Screwed again: Proposed THF job adjustments.

[Nala]

This is probably the only thing I can understand and agree on as we get subtle blow from the support jobs we generally use on THF and the use of Conspirator.

I may be widely mistaken but im pretty sure that giving us DW was a ploy to encourage other SJ usage in order to augment our damage, like war, but in doing so you sacrifice subtle blow and surviavability. At the very least when it comes to abyssea im asked to come/war because it allows me to cover more procs that way we have back ups when some one goofs.

thats how i read the adding of DW to thief, which is counter to your point, if we have DW and are expected to sub more damage enhancing subs that dont give SB then why cant we get it naturally? but as i said perhaps i read the Dev team wrong in their intentions of giving us DW.

[Alaik]

Lets not talk about "max level of TH" like it matters, for two reasons:
1) Trait level TH has a dramatically higher effect than the TH proc system they introduced. The difference between a TH3+3 and TH3 THF is going to be almost undetectable unless you have a well-controlled test with a high sample size, and if you do I'd love to see it.
2) TH in gear just determines your starting point for the TH proc system. Though I have no formal testing, I feel confident that the odds of a TH level proc decrease as the level gets higher, so starting at TH level 5 vs. TH level 6 probably doesn't matter much on stuff with high HP that you're going to have plenty of opportunity to proc.

Also, even if it did matter it wouldn't be hard to get. My THF mule has TH3+3 for his level 90 THF and I have TH3+2 for my level 50 THF (stored on the Porter Moogle). Durinn is easy, TK is cheap, and Ass Armlets are soloable by quite a few jobs.

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/637...reasure-Hunter

Everyone knows gear has less effect than the traits (I assume they do anyway), but that's never stopped people for saying "TH4 or GTFO" at 75 or the same about TH6 now.

Also, I personally think the gear isn't hugely necessary though only the knife is something I ditch. (DMG increase is way more important than the small bonus it gives), though many believe the THF must use all of the items, their reasoning being that mobs die so quickly (Dyna, abyssea, etc) that having the gear on will GREATLY add more procs than meleeing will, compared to losing the gear. In a way they're right, if a mob dies in 5 seconds and you get 3 melee attack rounds in, there's a good chance you won't see a single TH+1, but having a +1 in gear affects it from the getgo. Several events feature this type of fighting.

Of course the later example is equally a design problem as a playerbase problem. THF really has nothing else to bring to the table, so maximize what you have, I guess.

[Laphine]

That and it's not a golden ticket. Unless you're the only THF around with max level TH, and if you don't have max level TH it's not. People generally bring one THF and only for TH, and once that quota is filled, no more THFs are getting in.

Oh i meant TH is a golden ticket for the job. It's very different than being a golden ticket for the player. There would always be a THF where TH worked, doesn't matter his skill/gear sets, just like death and AH taxes lol.

[Alaik]

Yeah, I assumed. I just hate the phrase golden ticket, and want to punch anyone who thinks it really is.

Pet peeve, etc. lol

[Kuraudo]

I'm not a THF, but I know enough about the job to know it needs improvements. I do remember in the other Final Fantasy games that Steal was used to obtain rare valuable items. Right now there is nothing worthwhile to Steal in our current endgame.

I would love to see THFs steal something of value in endgame.

I want to thank you, Camate, and the development team for taking the time to attempt to address our concerns.

I am really at a loss for words on some of these responses. I am very sorry that this is going to sound disrespectful because this is most certainly not my intention.

But it really does feel that the developement team is very out of touch with the difficulties that the job faces and the actual utility of the unique abilities that THF has left.



This, specifically, worries me greatly. What the treasure hunter melee update has done is create a situation where the mechanics of how the THF job functions are in direct contradiction.

We are supposed to be engaging the monster to enhance treasure hunter? OK. But with A) the extremely low proc rate on Treasure Hunter for melee swings, and B) the sheer amount of TP we feed to high level Notorious Monsters, this has simply created a situation where THF will not be allowed to engage and forced simply to Sneak Attack and Trick Attack the Monster as timers allow while disengaged. Even with subtle blow gear, it is not worth it for a THF to engage for the purpose of Treasure hunter procs on normal attacks.

And quite honestly....I can see no visible difference between treasure hunter effectiveness level 6 and treasure hunter effectiveness level 13. How about throw us a bone and actually TELL us what it does? (I know, I know....what a crazy idea.)



This kind of reply makes me think that no one on the Dev Team has ever tested or played THF to know why this won;t work. The dev team removed the possibility for this tactic to work a very long time ago. For 1) Hide doesn't work on much of anything at all (thanks for that btw). 2) After this adjustment, you can only steal from a monster once and then you need to kill and respawn it to be able to steal again.

You must understand the frustration here. The developement team has taken so much from us in this area without giving anything to fill that void. The adjustment to steal to address the gold coin situation, the removal of valuable items from treasure coffers, the phasing out of Mug by refusing to give any new monsters any gil to steal, etc.

I understand this is a difficult issue, but the idea that seperating aurasteal from steal would be overpowered? Especially given that they are tied to a (needlessly long)5 minute recast timer? I don't understand that logic. They are completely seperate abilities with completely seperate functions that, because of the way they were combined, are often in contradiction with each other.

Seperating Aurasteal would not make it overpowered. The fact that it is tied to a 5 minute recast timer AND combined with Steal make it severely underpowered as a 75+ job ability. What seperating them would do is give us our very first steal ability that was acutally useful for its function.

I don't understand this need for the development team to sort of, kind of, almost give THF something that is useful. And then completely kill its relevance with either a needlessly long/shared recast timer or really messed up functionality. There is nothing about THF right now that is even remotely close to thinking about the possibility of being overpowered. Really? REALLY? It would be Overpowered!? THAT is your reason? Are you kidding me with this?



Adding things to Despoil is not going to fix Despoil. The ability itself really needs to be taken a look at and reconsidered. The items that despoil steals are of no use to anyone at this point in the game's lifespan. Adding Despoil as a post-75 level cap ability really accentuates the serious disconnect between the playerbase and the Developement team. I really don't think they understand how taxed our inventory is....that aurasteal and despoil both require you to have inventory space to even attempt to take advantage of their effects

But even the fact that Despoil attempts to steal an item as a requsite for its enfeebling effect to occur is useless at this stage in FFXI's lifespan. The variability of that enfeebling effect, should the steal be a success, is useless in any situation you would want to enfeeble any enemy. A variable enfeebling effect on a 5 minute timer is really quite useless. But most importantly, the fact that it takes away the ability to (aura)steal (the ONLY remotely useful steal we have) makes it exceptionally useless.

Again, I am sorry to sound disrespectful. I know what I knightmare it must be to address agnry and whiny players demading changes for their job.

But the disconnect between the playerbase and the Dev Team on these key issues really worries me. After seeing their vision for the job and hearing these responses, I find myself very discouraged for the future of my beloved THF.

You are so worried about making us "over powered" that almost everything you have given us has been "under powered" to the point of functional uselessness.

I agree with everything Nebo said and others that have posted like Karbuncle.

Camate, thank you for your hard work on delivering us important information, but please tell the Dev Team to pay close attention to what the players want and how the players play the job.

[Babygyrl]

Pretty much steal will still be useless lol but im okay with it i guess, i hardly use it anyway except in Dynamis.. Though since steal can Proc it really should have a higher success rate in Namis... especially with a 5 min recast.. i am lucky to steal 1 coin in an entire run..

I wish thief was getting some kind of voke type thing.. We are suppose to be "hate controllers" that would be nice to have...

I am really excited for the new job abilities!!

[Byrth]

I see your 2008 thread and raise you a 2010 thread.

Neither of them are relevant to the new proc system, or the effect of Treasure Hunter +1.

[Karbuncle]

I somehow doubt TH1/2 Were changed with the new proc system.

I wish people would test TH+1, I'm still convinced it falls into the "+1% drop rate" theory. Which means TH11 is basically +8% on top of the improvements from TH1/2 and untested TH3.

that thread was a nice one...

[Tokiro]

I assure you, It was not our priority either :x

Given some time to think I could like THF as a support/DD/TH-whore so long as they did it right and updated a lot of our JAs.

Me, too. Just give THF stuff to do that actually means something. I get a kick out of aura steal (when it works) and though there are usually strained silences when nothing interesting drops after getting TH up to 10, it is nice to be appreciated if only for TH. THF was fun in the beginning because we could do a lot of stuff in EXP parties that would make the EXP fly through the roof. We could also have a fairly big effect on hate management. I agree with most of the posts here that the TH whore just isn't going to kick it. The AF3 gear is awesome in theory. In practice, you're just a superfast TP donor with reasonable survival skills. Oh, and TH... If we're supposed to be ducking and diving so much, why are we standing around, out of range, waiting for SA/TA to recover? Why not give us an ability that puts damage at zero and hacks away at stats or something? It could be linked to AGI or DEX or, heaven forbid, CHR! It could be made situational, whereby according to the build, you hack at a certain stat. High INT takes down MND, DEX takes down AGI, AGI takes down DEX etc etc. It would make equipping a nightmare, but also great fun. That would solve the TP donor problem and if it were not as unreliable as steal and the TH proc, could actually save the job. I'm just brainstorming here, but something where we could actually debuff real stuff instead of a hit-and-miss dispel's poorer cousin and the occasional acid bolt would be a big improvement. While we do that, we could go back to SA/TA when we have them to inflict some damage and raise the ever-awesome TH Any thoughts?

[Byrth]

I really liked that thread too, but it left three questions unanswered:

1) How does TH affect the drop rate of slots with multiple possible drops? (ie, if it was 10% Dhalmel Hide/20% Dhalmel meat in a slot, how would it work?) - Never explicitly tested, though Bahamut v2 implies it likely works using my "no drop" rate calculation.

2) How does TH+1 work? - Also never explicitly tested. I'd like the +1% thing except for one major problem with it:
* Assuming we're going off the "no drop" rate thing, where a slot is "rerolled" if it fails to be filled, then items with low drop rate would be really dramatically affected by TH+10. I don't know about you guys, but personal experience for me seems to point to this not being the case.
* For instance, say you have something with a 5% drop rate that is in an unshared slot. TH3 would turn the 5% drop rate into an 18% drop rate. TH Level 10 (+10% drop rate) would make it a 15% drop rate base, which would turn into a 50% drop rate. The difference between an 18% and a 50% drop rate should be pretty incredibly obvious, and I don't feel that just putting a high level of TH on Blue-dropper monsters gets you a 50% drop rate.

3) Does TH3 follow the pattern set up by TH1 and TH2? - Implied assumption is that it does, but I might as well list it.


An alternative to the TH+1% per Treasure Hunter +1 would be:
* Treasure Hunter +1 gives you a 1% chance of another "re-roll"