[Job Adjustmentｓ Manifesto] RDM

[cidbahamut]

You can keep pushing your ideal until the day the servers shut down but that isn't going to change the fact that it won't make it into the metagame unless Red Mage is reworked from the ground up into something radically different from what it is now.

You're fighting a battle that cannot be won without destroying the class we all know and love, and that would be an incredibly hollow victory.

[Seriha]

Curious how I'd destroy RDM without taking away from it.

But as you can see, Spanky, stuff like that.

[SpankWustler]

That's basically what I'm curious about.

I don't understand why it's so important that Red Mage remain "Red Mage" or Dark Knight remain "Dark Knight", as long as they remain effective and unique jobs and people enjoy playing them. Especially given how many melee or hybrids who melee cropped up with each expansion, the development team focusing on Red Mage as a caster in FFXI seems like a good call to me.

[Ketaru]

Hell, that situation pretty much exists with DRK, and I am for SE giving their magic side attention to help steer them from being the WAR with Stun others seem to be content with. Whether or not they'll do a good job on that, though, I dunno. I've kept my head out of there because one "war front" is enough.

DRKs ask for help on their damage dealing side and ignore their magic side because they know that is what the rest of the playerbase-that-is-not-DRK wants out of the job. Else they face the bleak prospects of being one of the those jobs not invited to events. As the game exists now, there just isn't a whole lot of use for DRK being able to be a better caster while ignoring their ability to do damage.

Perhaps you might get what you want if they were to make radical changes in the the effect of new events that catered to that kind of playstyle. The dungeon crawling idea might be a start. Assault was kind of a start, until Salvage was introduced and Nyzul Isle was tweaked. MMM never took off the ground, in my opinion.

I, for one, would like the day to come where you have a 15 person alliance and every person in that alliance comes as a different job with a very different purpose. But I have every bit of confidence that such a utopian day will never come. And so people will continue to ask for what will make their jobs more competitive in the current climate.

For example, earlier in the thread, I suggested the idea of adding spells to RDM that will allow us to enhance the efficiency of pet jobs. Now, the general idea behind what I want is not bad and I know it. But my suspicion is, secretly, others don't want that because pet jobs are not desired, and therefore are not invited to events, and therefore those spells will be "useless". They're going to ask for spells that will allow us to enhance WARs and PLDs and WHMs.

Going off on a tangent for a bit, unfortunately, as a BST myself, I realize that if RDM gets spells like that, it'll only further widen the gap. So in the interest of 2 of my favorite jobs together, I almost do not want new enhancing magic unless we were to get a broad ability to enhance certain jobs in their entirety.

[Seriha]

Well, for me and others, the sentiment has been about before these expansions with all those new jobs hit, some with ideas we'd been wanting for RDM. Some might be okay with cutting their losses and migrating to BLU or whatever, but ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away, nor does it mean those alternatives are what we'd been looking for out of RDM.

I can get the situation not being a problem for those who opted to make due with what the class had been given and shared with other jobs, but shutting down growth even though others view it as problematic is a sticking point, especially when some want to run around spewing the jack of all trades line. You can be optimistic about the 91-99 game. I've got the history of the game prior to that telling me not to be. Why? Well, best some can surmise is that SE is afraid of RDM, but not for the right reasons.

[Greatguardian]

You're still assuming that Magical Red Mages have to "make due" without their Melee aspect. We don't. Magical Red Mage is an extremely powerful class, and choosing to pursue and enhance its stronger, more versatile side is hardly an act of consolation.

It's not a matter of shutting down growth, it's a matter of wanting to direct that growth towards further enhancing the already powerful and useful aspect of Red Mage rather than directing it at the underused and underpowered aspect in the hopes that it might someday be decent enough for those that won't let it go.

[SpankWustler]

You can be optimistic about the 91-99 game. I've got the history of the game prior to that telling me not to be.

I can wrap my head around this part. It surprised me that no aspect of Red Mage was fleshed out when the ability to be a great (if very situational) disengaged tank was severely diminished, and the job has gotten very little of use compared to the growth of other mages until very recently. That seems to be changing, currently, but a lot is unknown.

I can understand the development team being more focused on jobs that can't fill their niche very well, or jobs that tripped, fell, and died at the starting line like Puppetmaster and Scholar. I also get that having an unchanging spell and job ability list for years and years isn't exactly fun.

Even the tier II merits, while useful, were basically more of the same. Composure and Tier II En-spells were pretty pointless at the time they were added. Not that Red Mage was alone in this particular boat, lots of jobs didn't change much, but it does seem like a pretty dull cruise. Even when a job operates smoothly, new toys that actually see some use are nice.

After that, though, things get foggy. It's not easy to logically connect the feeling of "I just went through my millionth buff cycle and cast my millionth Blizzard spell, and it feels just like the third one. Oh, except I used a slightly better Slow spell." with the thought of "I shall follow in the steps of my forefathers who hit things with swords while wearing red pants by hitting a thing with a sword while wearing red pants. It is a proud tradition."

If hitting more things with more swords is the direction some people want the job to go, okay. The only reason you need to suggest a change to a job you play is because you'd enjoy it. I disagree with that direction being worthwhile for Red Mage, obviously, but please don't let that stop you.

The idea of hitting more things with more swords being the direction the job should go because of what the job was in single-player games a decade ago, however, confounds me.

[Seriha]

Which is also why I like to point out that, for as a company people love to criticize for all its flaws, the implication they got RDM "right" after its initial "major adjustment" before most of us even played the game is confounding in its own way. Their original thoughts might have worked for the 50 cap, but as jobs grew, our skill ratings fell behind, others got better gear and WS, and RDM basically got very little over this span is something we'd been trying to point out way, way, way back when. In contrast, a Haste naked is as potent as a Haste fully decked out. Same with Refresh until +2 legs. Cure Potency gear was more on the rare side until Abyssea. I call it "making due" because those have been what people historically sought of RDMs throughout this game's lifespan if not BECAUSE SE dropped the ball, got lazy, was angry a RDM soloed something, felt other jobs were more deserving of attention, or whatever. They messed up with the job once. Some of us feel they didn't get it right even after all that.

Overall, you're talking to someone who thinks SE's been way too timid about their job adjustments. More than 1-4 jobs could see meaningful attention in any given update. I don't believe that giving RDM attention today means PUPs would never get any, though some seem content with the inverse since a RDM ate their baby at some point in their FFXI career. We can't totally ignore how the old days worked, archaic in their time sinks and plethora of still-broken or uninspiring events. There's still the simple language barrier. Would the RDM of today be the one we have now if SE was more open 8+ years ago? I'd like to hope not, but, well, it's time to chip away at that handicap.

[Quetzacoatl]

No, I'm sorry, it isn't close to the same thing, you are not that special, nor is your viewpoint.

And your melee still doesn't matter on stronger NMs.

I wanna build an almace for my RDM and BLU :<

[Duelle]

DRKs ask for help on their damage dealing side and ignore their magic side because they know that is what the rest of the playerbase-that-is-not-DRK wants out of the job. Else they face the bleak prospects of being one of the those jobs not invited to events. As the game exists now, there just isn't a whole lot of use for DRK being able to be a better caster while ignoring their ability to do damage.

The reason behind this is more the fact that (much like RDM's issue with spells and enfeebles), the developers insisted on having certain jobs share things down to the mechanics themselves. The terrible idea was not to give DRK black magic, but to give DRK black magic as it works for BLM. It'd be another story if DRK had their own cast times for their spells, their own stat scaling (nevermind the gear-swapping nightmare), and own utility outside of absorbs. The alternative would have been to take the Gaffgarion approach and just focus entirely on instant on-use drains and balance the job's damage around those.

For example, earlier in the thread, I suggested the idea of adding spells to RDM that will allow us to enhance the efficiency of pet jobs.

I'd be asking for current buffs (and cures, for that matter) to affect pets, with scaling changes if needed. Then again, I'm of the opinion the whole pet:stat thing on gear was just aimed to create a timesink for pet jobs.