[Suggestion] Get Rid of Diminishing Returns and Reward Use of Tactics/Thinking

Get rid of diminishing returns: They prevent the players from getting rewarded for setting their groups up around particular cooldowns like virus, which can help deal with hard hitting bosses. Right now invisible timers are more of a boss than the bosses we are fighting. Twintania phase 2 is really just a big hit that we need to prep for, but because we have to know within ten seconds when the next one is going off, it is hard to apply virus at the right time without a stop watch or similar addon.

Change the materia system so that the materia slots are separate from equipment, and allow the player to equip more materia based on his current item level. More importantly, crafters shouldn't have anything to do with it. We should be able to drop an ice materia into a slot to give us ice resistance in preparation for a fight against Shiva or fire resistance if we are prepping for a fight against ifrit.

By keeping a diminishing returns system across the board, you are removing that as a possible boss encounter mechanic and it also hurts the aesthetic of verisimilitude that is important to an RPG fantasy setting. (for those unfamiliar with the term, it means the ability of the setting to suspend disbelief and for the player to think of it in terms of an actual world as opposed to just a backdrop for game mechanics). It also purposefully removes strategies from the game instead of rewarding players for making use of certain combinations of abilities.

For instance, if a group decides they want to bring four casters along so they can chain cast virus on Twintania, they should be rewarded for it. It's only a 10% debuff to strength and dex for 10 seconds, except for the summoner and scholar. It's certainly not game breaking like using the zombie status effect on Yu Yevon at the end of FFX where he kills himself with his own regeneration.

Edit: Yes, I'm aware that they need to make changes for PvP, but they should have known better than to insert arena style PvP into a game built and balanced around PvE. We have over 10 years of World of Warcraft development that attests to the difficulty and impossibliity of balancing the two systems. Plus, why they would make player characters fight with one another when the story is about unifying people together just boggles my mind. Wouldn't it have been better to implement something like a fantasy sports game for the PvP than blood sports? I apologize for the momentary edit rant :P

No.

Virus rotation was far too strong. Its perfect the way it is now.

Be glad they did what they did. The alternative would have been to remove Virus as a cross class skill. It is NOT a debuff that should be able to be kept up full time. Thus the longer recast than duration. May as well just permanently reduce all boss stats by the 10% and remove Virus altogether.

It doesn't give options...it tAkes them away. What are physical DPS supposed to do when the accepted strat is you HAVE to have a Virus rotation? I saw this too much in FFXI to want to see it again. Sorry mister melee you can't be in this Dyna group because we MUST have six BLMs for stun and sleep rotation.

TBH, what I'm reading with the Virus example is "Reward us for taking the easy way out!" Makes complete sense.

And the changes for materia...1000% no. You can level crafters so easily and you can have multiple sets of equipment with different materia on it. Its not rocket science...

I also don't know what you're talking about with diminishing returns. I first thought you were going to talk about Sleep and/or Stun, and the diminishing returns on them...but you don't say anything about that (and removing that...would be just horrible for game balance) so I wonder if you know what you're talking about there...and no, the Antibody buff is not this...

EDIT: And because you seem to be on a Virus rant...it wasn't changed for PvP...it was changed for PvE...

Virus is not diminishing return. It's fine the way it is instead of "hey guys, let us take the easy way out instead of working as hard as other groups that bring melee or bard dps". No. It may work in single player games but in an MMO where people like to play different jobs, it will NEVER be reimplemented.
And you can't have materia separated from crafters. That would make crafters totally utterly useless, even more so than now. Get a grip.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a diminishing return an effect that degrades the more it is used on an enemy? Sleep for example, its duration shortens the more it is cast on the same enemy until it becomes completely immune. Virus has a set duration and the targeted enemy becomes immune for a set period of time after Virus wears off. It's only limiting the amount of time Virus can be placed on an enemy but it's never reduced. FFXI had diminishing returns also as some enemies, (Dynamis Lord, Wyrms etc.) became immune to certain status effects if used repeatedly. So Virus doesn't work as an example. Diminishing returns are to prevent effects, (like sleep) to be used over and over to permanently disable bosses.

As for your game breaking example, the fight against Yu Yevon is a joke, it is IMPOSSIBLE to lose against him as all your party members have reraise and therefore, you cannot die and you cannot lose. Watching him kill himself slowly is more funny than cheap.

Crafts are really not that easy to level. It takes a large number of man hours and you end up doing mind numbing repetitive tasks to raise the level of the craft. At least SWTOR had the sense to give you minions to do the crafting and gathering for you while you do other things. Also, the materia system isn't even being used at all, and for the brief time that we had access to only ilvl90 or ilvl70 gear people hardly ever used resistance materia. It was just more efficient to know how to dodge incoming attacks and invest in other stats than worry about resistances.

Actually, there is a skill with diminishing returns that should be treated like Virus: it's Feint.

The skill gives a 20% slow effect, which is pretty much -20% damage dealt with auto-attacks (not sure if it changes something to casting time).
It's the kind of skill, that could be used on Twintania after Death Sentence, or on Titan after Mountain Buster.
Why ? Because it leave more time for the tank and healers to recover.

This skill can be used by Dragons, Monks and Bards, and would give them something cool to bring to the party (other than damage I mean).

The problem is the length of this skill halves after each use, so people cannot apply it more than 2 or 3 times, unlike Virus that can be reapplied every 40-60s (I'm not sure). So instead of crappy diminishing returns, it would be great to see slow effect working like Virus.

Reward people for class stacking? Most MMO's are trying to reward people for bringing as many classes as possible so this would be somewhat of a regression.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

Crafts are really not that easy to level. It takes a large number of man hours and you end up doing mind numbing repetitive tasks to raise the level of the craft. At least SWTOR had the sense to give you minions to do the crafting and gathering for you while you do other things. Also, the materia system isn't even being used at all, and for the brief time that we had access to only ilvl90 or ilvl70 gear people hardly ever used resistance materia. It was just more efficient to know how to dodge incoming attacks and invest in other stats than worry about resistances.

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Crafting is hard to level? You don't even need to craft anything to get to 50 if you really don't want to...

I've taken ALC and WVR to 50 faster than any combat class...much faster. Not even Fate Grinding was as efficient as leveling a crafter is.

Also, "materia isn't used"? Then why are all my Quicktongue, Battledance, Savage Aim, Savage Might, and Vitality materia selling like mad when I put them on the market?

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Originally Posted by PArcher

Crafting is hard to level? You don't even need to craft anything to get to 50 if you really don't want to...

I've taken ALC and WVR to 50 faster than any combat class...much faster. Not even Fate Grinding was as efficient as leveling a crafter is.

Also, "materia isn't used"? Then why are all my Quicktongue, Battledance, Savage Aim, Savage Might, and Vitality materia selling like mad when I put them on the market?

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Reread my post. I was referring to resistance materia. They provided a useless option since most consider it tactically suicide to try eating an end game boss's elemental attacks at the expense of stats that raise damage, health, or healing.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

Reread my post. I was referring to resistance materia. They provided a useless option since most consider it tactically suicide to try eating an end game boss's elemental attacks at the expense of stats that raise damage, health, or healing.

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Originally Posted by Fendred

Also, the materia system isn't even being used at all,

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There's a lot more to the materia system than just the elemental resist ones. >_>

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Originally Posted by Fendred

Reread my post. I was referring to resistance materia. They provided a useless option since most consider it tactically suicide to try eating an end game boss's elemental attacks at the expense of stats that raise damage, health, or healing.

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No you weren't, as Viridiana pointed out.

Its almost always bad for a non-tank to try to tank something...a DPS's job is to DPS, a healer's job is to heal. If they are sacrificing stats that improve their main focus to tank...they're gimping themselves. Its not that hard to understand...
Yes, you can eat one attack here and there to keep focusing on your job instead of dodging...but...that causes heals to have to focus on YOU, which means they're not focusing on the tank...which can lead to a wipe. A good DPS or Heal is able to dodge and do their job; poor DPS/Heals are the ones who need these defensive "boosts" to survive. I'm also having a hard time thinking of anything that can straight-up OHK (which would "necessitate" this materia) a properly geared and positioned DPS or Heal while the main tank has hate. Sure, some tank-targeting attacks can OHK DPS and/or Heals...but they're not supposed to be getting hit by them at all...