Quality of Life / Balance suggestions

[Byrth]

Hello! Here are a few suggestions that I think would improve FFXI. This is not the first time any of these ideas have been posted, but I figure that putting them in one central thread might improve our odds of getting a response.



1) Reduce animation delays.
Justification:
* Original - Animation delays are periods of time after you initiate an action where you cannot take another action. These stop melee swings. For instance, Job Abilities and Weapon Skills stop your melee swings for 2 seconds and prevent you from taking another action for 1 and 2 seconds respectively. Magic stops your melee swings for 3 seconds and prevents you from taking any other action during that time. These exist to ensure that the animation for your action fully finishes before the next animation comes in.
* Response - It is very common to have capped delay reduction, which makes such animation delays feel incredibly awkward. Furthermore, this creates a large disincentive when using job abilities, magic, and weapon skills. It also breaks up combat and just feel clunky when playing.
* Suggestion - This issue should have been addressed years ago. At this point, the problem is so extreme that reducing the delay to 1 second across the board would cause severe balance issues. It should be approached carefully, but strongly considered the next time you are adjusting the damage system. I suspect that reducing Job Ability delay to 1 second and magic delay to 2 seconds would not create balance issues.



2) Stop TP and Aftermath loss when switching between different Shields, Staves, Grips, and when changing between Ammunition and Ranged Throwing items.
Justification:
* Original - My understanding is that this TP/Aftermath reset mechanism is designed to prevent someone from building TP with one weapon that's specifically designed for it (like Kraken Club) and then changing weapons/weapon types and using the TP. I feel the above cases fall outside that general justification.
* Shields - There are several shields at the moment that are optimal under certain conditions, and Paladins frequently end up switching between them and losing TP. Having TP reset on shield changes just hurts Paladin's ability to maintain both the DPS it needs to hold hate at the hate cap and the durability it needs to tank.
* Staves - Different staves are designed for different purposes, and mages frequently need to swap between them in order to perform optimally in a given situation. This results in mages either choosing to not build TP (which is typical) or performing sub-optimally in one of their capacities, but building TP. Given that mages are hardly balance threats at the moment, it seems they should be allowed to change staves.
* Grips - Grips are essentially a piece of armor, so it doesn't make any real sense that they reset TP in the first place. It is true that someone might build TP in Duplus Grip or Rose Strap and then swap to Tzacab Grip for WS, but that's not too much of a balance issue at the moment and it would be nice to be consistent.
* Ammunition and Ranged Throwing Items - Unthrowable ammunition is commonly used for stat bonuses (like Yetshila or Ginsen), but jobs are frequently forced to choose between using a throwing weapon that would let them pull and using an unthrowable ammunition. This does not pose a balance issue and there are no items in the game that make this a threat under the general justification for TP resetting. It would be nice if it would go away.



3) Adjust the damage-dealt Enmity gain formula to be based on target HP% reduction rather than the damage number.
Justification:
* Original - I have no real explanation for the way the system is currently implemented. Someone must have thought it was a good idea at some point.
* Response - As monsters have gotten more HP (basically since level 50), the Enmity system has been essentially non-functional because monsters have enough HP that a party of DDs will invariably cap Enmity before the monster dies. This renders tanks impotent and forces us to rely on sources of damage that have fixed Enmity or redirect Enmity, like Coronach and Decoy Shot. It would be better if Enmity from damage scaled with monster HP, so doing 1% damage to an HNM would generate as much enmity as doing 1% damage to any other monster. This would be a far easier system to balance and to build tanks into, because you could set the amount of Enmity to be such that DDs simply don't cap hate in a 6 person party as long as they don't do too much of the damage. For instance, if doing 25% damage granted you 9000 Enmity, then a tanked fight with 3 DDs + Tank and a little Enmity reduction should be possible as long as no single DD does too much of the damage.
* Suggestion - I think it would be a more interesting game if tanks could legitimately be used in all content. The problem with implementing the change right now as proposed is that it would become way too easy for tanks to keep hate due to all of the tools you've added and values you've adjusted in the last two years. They would need to be nerfed (and damage taken Enmity reduction would need to be adjusted too). However, I would recommend that you consider this the next time you are adjusting Enmity.



4) Remove the category caps for job specific merit points
Justification:
* Original - Originally, this was probably seen as some kind of forced-specialization balancing act. It is a little bit difficult to argue that the developers legitimately thought people would be changing their merits around regularly given the incredible time investment that would have required when the system was created and 10 merit point limit, but some people do argue that.
* Response - People already merit the most valuable merit points, so allowing them to merit the rest of them would not result in a substantial balance problem and would ultimately amount to a minor buff for the jobs that have many useful job merit points (DNC, RDM, SMN, BLM, etc.). None of these jobs are in any real danger of becoming balance threats, so it's really just not a problem. This would let us spend more merits (more use for merits), would increase the value of upgraded Dynamis armors, and would be a minor buff to these jobs.



5) Remove the offhand limitations from RMEs.
Justification:
* Original - This limitation was originally implemented back at level 75 when having an extra stats in the offhand was considered too powerful.
* Response - Regardless whether or not the original justification was ever valid, removing this mechanism would give dual wielders more goals in game and would let those with multiple Dual Wield RMEs use the weapons they've created. This would amount to a minor buff to the maximum potential of Dual wield jobs, but that's hardly out of line at the moment.



6) Allow multiple aftermaths to exist at once (on their respective weapons when applicable.)
Justification:
* Original - Again, I feel this is either an implementation glitch from 2007 or some misguided balance-based decision.
* Response - Kogarasamune is certainly a powerful weapon, but it severely restricts playstyle because it relies on maintaining AM3 and Yoichinoyumi overwrites its aftermath. If we could allow multiple aftermaths to coexist, I think the game would be a more interesting place. Also, when dreaming up combinations it is important to keep in mind that the strongest aftermaths only apply to the weapon in question (ie. Mythic AM3 and all levels of Empyrean AM only apply to the Mythic or Empyrean weapon)



7) Fix the beetle's right foot.
Justification:
* Original - Animation birth defect
* Response - Poor beetle, has he not suffered enough?
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/893-Beetle-monster-s-front-right-foot?p=5154&viewfull=1#post5154

[Malithar]

2) Stop TP and Aftermath loss when switching between different Shields, Staves, Grips, and when changing between Ammunition and Ranged Throwing items.

Don't forget clubs too! Though with a few viable damage clubs, and the most broken pre-ilvl TP gaining weapon being a club, I doubt that'd happen. ; ; The TP loss and animation swap from Aureole actually caused me to sell it and deal with the -4 MAcc by using Kalboron Stone.

[Balloon]

2) Stop TP and Aftermath loss when switching between different Shields, Staves, Grips, and when changing between Ammunition and Ranged Throwing items.

Animators, too, PUP gets put on a lot of good TP ammo, and has a relatively high throwing skill but can make use of neither.

8) Animation and the Chat Log
Justification:
* Original - It makes sense that some things would be reported after the animation, before can be create a bit of dissonance between the action and the chat log.
* Response - Some animations are bloody long, and the incoming packet for action has been sent long before. COR rolls are a really good example of this, you have to wait for a number to pop up to tell you whether to reroll or stay. The chat in the chatlog takes a long time to come in due to animation length. You could make this decision a lot earlier if the response had been reported in the chatlog.
Is Skillchain damage still reported after the animation? If it is, gearswapping removes it from the chatlog and creates confusion as to whether or not you can MB from it, or if it even happened.
I'm sure there are more examples.

The offhand limitation is dumb, especially because it applies to things as easy to obtain as Acc and Atk. If you limited Aftermath or WS that'd be at least understable (though still dumb.) There are frankly more potent stats you can get in your offhand, and it means that if build multiple RME that one goes to waste or just isn't used.

[Aeron]

If the devs did these can you imagine how many subs they would get? That is why I think they wont. All the above suggestions makes the game incredibly better. While the above suggestions are the best I have seen in a long time I'm not holding my breath for them to be implemented.

[Balloon]

Byrth is also right about JA delay, but if it could be done on a case-by-case basis that would be better. BPs/Pet Actions/Maneuvers and DNC steps and waltzes should probably be exempt. Runes, too, perhaps.

JA heavy jobs currently suffer a lot more than others.

[Aeron]

Considering that we are looking for more balance in the DD department, I don't think that heavy dd jobs should get a ja delay reduction but that's just my opinion.

[Rubicant82]

Can I like this thread about 10000000 more time.
PLEASE SE PLEASE do these things :E

[Lambtor]

The only thing I agree with is fixing the beetle's right foot.

[Hoshi]

Very well thought out. I agree with everything but 7. Backwards beetle foot is the best part about him. D:

[Lithera]

Have they fixed Cid's teeth? If not then I guess that would be #8.