Elements to be Implemented in the March 27th Version Update

[Demon6324236]

So we revert the game back to 2006 style of playing? Let us solo and low man shit for 3 years and then you're gonna go back to the old school style of play. Thanks but no thanks. I love to reminisce about the old days but that does not mean I want to go back to it.

There is a difference between what you said and what I am saying. I am not saying go back to how the game was 5 years ago, I am saying change your strategy to where its not just a never ending zerg against enemies. Right now no one can dispute the fact that 90% of content relates to killing whatever it is you are fighting in the least amount of time, because of this there is little real strategy involved, no tanking, and no coordinated teamwork. If this update changes things as much as it sounds like it might, then this will flip, we will not be mindlessly zerging things, they will stomp us down, we will need more defensive measures, for instance, a PLD tanking the mob, defense on gear not being pointless, more PDT/MDT/Haste Hybrid sets. Right now we are to offensive centric in how we play this game, everything is more damage, thats all people gear for, its all people want to do, this sounds as though it will make defense actually part of the game again, which is in my opinion a good thing. If you cant stand the idea of actually backing off of the mob once in a while, then I don't know what to tell you, Final Fantasy has always involved a level of strategy, which this game had more than any other at a time, and now lacks massively, this sounds as though it may bring some of that back.

[Vivik]

There is a difference between what you said and what I am saying. I am not saying go back to how the game was 5 years ago, I am saying change your strategy to where its not just a never ending zerg against enemies. Right now no one can dispute the fact that 90% of content relates to killing whatever it is you are fighting in the least amount of time, because of this there is little real strategy involved, no tanking, and no coordinated teamwork. If this update changes things as much as it sounds like it might, then this will flip, we will not be mindlessly zerging things, they will stomp us down, we will need more defensive measures, for instance, a PLD tanking the mob, defense on gear not being pointless, more PDT/MDT/Haste Hybrid sets. Right now we are to offensive centric in how we play this game, everything is more damage, thats all people gear for, its all people want to do, this sounds as though it will make defense actually part of the game again, which is in my opinion a good thing. If you cant stand the idea of actually backing off of the mob once in a while, then I don't know what to tell you, Final Fantasy has always involved a level of strategy, which this game had more than any other at a time, and now lacks massively, this sounds as though it may bring some of that back.

Actually PLD was my first job to 75. I know exactly what it takes to manage hate in a large fight. I'm just saying and are willing to bet that 90% of the people still playing today are not gonna go for it. I can see it now "Yeah guys I know you have Ukons and Rags but just turn so the tank can get hate back, ok?" Riiiiiight, not gonna happen.

Kind of pointless to debate about it though. We will see...

[Demon6324236]

Actually PLD was my first job to 75. I know exactly what it takes to manage hate in a large fight. I'm just saying and are willing to bet that 90% of the people still playing today are not gonna go for it. I can see it now "Yeah guys I know you have Ukons and Rags but just turn so the tank can get hate back, ok?" Riiiiiight, not gonna happen.

Kind of pointless to debate about it though. We will see...

True, and I know the kind of people you mean, they are the same kind who wipe in Legion to the behemoth because they get cursed by spikes then hit by AoE spells that kill them in one shot. Hopefully this will just be a bit more widespread and forced of a learning experience for people.

[saevel]

There is a difference between what you said and what I am saying. I am not saying go back to how the game was 5 years ago, I am saying change your strategy to where its not just a never ending zerg against enemies. Right now no one can dispute the fact that 90% of content relates to killing whatever it is you are fighting in the least amount of time, because of this there is little real strategy involved, no tanking, and no coordinated teamwork. If this update changes things as much as it sounds like it might, then this will flip, we will not be mindlessly zerging things, they will stomp us down, we will need more defensive measures, for instance, a PLD tanking the mob, defense on gear not being pointless, more PDT/MDT/Haste Hybrid sets. Right now we are to offensive centric in how we play this game, everything is more damage, thats all people gear for, its all people want to do, this sounds as though it will make defense actually part of the game again, which is in my opinion a good thing. If you cant stand the idea of actually backing off of the mob once in a while, then I don't know what to tell you, Final Fantasy has always involved a level of strategy, which this game had more than any other at a time, and now lacks massively, this sounds as though it may bring some of that back.

Won't work at all, ever.

See we need to actually kill the monster, not just stare at it for two to three hours. These monsters tend to have 100,000+ HP. A PLD turtled up has no where near the damage output to kill it in anything less then an hour, probably two. So you need melee DD's to go in and bring it's HP down. Now as damage is, by an order of magnitude, the #1 best way of building hate those DD's will then become the tanks in short order. Disengaging isn't an option as the NM will just follow the melee's back to the mages and kill them all with the aoe's I mentioned above.

Now does the whole reason for using melee's to tank make sense? We use them because they will be the "tanks" reguardless of what they do. Winning the fight necessitates killing the enemy. Killing the enemy necessitates using DD's. Using DD's always results in them "tanking". Thus winning the fight inevitably results in DD's holding hate. The PLD brick-wall tank is only useful from the moment you pop / claim / engage the NM until the moment you start killing it, typically 30s or less. Now as DD's take more damage then the brick-wall PLD, and in order to win we must use DD's, we're faced with a problem.

Only on DPS spreedsheets and theory crafting does the enemy sit there doing absolutely nothing. In actual game play this NM will be doing it's damnedest to ensure you fail in your mission to kill it. It will deploy a whole host of cheap moves, some VERY cheap. Your DD's now must face those cheap moves in their quest to bring you ultimate victory. Since the chance of the monster succeeding in it's mission to make you fail increase's with the length of time it's alive it becomes in our best interests to reduce the length of it's existence to the shortest possible.

Using reason and logic we can conclude then that it's in our best interests to keep our DD's alive an kill the enemy NM as fast as possible so as to maximize our chance of success. Towards this goal we then deploy and abuse various mechanics to not only enhance our DD's killing capacity (aka buffing) but also to minimize the enemy monsters capacity to employ cheap tactics (stunning / fanatics spam / ect..).

That is the whole reason we "zerg zerg zerg", not because we're lazy or unimaginative but because when faced with insanely overpowered NM's it becomes the only strategy that works. There simply IS NO OTHER WAY TO DO IT. So until SE fix's the enemy NM's overpowered capability's we will continue using zerg tactics. This defense update is a direct buff to the enemy's offensive capacity, thus already overpowered NM's because even more overpowered and thus force us to kill them even faster and stun them even more then we already do. This update will not encourage "more strategic play", it encourages more zerging as you have an even shorter time to kill the enemy before it wipes you with 1000~2000 damage aoe moves.

Now there are a few methods to go about actually fixing this. The biggest & best thing they could do also ends up being the simplest. Monsters are overpowered because their offensive ability has grown much faster then our ability to soak up the damage. Giving an across the board 60~100% HP increase for anyone 90+ will prevent much of the problem. If the average heavy DD had approx 3000 HP at 99 then they could soak up the 1000+ damage aoe attacks and would reduce the requirement to immediately kill it right f*cking now. Stupid crazy aoe status debuff spam is still an issue, and stupid cheap unavoidable weakness / encumbrance / doom / death moves are definitely a problem, those need to be dealt with.