More Paladin-centered shields needed to close the gap with Aegis & Ochain

[Yinnyth]

No job should ever find itself locked out of events due to a lack of R/M/E/D weapons/gear. This, above all else, is killing the game.

All jobs have similar expectations of them. If 25% of people who played bard in endgame had a 99 daurdabla and a 99 gjallarhorn, you would see shouts for bards requiring them to have both. Luckily for me, most people don't really enjoy playing bard, and even those who do usually don't put forth much effort into making their bard any good, so expectations on me are a little bit lower. Even though having both of these items makes a bard as strong as 2 bards combined, why do you suppose shouts don't require bards to have both? Because they could shout all year and never get a single reply.

But you see these shouts for RMED melees because RMED are strong weapons, and enough of the population of the server has gotten one of these weapons that the person shouting doesn't need to bet the farm on a DD who claims to be skilled enough to overcome the fact that he's single-wielding joyeuse. If you had a shield in the game that was slightly weaker than ochain and aegis, do you really think the ochain and aegis shouts would stop? No, Aegis and Ochain are still better, and there's still hundreds of them on the server. Why beg for pennies when begging for gold bars has a similar success rate?

Players create these requirements on one another. Players, above all else, are killing the game.

[Raksha]

Yeah, all the players should quit! That'll fix the game!

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Players create these requirements on one another.

Players are only taking the path of least resistance, a path designed by S-E.

[Yinnyth]

Players are only taking the path of least resistance, a path designed by S-E.

You really think we're taking SE's updates along the path they intended? They can design as much as they want, we'll find a short cut which has nothing to do with the path designed by SE. Then SE will have to remedy it, and players will bitch and moan, then find another short cut. Then the cycle continues.

I think the difference in our stances is this: you see the playerbase as a constant, and the devs as a variable while I see the inverse.

Edit: I really shouldn't have used the term "constant", because both are variables in truth. My belief is that my chances of changing the playerbase are greater than my chances of changing what goes into an update. This belief comes from nearly 10 years of experience in the game where none of my suggestions have ever been taken by devs, but in spite of my lack of control over our direction, I have made the game more enjoyable for several players and continue to attempt doing so.

Sometimes the team captain doesn't want you on his team because you can't do as many push-ups as Johnny. That doesn't make the creator of the game a jerk, it makes the team captain a jerk.

[OmnysValefor]

Players are only taking the path of least resistance, a path designed by S-E.

^

Tank parties may well need additional support/backup tanks, taking further dd spots from the alliance slowing the delve runs.

Let's be honest, delve farming is boring. It's cruel and unusual. THe faster in, faster out, the better for us all.

[Lisotte]

For me the issue is that while I'd kind of like to try paladin, to do that the first order of business is thus: go make 90 ochain.
I'm not going to make an empy right off the bat for a job I'm new at/trying out, and there's practically NOTHING that a non-ochain pld is useful for (worth doing anyway; 75 content and such aside). Maybe a few of the easier aby nm's or something.

Comparing that to brd which I am picking up, sure I don't have ghorn or daurdabla but I can still do worthwhile things; it's possible to get experience on the job while plasm farming (for which the bar is pretty low).

[Alerith]

I have to disagree with the idea. The difference in power between some of the better shields and R/E shields is about on par in a similar way as the weapons are.

Seigneur Shield vs Ochain, for example, is along the same lines as Honorbound to Almace.

There is supposed to be a notable performance gap between the two due to the nature of the ultimate weapons/shields/instruments.

What I would agree with, however, is that the content should not be designed around having the ultimates. The benefit of having an ultimate weapon/shield/instrument is to have that much of an advantage in content designed around the average gear level.

I would say it's actually a design flaw to balance content around R/M/E owners, because then this silly "Aegischain PLD" kind of stuff pops up, similar to "R/M/E DD" for Voidwatch. Content should be balanced around average weaponry/defenses and R/M/E should be an augment, not a requirement.

[Yinnyth]

Content should be balanced around average weaponry/defenses and R/M/E should be an augment, not a requirement.

RME is not a requirement. You can beat skirmish with magian weapons. You can beat first-tier delve and naakuals with skirmish weapons. You can beat second-tier delve with first-tier delve gear and skirmish/naakual weapons. You can beat final-tier delve with second-tier delve gear and weapons. RME is a bonus, just like you describe.


The problem exists in the fact that so many people have an RME (and now delve weapon) that they can specifically request "RMED" and they will get one, so why would they ever settle for someone who didn't have one of these? To them, RMED is the norm and anything less than that is slow and unreliable. There are so many well-geared players that it is very easy to be undergeared.

[OmnysValefor]

The other problem is that when you balance hard content around average players, the players who tried the hardest feel no challenge.

[Hexadecimal]

Why should players who committed themselves--yes, like me--be effectively nerfed, because you don't want to build your shield?

I'd like to you know how you're being effectively nerfed by someone else being able to get a decent shield that would be useable and useful until you can complete the content to get an Aegis or Ochain (or both). People can't learn to play the job when they aren't being used in any of the relevant content. I'm speaking as a veteran Paladin.