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

[Koren]

Just going to Copy/Paste my enmity suggestion here.

Players can agree the enmity system is broken. We can't agree how to fix it, but we know it needs to be fixed.

Currently enmity is measured by presumably 2 counters of Volatile Enmity (VE) and Cumulative Enmity (CE) and the total determines the target of a particular enemy. I would propose splitting the enmity values even further into Physical Enmity and Magical Enmity. Could be more but let's start with these two for simplicity's sake. CE and VE would be treated as usual within these two categories.

Physical Enmity would be gained by melee attacks, physical WS, BLU physical spells and the like. Magical Enmity would be gained through magical WS, spells, healing, etc. Enmity control abilities like Provoke and Accomplice could alter both.

A damage dealer like WAR would fill the Physical Enmity counter like normal and upon hitting the Physical Enmity cap would then begin to fill the Magical Enmity counter at a severely reduced rate. As an example, say the WAR's attacks generate 100 Physical Enmity. After hitting the Physical Enmity cap, the WAR's attacks only generate 30 enmity on the Magical Enmity Counter. In a similar vein, a WHM will generate Magical Enmity and upon reaching the Magical Enmity cap, the overflow would begin to fill the Physical Enmity Counter at a reduced rate.

Ideally, this overflow would also be removed at an increased rate as well, so an attack on the previous WAR would remove 20 enmity if they were uncapped on Physical Enmity, but the same attack would remove 50 enmity if it was in the overflowed Magical Enmity category. Normal generated enmity would have to take precedent over overflow enmity. For example, if the cap for both categories is 1000 and a RDM is at 1000/1000 Magical Enmity and 700/1000 of Physical Enmity caused by magic overflow and the RDM decides to start attacking with a sword, the Physical Enmity counter will increase at the normal rate until capped at 1000/1000 at which point the overflow enmity starts to convert into normal enmity. This does require that we have at least 8 enmity counters: Physical CE, Physical VE, Physical CE overflow, Physical VE overflow, and the 4 Magical Enmity counterparts.

In general, most jobs focus on a single type of enmity generation. Damage dealers will usually not use magical WS and mages will not melee for the most part so current tactics should not be affected too much.

The system does give a significant benefit to jobs capable of generating both Physical and Magical Enmity such as PLD and NIN. PLD and NIN would both be able to generate and lose Physical and Magical Enmity at the regular rate rather than the altered rate of overflowed enmity since they cause melee damage and cast cures/ninjutsu. This also extends to DRK if they use their magic liberally, melee RDM, magical casting BLU, bullet shooting Wildfire COR and DNC using Waltzes so some regulation should be advised.

Now for some reasoning behind the new system. We don't want to simply raise the enmity cap because we are left with the same problem as before, just 30 seconds later. A flat reduction in the amount of enmity generated could completely disrupt current lowman battles. A raised cap on tanking classes would just allow everyone else to go nuts with complete abandon. We want tanking to be a viable tactic, not a requirement for all situations.

The two enmity types allows current tactics to still be utilized while giving an advantage to our tanking classes. The overflow enmity, provided the altered enmity rates are reasonable, prevents specialty jobs from having perfect safety from being targeted.

Additionally, this would open up some new challenges from the AI. Instead of a single target, the AI would now have 3 to choose from and could tailor attacks based on the type of enmity. A player with high Magical Enmity could be more prone to being hit with silence and addle while a high Physical Enmity player could be targeted more with flash and amnesia. The player with the highest total enmity could still be the main target. Alternatively, the AI could rotate between the 3 bringing a new need for Libra or in the case of something like Hydra could attack all 3 targets at the same time.

I know a big problem might be from the fact the overflow enmity cap would need to be constantly adjusted based on the current level of the normal enmity i.e. (Physical CE overflow cap) = 1000 - (current Physical CE). I've heard there's a calculation lag for DRG when macroing Wyvern HP% gear, but not for Wyvern HP+XX gear, so there might be some issues with four constantly varying caps that can forcibly alter the current value.

[wildsprite]

how about fixing RDM so we can tank again, the Enmity- trait with cures(Tranquil Heart) was not welcomed by those of us that melee with the job. Tranquil Heart should have been an ability not a trait.

RDM is a hybrid job it should be good at all of its abilities, but not the best.

[Keyln]

I'd spend money for a couple of scenarios.

- One that tied Wings of the Goddess and Treasures of Aht Urghan together with Chains of Promathia and Rise of Zilart. Sorta similar to the one where the quest to tie Chains of Promathia and Rise of Zilart together.

- One that featured previous Final Fantasies. Maybe not a Dissidia-style scenario, but I think it would be cool to see the heroes (and heroines) of the previous Final Fantasy games interacting with the people of Final Fantasy XI.

[Keyln]

Allow solo entry to Assaults and Salvage. And maybe allow Salvage to evolve into something like Dynamis where people have free entry. Those two changes alone would add wonders to make mythics easier to obtain.

[Motenten]

Took most the weekend to re-read the thread and rate stuff. Didn't actually have much time to put together my own ideas, but there's enough good stuff in the thread that the devs should be busy for a very long time.

Still managed a bit on one item, though. So, here:


Enmity mechanics, particularly as they relate to Pld. Since you want specific suggestions rather than just "fix it"....


AOE hate tool. At present, when dealing with multiple enemy mobs, there's generally one major and many minor mobs, and the secondary mobs are usually tanked using 'supertanking'. That is, the 'tank' (generally pld) gets agro on the mobs, but not hate. Having agro means you're the one the mob attacks, but not having hate means there's no contention of hate should a healer heal you, or something similar. The healer healing you does not register as something that adds hate for the healer since the pld is not technically on the hate list.

In any revamp of the enmity system, you're going to want the pld to be able to actively engage the target. Doing so means that the inabilty of the pld to generate a decent amount of hate -- particularly on multiple enemies -- is a critical failure. For pld to be a practical choice while not resorting to the supertanking gimmick, they must have some means of generating hate on multiple targets at once.

Therefore there must be some rough equivalent to an AOE Provoke. Something along the lines of Actinic Burst (AOE Flash) would also work.



Current enmity decay with respect to doing damage to the target yields a decrease in enmity proportional to the damage incurred. I would suggest a reversal of that thinking: that enmity be gained in proportion to the inability to damage the target.

Consider enmity a combination of factors: How much does this target annoy me, and how frustrating is it to deal with him? A target easily damaged is a target that is easily brushed aside. The enmity generated by such a player is solely a factor of how annoying the target is (ie: how much damage do they do, etc); they neither gain nor lose enmity from taking damage if they are easily damaged. A hard-to-damage target, however, is a frustration, and something to focus on.

This increase likely has to be non-linear; there is simply not enough of a scale between the points in the current damage system for it to be workable otherwise. However constructing it this way implies an explicit increase in the value of defense for the pld (along with contributory effects such as Phalanx, or the reduced attack from Bio).

One approach would be that the base enmity a mob's swing can generate is equal to the maximum non-random damage the mob can do. [Note: Numbers are just for illustrative purposes, not actual suggested values.] EG: Base weapon damage plus max fStr, times max Ratio; a mob with a d200 weapon would have a max fStr of +30, and a max Ratio of 2.0 + level correction (so, 3.0 for a mob 20 levels above the player), for max damage rating of 460 for an EM mob, or 690 for a mob 20 levels above the player.

Most DDs would tend to take max damage. A turtled up pld could reduce the fStr in a Vit build, heavily reduce the effective Ratio, and shave some extra off with Phalanx; then add shield blocks on top of that. The difference between what the mob could have done if unrestricted and what the mob can actually do after accounting for defenses then directly translates into enmity gain. Invincible obviously maxes out this possible damage; Fanatic's Drink and Perfect Defense would have the side effect doing the same thing for DDs that made use of them.


Side-effects that would then need to be addressed:

1) No immediate means of reducing enmity, other than the natural decay-over-time of VE. If, given a tank and a DD, at any time the DD pulled hate but didn't stop attacking the mob, the tank would probably never get hate back again since there's no decay from hitting the DD, while also no further enmity generation on the tank since the mob is not hitting them.

If I were writing this I'd probably do something complicated like creating a decay effect based on the how long it's been since the player took action on the mob, that grows exponentially the longer it's been since the player did anything. Thus, turning around and not hitting is perfectly viable to drop hate. (note: curing yourself, for example, does not count as an action against the mob, so does not interfere with the decay) Not sure how feasible that is to track in game, though.

1a) Of course, the side effect of -that- is that kiting becomes extremely difficult. I haven't yet decided whether or how to address that.

2) Defensive skills become active enmity tools. Parry, evasion, guard and shield would all gain more enmity for the player due to heavily reducing or negating damage. I would say evasion should gain less enmity since it requires no particular behavior on the player's part, while the others all require that the player be facing the mob, and usually engaged.




Enmity generation from damage is an entirely different and complicated issue, so won't get into it here. Also not going to get into any specifics about exact hate caps, as that's dependant on the overall design of the system, and subject to tons of revsion based on math and testing.



Note: I tried to be very concise here, but I can guess that the above is gonna have a tough time passing the translators. tl;dr version:

AOE hate tool for pld.
Let enmity increase in proportion to damage the mob cannot do to the target, instead of decrease in proportion to the damage the mob does to the target.


Side note: Writing a system for enmity is a huge undertaking; players should well understand that it's not a quick and easy task. However we are acutely aware of the many and sundry flaws of the system, so will often point out minor specific elements that need to be addressed. Unfortunately most will avoid getting into specifics because any single specific will affect and be affected by any system designed as a whole, and we're aren't in control of how that will be built. As such, any given suggestion may or may not be relevant in the end.

However if you really are serious about wanting real detailed suggestions, and not just "fix it" requests, I'll put effort into a complete and comprehensive enmity system. But I need to know it's worth my time to do so, so please indicate the degree you're willing to look into something of that scope.

[SpankWustler]

Took most the weekend to re-read the thread and rate stuff. Didn't actually have much time to put together my own ideas, but there's enough good stuff in the thread that the devs should be busy for a very long time.

Still managed a bit on one item, though. So, here:


Enmity mechanics, particularly as they relate to Pld. Since you want specific suggestions rather than just "fix it"....


AOE hate tool. At present, when dealing with multiple enemy mobs, there's generally one major and many minor mobs, and the secondary mobs are usually tanked using 'supertanking'. That is, the 'tank' (generally pld) gets agro on the mobs, but not hate. Having agro means you're the one the mob attacks, but not having hate means there's no contention of hate should a healer heal you, or something similar. The healer healing you does not register as something that adds hate for the healer since the pld is not technically on the hate list.

In any revamp of the enmity system, you're going to want the pld to be able to actively engage the target. Doing so means that the inabilty of the pld to generate a decent amount of hate -- particularly on multiple enemies -- is a critical failure. For pld to be a practical choice while not resorting to the supertanking gimmick, they must have some means of generating hate on multiple targets at once.

Therefore there must be some rough equivalent to an AOE Provoke. Something along the lines of Actinic Burst (AOE Flash) would also work.



Current enmity decay with respect to doing damage to the target yields a decrease in enmity proportional to the damage incurred. I would suggest a reversal of that thinking: that enmity be gained in proportion to the inability to damage the target.

Consider enmity a combination of factors: How much does this target annoy me, and how frustrating is it to deal with him? A target easily damaged is a target that is easily brushed aside. The enmity generated by such a player is solely a factor of how annoying the target is (ie: how much damage do they do, etc); they neither gain nor lose enmity from taking damage if they are easily damaged. A hard-to-damage target, however, is a frustration, and something to focus on.

This increase likely has to be non-linear; there is simply not enough of a scale between the points in the current damage system for it to be workable otherwise. However constructing it this way implies an explicit increase in the value of defense for the pld (along with contributory effects such as Phalanx, or the reduced attack from Bio).

One approach would be that the base enmity a mob's swing can generate is equal to the maximum non-random damage the mob can do. [Note: Numbers are just for illustrative purposes, not actual suggested values.] EG: Base weapon damage plus max fStr, times max Ratio; a mob with a d200 weapon would have a max fStr of +30, and a max Ratio of 2.0 + level correction (so, 3.0 for a mob 20 levels above the player), for max damage rating of 460 for an EM mob, or 690 for a mob 20 levels above the player.

Most DDs would tend to take max damage. A turtled up pld could reduce the fStr in a Vit build, heavily reduce the effective Ratio, and shave some extra off with Phalanx; then add shield blocks on top of that. The difference between what the mob could have done if unrestricted and what the mob can actually do after accounting for defenses then directly translates into enmity gain. Invincible obviously maxes out this possible damage; Fanatic's Drink and Perfect Defense would have the side effect doing the same thing for DDs that made use of them.


Side-effects that would then need to be addressed:

1) No immediate means of reducing enmity, other than the natural decay-over-time of VE. If, given a tank and a DD, at any time the DD pulled hate but didn't stop attacking the mob, the tank would probably never get hate back again since there's no decay from hitting the DD, while also no further enmity generation on the tank since the mob is not hitting them.

If I were writing this I'd probably do something complicated like creating a decay effect based on the how long it's been since the player took action on the mob, that grows exponentially the longer it's been since the player did anything. Thus, turning around and not hitting is perfectly viable to drop hate. (note: curing yourself, for example, does not count as an action against the mob, so does not interfere with the decay) Not sure how feasible that is to track in game, though.

1a) Of course, the side effect of -that- is that kiting becomes extremely difficult. I haven't yet decided whether or how to address that.

2) Defensive skills become active enmity tools. Parry, evasion, guard and shield would all gain more enmity for the player due to heavily reducing or negating damage. I would say evasion should gain less enmity since it requires no particular behavior on the player's part, while the others all require that the player be facing the mob, and usually engaged.




Enmity generation from damage is an entirely different and complicated issue, so won't get into it here. Also not going to get into any specifics about exact hate caps, as that's dependant on the overall design of the system, and subject to tons of revsion based on math and testing.



Note: I tried to be very concise here, but I can guess that the above is gonna have a tough time passing the translators. tl;dr version:

AOE hate tool for pld.
Let enmity increase in proportion to damage the mob cannot do to the target, instead of decrease in proportion to the damage the mob does to the target.


Side note: Writing a system for enmity is a huge undertaking; players should well understand that it's not a quick and easy task. However we are acutely aware of the many and sundry flaws of the system, so will often point out minor specific elements that need to be addressed. Unfortunately most will avoid getting into specifics because any single specific will affect and be affected by any system designed as a whole, and we're aren't in control of how that will be built. As such, any given suggestion may or may not be relevant in the end.

However if you really are serious about wanting real detailed suggestions, and not just "fix it" requests, I'll put effort into a complete and comprehensive enmity system. But I need to know it's worth my time to do so, so please indicate the degree you're willing to look into something of that scope.

I hope it gets some attention even though it's coming so late!

[StingRay104]

2 years ago we were promised an update on all current weaponskills, please work on this soon. Scarlet delirium is still not very useful. It would probably be best to turn it into a sublimation like ability where we can store damage received until we use the ability again to get the benefits for a min.

[Byrth]

Skimming the thread, some common things I see, in no particular order:

1) Lower Ammo costs (this came up half a dozen times and seemed popular)

2) Allow solo entry to Salvage zones (This came up in various forms quite frequently, and often people asked for increased Alexandrite access which would be a byproduct of this.)

3) Increase the number of lines per macro to 16 (A lot of people said this)

4) Uncap the merit system (Approximately 20% of the posts in this thread included this idea)

5) Fix Red Mage (suggested methods vary, but everyone agrees it needs to change)

6) Fix Enmity (again, suggested methods vary but people think it needs to change)

7) Mimic windower functions with the official GUI (suggested in various ways by various people)




I'd like to toss out a few more ideas again that were included. Some of these were hit by other posts, but I am going to re-post them because I really feel they need to happen to make goals for some of the more hardcore players:
1) Lengthen the duration of Relic aftermaths by 50%
Logic: 30 Seconds / 60 Seconds / 90 Seconds would not be overpowered and may give some justification for using (for instance) Tachi: Kaiten to activate AM for an X-hit and then using Shoha for damage.

2) Allow Relic stats to apply when offhanded.
Currently relic weapons lose all stats other than base damage and delay when offhanded. This is very unfortunate, and I think we can agree that 1H jobs are a far cry from having a maximum potential damage that is too high. Allowing 2.5/3x damage procs to apply from the offhand would not break the weapons, and would give weapons like Kikoku a more useful role.

3) Allow Mythic stats and aftermaths to apply when offhanded.
1H Mythic weapons have lower base damage and higher delay than their respective relic weapons, but are desirable because of their utility and Aftermath Level 3 (which is itself a large TP-gain buff). They are, in short, designed to be the ultimate offhand weapon. We can already use the mythic WS with any weapon, so it would be nice if we could activate the Aftermath Level 3 on our offhand weapon while using whatever mainhand (like a relic or empyrean) is appropriate.

4) Allow multiple Aftermaths to be active at once.
Aftermaths are currently exclusive with one another, which is unfortunate. It would not offer a substantial gameplay advantage but would be very neat if we could benefit from multiple aftermaths at once.

5) Allow aftermaths of the same level to overwrite each other.
Currently AM1 can overwrite AM1, but AM2 can't overwrite AM2 and AM3 can't overwrite AM3. This makes it very difficult to maintain a full-time aftermath without wasting potential damage. This really needs to be changed. It will slightly improve the damage (particularly of mythic users) but will have a very large positive impact on the gameplay experience of owners of these weapons.

6) Allow Relic Procs to occur on multi-attack hits with the relic weapon.
Relic weapon hidden effect: 2/2.5/3x damage procs can currently only occur on the first swing of each attack round. I would like to see this changed to be any swing with the relic weapon. This might shift the balance of power between different options slightly (especially in the case of Ragnarok), but overall it would just improve the versatility of these weapons.

[Camate]

A word from Producer Akihiko Matsui

Thank you so much for the large amount of comments! We will now be closing the thread.

There are a huge amount of suggestions from Japan, North America, and Europe, but I will be looking over each and every post that followed the instructions, and will be taking it all into consideration as I think about the future of FINAL FANTASY XI and the mutual feelings of the community.

I also have one more request for you all. I hope that you all could read over all of the posts in this thread (of course, reading over what you can is fine, too).

After playing with your friends for so long, you often start to think and play the same way as the them, including your linkshell members, and players that you spend a lot of time with and grow close to.

In this thread there are posts from these people as well as people who think in a completely different way. I’d like you to try and understand what adventurers other than yourself are thinking and looking for.

In order to continue to protect the FINAL FANTASY XI that we all love, we need everyone's cooperation or we'll be unable to accomplish anything.

I'd like to place more importance on the community and work side-by-side with you all.
From here on out I would appreciate it if you could consider the fact that there are people in the community who think in a variety of different ways and to sometimes write your feedback and opinions from an open-minded standpoint.

Thank you all very much!

With those final words, we'll be closing the thread. Please also use today to go through and "Like" the posts you agree with as we're hoping to finalize the document this week and deliver it to Matsui.