Overall Battle System Adjustments for the Future

[Camate]

Greetings!

Since there has been a lot of feedback and questions regarding level correction, I’d like to take this opportunity to add a bit to what we mentioned last week about how we are looking into eliminating level correction.

This level correction is what we will be using to make it so that when you increase your defense the damage you take will be reduced. In other words, the level correction will be focused on the monsters' attack power. Since we will not be making any changes to the level correction in regards to monster defense, damage towards higher level enemies will not see an increase from the level correction adjustments. Completely getting rid of level correction would make it easy at low levels to defeat monsters that have a difference of 20 levels or more.

With that said, from your character's perspective, these changes will only really be applicable to higher level monsters, and easy prey monsters or other lower level monsters will not become weaker. However, depending on the attack/defense ratio there may be variations.

We also understand that the current attack/defense ratio cap for single-handed and two-handed weapons is 2 and 2.25 respectively, and an idea was raised to set them both to 2.25. We will need to examine whether this value is good enough or if we need to make further changes in advance before we proceed with this adjustment.

Now to answer some questions…

With these adjustments could you also make adjustments to weapon skills that have “defense ignored varies with TP”?

Currently we do not have any plans to make adjustments to these kinds of weapon skills.

Am I going to die right away when I use Counterstance now?

We understand the concerns associated with this and there is a possibility that we will be making separate adjustments to Counterstance.

As a final note, we do not have any plans at the moment to make adjustments to weapons that deal non-elemental damage; however, we do realize that they are extremely strong. Though this is speaking more about the future, since we will be introducing items that have a higher damage value, we expect that these weapons will not be something that are used full-time, and the situations for use will become limited.

In regards to the way we create monsters, we will still be adding features to them like you can see currently, where some monsters will be weak against piercing, while others weak against blunt damage or physical damage in general. However, instead of making it so you can only do damage via a certain method of attacking, we feel it would be better to create them so certain attack methods yield even more damage. To get a better idea of what we are talking about, Qutrub are a perfect example.

Also, the possibility that we add more weapons that deal non-elemental damage is extremely low.

Now then, just to wrap stuff up, below is a TL;DR version of the basic plan for these adjustments. Please keep in mind that none of this is finalized.

• Attack/defense ratio adjustment plan
  • Increase the cap value for the numbers calculated from the attack/defense ratio.
    Make adjustments so that when a player’s defense is low, damage taken will increase.
  • Increase the cap of the attack/defense ratio for single-handed weapons.
    Look into increasing this to 2.25, the same attack/defense ratio of two-handed weapons.
• Level correction adjustment plan
  • Level correction for monsters’ attack power
    Make adjustments so when a player’s defense is high, damage taken will be reduced.
  • Make adjustments to monsters’ strength via parameters
    Monsters created after Seekers of Adoulin will be made at a level where there is no level correction, and when higher level monsters are created modification will be placed on attack, defense, and stats.

[Prothscar]

We will need to examine whether this value is good enough or if we need to make further changes in advance before we proceed with this adjustment.

Is this implying that they're going to consider adding more to 1hs to increase power further, or limit the increase to 2.25 ratio cap by adding penalties to 1h weapons?



I'd also put forth the following ideas for the Dev Team to go along with the blanket buffing of 1h weapons:

Blue Mage - Blue Magic Attack will require some revisions if you're going to be increasing the Defense of monsters to compensate for the level correction changes. In fact, we need them now too! My proposed solutions are as follows:

A) Allow blue magic attack to gain more from STR and skill, say double or +50% of what we get out of them now. Just add a *2 or a *1.5 to the end of the blue magic attack function (Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR/2)*2

B) Allow a portion of the main handed weapon's attack to contribute to blue magic attack as well, say 25~33%.

One or the other would be sufficient in making blue magic usable on targets that are higher than 20 levels below the Blue Mage's level. Yeah, it's that bad. Please look into it.


Beastmaster, Summoner, Puppetmaster, and Dragoon - Pet attack is pretty abysmal, and will also require some attention. I'd propose a similar change to suggestion B for blue magic attack:

-Allow a portion of the master's attack and haste to affect their pet. Say 25~33% attack and 33~50% haste.

For instance, the master has 600 attack and 25% haste, allow the pet to benefit from 150~198 of the master's attack and 8~13% of their haste. This solution wouldn't be overpowering and would serve to make pets more useful on the battlefield as offensive tools.

[Tennotsukai]

Is this implying that they're going to consider adding more to 1hs to increase power further, or limit the increase to 2.25 ratio cap by adding penalties to 1h weapons?



I'd also put forth the following ideas for the Dev Team to go along with the blanket buffing of 1h weapons:

Blue Mage - Blue Magic Attack will require some revisions if you're going to be increasing the Defense of monsters to compensate for the level correction changes. In fact, we need them now too! My proposed solutions are as follows:

A) Allow blue magic attack to gain more from STR and skill, say double or +50% of what we get out of them now. Just add a *2 or a *1.5 to the end of the blue magic attack function (Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR/2)*2

B) Allow a portion of the main handed weapon's attack to contribute to blue magic attack as well, say 25~33%.

One or the other would be sufficient in making blue magic usable on targets that are higher than 20 levels below the Blue Mage's level. Yeah, it's that bad. Please look into it.


Beastmaster, Summoner, Puppetmaster, and Dragoon - Pet attack is pretty abysmal, and will also require some attention. I'd propose a similar change to suggestion B for blue magic attack:

-Allow a portion of the master's attack and haste to affect their pet. Say 25~33% attack and 33~50% haste.

For instance, the master has 600 attack and 25% haste, allow the pet to benefit from 150~198 of the master's attack and 8~13% of their haste. This solution wouldn't be overpowering and would serve to make pets more useful on the battlefield as offensive tools.

^ This...definitely!

[doctorugh]

Is this implying that they're going to consider adding more to 1hs to increase power further, or limit the increase to 2.25 ratio cap by adding penalties to 1h weapons?



I'd also put forth the following ideas for the Dev Team to go along with the blanket buffing of 1h weapons:

Blue Mage - Blue Magic Attack will require some revisions if you're going to be increasing the Defense of monsters to compensate for the level correction changes. In fact, we need them now too! My proposed solutions are as follows:

A) Allow blue magic attack to gain more from STR and skill, say double or +50% of what we get out of them now. Just add a *2 or a *1.5 to the end of the blue magic attack function (Blue Magic Skill + 8 + STR/2)*2

B) Allow a portion of the main handed weapon's attack to contribute to blue magic attack as well, say 25~33%.

One or the other would be sufficient in making blue magic usable on targets that are higher than 20 levels below the Blue Mage's level. Yeah, it's that bad. Please look into it.

Its hard to say how exactly (how much) this will affect physical blue magic, but certainly it will need some sort of boost (x2 att might be too much, esp with no actual lvl correction). As an additional option if SE thinks the above options are too much of a stretch, I wouldnt mind a stance type JA that boosts blue att (50%?) while trading off for either less weapon att or magic damage.

As a side note, was it ever mentioned if magical blue spells were getting adjusted similar to Black magic spells?

[Tanama]

With these adjustments could you also make adjustments to weapon skills that have “defense ignored varies with TP”?

Currently we do not have any plans to make adjustments to these kinds of weapon skills.

This is displeasing. Quietus and Camlann's Torment are to remain among the worst of the Empyrian weapon skills until further notice.

It is apparent the JP, EU and NA communities all consider weapon skills with "defense ignored varies with TP" as disappointing. Not recognizing this is a mistake in my opinion and as long as this ideology remains within the development crew, it leaves opportunities for future weapon skills to be added with this plague of an effect that is "amount of defense ignored varies with TP".