ATTN: Community Reps/Dev Team: PUPs of Vanadiel DEMAND a response on Automaton A.I.!

[Zaeon]

I completely agree with the OP, and Cymmina.

These are fixes that have been long-since needed and, begged for(especially the automaton A.I.). The maneuvers I can deal with, although I wouldn't complain about a longer duration, the A.I. fix is needed first and foremost, followed by the automaton's survivability. Really hoping to see a reply to this thread from the CT.

P.S. @Hakrev, the CT, can and have communicated requests/issues to the devs, and forward us the response.

[Seriha]

*braces for PUP rage*

While I'm for better AI, I can't help but feel the means for Automatons to basically maintain infinite MP on a 1m timer deserves a looking into as a balance point. The secondary benefit of this is also prevalent when it comes to nuking, where BLMs and such eventually need to toe the enmity line while Automatons just have to go bye-bye for a few seconds if their HP is full. Just feel like some relation to MP should be considered, where if they deactivated at 50%, Activate has a 30s cooldown if their HP was otherwise full. 45s at 25%, 15s at 75%, and so on. And assuming healing AI is improved, PUPs will gain a considerable boost on mobs they can actually melee/evasion tank since Cure V/VIs could never run out, a benefit WHMs don't exactly have outside of Abyssea.

[Keyln]

So...uh...what would it take for a dev response on this one?

Lighting an automaton on fire?
Staring contest between us and the moogle?
Puppetmaster revolt?

[xbobx]

Although I agree with most that has been said here, my other beef is with new attachments. It was great when the first batch came out and we could get them easy by getting them with IS points. Then this next batch either farm for 400 hours doing brown chests or have to farm zeni and do Ob over and over again. Really?
They talked about changes to job in manifestos. My issue is while every other job levels into their Job abilities and traits we have to jump through stupid hoops for our automation Ja's. We should have to spend 50+ hours to get them or pay stupid amounts of gil. I don't see new blms spells insanely hard to get like the pup attachments.
Put new attachments on Npc, and add them to gold chests. That way we can buy them for say 50k or from Ah after a week or so when people put them up on ah.
But this is stupid we have to go through so much compared to other jobs to get our new abilities.

[xbobx]

And fyi, in case they answer to this, lol ya right. They cannot say it is working as intended because 4-5 years about the AI was brought up to the developers at one of the conferences and they admitted it wasn't working as intended, this was after they treated pups like they were stupid and made it sound like we didn't put on damage gauge.

the damage gauge says prioritizes cures. You know what prioritizes means? the attachment in itself says it puts cures as top priority. The damage gauge has been broken since day one. It isn't even an AI thing its a broken attachment.

And we know that things have been ignored for long times, they just noticed that Attuner didn't work on melee ws.

[Psion]

*braces for PUP rage*

While I'm for better AI, I can't help but feel the means for Automatons to basically maintain infinite MP on a 1m timer deserves a looking into as a balance point. The secondary benefit of this is also prevalent when it comes to nuking, where BLMs and such eventually need to toe the enmity line while Automatons just have to go bye-bye for a few seconds if their HP is full. Just feel like some relation to MP should be considered, where if they deactivated at 50%, Activate has a 30s cooldown if their HP was otherwise full. 45s at 25%, 15s at 75%, and so on. And assuming healing AI is improved, PUPs will gain a considerable boost on mobs they can actually melee/evasion tank since Cure V/VIs could never run out, a benefit WHMs don't exactly have outside of Abyssea.

You forgot the other part of the equation, that blm can spam nukes as needed and pick their spells, while pup is held to a 20ish second recast timer on nukes. (and more realistically, its around 2 nukes a minute on average.) And again with healing, the cures have a 18ish second recast. Believe me, that recast might seem short, but when your on the wrong side of an angry NM that timer can seem like an eternity and entirely too long at times. There is no need to adjust it, as a top notch pup is pretty much on par with a top notch blm. It just happens that the pup will excel a bit better at sustained fights where enmity and mp start to become an issue, while in fast hard fights where damage has to be dealt out quickly a blm will easily outstrip an automaton.

And besides, who runs out of mp these days, inside or outside of abyssea? XP

[Cyranda]

*braces for PUP rage*

While I'm for better AI, I can't help but feel the means for Automatons to basically maintain infinite MP on a 1m timer deserves a looking into as a balance point. The secondary benefit of this is also prevalent when it comes to nuking, where BLMs and such eventually need to toe the enmity line while Automatons just have to go bye-bye for a few seconds if their HP is full. Just feel like some relation to MP should be considered, where if they deactivated at 50%, Activate has a 30s cooldown if their HP was otherwise full. 45s at 25%, 15s at 75%, and so on. And assuming healing AI is improved, PUPs will gain a considerable boost on mobs they can actually melee/evasion tank since Cure V/VIs could never run out, a benefit WHMs don't exactly have outside of Abyssea.

I don't think you've yet identified any advantages that Spiritreaver automatons have over Black Mages that would require a "balance" adjustment. The automaton already has enough significant disadvantages under a Black Mage that "balance" is not the word you're looking for. Even if the AI were fixed such that the automaton wouldn't cast Drain and Aspir unless the PUP specifically wanted it to, the spell casting timer, casting speed, stationary deployment distance, inability to select the spell to be cast, lack of defensive spells and fragility of the automaton more than "balance" its ability to get its MP back through the use of deactivate/activate.

With regard to White Mages, even if automaton AI were fixed, the spell casting timer is extraordinarily long, and overload is an issue when trying to cure using activate/deactivate. Additionally, monsters that Puppetmasters can evasion tank that don't also use AOE that can damage the puppet and prevent it from using Deactivate/Activate to get MP back are few and far between. Nevermind the fact that a White Mage won't spam Cure VI on you when you're at 70-80% hp. Also keep in mind that Puppetmasters might be *designed* to heal themselves while evasion tanking to some degree and White Mages not, similar to Dancers (though obviously not as well).

Unless you can identify some serious cases (not the random, one off instance where WHM automaton healing is better than an actual WHM, or the same about the BLM automaton and BLM), you're worried about situations that don't happen or simply don't matter.

[Cyranda]

You forgot the other part of the equation, that blm can spam nukes as needed and pick their spells, while pup is held to a 20ish second recast timer on nukes. (and more realistically, its around 2 nukes a minute on average.) And again with healing, the cures have a 18ish second recast. Believe me, that recast might seem short, but when your on the wrong side of an angry NM that timer can seem like an eternity and entirely too long at times. There is no need to adjust it, as a top notch pup is pretty much on par with a top notch blm. It just happens that the pup will excel a bit better at sustained fights where enmity and mp start to become an issue, while in fast hard fights where damage has to be dealt out quickly a blm will easily outstrip an automaton.

And besides, who runs out of mp these days, inside or outside of abyssea? XP

And let's not forget that Black Mages have enmity douse and other defensive spells available depending on their subjobs that puppets do not. Also, for an automaton nuke to be effective, there has to be at least 30 seconds between casts to refresh ice maneuvers, and unless you have enough gear to effectively eliminate overload, PUP has to wait a while to begin the cycle anyway.

Even in sustained fights, Black Mages have the capability to get MP back quickly enough through abilities like Refresh, which puppets cannot cast on themselves (they can use dark maneuvers and mana batteries, but then they have dark maneuvers up and can't nuke (at high HP, they'll Absorb-INT instead), and if they do, it's for a tiny amount because they're using dark maneuvers instead of ice maneuvers), and through resting with HMP gear, which puppets also do not have access to.

[Seriha]

If it were just the puppet, sure, but with PUPs themselves getting their H2H bumped up along with much better gear and WS compared to their launch, they're still a factor alongside the Automaton. How close to two party members can the PUP and Auto get, with the mentioned quirk, before they're too much? As that's the issue your start facing when the AI isn't so much a series of choices to make and more like delayed commands.

Regardless, MP is not infinite inside or outside of Abyssea, despite an upped longevity in the former thanks to Atma and temps. Running out of MP just using Blizzard IV and V is not difficult, and it's not unheard of to go a stretch of time without temps if soloing. For more prolonged encounters with others, however, the enmity issue is still very real, even with Enmity Douse and its prohibitively long timer.

I know nobody likes nerfs, but it's something that bears consideration as the job tends to avoid a lot of scrutiny on its finer points due to past beliefs, status, and cost/difficulty in bringing up to speed.

[Cyranda]

If it were just the puppet, sure, but with PUPs themselves getting their H2H bumped up along with much better gear and WS compared to their launch, they're still a factor alongside the Automaton. How close to two party members can the PUP and Auto get, with the mentioned quirk, before they're too much? As that's the issue your start facing when the AI isn't so much a series of choices to make and more like delayed commands.

If a Puppetmaster is nuking with its BLM automaton, it's not in melee range fighting. If it were, it'd risk the automaton getting hit and not being able to use its "infinite MP." If the PUP were in a situation where it could have the automaton at its side while meleeing without risk of death, it would be using Sharpshot (unless the monster were extremely melee resistant, but then the PUP fighting wouldn't be a bonus). You don't see melee jobs complaining that a puppetmaster can just deactivate sharpshot when it might get hate. There is no problem here.

Regardless, MP is not infinite inside or outside of Abyssea, despite an upped longevity in the former thanks to Atma and temps. Running out of MP just using Blizzard IV and V is not difficult, and it's not unheard of to go a stretch of time without temps if soloing. For more prolonged encounters with others, however, the enmity issue is still very real, even with Enmity Douse and its prohibitively long timer.

This might matter if automatons should suddenly have elemental celerity or a short recast timer, also didn't have to worry about overload, could deploy out of AoE range and had other Black Mage tricks, including a subjob. In prolonged encounters where Black Mages would run out of MP, they can rest and or be refreshed, get MP back, etc. Square has also mentioned that they are working on other jobs maintaining enmity.

I know nobody likes nerfs, but it's something that bears consideration as the job tends to avoid a lot of scrutiny on its finer points due to past beliefs, status, and cost/difficulty in bringing up to speed.

It avoids scrutiny? By what standard? Are PUPs suddenly taking over as the most popular job, performing feats that dazzle all the other jobs, putting BLMs to shame, out-healing WHMs and making others cry? It has not yet happened in the history of the job, and a few AI fixes won't make that happen.

I know nobody likes nerfs

Validated nerfs are fine. Preemptive nerfing over something that hasn't happened and isn't likely to happen is ridiculous. Nerfing a job because someone doesn't like the "idea of infinite MP" when said infinite mp not only does not over-power a job, but barely brings it inline with other jobs in certainly roles (if that), is even worse.