New 2-hour Abilities

[Demon6324236]

Hello!

I have some news from Producer Akihiko Matsui, which I believe you will all be quite happy about!

You know, when I posted this yesterday...

I think changing this as players wish would go a long way in showing that the new man in charge, is truly listening to players feedback, and taking it into consideration.

I really didn't expect much, or anything, for at least a few days or a week. I admit I am amazed at what I woke up to today. Sadly still no word on the BST problem, however I can easily look past that for now to see everything else.

As we previously explained, the new SP abilities we designed based on the idea that the recast timer would be shared with the existing SP abilities and players would use them accordingly. While the effects and usages have been compared to the existing SP abilities and consideration has been given so that they are balanced, we will be completely separating the two and changing the concept so that each ability can be used separately.

We will be making them so they are complete abilities on their own and do not need to be constrained to using one or the other.

It is good this is being done, great even. It means you are giving us 2 abilities we will use rather than 1 we will use and one which will clutter our list. I am so very happy that this is being done because it means we will not be locked to 1 ability and that we can use both as we wish.

Originally the idea for SP abilities was to have players use them one time for specific content or battle situations and to use it wisely. When considering the current battle tempo and the average time for content these days, we feel that it would be beneficial to make the recast 1 hour with the ability to reduce it a minimum of 30 minutes via merit points. With this, the idea of “2-hour abilities” will changed when we explore the effects.

Ok, this is great and bad news at the same time. Great that you are making them faster to use, and realize the game has become much faster than before, making 2 hours an annoyingly long wait time. The terrible part is, if you nerf things to much. I think that while you should change the timers, you should not need to change the effects. These abilities are meant to be powerful but limited, but if they are adjusted to be to weak, then they will become just another ability. In my opinion, 1 hour is still a long enough time for these to stay as powerful as they are now, or some to become more powerful, so that they are still special and strong, but maintain a certain rarity on how they are used, because of the long wait.

Based on the changes stated above, we will be looking into the effects for the new SP abilities once again.

This does not mean only time related adjustments will be made. If deemed necessary we will be completely revamping the effect from the ground up.

This, worries me a little. Many of these new ones are already questionable in use, even shortening the recast does not make up for it entirely. But with previous changes it seems as if you might make the new ones shorter, or even weaker. If this is the case, it will make them worse and solve little, in fact, may even make things worse. So I ask of you, please do not make this great reduction to recast, a total reduction of their use, and there by make them to weak, or worthless.

We will be looking into revamping existing SP ability effects based on the two points below.
•Adjustments to effects to coincide with recast shortening
•Balance adjustments to coincide with the new SP ability effects revamp
Even with the existing SP abilities there is a division between those that have good uses and those that do not depending on the job. Ultimately our aim is to make it so that by putting together the effects of the two SP abilities every job can have a boon. With that said, we will be revamping the existing SP abilities so that balance is not thrown off when incorporating usage of the new SP abilities.

As a general direction we will be raising all of the abilities so that they become useful. However, we believe that we will have no choice but add the lowering of effects of Perfect Defense and Embrava to our scope of adjustments.

The same applies here. Please do not ruin these abilities by making them weaker, its still a long recast, they should still be just as powerful, if not more so for the weaker ones.

I am happy we were given some good news, just please don't let it go bad, and also please don't forget about BST.

[Byrth]

Generally these are steps in the right direction.

Please don't nerf stuff too much. You note in the JP version of this post that the content time these days is more like 30 minutes than 2 hours, and there really shouldn't be a compelling reason to nerf something that you can only use once per event.

As for Embrava and Perfect Defense, nerfing these is acceptable as long as you adjust the content that heavily relies on them.

[Zirael]

[...]
As for Embrava and Perfect Defense, nerfing these is acceptable as long as you adjust the content that heavily relies on them.

Nyzul Isle Uncharted, ADL and Legion were designed so that they would require Embrava and/or Perfect Defence (plus Wild Card/Revitalizers) to succeed. Depending on your approach, this might not bode well for popularity of those events.

[Ophannus]

As a prime suggestion from the Dragoon community regarding Rouse Wyvern SP ability, Dragoons need an SP ability that does not require the Wyvern to be alive to be used. The reasoning is that if the player is KO'd in the first few moments of a battlefield, the Wyvern is KO'd too since all of the damage resistance and Steady Wing and etc don't mean anything if the player itself dies(which is extremely likely in VW or Legion).

That being said, Dragoons need an SP ability to use that can be used if the player's Wyvern is unavailable, which in practical applications and reality, is very often in end game fights with the dizzying prevalence of AoE Death or Doom or high damage Meteor or TP moves which the Wyvern would have survived, if the Dragoon player didn't take 2400 damage.

One suggestion for a revamped DRG 2hr is to make all of the Dragoon's attacks ignore physical defense(includes weapon skills) or level correction, which fits Dragoon's theme of piercing and ignore defense(Wheeling Thrust; Camlann's Torement) Alternatively, the revamped SP could be a monumentally high Attack Bonus since this is really at its core what Dragoon sorely lacks, a self buff that enhances damage directly.

[BigPapaBlueJay]

Don't start off as the new producer nerfing things, we are happy with 2-hour waits for their current effects.

[Zhronne]

I like everything Mr Matsui said.
My only concerns is for those events which currently rely heavily on Embrava and Perfect Defense.
Stuff like Legion, Arch Dynamis Lord and New Nyzul.

My opinion is that... it's a vicious circle.
PD and Embrava were too powerful to begin with.
Taking that into consideration, SE played cheap while creating new events, trying to keep them challenging despite Embrava and PD.
The consequence of this is that Embrava and PD became mandatory and not just optional for events like those.

If they nerf PD and Embrava the result will be that those events will be even harder, and Marrows price will go up.
I seriously hope that if they really go that way, they'll slightly tweak the 3 mentioned events, and anything else necessary.

[tyrantsyn]

Well timer's are getting reduce and seperated, that should make more than a few ppl happy.

[MarkovChain]

Arch dynamis lord is unkillable w/o PD so please take caution to this.

[Arcon]

Don't start off as the new producer nerfing things, we are happy with 2-hour waits for their current effects.

Hell no. Two-hour abilities are one of the worst design choice this game did so far. I wouldn't even mind if they purged them all entirely.

I do hope, though, that they take Byrth's advice and adjust content to reflect those changes. They should be careful with how they approach this. Don't let the people in charge wait six months to realize how they screwed everything up if they don't adjust the events accordingly.

[Insaniac]

That's not entirely true. I've seen it killed with EA/Scherzo but it took an entire alliance and it wasn't pretty.