 Will still be the only level in which any of them are good since, again, you guys decided to balance most of them around their level 60 counterparts.

[Yinnyth]

If you want to buff one hander there is only one choice : buffing /NIN or /WAR somehow.

There are more, better-thought-out options than merely buffing the SJs most frequently used by 1-handers. How about instead of that, they do the same thing they did when they gave sam hasso and seigan; turning a stupid SJ into one of the most commonly used SJs.

Unless of course I misinterpret everyone's feelings about the issue of SJs and we all enjoy the lack of diversity and adaptability.

[Rorrick]

Categorically hand-to-hand weapons fall under the single-handed weapon classification; however, the stats for hand-to-hand weapons are quite different from that of swords, which are literally held in just one hand, and they will not be treated the same. We will be separating hand-to-hand weapons from this balance adjustment and making changes that fit more in line with the weapon.

Can we get some information about what adjustments are planned for hand-to-hand? You're right in that hand-to-hand is unique among weapon types. It has the disadvantages of both categories; the long delay of two-handed weapons with comparatively low base damage, and the accuracy and attack penalties than one-handers suffer. MNK and PUP are also unable to make use of the Sub slot.

Could we get some elaboration on this, please?

[Babekeke]

They might as well have put this thread in the DRG forums, as DRG is the only job that is ever likely to use DRK as a SJ.

WAR/SAM, SAM/WAR are always better options, as both get attack speed boost and att boosts.

DRK itself already has both att and att speed boosts, so it can sub either WAR or SAM for similar efficiency.

DRG however, loses att speed boost from hasso by subbing war, and att boost from berserk, by subbing sam.

DRG/DRK will therefore offer 3/5 mins of both att speed and att boost, while most importantly, offering a multi-purpose wyvern, which can be invaluable in some circumstances.

[MarkovChain]

There are more, better-thought-out options than merely buffing the SJs most frequently used by 1-handers. How about instead of that, they do the same thing they did when they gave sam hasso and seigan; turning a stupid SJ into one of the most commonly used SJs.

Unless of course I misinterpret everyone's feelings about the issue of SJs and we all enjoy the lack of diversity and adaptability.

If they buff /WAR or /NIN significantly it will be the same as hasso. The main difference here, IMO, is that prior to hasso 2H-DD could not cap haste, while 1Handed DD can with (2march+haste), and fairly easily too. After thinking about it buffing /war will buff WAR so maybe it's a bad idea. So I think they need to buff /nin instead. That's if they want to buff a subjob. Innin and yonnin are already in place so I think it's time to make them SJ-able with more DD-potential.

If you analyze what makes 1 handed DD generally worse than other option, you'll see that it's

* accuracy (minor because SE fails to release decent content that needs acc).
( attack is not an issue because THF & NIN can sub war like everyone else.)
* Base DMG is weak and split into both hands.
* THF weaponskills are gimp.

Since one handed style is more focused on melee DoT, I suggested to buff melee to turn them into MNKs. Increasing the base DMG on weapon could be hard so intead I suggested to look at modifiers like fSTR, critical damage/rate etc.

[Nebo]

Currently, the development team plans to have the proposed Last Resort haste benefit only apply to two-handed weapons. The reason being is there are already a number of benefits that single-handed weapons posses such as dual wield, martial arts, etc.

If it weren't for the fact that "currently" one handed weapons are vastly inferior to two handed weapons in ever possible way, I might see the point of this logic.

As a One handed weapon user, you either have dual wield/martial arts natively and can sub WAR, or you are just completely not in the universe of a relevant contribution to melee damage.

One handed weapon users could just some DD sub job versatility other than "sub WAR or you really suck."

And as others have said..Reevaluate the STR/DEX functions for one handers AND raise the Atack Cap.

If you don't raise the Attack Cap, it doesn't matter...one handed weapon users will never be competetive.

[MarkovChain]

Changing the attack cap won't do anything because you are unlikely to reach it in 99% of the thing you do in the game. It's not the reason 2handers beat thf and nin anyway.

[Zhronne]

It's unrealistical to expect all jobs to perform exactely the same and swap to a game design approach of "bring the player, not the job", similar to what they did in WoW.
Or rather, you can achieve such a goal, but it requires huge changes within the game mechanics, and it's something that comes at a big cost (homogeneization).

As much as we all would love our favourite job to get a spot in every single game event, it's unrealistical to expect this and make so FFXI remains what FFXI has been so far.
In most other MMOs you level a single class per character. In these games, as a game designer, you can't really afford a class to be useless in the majority of end-game events, because every character can only have one class.
In FFXI there is a different design, and people who demand playing a single job are just playing the wrong game.
It could have been partially right many years ago when levelling a job and gearing it up to a minimum level of decency required months, but now you can do it very fast, so people have no excuse to have at least 2 jobs, and this is the minimum requirement that FFXI game designers should keep in mind, consider that all the players have at least 2 jobs. If one of your jobs is not useful for event X and Z, then maybe there are good chances it will be useful for event Y. If you want to do X and Z just level one of the many jobs that are more useful in those events.
I'm not saying this is an excuse for them to keep things as they are -it's pretty clear that SOMETHING has to be done for 1handers- I'm only saying that we can't expect all jobs to perform the same into every event, it's just unrealistical and as I mentioned at the beginning, it's something that comes at a big cost (homogeneization).


What they need to do imho is to make what currently is sometimes a huge difference into something smaller, at least for some jobs, and they can easily do that with some tweaks here and there (no, I don't think buffing /NIN or /WAR is the right solution, they need to do something on the main job).
But they should work more into giving each job more specific utilities, so that if you're in charge of being the Event Leader of your group, sometimes you may decide it's worth to replace your missing Reso DRK with another 1h job not just for the DPS (which will be lower) but for the utility/bonus it brings for all the group.

Imho this is the direction they should aim to, otherwise game would just become a bunch of homogeneized and boring jobs where everybody does exactely the same altough in different ways.