November 2019 FINAL FANTASY XI Digest

[Seish]

@^,

I agree and I think that they are in a bind. So what we should do honestly is figure out how to enhance a job without OPing it. I think in doing so, it will help them with augmenting a job. But I think the devs need to be more transparent of their plans. I have stressed this point by stating this in my previous post, where I state:

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...I've seen some significant overlap in the game with jobs having in some cases too much versatility. But I ask the devs [to] 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.

This is a two way street. Just informing us as a job is about to be adjusted one month prior isn't enough. We need a very broad roadmap so our input can be gathered. Only then will this community have enough information to help progress the game. They did this before and had a test servers to try new things out, but for whatever reason they stopped. Please bring it back devs.

[Alhanelem]

@ ^

I understand the developer perspective on this, the problem really is their solution to balance the job ended up hindering its usability even in the playstyle they were trying to promote. They need to come up with a solution to promote the play experience they want without frustrating the people who were already doing that to begin with.

The user experience for BST is just bad. Pets can vary in size and for the larger ones you actually have to move within their collision radius to get pet commands to work. When you can be visually next to your pet and still unable to execute commands, that really seems like a problem to me.

[Alhanelem]

I already made two proposals in that regard:


1) either a trait or an ability (like avatar's favor but just for the master), which grants some form of enhanced combat capability to the master while they are within range of the pet.
2) adding more melee-centric job traits for the master to give them more motivation to be in melee range by raising their share of the damage potential of the job.

[Rwolf]

The distance doesn't make BST OP. I wish that word would stop being used as a descriptor for the distance nerfing. The change has had zero effect other than frustration to execute Ready moves even in melee range.

The goal of the developers has been made clear. They want BST to be on the front line with their pets. We hear them, we are ok with it. I don't think anyone has even contested being on the front lines ever.

The frustration is why does it have to be such a severe distance penalty and can't be something else to encourage melee. There has been countless feedback since it's inception that the range is broken. It's too close and nothing else in battle mechanics is that aggressively restrictive. So it is not an unreasonable stance.

They just stated job adjustments aren't final and they are open to feedback so that's what this is, feedback and clarity that it's not been fun. We're mostly all adults, it's constructive criticism and feedback concerning mechanics that don't work.

The answer isn't to go well they do lots of stuff for us so give them a break. No one is griefing the developers, we're passionate about the game they made. It's why we're still here. We're trying to get them to listen, don't need to white knight them by calling everyone wanting an easy button. It just derails from the topic where everyone has to say they appreciate the game versus explaining why this doesn't work well and provide alternate ideas.

[Seish]

They outlined why though and clearly state that they felt it was too overpowered being a backline job. Now maybe the community never abused this, but perhaps they saw instances in which people did. I do like the suggestion that Alhan made. The devs should respond to that. Though my general comment was to those complaining that the devs are out of place. I don't think that they are. But the way they handled this situation, as I've said in previous threads, is not right. They need to communicate better.

[Rwolf]

BST wasn't overpowered in backlining. The issue was how extreme the jump in stats was for monsters at the time and BST just happened to be how players dealt with it.

To state it's overpowered would suggest game imbalance, which isn't accurate. It's more accurate to say they would prefer BST be on the frontline.

What bothers me is how rigid they are being with BST despite countless examples of flexibility.

• WHM changes to Esuna/Sacrifice were changed back immediately after player protest despite devs wanting Misery used more.
• They didn't like NIN bring used to tank, but saw players did and added enmity tools and gear.
• SMN and PUP can backline the same way BST was doing but faster and with actual endless pets.

BST players will melee if encouraged. Imposing a severe penalty with no benefits just frustrates players versus us enjoying the playstyle the devs would like us to do.

It's especially horrible in groups of monsters. BST pets have their own enmity list. If a mob aggros my pet and it goes chasing after that mob. I have to now run after my pet to stand next to it to retrieve it.

Bind and Gravity now are essentially Amnesia for BST because the distance is that aggressive.

[Seish]

Again, people keep saying to not use it but SE strongly hints why. They specify that they could stand in the side and without penalty give commands and when their pet dies to easily be able to resummon the pet. That means in difficult fights that should require a team, they could sit there all day soloing. They were very clear about what they meant and I do not see what you all do not get. Now if you have a problem with anything I said, please bring that up with SE, because they not only put players straight with what the role of BST is, but as to their reasoning for the nerf. Now that aside, I will restress that they went too far. They could have done this more tactful and is why I think if they had the public test servers back up we would be able to test these adjustments and provide feedback. I also press the fact that they haven't given us a roadmap. Please SE, you owe us these two things.

[Beastorizer]

To Seish's point about instances were they felt people may have, a Master three star BST can use Unleash on a 15min recast, and the damage can be boosted by 40%. Ready can be boosted to do an extra 20% fully maxed. I assume those stack, so that is 60% extra damage while under unleash which is on a 15 min recast. So, I see what he is saying.

I feel like this can be an opportunity for BST to throw out suggestions. They implied this discussion was open for suggestions. Perhaps we should simply suggest.....

My Suggestion....

Fill out the bestiary; No more repeats, ever.......We are capped at 119...We are not going any higher....Unless you are doing things like the Hippo, Raptor, Turtle, or the Red lynx.

(& stop taking moves like frenzied rage & pounce away.....)

These repeats are an easy out to recolor the Homunculus & call it an update. If this was never a thing, we would have gotten a real update last month. Easy to do......Not going to fix everything, but it gives off the impression that "We are trying." These repeats gives off the impression "We are not trying."

It is more than looking cool, powerful pets, having a neat looking pets, etc, it is about the perception of effort imo.

Combine the repeats

Combine the distance nerf

Combine removing many moves from jugs

Combine the lack of "front line" oriented JA/JT, it seems like you are doing everything in your power to nerf BST, instead of improve it. I can't name one thing the devs did to BST & say, "Wow, they really improved us." Ready damage, maybe...

[Rwolf]

I don't want to derail the thread further. If anyone chooses to call BST or its original distance for over 15 years as OP, I can't stop you. Just know it will only validate the inaccurate stigma and cause any further development to be based on it.

Per your request and hopefully I don't get banned, I will explain which parts were not accurate.

we made major changes in the very first version update in 2015... ...the changes allowed beastmaster to easily catch up and deal high damage more effectively than any other job.

It was true that BST was dealing high damage more effective than most jobs at the time, but not all. Magic Burst parties were more effective especially with Death MB but it required more work. BST didn't have any major thresholds on JP or gear so it attracted the masses.

The comment leaves out an important reason why it felt very strong. Monsters have higher native stats than players. It was easier to cap a jug pets acc/atk than a player on content in 2015.

As mentioned previously there was a lot of adjustments made to monsters, bard songs, accessible gear and even JP acquisition when Apex became easier to fight as a result. Now other DD easily surpass pet damage and the only decent MB nuke is a water one you can only do every 30 sec with max ready recast.

Pets also had decent survivability, and even if they were defeated, they could be called out again at full power after a five minute cooldown.
At this point, beastmaster was capable of battling with almost no risk to themselves.

Player skill was not involved in this version of beastmaster, since no matter what attacks enemies had, they could be defeated by endlessly sending out powerful pets.
This was even more effective in parties with multiple beastmasters, which created some extreme cases where pets did all the fighting and players didn’t battle at all.
Battles were streamlined into a monotonous process, and enemy mechanics became meaningless.

Even after the distance nerf, players ran in range between attacks to issue commands with Utsusemi shadows so the risk was minimal to none. It didn't encourage melee either.

5 minute recast ≠ endless pets. SMN and PUP do what is described honestly not to throw them under the bus. MB strategies have no risk at all. Not to mention unlike the other pet jobs, your jug pet is lost when zoning and most battlefields.

Players stood back and didn't melee because:

• It was too dangerous.
• Master damage was worse than other DD with even less gear choices and no traits.
• Charmer's Merlin causing TP issues and being more valuable than master damage.

To address this, we kept beastmaster’s strength while making sure its equipment and traits were used to fulfill a frontline role, and shortened the range of commands to bring back a sense of risk to the job.

Equipment? Traits? Fencer and Damage Limit II isn't enough melee traits. Relic+3 doesn't have anything unique. Fencer but no great shields so it practically forces subjob for Dual Wield.

While these adjustments lowered beastmaster’s capabilities

Sure did, greatly.

it was compensated for with the continued implementation of various meals and equipment, and that brings us to today.

I disagree. Relic+3 that has no unique additions. Pet food and armor really should be equally beneficial for master and pet. Inventory restrictions don't help non-career BSTs want to carry TP and WS sets.

we don’t have plans to alter the job’s design as a frontline role

Then there are those that are insisting that BST was a backline job

Who is saying BST is supposed to be a backline job? Absolutely no one. Players are frustrated with the distance because it doesn't work well even in melee range.

Instead of approaching it as how should be punish players for not doing what we want. Approach how can we encourage players to stay in range. Because they aren't, even with the nerf.

To Seish's point about instances were they felt people may have, a Master three star BST can use Unleash on a 15min recast, and the damage can be boosted by 40%. Ready can be boosted to do an extra 20% fully maxed. I assume those stack, so that is 60% extra damage while under unleash which is on a 15 min recast. So, I see what he is saying.

I just wanted to point out that Unleash is BST's SP ability and it's a 45 minute recast. You might be referring to Run Wild which is 15 minutes and nowhere near as strong. Run Wild also makes the pet disappear after 5 minutes.

When you throw out a bunch of percents, it sounds menacing but BST doesn't hit the numbers that heavy DD or other pet classes are doing. I won't explain in detail why because players have gotten banned here doing that.

I would suggest looking at the BST sticky in FFXIAH. Falkirk has done some great work with showing just how much damage a jug pet can do with maxed pDIF. It pales in comparison to the other pet and a lot of DD jobs.

[Seish]

Who is saying BST is supposed to be a backline job? Absolutely no one. Players are frustrated with the distance because it doesn't work well even in melee range.

Gwydion in another thread did call it a back line job. That is why SE had to stress the history of BST and I felt that Yoji did a good job about it. But as Gwydion said, we all are on the same team. But I disagree with you thinking it wasn't OP as outlined by Beast's post found on the very top. I see that you went point by point, which is healthful and I think constructive. But the point SE was making is being able to resummon after you do a massive spike dmg is in their mind is OP with the pet's survivability and the massive dmg spike you can have--regardless if their time being summoned is shortened or not as you can easily resummon them. One could say that takes away from them having to feel any risk involved in tight situations where other jobs would have because of their wide range to give commands. And while you say that they front lined, you clearly mentioned the following:

Players stood back and didn't melee because:

• It was too dangerous.
• Master damage was worse than other DD with even less gear choices and no traits.
• Charmer's Merlin causing TP issues and being more valuable than master damage.

What you said aligned with what I quoted earlier, stating they did not want BSTS to stand back when times got difficult. And if a party were to wipe, they would want them as one of the first players to feel the wipe. That is not hard to understand and makes sense from their perspective. For convenience, I shall include that quote here with a bold lettering to assist the point they are making:

...As stronger enemies were introduced over time, it became apparent that beastmaster and their pets weren’t keeping up.
Unlike other jobs, pet-based jobs had to be balanced around both the player character and pet, which in turn made it difficult to implement powerful new equipment or pets.

In order to resolve this situation, we made major changes in the very first version update in 2015.
Monsters were now able to participate in skillchains and magic burst, making them an overwhelmingly powerful source of damage.
While this method required some preparation, the changes allowed beastmaster to easily catch up and deal high damage more effectively than any other job.

Ultimately, this allowed beastmaster to issue commands from a safe distance, while pets that were far stronger than the beastmaster themselves would continuously fire off powerful abilities.
Pets also had decent survivability, and even if they were defeated, they could be called out again at full power after a five minute cooldown.
At this point, beastmaster was capable of battling with almost no risk to themselves.

Player skill was not involved in this version of beastmaster, since no matter what attacks enemies had, they could be defeated by endlessly sending out powerful pets.
This was even more effective in parties with multiple beastmasters, which created some extreme cases where pets did all the fighting and players didn’t battle at all.
Battles were streamlined into a monotonous process, and enemy mechanics became meaningless.

▼ Corrective Measures and the Future
To address this, we kept beastmaster’s strength while making sure its equipment and traits were used to fulfill a frontline role, and shortened the range of commands to bring back a sense of risk to the job.
While these adjustments lowered beastmaster’s capabilities, it was compensated for with the continued implementation of various meals and equipment, and that brings us to today.

With this history in mind, we don’t have plans to alter the job’s design as a frontline role and would like this source of damage to be accompanied by some risk.

As we’ve often mentioned, these job adjustments aren’t final, and we’ll continue making adjustments to improve its frontline capabilities.

But that aside, I think that you raise good points. Moreso, it echos what we all have been saying. They didn't do it the best way and they should figure out a better way to remedy it. Ergo why I keep pointing to us coming with solutions.