January 2020 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Jerbob]

I don't know why we're failing to communicate that we aren't explicitly asking for a revert, just a more forgiving range value. I get it, they want to keep BST on the front. Why can't they compromise and increase the range by just a few yalms to ease the frustration?

Just increase the current value by 3-5y and give hte master a little freedom to reposition without losing the ability to command.

I'm not going to lie - I won't be happy with anything but a full and complete reversion of the distance nerf. All these suggestions are good compromises, but the nerf is based on a flawed premise, and we shouldn't have to compromise. I am explicitly asking for a revert, because it's ridiculous.

SE, please understand that I already want to fight on the frontline with my familiar. Please understand that I will do so in any situation that I possibly can. Please understand that I have no desire to stand back and spam Ready moves from 20 yalms away. You don't need to force me to fight. But also, you need to understand that familiars move and retarget erratically, that monsters are large, that knockbacks are commonplace, that equipment that allows true master/pet synergy is still not quite up to scratch, and that having to constantly perfectly position myself relative to a familiar that has a mind of its own is NOT. FUN. AT. ALL.

It's also important to understand that sometimes I want to fight at range. Sometimes I want to kite things. Sometimes I want to solo things at a distance. These are things that Beastmasters (AND OTHER PET JOBS) have done since their introduction into the game. Sometimes it's really fun to do these things. And the same penalties have always been there - they're intrinsic to the strategy. If I'm not fighting, I'm not adding master damage. If I'm not able to safely be on the front line, managing enmity and my familiar's HP is going to be challenging. I get that there are concerns that people will just spam Ready moves to kill dangerous monsters, but... (a) that was years ago and things have changed, and (b) other jobs are still doing it.

SE, please understand that people are going to keep bringing this up whenever BST is mentioned, because it's not working. Asserting that you are not considering making changes is all very well, but you're going to have to keep making that statement over and over, because what we have now isn't fun, and it isn't working.

And, from another perspective, I want to address the fact that we've recently heard SE say they want to promote a wide range of playstyles. Beastmastering from the back lines is unquestionably a valid playstyle - there are other jobs that do exactly that, and not only pet jobs. The penalty is intrinsic - I'm not adding master damage. That should be motivation enough for me to be in melee range as frequently as I possibly can (which, I reiterate, I want to do). I don't want to backline as a standard thing, but if I can when situations are less than ideal, or when I play solo, I have more options available to me, and I can BST in more situations. That's fun!

A recent example - I run with a fairly relaxed linkshell. We don't mandate that people have to level certain jobs. We try to make sure people can come to events on jobs they enjoy. We don't demand that people log in at XPM on Someday or face consequences. Of course, we don't expect to have this ethos and also be The Very Best Like No-one Ever Was, but we work hard and do what we can. And despite appearances on forums, I suspect this is how most people play the game. Sometimes we'll not have quite enough support, or quite the right jobs, to use a given strategy perfectly; as things stand, with the range nerf, that means I can't come as BST, because I endanger the group if I have no choice but to be frontline at all times. With an acceptable pet command range, I could go back to the well-established Beastmaster emergency fallback of bobbing in and out of melee range as support permitted without standing around like a complete lemon for half the fight. A different playstyle, adapting to available jobs! And again, the penalty is intrinsic - I'm not adding master damage. We might lose; if we win, it'll be much slower that a well-formulated, draconian-job-assignment strategy.

But we all had fun.

Regarding the equip issue:

- Please just increase the Ready recast merits to 3 seconds per merit spent. We should not have to use level 75 gear at this stage in the game. Please don't forget that our shortest <wait> is 1 second.
- Also, it's really interesting to see developer discussion about precast gear. I would really love for you to look into how this works for magic - at the moment, with the granularity of <wait>, those of us who aren't cheating can't use fast cast gear to reduce the casting time of quite a lot of spells, as there's no way for us to change into the appropriate gear in time to finish the casting. Anything you can do to address this would be extremely welcome.