[dev1289] Job Adjustments

[kylani]

I don't know about you guys, but ever since the nerf I've lost a lot of interest in FFXI and started playing Elite: Dangerous more. I spend, maybe, an hour in FFXI now and the rest in Elite: Dangerous. It's become a more fun game now. How wrong is that?!

I've never heard of Eliteangerous, but it has to be better than the housework and laundry that I've been doing. I'm gonna check it out, lol.

[Jile]

This change has made BST completely unenjoyable and virtually unusable. This change was completely unnecessary and needs removed. I'm not a bandwagon player. This change makes me want to unsubscribe all three of my accounts and move on. A dmg decrease on pets for non RME could have been an easy first step. This change has all but deleted BST from the game. SE, please fix this egregious and unnecessary mistake.

[Jile]

SE could have placed the same limitation we have with trusts onto BST jugs, where we would have to be engaged and have pets disengage when we do, that would have tethered us to the pet and left us able to function. Right now the ja's functionality range is inconsistent and frustratingly overly tight.

I'd really rather my pets taken a dmg output Nerf than this mortal wound to functionality.

[Elexia]

SE could have placed the same limitation we have with trusts onto BST jugs, where we would have to be engaged and have pets disengage when we do, that would have tethered us to the pet and left us able to function. Right now the ja's functionality range is inconsistent and frustratingly overly tight.

I'd really rather my pets taken a dmg output Nerf than this mortal wound to functionality.

From a programming stand point that wouldn't have worked. The AI algorithms for player pets are more directly related to your control, that's why the other NPC partner you get is more likely to hold onto TP in order to try to skillchain with you and so on. It's like how SMN's pets will protect you if you aggro or get attacked but a BST's pet won't charmed or otherwise because lore wise, they're still wild beasts, but from a gameplay perspective, they're not there to "protect" you. Trusts can only function when it's "told" you're engaged due to limitations in the system otherwise they'd go college party wild on everything within range.

[Jile]

I understand what your saying Elexia; however, it wouldn't be hard for them to tie when we disengage it's the same as using heel, causing our pets to disengage too.

Ultimately any adjustments instead of this Nerf would be potentially better than the 2-yalm leash we have now.

[kylani]

Overpowered has become a pronoun to me. I don't know how you say 'any job' = overpowered when there is so much range in play style, merits, and particularly jp.

Are ALL BSTs overpowered or just BSTs with maxed everything? Do people who judge know all the factors between the melee and BST they are judging? Believe it or not, there are people playing the game who don't have maxed everything, and don't necessarily even want maxed everything. I have melee friends who laugh at the idea that a maxed BST pet can out damage them. BST does get an edge that they can stay out of the AOE, but the trade off is BST kills slower. The way the jobs are geared can make quite a difference between the gap.

I agree that a maxed pet shouldn't be as good as maxed melee, and if that is true, I agree damage should be nerfed. (I don't know because I am not maxed with none of the best gear). I do know this range is ridiculous. I should be able to trigger commands when I am fighting with my pet.

It seems this game has become too elitist. There is so much to do here, such rich story, but all that seems to matter is that Person A's job is better than Person B's.

[detlef]

I maintain it never should have been about putting a jug pet side by set with a decked out melee and comparing results. The damage was impressive a lot of the time for sure. But what really put BST on another level was how you could skimp on healing and support while having a high success rate. That's really what separated them from melee, which are generally high maintenance in comparison. If you had a choice wouldn't you bring a BST every time?

[kylani]

I maintain it never should have been about putting a jug pet side by set with a decked out melee and comparing results. The damage was impressive a lot of the time for sure. But what really put BST on another level was how you could skimp on healing and support while having a high success rate. That's really what separated them from melee, which are generally high maintenance in comparison. If you had a choice wouldn't you bring a BST every time?

I was referring to people who said that a pet alone was more overpowered than a DD. I agree there's a balance to the relationship, but that's a difficult balance. It's pretty clear cut the pet alone shouldn't do more damage than an equally geared DD. As I said, my friends laughed when I asked how powerful BST was when I was curious about all the hub bub.

Given that when DD and WHM could do most of abysssea faster than my BST and a PUP friend, I'd likely always choose BST period. I have a 99 whm, and personally, I sure as heck would pick BST, PUP, DRG, SMN, DNC party over any DD even if the DDs were a lot better, and I'd have the DRG go /rdm.

DDs are needy but it's always been that way. Why do you think generally more people like DD than healer/support? I don't think it's because DD is harder. I could tell so many AFK and Football watching DD stories here...

I'd pick a group of people who love to have fun on ANY job over the best DDs in the game.

Why do you want the range nerfed more than the damage? It seems like you want the job to suck so bad that others will party with you even if it's a lot more work for them. Why should BST be killed so that WHMs will put up with DDs? Why not make DDs more self-sufficient? Maybe make WHMs Meleeing fighting fun healers, so fun can be had by all? Sure it changes how jobs have worked for years, but BST should suck up this range nerf. Maybe all jobs should?

Personally, I'd rather the range nerf be adjusted to let me melee with my pet, and some consideration to helping with gear like allowing augments to both master and pet but maybe halving/reducing the buff so it's spread across both more evenly.

[detlef]

I don't really have anything to say to most of your post but I didn't ask for a nerf. I did say it was OP and I enjoyed it while it was. I also think that SE's solution to the perceived problem could stand to be tweaked a bit while remaining true to their BST playstyle intentions (adjusting the distance to something a little more manageable for example).

To me, I see this nerf as a reaction to something that SE just wasn't comfortable designing and adjusting content around. I think a good parallel is Embrava which was so good and lasted for such a long time that every strat used it. Something simply had to be done and most reasonable people understood that at the time even though it sure was a nice crutch to have. Basically, SE couldn't balance content for groups with and without Embrava. I think that's what SE had in mind when they made the adjustment. Maybe they went too far, who knows. I mean depending on who you ask the job is either just fine or completely unplayable.

[kylani]

I don't really have anything to say to most of your post but I didn't ask for a nerf. I did say it was OP and I enjoyed it while it was. I also think that SE's solution to the perceived problem could stand to be tweaked a bit while remaining true to their BST playstyle intentions (adjusting the distance to something a little more manageable for example).

To me, I see this nerf as a reaction to something that SE just wasn't comfortable designing and adjusting content around. I think a good parallel is Embrava which was so good and lasted for such a long time that every strat used it. Something simply had to be done and most reasonable people understood that at the time even though it sure was a nice crutch to have. Basically, SE couldn't balance content for groups with and without Embrava. I think that's what SE had in mind when they made the adjustment. Maybe they went too far, who knows. I mean depending on who you ask the job is either just fine or completely unplayable.

I agree with you. To me the difference here is SE nerfed a core job ability BST has had since day one that is a regular ability and our way of doing content. Embrava and Perfect Defense were one ability that could only be used every hour (don't remember if it was 2 hours back then). When these were nerfed, SE also adjusted the content to be less difficult because embrava and PD were pretty much required to do the content (or felt to be, anyway).

This does very much remind me of these nerfs. A good friend quit over the PD nerf even though he was also both happy SMN was finally wanted, but annoyed at all the bandwagon SMNs because he had always loved SMN and took pride in his ability. At the same time, I don't think many folks really wanted to level SMN for PD, but they felt they had to, and were helped by people wanting to do endgame. They kinda 'took one for the team'. My son leveled Scholar because of embrava and ended up loving Scholar.

So I saw both sides. My friend had loved the game and leveled most jobs anyway, but the whole debacle soured him on the game. My son didn't love the nerf, but didn't get as upset as our SMN friend because he hadn't had the same experience of finally seeing a job he loved wanted then nerfed. If it were up to me, I'd have preferred the content to have been adjusted more. These were skills that you could only do every hour (maybe 2 hours back then, I don't remember now). For a 2 hour, 5 minutes down to 90 seconds was harsh (even if you had a corsair 'win' the ability back for another try, it was still limited). I suspect most would have preferred to do the content with regular abilities than rely on this gimmick. I think I have bad feelings associated with every nerf that has occurred in the game.

Unlike PD and Embrava, SE didn't adjust the content here, and folks are doing the content just fine still, if not better now that they are over the idea that BST has to be used.

I don't recall people telling SCH and SMNs that they don't know how their job was meant to be played. Honestly, people who have never played BST saying we don't know how BST was meant to be played are the reason I find it hard to stay. It WAS a solo job for many of us. I have adjusted over the years, and could adjust again, but don't say it was never a solo job. I leveled other jobs in groups when I could party 3 hours a night, but I had a job and kids. If it hadn't been for BST, I'd have probably quit long ago. With BST, I could be on call, and level, and log out when a problem came up. Eventually, I could do the same on BLM and DRG, but BST is the job that made me feel like I could play casual when I needed to. So for me, a lot of this is personal, lol. Don't be attacking my favorite job for 12+ years.

I can play BST, but it's very frustrating chasing around for my pet. I can only imagine how frustrating it may be for BSTs trying to do endgame. Nerfs have come and gone, but now that the end of the game is in sight, will BST ever be adjusted to be fun again? It seems SE took the expedient way because they didn't care. So it makes it hard for me to care.