November 2019 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Beastorizer]

A BST pet is not stronger than a SMN's pet. A BST at distance are not using their axes. So, if your argument is "A BST master has higher damage potential than the SMN master," you are correct. However, A BST standing a mile away eating popcorn are not using his/her damage potential, because they are not DDing.

So, the BST standing back are weaker than a SMN because they are not using their axes. Thus, changing BST ready range was null & void.

Therefore, forcing people to be at close range is null & void. If BST pets had higher dd potential than a SMN's pet, you would have a point. However, that is not the case.

& I am a guy whom got into an argument with nearly everyone in the BST community, You can check the BST section for proof. As a close range BST, this aint it chief....

[Beastorizer]

Oh, & you still didn't answer why you constantly release duplicate jugs.

[Ferth]

To be perfectly honest, I didn't expect a range increase for the ready ability. This response explains exactly why I wouldn't have expected one, but what it doesn't address how is insulting this update was. There are still things about beastmaster that need to be addressed, without changing the range for ready, and this "update" ignored all of them in favor of cosmetic changes to pets that already exist in the game. To even call this a "change" is disingenuous, nothing changed, and certainly nothing is better because of it.

As these updates roll out it becomes patently clear that the devs don't really understand what is going on with most of these jobs. The merit category spells being converted into scrolls and replaced with different merits is a noble goal, but in most cases the new merits being added aren't better than the ones that already existed and in some cases they are actively making the job worse *coughninjacough*.

I fully understand that the budget and development team for this game aren't even shadows of their former selves, but in fact are shadows of shadows... but rather than trying to crank out job specific updates every month, most of which that are paltry, some of which that are insultingly shallow, and even a few that needed to be reversed (or should be reversed, like ninja.) maybe you should take more time with these updates, and better consult the people who actually care about these jobs, since there is a clear disparity in the quality of these updates for certain jobs.

[Voidstorm]

Rwolf, you're reminding me of the times I actually loved playing BST.
Charm an IT mob, familiar. send it to fight my enemies and melee after it builds hate for a couple seconds.
or charm cycle 2~3 pets, so I can always have at least one EM pet at 100% to swap to while EXP'ing.

I have another idea in addition to your closing remarks. job traits for each pet job to transfer over some master boosts to the pet.
examples:
Familiar's Allowance: Master's current Haste, Store TP, PDT, MDT, BDT, & DT are copied to your pet. Accuracy is contverted to P.M.R. accuracy (physical, magic, ranged). Attack is converted to P.M.R. Attack.
Avatar's Guidance: Master's current Haste, PDT, MDT, BDT, & DT are copied to your pet. Magic Accuracy is converted to P.M.R. accuracy. Magic Atk. Bonus is converted to P.M.R. Attack. Conserve MP is converted to Store TP.

This would make buffs like March help pets as well which is half of why pet jobs are hated in the buff heavy system we currently find ourselves.
And run old gear through an algorithm to convert stats so hopefully pets don't take too big a hit.

[Xilk]

Fujito-san

Thank you very much for the lengthy perspective. Also thank the team for listening to the player community and taking another look at the pet command range for Beastmasters and for telling us about your thoughts.

I also appreciate the player perspectives shared in this thread about the beastmaster experience as a player.

I am, of course, a fan of the Beastmaster Job. I have always liked the challenge of charming creatures and using the terrain to manage a a battle.

I do think that the limited range actually makes it more difficult to play the Beastmaster job from up close. The difficulty is with medium to large model enemies. Positioning is incredibly difficult. Often pet commands fail because I am not in range of my pet even though we are both close and engaged on the enemy. also, when kiting an enemy, I cannot use reward on my pet. These are the issues that bother me most about the tiny range for pet commands. It would be great if the range increased only 2 or 3 yalms even from what it is currently.

However, the part I really don't understand from the developer perspective is how the concerns about Beastmaster fighting from a range do not also apply to Puppetmaster and Summoner? I think it is great that summoner and puppetmaster function the way they do. I do not understand why it is different for beastmasters from the developer perspective..

Is it because Beastmaster's pets have more HP? Most Avatars have around 1200 ~ 2000 HP I believe (though i'm really not sure), and puppetmaster will have between 1600 and 4000, while beastmaster pets at level 119 have between 3500 and 6000 hp. I don't understand why this would be such a large factor, but it is the largest discrepancy I can think of at present.

it is a common strategy to use a Puppetmaster as a party or alliance tank while the master stand far out of range. Also the summoners stand far back and simply issue commands with their Avatars.

The rationale for Enemy Mechanics breaking down under this strategy would *apparently* still exist for puppetmaster and summoner, but not for beastmaster.

However, It also appears to me, especially in the Dynamis Divergence event and the recent High-Tier Mission Battlefields for Odin, Alexander, Cait Sith, and Lilith, that new gimmicks completely counter the strategy of having the pet masters stand safely out of range. Or completely destroy the usefulness of Astral Conduit.

I think this also ignores the difficulty of protecting one's pet and master at the same time as a beastmaster. Because support players cannot cure the pets like they can cure other players, keeping one's pet alive often requires equipping only defensive equipment on Beastmaster. (Summoner can quickly and easily resummon pets without a significant cooldown time, while puppetmaster has more ways to cure the pet and adjust its defensive stats while sacrificing minimal offensive stats thru attachments). The beastmaster must often keep full pet defensive equipment on. This means that master and pet damage is severely limited while engaged.

the challenges in Gear for offensive and defensive gear for both master and pet make are a very large balancing factor for Beastmaster more than other pet jobs or any other job. Five Minutes, in many fights is a terribly long time to keep both master and pet alive when both are fully engaged.

Interestingly there are several ambuscade fights which showcase this as well.

I think it also ignores the fact that Beastmaster pets are FAR more susceptible to Enfeebling magic than summoner Avatars or Automatons.

I do not wish for Summoner and Automaton pet commands to be reduced at all. That would be far more damaging to those jobs than it has been to beastmaster, in my opinion. However, these jobs showcase a major contradiction to the position that Beastmaster is overpowered by having greater range for issuing pet commands.

[Beastorizer]

I feel like we have two sides here. One side firmly believes BST is a powerful functional DD (The devs).

The other sides are the players who feel otherwise.

The only way to solve is, imo, to Stream adjustments as other companies do. Other mmo devs stream adjustments in a party setting, showing players what was adjusted, & the result. I would like to propose devs to live-stream job adjustments.

When someone tells you they can bench press 400 pounds, we say "Show us."

When someone has a new invention, we want them to show us how it works.

When someone has new tech, they show us how it works.

When other companies make adjustments in their mmo, the devs show us how it works.

I am proposing that devs show us how it is done. Enlighten us. Someone is wrong here, we need to get down to the bottom of who it is....

[Alhanelem]

I legitimately want to see the data SE has that shows, *at any point in FFXI history,* when pet-kiting BSTs were doing more damage than SMN or any other popular DPS job for that matter. I really want to know because I've never seen that happen.


@ Yoji Fujito, how many BST players have to quit before you take their concerns seriously? That you (or the job designer, whoever) continue to ignore or legitimately not understand the real issues facing BST players is one thing, but that you didn't really put real effort into the changes you did make is another entirely. Players of the job are upset that not only did you not address their biggest issues (whatever they may be), you added "new" pets that are just direct copies of ones that already exist with slightly different stats (or something). If you say you're going to add new pets, at least add NEW pets- there's hundreds of monsters out there you could have chosen and you just duplicated pets that already exist and therefore don't fill any hole or need of any sort. That's the real insult to BST players. Some of them might have been able to overlook you not really fixing the job if they actually got something new to play with, but they didn't even get that.

You seriously need to consider coming up with a compromise that will ease the frustration for BST players without making them as overpowered as you apparently think they are (Again though, I'd really like to see the data on BST pet DPS, because I don't really know of a time when BST pets were ever as overpowered as you suggest).

[Xilk]

Oh, Also, recent updates make pup do alot more damage than bst.

I'm not complaining that pup can do damage, I like pup. but it just does not make sense calling these balance issues for bst when pup can do it.

[Alhanelem]

Oh, Also, recent updates make pup do alot more damage than bst.

I'm not complaining that pup can do damage, I like pup. but it just does not make sense calling these balance issues for bst when pup can do it.

Careful lol... PUP was seen as mostly useless for the LONGEST time, I'm happy to see them wanted for stuff these days. But you're completely right. Also, PUP does commonly fight with their pet- they didn't need to be forced to do this, so SE's logic about why they needed to force BST to be at close range doesn't hold much water to me- Most BST I ever saw did that as much as they reasonably could already.

[Seish]

I will go out on a limb and defend the developers. You have two types of people in this game; those that want a restoration to hard content and real battle mechanics and those that want an easy button. What you all are saying is because this job has X, I need something to be just as powerful. They can do that--and they have for quite a while--until it eventually dulls out the job and makes the fights mindless. They keep telling us again and again that they want to retain the original idea of team building and player cooperation. Yet you all continue to cry about what you all want. This is why I suggested my classic server, so those that enjoy the easy content can get exactly what they want. You want to do things solo, or play to enjoy the game. But as someone said, and I've said before, this game is about the adventure. The road to endgame the road to the perfection of your character. It's about joining others in that difficult quest to actually have a meaningful experience and being able to reflect on all your accomplishments. As a vet that played back in 2003, I can tell you this game has aged well. I can recall my first time going to Sky, doing Dynamis, all the times I wiped. The cutscenes that were sad and moving, to really down right trying to help my friends and failing badly. But all wrapped in that, was a well thought out game that the developers detaild out for us.

Now there were some things I didn't like back then. I didn't like that the devs wouldn't talk to us. I didn't like that they made content that was in 2 occasions that were not reasonably beatable in the manner they saw fit. I didn't like their "hints" in handling difficult content but really didn't tell us much. And I didn't like that in some cases, the game had unreasonable barriers to enjoy the adventures with other friends. In a lot of ways, they fixed everything I mentioned. They talk more, they had a public test server--which they need to bring back. They are transparent with us, though I could use a roadmap that breaks down their plans. And most of all, they are interactive. Very few games has this level of involvement between the developers and the player base. First before you complain and rant, understand that they are doing more than most online game in this level of interaction and should be praised.

You don't have to like their response and I see you all are very passionate about it. Embrace that passion and don't be disparaged in trying to get what you want. But also remember that there are a lot of people on the forums asking for harder content and more challenges. To do that requires adjusting all the jobs and bringing back in mechanics that existed back in the day. I eventually expect a lot more jobs to be adjusted--in many cases, unfavorably. Understand that if they don't do this, then what will happen is the game won't evolve and change. It will continue to be easy.

So going forward, the arguments in my opinion, should be shaped to how we can enhance a job without changing what the devs are trying to do. Someone in this thread asked about SCH and I replied how would you enhance it without intruding on other jobs? Her reply was that she didn't know. Same with BST; how would you enhance it without it impeding on other jobs? Because since I came back, I've seen some significant overlap in the game with jobs having in some cases too much versatility. But I ask the devs with respect to be more transparent like they have in the past and give us a roadmap. If we can have that, we can see what they plan to do with the game, and be able to make adequate feedback with respect to their goals and help make change.

With that stated, I think the time of us wanting an easy button should be over. I can't speak for you all, but for me and what I've been reading, I feel that this is what everyone is asking for. IMHO, I personally want the current content to be more challenging. While I am interested in a classic server, I too have had my characters since 2003 and would love to continue playing on it on existing content. But I would like to see a better party dynamic that utilizes advanced mechanics and mastery of a job. And from what I've been reading, SE is trying to restore the balance that made this game beautiful.