[dev1289] Job Adjustments

[Alhanelem]

SE is intentionally making Beastmaster unplayable for relevant content with one Nerf-date. A few people begged SE to make BST unplayable because their respective jobs were not being asked for during events rather than boosting dmg for their own jobs.

Now, as a carveat: I do not play BST and I have no opinion of its power in the game right now and don't have the capability to fairly judge it, so I won't.

That said: It is poor balancing policy (in ANY game) to boost everything else up to the strongest thing. You don't balance a game by buffing everything that isn't the strongest. Nobody enjoys nerfs, but mass buffings cause more problems than they solve most of the time. It also accelerates power creep, because as soon as someone finds another imbalance (which is a certainty), that means another round of buffings and more power creep in a neverending cycle. Not only that, but it's less costly (less work) to adjust one job than 21 others.

[bazookatooth]

Now, as a carveat: I do not play BST and I have no opinion of its power in the game right now and don't have the capability to fairly judge it, so I won't.

That said: It is poor balancing policy (in ANY game) to boost everything else up to the strongest thing. You don't balance a game by buffing everything that isn't the strongest. Nobody enjoys nerfs, but mass buffings cause more problems than they solve most of the time. It also accelerates power creep, because as soon as someone finds another imbalance (which is a certainty), that means another round of buffings and more power creep in a neverending cycle. Not only that, but it's less costly (less work) to adjust one job than 21 others.

The thing is, BST isn't the strongest at anything really except not dieing in certain situations. Other jobs can do more damage, buff, etc. better. They are literally taking away the only thing that makes this job relevant. They could have scaled back the damage output (even though it's already not as good as SAM, SMN, BLM etc.) or lowered the pets HP, or changed about a billion other things to balance it against the people who don't know how to use indi-vex etc. on their melee parties or magic burst on their mage jobs without completely crushing the whole role of the job in end game.

Let's be honest. This doesn't mean that people are suddenly going to start shouting for a bunch of Dancers, DRKs, WARs, Monks and DRGs to come waste their pops by wacking away at Packiset and getting one shotted. It does absolutely nothing for balancing those other jobs. They still won't be invited because many jobs still need adjustments regardless of what happens to BST and many people who play them still think they can just throw a bunch of offensive buffs up and throw some melee jobs at anything. So the whole idea of nerfing one job so that you don't have to buff a bunch of others is not gonna work. And besides that, SE's whole plan the last few years has been intentional power creep. we've basically doubled in level over the last few years. Power creep is SE's game plan.

[Morovich]

I don't know about it myself Haven't really done a whole lot with Beastmaster except cap it at 99. Just have to be closer now to your pet execute those commands, How will that affect battles and such?, I don't know so I cannot say, I guess see how it all works out.

[Alhanelem]

Power creep is SE's game plan.

There's a difference between power creep that occurs as a part of natural progression and that which occurs from balancing. Only former is intentional (And let's face facts- Even with audolin, FFXI has considerably less of a power creep issue compared to typical MMOs which alluse straight up linear progression. What we have in XI is sort of a hybrid- But even then, item levels in XI are meant to approximate real ones, and the highest ilvl has held steady for quite some time). I don't mind vertical progression much only because it usually means less inventory stress and fewer items needed to complete a kit- but loot is more interesting and fun overall in XI's approach)

[bazookatooth]

There's a difference between power creep that occurs as a part of natural progression and that which occurs from balancing. Only former is intentional (And let's face facts- Even with audolin, FFXI has considerably less of a power creep issue compared to typical MMOs which alluse straight up linear progression. What we have in XI is sort of a hybrid- But even then, item levels in XI are meant to approximate real ones, and the highest ilvl has held steady for quite some time). I don't mind vertical progression much only because it usually means less inventory stress and fewer items needed to complete a kit- but loot is more interesting and fun overall in XI's approach)

The difference in damage output between a person in straight 119 delve gear vs. even skirmish gear is big. The difference between 119 delve gear and escha gear is huge. Regardless of what the ilvl says it is. Occasionally SE will put in filler gear that closely matches other gear so that people have options as to what event they choose to focus on to gear their jobs, but for the most part, it has been a straight progression. SE stated that this was it's intention going forward. There was much debate about whether they should continue to raise the level cap and this was the route they chose. Gear progression. My SAM now has +30% WS damage in gear. I'd hardly say that is accidental or unintended. And the route they've chosen to go is clearly not because bst was stronger than they intended. If it were, they would have lowered the pets damage output. It's because a bunch of spiteful babies cried about not being able to solo the same things that beast could and this appeared to be the easiest way to shut them up. The unfortunate side effect is that now not only can bst no longer solo, but it's worse at party content than other jobs as well.

[Zeargi]

I play both SMN and BST, while there's been a few comments thrown at SMN, I'd like to say, that SMN is tied with having the worst DEF in the game. But that being said, Even though BST is a Front-line DD, they are in a separate field of other jobs and have to maintain their pets with much higher difficulty of the 3 true pet jobs (DRG doesn't count, I'm sorry.) The only one that has it close to BST is PUP, but they have multiple things they can do to recover their pet much faster than a BST can. If they're going to go ahead with this change then either Call Beast or Bestial Loyalty needs to have it's timer reduced GREATLY, in fact it should be the same time as 'Deus Ex Automata'. And BST should also get the Max HP Bonus Trait, which is extremely fitting for those that are Tamers of Wild Beasts, and the DEF Bonus up to Tier III. But that's just my humble opinion.

[Alhanelem]

The difference in damage output between a person in straight 119 delve gear vs. even skirmish gear is big.

While this is true, the difference between the first level 75 gear released and the gear released just prior to the level cap rise is large as well. Even with no change in level cap, you can't go 5 years without ever finding upgrades, people would get bored and quit. FFXI just did it a lot more measured and slowly.

[bazookatooth]

While this is true, the difference between the first level 75 gear released and the gear released just prior to the level cap rise is large as well. Even with no change in level cap, you can't go 5 years without ever finding upgrades, people would get bored and quit. FFXI just did it a lot more measured and slowly.

True, but it still negates the argument that jobs should be nerfed instead of buffed.

[Alhanelem]

True, but it still negates the argument that jobs should be nerfed instead of buffed.

No, it doesn't.

You do not solve balance problems by buffing everything. Even if you want to argue that power creep isn't a good reason, there are others. technical limitations (cielings on values, coding limitaitons) can get in the way and prevent further buffs. When you hit such a cieling, then it becomes impossible to buff everything and now you HAVE to nerf something. Additionally, modifying several jobs to balance one increases the probability of introducing NEW balance issues- Then what do you do? Another round of buffs for everyone? In many other types of games, this isn't even an option, because they have to maintain stats and paramters within certain ranges, which forces nerfs in some cases because there's no room to buff.

Plus the argument that buffing everything else requires a disporportinately large amount of work compared to nerfing the one thing- it costs more and SE has been not doing a lot of things lately because of cost, os it's a very real factor.

The only valid argument for buffing everything else instead of fixing one broken thing is "nobody lies nerfs, everybody loves buffs, so do what people love not what they hate-" Which is an argument rooted in emotion, not sound balancing decisions.

I would like to re-emphasize that I am speaking in general terms here and I'm not specifically commenting on BST or any other one job in particular. This isn't an argument that jobs should never be buffed- It's an argument that buffing is not always the best solution.

Ask yourself what's better: Annoying a few people with a nerf to one class and having a better balanced game, or making people giddy by buffing everything else that isn't up to the same bar but potentially breaking the game more in the process.

[Alhanelem]

I'll provide some exmaples where buffs and nerfs are best practice:

Example 1: Job X has Spell or ability Y that is never used in the game because either a bug or poor attributes of the spell/ability render it inferior to other comparable effects e.g. it's useless. Best solution: Buff the useless thing such that it isn't useless. In this case, the thing(s) that are below par are best upgraded to be meet the expected performance standard.
Example 2: Job X has spell or ability Y that is being used more than anything else in the game because it trivializes an encounter or has unintended effects due to a bug or issue. Solution: Fix the issue or nerf the effect such that

In-context hypothetical example. Suppose people find out that an alliance of black mages can kill anything in the game in one go with three meteors, no other job can do it. Do we 1) Buff every other job such that an alliance of them can instakill a boss? or do we 2) Adjust Meteor so it is in line with the intended parameters? Consider the repercussions of each. If every boss fight becomes trivial by stacking 18 of one job, the game would become boring very quickly and people would quit. If Meteor was nerfed, some black mages would be upset but everybody would be having more fun overall.

Conclusion: Buffing isn't always the best policy.

Ask yourself if there is anything about what is being changed on BST that fits in either of these categories (Because I honestly don't know as I'm not a BST)