Melee while casting?

[Greatguardian]

Fire away at what? A charge-based system is what I introduced to this thread as an alternative to breaking the combat mechanics in the first place, except I brought up Spontaneity charges instead of DA charges (which would be a lot easier to handle).

You made a point of going on in multiple posts about how I obviously don't know anything about programming. I gave you an existing model. I asked you to add to that existing model in a way that would do what you want to do without breaking or completely rewriting that model. Instead of saying "Well they can do it", show me how they could do it because I'm honestly curious what you think you can come up with.

I am still interested in seeing what you can come up with, despite your deflection. You've spent half this thread telling me that I don't know how to program and that this is easy, so please demonstrate your skill for me. Simply saying "A conditional" doesn't mean anything.

I also think you're really stretching what this would do for the job if you think adding melee proficiency will affect how viable Red Mage is in Endgame. I'll tell you right now, buffs to melee won't do a damn thing for the job as a whole in Endgame. The one ancillary benefit to the Spontaneity-charge system I mentioned earlier is that if would affect both melee RDMs and caster RDMs.

[saevel]

Wow nice and bitter as usual GG. I'm not trying to upset you, I just wanted you to realize you are leaving discussions open only to yourself.

This is an actual discussion and I thank you for it. Instead of you saying I see nothing but problems and no one can fix them, you say these are the problem and I don't see a fix for what we are talking about. For me, the fix is we adjust the way in which something would be implemented but keep the same idea. You can shoot down what I say next and I won't care, so long we keep moving on to the next generations of ideas.

If it would really cause that much additional server traffic than instead of having to do a conditional you just cause casting on RDMs to add a buff that gives them a guaranteed Double Attack on their next auto attack. We are still getting around the ungodly delay that gets in the way of more Hybrid play and it doesn't need a conditional check. It also adds a level unique tactics that adds synergy to a job that is trying to be a caster and a melee at the same time. There is no reason you wouldn't cast a spell before doing CDC or Mercy Stroke, because it would be pure profit.

As far as implementing it, you could add it as a 2nd functionality to Temper if you didn't want RDMs to learn it until later. If not, then make it a job trait and share it with DRK (*cough* give us OA in return). If you wanted there to be an upgrade to this trait, then either make it apply to the next 2 auto attacks or grant a Triple Attack instead of a Double attack. Additional double attacks are more suited to multi-hit WS while Triple attack is more suited towards single hit WSs, like relic WSs.

I'm not going to undersell how powerful this would be, but honestly RDM needs something to get them back in the game as a legitimate piece. We are all aware that the delay between actions is one of biggest downfalls of hybrid play. At least if we are dealing with it in some way, hybrid jobs won't always have to suffer for it.

Fire Away Sir.

Actually there wouldn't be nearly as big a conflict between attack vs casting if spells cast faster. Currently this is the only game I know where most spells take as long as they do to cast. Buffing and enhancing spells should be near instant cast, with healing in the 1~3 second range and nukes in the 5s range. But because everything takes forever you end up with this long ass time your sitting there doing nothing but watching a magical bar fill up.

[Shadowsong]

Mana, and anyone else still arguing at this point;
1) Melee while casting, as proposed, is impossible in every sense of the word. If it was possible through ghetto coding and such, it still will not happen, so it stays as impossible
2) If your original goal was to give RDM different melee options, please start another thread, as this thread is specifically about the concept of meleeing while casting.
^ That topic is closed, answered, done.

[ManaKing]

Mana, and anyone else still arguing at this point;
1) Melee while casting, as proposed, is impossible in every sense of the word. If it was possible through ghetto coding and such, it still will not happen, so it stays as impossible
2) If your original goal was to give RDM different melee options, please start another thread, as this thread is specifically about the concept of meleeing while casting.
^ That topic is closed, answered, done.

Yeah, I'm going to ignore that. We'll decide when we are done. So long as GG and I feel like going back and forth I'm not going to stop a discussion.

@GG You do get how Zanshin was added after the original game engine was created, right? It was added as a secondary stage to accuracy checks. I'm not saying that you have to change the original code to get what you want. You just have to build on existing examples. Just like the Zanshin system, the steps system for DNC was added after the fact. The game is more than capable of adding charges or temporary buffs that only persist for a single or even multiple attacks.

I understand we are all extremely cynical of SE, because their track record is horrible. But their track record also does include them adding systems on top of their existing game engine.

I don't personally care if RDM grows as a mage or a melee or both. It just needs to grow out of it's current state. If it grows as a hybrid it needs systems that work with both of it's sides. To attack and cast at the same time doesn't have to be the goal. The only goal has to be for RDM to get stronger.

So long as we can agree at least on this then we can keep going.

[Shadowsong]

You call what you and GG are having a discussion?
The thread: Can we melee while casting?
Answer: No
Discussion? The "discussion" I've seen for about NINE pages is that 2+2 cant obviously mean 4 because come on guys, I know what I'm talking about, I'm kinda a big deal

You think people are going to come in here for RDM discussion? No, people are going to look at the thread title, decide you just don't know how programming works, see 10 pages of arguing that red=blue, and then promptly forget the thread and regain 5 IQ points.

Edit: Please stop bringing up Zanshin,

I understand we are all extremely cynical of SE, because their track record is horrible. But their track record also does include them adding systems on top of their existing game engine.

^This right here is the source of your misunderstanding. The game engine has NEVER changed in the history of the ga...... ya know what? Nevermind. Keep posting, this is going full circle and is becoming funny again.

[Crimson_Slasher]

All i see now when i come to this thread is some theorizing of how to make magic and melee play together better, which is good, then i see shadowsong every couple of posts going "LET IT DIE!" and raging out, then ending each post with some way to make it seem theyre somehow entertained by this despite their repeated posts about ending it filled with agitation. If its so "funny" then enjoy it, if you dont like that a reasonable idea may come from the nitpicking, well theres plenty buttons to help you on the page, like the ignore, back, and xlose buttons.

Even if we let this die, these posts will still sit in a lump on the bottom of the forum, gathering dust so if we need to cover some related ideas to make melee/casting more friendly, as far as i see it, this is as good a place as any. Welcome to the rdm forums, the derail starts here.

[CapriciousOne]

well i suppose that is true greatguardian rarely seems to agree with anybody on any thread from what i've see or rather bothered to check and read.

[Greatguardian]

If I agree with someone, I typically like their posts or talk to them on other forums/via PM on other forums where it's easier to discuss whatever it is I agree with them on.

Zanshin is not an example that affects the way this works.

Steps are not an example that affects the way this works.

These are toolkit-level changes, which I described a few pages ago with my awesome MSPaint pyramid. You can definitely make toolkit changes. You just can't touch anything that might be infrastructure or Engine level without going beyond the scope of the resources we're allotting as "possible".

Please stop treating the Development Bros like religious figures. We can't just have faith that they can magically make 2 + 2 = 5 if we ask them to often enough. This isn't how the world works.

I have given you the model that the Developers are likely working with. You have a significantly broader access to methodology than they do, because there are likely even more infrastructure-specific checks on what they can/can't do in place in their actual server client. This is your topic. You're the one talking about how little the rest of us know about programming. Show me what you would do with this model to make it do what you want.

That is absolutely the only thing worth discussing in regards to the original post. If you want to talk about random RDMelee crap, go bump one of the billion other threads in this subforum about it. This thread is about melee while casting. If you think you know more about coding than I do, which is quite possible as there's always someone better out there, show me what the hell you'd do because I am legitimately curious as to what possible solution you could offer.

Yes. This is a challenge. Yes. I'm not letting this die. Why? Because this is actually interesting to me, and instead of dancing around the issue over and over I want to see what other people can come up with. I want to see people being creative within the bounds of reality. That is far more interesting than splashing around the kiddie pool musing about Summoners riding giant Bahamuts into the Qufim sunset.

[ManaKing]

See this is why I don't care if GG and I agree. He is reasonable and he actually cares about this. Also his sarcasm is delightful.

I apologize in advance that I bring up Zanshin and things like Steps often, but I want to make sure we are on the same page. The point is these are the kinds of toolkit fixes that we can actually expect to get from SE, right? We don't disagree on that at all.

We are aware of the kinds of additional systems that can be build on top of the existing codes. Zanshin is a representation of IF/THEN statements. I'm pretty sure I don't have to explain what these are because they are relatively self explanatory. We know that an action from a player can set off a chain of events that we can call secondary actions aka not actually actions for the sake of whether or not FFXI server will allow us to do more than 1 action at a time. It can also be regulated by conditions so that an action can always set off these chain of events or it has to satisfy specific conditions in order for the secondary actions to occur.

An example of an IF/THEN that doesn't have any conditions is Occult Acumen. You cast a spell. When the spell uses your MP you are given a percentage of it as TP. So long as you have Occult Acumen, this will occur every time (100%) you cast a spell and spend MP on it. If you fail to cast a spell or you don't have enough MP to cast because something removed your MP during the casting of the spell, then you don't get the TP.

In contrast, Zanshin only occurs when a player misses an attack. Furthermore, Zanshin has a conditional 'Zanshin' test you have to pass to see if Zanshin is going to proc. Zanshin only occurs at a set rate (X%), but that rate can be modified by equipment, merits, and job abilities (atmas as well). The server does a calculation to see if Zanshin will go off. If it does, then you make your Zanshin attack. Furthermore, you can make Zanshin act like it doesn't have a condition if you get your Zanshin rate to 100%. If you equip Nanatsusaya, then the server is still going to do the calculation, but it is always going to come up as true because you rigged the calculation with controllable factors.

The other thing I can observe that the Dev team uses is Arrays. Arrays are just ways that you can store information for other functions to use. The most obvious example is Steps. When you do a step, you get a step counter. If you are DNC main, you get 2 steps, if you are /DNC you get 1. Server is more than capable of keeping track of how many steps you currently have and also to make sure that you never have more than 5 of them. From this we can have a system in place that keeps track of specific kinds of actions and can tally them for use in other fuctions i.e. Flourishes. Afflatus Solace is another example of an array. The more damage you cure, the higher damage multiplier you gain for Holy. You also gain additional affects while under Afflatus Solace that is not related to it's array function, meaning that SE can make robust and multifaceted job abilities and traits, if they so choose. Look at how Zanshin is is affected by Hasso and Seigan if you need further proof of the complexity that can be added.

While none of this should be mind blowing for anyone, it should hopefully help you understand what I understand. The devs still have a working tool kit that can easily provide us with the sort of functions that would satisfy a large variety of requests. They choose not to give us things, they are not incompetent nor incapable of doing what we would want. The dreaded 'Balance' that is coming our way, might actually turn into a good thing.

The tools they have at their disposal are basic but powerful tools that can be used in a wide variety of applications. They are more than capable of creating code that can 'simulate' the effects of what it would be like to be able to cast and attack at the same time, at least from a numbers stand point even if they didn't go back and fiddle with the game's original engine code. They can also setup new systems, just like they did for DNC, SCH, WHM, NIN, and SAM more recently.

The mantra for all programmers is KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. The most efficient and clean way to fix a problem in programming is always the best. If you have 2 different ways to accomplish your objective, so long as both meet the same objectives you have, you use the one that takes the least amount of time and will require the least amount of debugging later. The point of programming is to solve problems quickly and efficiently. The only reason you pick more complicated coding is because you are looking to your future problems/expectations and your more complicated code is better suited to your future problem or will reduce the amount of work you will have to do later.

The point I make is that all of the things we want represented can be easily so long as you know how to use simple tools effectively. I can already see that they can use 2 very powerful, but basic functions on other jobs. I know what you can do with only those 2 functions and there is plenty that CAN be done based on what they have already done to other jobs.

To answer the question about reworking the engine so that a RDM can actually melee while casting. Can it be done? Almost 100% certain that it can. Is there a more SIMPLE solution that would use significantly fewer man(or woman)hours of programming? Extremely probable. Most fixes ARE patch fixes in programming. GG is not wrong in his sentiment that changing base code wouldn't happen, but for the sake of being a facetious asshole on the internet, if we talking about whether or not they could actually do it, I'm still sure that they could.

The other solution is that they get rid of the delay on magic. I'm not say this would happen, but once upon a time I used a Scythe on my DRK and would disengage/re-engage mobs because it drastically lowered the amount of time i spent between swings. This was exploitative at best and wasn't what the devs had intended, so they fixed it by giving actions a delay to prevent abuse. The only problem is that delay causes abuse to jobs that have any interest in doing more than 1 thing in rapid succession. For most DPS, this is not a problem because they almost exclusively auto attack > WS. For jobs like DRK or RDM that wish to do both at the same time, this is an absolute hindrance and partially explains why neither job has ever fared particularly well since both jobs were designed around more hybrid play. If the dev team wants to see if they can reduce the delay on ONLY magic, then I would be interested in if they could actually accomplish this. I'm not actually saying they can. I just know that they added delay after the fact and it's at least marginally possible that they can be selective about what they apply it to and what they do not. It will all come down to what they can actually do and if this fits into the 'balance' that we are all 'looking forward to'.

[ManaKing]

I'll suggest actual things when I get back from work to hopefully give you a better idea about what is possible with just the 2 functions I listed. A buffing system for either double attack or spontaneity is well within the scope of this.