Unwilling to balance jobs? Then limit jobs in Frontline.

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

It's ok, I do understand that people have repeated things; however ultimately it falls on the devs to actually do anything about. My suggestion is definitely more of a band-aid than an actual fix.

I will admit; in a perfect scenario; they would take the time and divide CC and FL into their own things. Then they could actually get and analyze feedback/data and adjust things while realizing how they interplay with one another and not just do blanket fixes that create a different problem/meta. Homogenization and trying to balance small scale vs large scale will ultimately leave the game with neither being meaningful.

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It's not a band-aid if you contravene some basic principles that everyone considers to be important, which I believe is the case- we all should be able to play the job that we want in FL. We can switch jobs if another job is unlocked - but no one can force us to do so.

FL has made numerous design decisions because of these principles (or rules) and your "bandaid" isn't a trivial "fix". in addition, job selection is so important to many people since it directly impacts their UX, that they would find work arounds and then we'd be back to where we started.

L and CC don't necessarily need to be completely separate, as doing so could lead to strange things like skills being introduced just for one mode (not necessarily what we might want for upkeep and other issues), but they shouldn't design for CC then kind of throw their hands up in the air and treat FL as an afterthought for months at a time. There are some fairly straightforward ideas that have already been discussed (like AOE limitations) that should be viable.

Here's the issue that keeps happening on this thread. My proposal is an IF AND ONLY IF statement; people who are attacking this are already under the mindset that the devs will NOT do anything to balance things out.

If you think they should keep design decisions that have PvE affect small and large scale PvP, then you are objectively wrong. THE prime example for this is WoW's mess that was a creation of their own making. Balance is always the hardest thing; however making different aspects of the game affect an entirely different one is not a good idea. The fact that we constantly have "adjustments" that don't actually fix anything and just create different metas is mind boggling to me, because that is indicative of not knowing the synergistic effects of their own classes.

Limiting classes IS a band-aid because as much as it pigeon holds players into a class they might not want to play, but it forces the reduction of shenanigans that CAN happen. Yes you will probably still end up with it cropping but, but at the same time it reduces the probability of stacking things (i.e. having a frontline where you seem heaps of DRK+ AST/DRG.) The very, very short fix without limiting classes would be just reduce salted earth to a 3-5 yalm radius. But again, this is banking on the devs taking PvP criticism to heart, and diverting from the CC only balancing mentality.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AmiBeau

Here's the issue that keeps happening on this thread. My proposal is an IF AND ONLY IF statement; people who are attacking this are already under the mindset that the devs will NOT do anything to balance things out.

If you think they should keep design decisions that have PvE affect small and large scale PvP, then you are objectively wrong. THE prime example for this is WoW's mess that was a creation of their own making. Balance is always the hardest thing; however making different aspects of the game affect an entirely different one is not a good idea. The fact that we constantly have "adjustments" that don't actually fix anything and just create different metas is mind boggling to me, because that is indicative of not knowing the synergistic effects of their own classes.

Limiting classes IS a band-aid because as much as it pigeon holds players into a class they might not want to play, but it forces the reduction of shenanigans that CAN happen. Yes you will probably still end up with it cropping but, but at the same time it reduces the probability of stacking things (i.e. having a frontline where you seem heaps of DRK+ AST/DRG.) The very, very short fix without limiting classes would be just reduce salted earth to a 3-5 yalm radius. But again, this is banking on the devs taking PvP criticism to heart, and diverting from the CC only balancing mentality.

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Even with this in mind being a fix only if there isn't balancing done, I still think even with that in mind it is not a good fix at all. I get that your idea is just a band aid fix, but I just think there better band aid fixes to be used.

The adjustments that we've been getting have been pretty mid and they could definitely be better to help fix FLs specifically, without breaking the balance for CC. Like it or not but CC is the primary focus of PvP balancing in this game, which I personally agree with. If I had the choice to balance between the small competitive arena mode where the individual is much more important vs the 24v24v24 game mode with randomized objectives, players more likely to be lower skilled and much less individual influence, I would rather balance the former. Not saying they shouldn't care about balancing FL, since I think it can be done and I do want it to be done so I can enjoy the mode more.

I also don't get the one sentence about the current mode creating a different meta. Meta will always exist in every game, its just the developers job to make sure the meta isn't too overpowered or promote "lameplay". With the purposed fix in mind, it will only just make a different meta of something like DRK/DRG/AST/SMN. And assuming job lockouts are full-party based and not alliance based(because of the math of how many jobs exist in the game) there can be at least 3 of a meta job in the alliance and the problem still exists.