Let Producer Matsui Know How He Should Catch Up on 2 Years!

[Siviard]

A linkshell member brought up a very cool idea over the weekend that I wanted to share...

Monk: Stances

As we are all well aware, Monk's attacks are all considered "Blunt" type damage. However, what if SE introduced three new "Stances" for Monk that would change their damage type?

For the sake of argument, lets call the standard Monk we have as the "Normal Stance." All damage is "blunt" damage, no other effects.

"Tiger Stance" - Changes attack type to "Slashing" damage. Must have Claw or Baghnakh type weapon equipped. Also increases STR and Attack Power.
"Mantis Stance" - Changes attack type to "Piercing" damage. Must have Knuckle or Claw type weapon equipped. Also increases DEX and Accuracy.
"Monkey Stance" - Changes attack type to "Blunt" damage. Must have Cesti or Sainti type weapon equipped. Also increases AGI and Evasion.

[Sylfeya]

Make them BP: Ward abilities for the appropriate avatars! I mean, it makes absolutely no difference really, but it just goes in line with summoners doing almost everything via their avatars. Should probably require people to manually accept it, seeing as you can't cancel a BP that is being readied in case of accidental usage.

Technically does makes a difference - imagine if Teleport spells were instant-cast /ja instead of long cast-time spells. Could be abused for griefing - or even accidentally mis-clicked in the heat of battle, with no way to interrupt via sitting or running.

[Windwhisper]

Thank you in advance for reading and considering this post.

While most of my suggestions are already covered and recieved their likes on different posts i havent found the one concerning SMN yet. Hence i decided to voice it here as well.

First of all. I love SMN. this job is awesome, however it has some issues that need resolving. For those unfamiliar here the link to the collected issues of us fellow summoners http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ner-Job-Issues

Most jobs have a decent or great damage output but since the levelcap rise summoner lacks this. Even its brother job the Beastmaster is way more efficient in damage dealt and damage taken. Pets can even be healed and enmity transferred. I ask that you look into the following:

- Dmg output on regular attacks and Blood pact: Rage ( for instance. Faithful falcor hits easy prey mobs for 300-500 dmg depending on criticals while avatars hit for a general 200~ . His TP moves can even deal up to 1,8k dmg when using Boost. a typical Predator claws usually does around 2k damage depending on many factors every 45 sec. which leads to my next point

-lower Recast timers for Bloodpacts in general. Using either gear or abilities. a promised 10 min ability converted in a 2h ability that lasts 30 seconds wont cover it and feels like an insult ( no offense).

-Allow us to heal our pets with an ability using either our own HP or MP

-Allow us to control our spirits like our avatars. it would make them less useless other than for elemental siphon


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And i cant stress this enough. give us more and easier marketflood of Alexandrites. current prices mean around 720Million gil for 1 mystic weapon while relics or empyrean float around 100-150Million.

[Mirage]

Technically does makes a difference - imagine if Teleport spells were instant-cast /ja instead of long cast-time spells. Could be abused for griefing - or even accidentally mis-clicked in the heat of battle, with no way to interrupt via sitting or running.

Already covered that with requiring people to accept it .

[svengalis]

I would like a storage slip from the Porter Moogle for VoidWatch gear.

[Almalieque]

Don't just pay attention to the number of likes of posts, but the redundancy of certain requests among several posts.

Did anyone mention RDM enhancing, enfeebling and melee boosts?

[Nightstrike]

I'd like to see tighter, more noticeable distinctions in job/role usage in parties. There are really only 3 core roles in any group. The obvious ones are the Tank and the Damage-Dealer, but the more amorphous one is the Support. Problem is, Support by itself is too broad, so it often gets relabeled as a "healer". With the flipside of it being chopped up and split between all. Support shouldn't be broken up. All support jobs should have a mostly even mix of ally support and enemy hinderance...with a slight favoring toward hindering enemies. Healers are still most often a "I guess if I have to" role among a player base that almost exclusively wants to be the one to lay the smack down.

The trick of course is to give them what they want without neglecting the need of the party to have someone to patch them up during and after the fight. I understand that's not easy, but sufficient hinderance of the enemy's ability to harm allies is the same as being able to heal them of that same amount of harm. And it's much more exciting for the players. There are still a wide variety of ways to have any particular support job accomplish this, and thematic diversity in that regard is a good thing.

Frankly...I think it would take just too much effort to revamp the jobs as much as I think they should be, but I'm going to suggest it anyway. Final Fantasy XIV is getting a near total remake, after all. It may be worth the investment to give XI a serious facelift too. This is how I think the jobs should be organized.

Tanks
Monk
Warrior
Beastmaster
Blue Mage
Dragoon
Paladin
Rune Fencer
Samurai

Damage-dealers
Black Mage
Red Mage
Dark Knight
Corsair
Puppetmaster
Ranger
Summoner

Support
Thief
White Mage
Bard
Dancer
Ninja
Scholar
Geomancer

Note that many jobs remain in their previous categories or are in categories not far outside their original design; but that a few, such as Ninja, would be drastically altered. While I know there are common ideas of what the purpose of each role is, I'd like to take a moment to explain my own opinions on each.

Tanks -
All share one trait in common, that being the generation (or acquisition) of a particular enemy's attention. A tank is always supposed to make sure to remain the focus of the enemy's assault, in order to preserve the rest of the group.
There are many ways a Tank job can accomplish this, up to and including abilities typically intended for support jobs, though more tightly specialized. A Tank might avoid taking damage by using spells or abilities that make them harder to hit. They might rely on abilities or spells that increase the defensive effectiveness of their equipment or themselves in general. They might just be a health Tank, with so much health that it takes an enemy forever to hack through. The possibilities are really almost endless.
Whatever the method a Tank uses to cope with the attacks it draws, one thing must always be true of all of it's abilities at all times; that they not interfere with the acquisition and maintenance of the enemy's focus on them.

Damage-dealers -
Damage-dealers are all relatively straightforward. Their entire purpose is to do exactly as their name implies, deal damage to an enemy. Not to debuff or hinder them, not to help or bolster one's allies, but to simply to remove as much health from an enemy as possible, in as short a time as possible. If Tanks are the noble companions who lay down their lives for their fellows, then the Damage-dealers are the action stars who jump in to land the deathblow to avenge the Tank's sacrifice.
Ironically, simple as Damage-dealers are, they actually have the greatest variety of potential. You can do anything you want with them so long as all their potential is ultimately channeled solely into making the enemy's health bar drop like a stone.
Two things must always be true of a decent Damage-dealer job though. That their auto-attacks are always tertiary in power compared to their abilities, and that they be designed so that they can never simply "nuke" an enemy of appropriate level. Even the best Tank should lose control of an enemy if the Damage-dealer throws everything at once at the wrong time. Damage-dealers should have to think tactically and strategically to make the most of their capabilities, and they should always do so in the context of cooperation with their group. They're already the rock stars of the game, they don't need to steal the entire show.

Supporters -
These jobs, as I mentioned before, are extremely broad in capability. This actually makes them the most powerful in terms of versatility, and is why they often get deeply restricted to being only healers and such. They can literally be made to do nearly anything, and do it better than either of the other two roles. But again, restricting someone to only buffing the party is something that only a few are willing, let alone eager, to cope with.
A proper supporter should be able to lend the party that helping, healing hand when it's necessary, but more importantly they should be the ones to provide that critical window of opportunity for the Damage-dealer to strike a punishing blow. The Supporter should be the one who really whittles down the enemy by weakening and hampering it down to something more manageable for the party. All to be followed up with an attack that leaves the enemy almost helpless against the coming onslaught of the Damage-dealer.
The most important truth of a Supporter is that a party without one should be effectively doomed in an appropriate level battle.

I'd also like to call your attention to the fact that three roles in a system where a party contains up to 6 players, means a proper team can be anywhere from 3 to 6 players and be nearly equally effective at the right levels. This also makes party formation a much smoother endeavor, overall. If you can get as much action out of a proper 3-person party as you can out of a 6-person party, that's three people you can do without in a pinch, but can still add later on if things go well.

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Now, onto items. There are too many, and too many copies. When I say copies, I don't mean that there should only be 100 of something in the world. I mean there are too many other items which do nearly or exactly the same thing. For instance, I understand the reasoning behind creating duplicate versions of the original Leaping Boots that are obtainable two different ways and one of the two is sellable. But I think it would've been better to have simply made the original not sellable and left it at that. Certain loot should absolutely be sellable. But things that one has to go out of their way to get? Absolutely not. If someone wants Parl Adrigor's Plate Armor of Pure Awesomness +3, they should have to quest like a madman, defeat a ludicrously powerful enemy, and then not be able to sell or trade it...ever. Upgrade it, sure...sell it, no. If someone else wants to get their hands on it, they can go through the quest like everyone else. Much of the congestion at spawn camps for Notorious Monsters and the like is due to the fact that they have rotten drop rates and their items can be sold for a mint (or just given to friends who don't have the time, patience, or levels to fight the thing over and over for hours on end). Improving drop rates drastically and eliminating their capacity to be sold, will do much more to alleviate congestion at those points than creating the duplicate items, granting more people the opportunity to get those items without having to tediously "farm", or worse, to get the Gil to buy the thing.

Also, non-player character Shop items need to be improved. These are supposed to be the backbone of player's equipment. The very foundation of an adventurer's life. At all times they should have access at any level to equipment that will serve them as needed against enemies of that level. Crafted equipment and quested equipment should be much more difficult to obtain, and therefore somewhat better than what can be purchased in a shop. But shop equipment should be available and effective throughout the game. Additionally, quested equipment should always be somewhat better than crafted equipment, except perhaps for specific items that require specific and unique quested materials to craft. Like quested equipment, crafted equipment should not be sellable. This is supposed to be an adventure game, not a marketing one. Consumables can still be crafted and sold, and that's good enough. Having said all that, it should be noted that normal enemies should still drop certain pieces of equipment that are better than shop equipment (though worse than crafted equipment), but can still be sold. If all there is in an Auction House or Bazaar is mostly consumables that can usually be purchased in shops, there's little incentive to use those two facilities.

Ammo, ninja tools, and spells. There's a vast gulf between the power of the three things. Ninja tools are expensive and difficult to obtain, requiring extreme investments of time or simply a character who's already acquired so much of everything so as to have no challenge anymore, anyway. This isn't necessarily entirely bad, since power should be difficult to obtain and use. It makes it meaningful and encourages responsible use of it. But it may go too far with the Ninjas. Ammo is about at the right spot for that, I think. Ninja tools that are more on par with ammo, regarding expense and difficulty might be better. Either that, or their power should be increased. Since Ninjas would get a redesign if I had my way, anyway, it wouldn't cause the issue of their supplanting other tanks as in previous iterations.
And mages should have to use tools of some type also then. Collections of little spell "recipes" crafted by the player or purchased in a store prior to adventuring, which are necessary to power the spells mages use to bend the universe to their will. It will help further keep their spell spamming in check, making them think more cooperatively with greater tactical and strategic creativity regarding spell use.

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On a final note, don't be afraid to remove things. If certain jobs just aren't working...take them out entirely. If there are too many items (which there are), remove those which are entirely superfluous. If a certain ability is causing more problems than the fun it was supposed to add to the game, take it out; put in something else instead, perhaps. Let the players know beforehand that you'll do it, and let them know it's to make way for something better. Offer them some form of in-game compensation for their character if you feel it necessary. Some will get very loudly upset anyway, but that's unavoidable. Shikata ga nai. Accept it and move on. Nothing should ever be off the table to be removed if it's dragging the quality of the game down.

A designer knows he has achieved perfection, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

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I do believe that's all for now, if anything else comes to mind, I'll be sure to lay it out here. Good luck in your endeavors, sir. I'm sure you'll do very well no matter what course you take.

[Detzu]

A linkshell member brought up a very cool idea over the weekend that I wanted to share...

Monk: Stances

As we are all well aware, Monk's attacks are all considered "Blunt" type damage. However, what if SE introduced three new "Stances" for Monk that would change their damage type?

For the sake of argument, lets call the standard Monk we have as the "Normal Stance." All damage is "blunt" damage, no other effects.

"Tiger Stance" - Changes attack type to "Slashing" damage. Must have Claw or Baghnakh type weapon equipped. Also increases STR and Attack Power.
"Mantis Stance" - Changes attack type to "Piercing" damage. Must have Knuckle or Claw type weapon equipped. Also increases DEX and Accuracy.
"Monkey Stance" - Changes attack type to "Blunt" damage. Must have Cesti or Sainti type weapon equipped. Also increases AGI and Evasion.

And then MNK won't be a DD anymore. I don't think it's a good idea even if it looks fun.

[renasci]

I haven't been a DRG main in a long time... but I recall always being frustrated with losing my wyvern due to MY dying, and the wyvern just flying away. That never really made any sense to me.

I always thought it would be cool if your wyvern curled around your corpse in a sort of 'guard' stance to protect you while you're down (purely aesthetic) The upside being, that upon being revived, your wyvern would still be there and would not need resummoned.

[Dawnn]

Lower the 1500 heavy metal plate trials to something more acceptable, also lower the amount of Riftdross needed for their respective trials. Spending over a billion gil is absolutely absurd for something as small as a sidegrade and graphical effects!