Automatic Job Balance System

Would it be possible to implement a system that collects data from all encounters and changes the base damage of the Job automatically everyday differently for each relevant duty?

For now, I see that FFlogs is used by the players to judge if a Job has unbalanced numbers. Isn't this process the same for every time a Job Balance patch is implemented? And if it's always the same... Program it!

By adding a Trait (or invisible trait) to every Job that has a variable number that adds or subtract primary stats (INT/STR...) based on the data collected for each encounter, the dev team could put their time into other things and only focus on balancing Job internal potencies.

It would surely take time. But once it's done, it would be rewarding for everyone.

@Edit: Let's say the maximum potency per second BLM do is 100, and SAM is 99. This is the maximum these two Jobs will ever do on it's own.
Now, let's say Eden Savage every BLM still do a max of 100, but every SAM is doing a max of 96 because of the encounter design. The Auto balance system would buff SAM in order to reach 99 potency per second.
That's it. The success of this system entirely depends o how SE will program the data collection of it. Just by looking at FFlogs we can see that every encounter has different Job rankings, and this is because of the encounter design.

This can even be a not automatic system. But SE still needs to implement this feature to adjust inbalance of encounters between Jobs.

Disclaimer: Obviously, it is my humble example of implementation, and I'm aware of the level of spaghetti code FFXIV has. But even with spaghetti code FFXIV has some of the best systems of any MMO, and this could be another one. Since the game tend to follow the same formula for everything combat-wise, this system is imaginable, and I believe if anyone can imagine it, it can to be programmed.

Let's discuss.

What makes you think they aren't already doing this?
Pretty sure SE has the metrics to base their decisions on when tweaking jobs.

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

What makes you think they aren't already doing this?
Pretty sure SE has the metrics to base their decisions on when tweaking jobs.

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Primarily because there's no official announcement of any system that automatically Balance the Jobs everyday. And the constant Job balance screams imperfection. And every encounter has different outcomes for Melee and Ranged. This system would allow to balance each encounter, allowing the dev team to create more diverse encounters.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

Primarily because there's no official announcement of any system that automatically Balance the Jobs everyday. And the constant Job balance screams imperfection. And every encounter has different outcomes for Melee and Ranged. This system would allow to balance each encounter, allowing the dev team to create more diverse encounters.

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What you're asking for is a machine learning system that automatically tweaks the potency of spells based on how classes are performing in raids?
Do you understand the implications and abuse potential of this if people get wind of such a system being in place?
Play BLM shit for a month before release of next patch, and it gets boosted.
Watch bosses melt due BLM damage in groups on launch of new content.








No.

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

What you're asking for is a machine learning system that automatically tweaks the potency of spells based on how classes are performing in raids?
Do you understand the implications and abuse potential of this if people get wind of such a system being in place?
Play BLM shit for a month before release of next patch, and it gets boosted.
Watch bosses melt due BLM damage in groups on launch of new content.

No.

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I think you did not get any of it.
This is a system to change a variable of primary stat EVERYDAY differently for every encounter based on the data of every encounter of every Job. It's NOT learning, it needs to be highly scripted to only allow useful data. There's no possibility to abuse such a system where FFlogs exists, there will be always players that compete for the best DPS, and ppl that even don't know that this system exists and will play the job normally. I imagine if one is going to develop such complex program it would be smart enough to consider eliminating any form of abuse in the first place.

Do you really think everyone in this game will play BLM poorly in the same day, to be boosted in the next one? SE has their meta rotation, they can simply discard the data of the ones that are not doing the best potency per second.

The problem you said is the same thing as everyone come here to the forum, to say that BLM is bad, and the next patch it is buffed because everyone in the game asked for it. It simple will not happen.

you are either severely underestimating the lengths people will go to, to get advantages.
Or you are severely underestimating the complexity of the system you are describing

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

you are either severely underestimating the lengths people will go to, to get advantages.
Or you are severely underestimating the complexity of the system you are describing

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You're right about how SE needs to handle and secure their systems and antiabuse measurements. But you're wrong by scrapping this idea for overreacting that SE does not have enough developers capable of creating a similar genius system with basic antiabuse parameters.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

Would it be possible to implement a system that collects data from all encounters and changes the base damage of the Job automatically everyday differently for each relevant duty?

For now, I see that FFlogs is used by the players to judge if a Job has unbalanced numbers. Isn't this process the same for every time a Job Balance patch is implemented? And if it's always the same... Program it!

By adding a Trait (or invisible trait) to every Job that has a variable number that adds or subtract primary stats (INT/STR...) based on the data collected for each encounter, the dev team could put their time into other things and only focus on balancing Job internal potencies.

It would surely take time. But once it's done, it would be rewarding for everyone.

Disclaimer: Obviously, it is my humble example of implementation, and I'm aware of the level of spaghetti code FFXIV has. But even with spaghetti code FFXIV has some of the best systems of any MMO, and this could be another one. Since the game tend to follow the same formula for everything combat-wise, this system is imaginable, and I believe if anyone can imagine it, it can to be programmed.

Let's discuss.

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Such a system as you describes would in its very essence create imbalance rather than correct it, I would also make the counter the comment on spaghetti code with the more your over complicate the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain.

From the perspectives of business, technical application, and design philosophy I would also say no to create this. Such a system could be described as an extreme form of homogenization in its worst application, and I put for that statement on a purely philosophical level. Never under any circumstances underestimate human will, nor a gamer’s ability to find ways to exploit and or use a system their advantage. Imperfection in job design in video games is by its very nature is as close to balance as game developers are going to get. However there is no “balance” only “imperfect application” in a purely balanced game everyone would have one button to press and the game would push it for you.

There is a rough target that SE sets for encounter design to both allow for completion of that content, and to allow for players to learn and grow their characters something critically vital to player investment. To all the players who actively work to better their characters spending their game time working out best in slot, materias, rotations, and fight optimization such a system would render that all moot on a daily basis. The system would require machine learning and adaptive AI to calibrate every job main stat due in no small part that invariably the same players are not going to be doing the same content every day. How would such a system account for the disparity between different players skill level across all of the jobs? How would it account for the varying item levels between each player and their jobs? How would it account for internet connection latency? It cannot simply be coded unless you set it so that everyone does the same outputs all of the time regardless of gear or effort which is completely opposite of what the suggested system to be for. The system you describe to fulfill the underlying objective of an “auto balancing system” would have to be able to adjust per encounter, during that encounter with a massive amount of variables in play for 4, 8, and 24 players in mind numbing number of server instances. OP you are asking for quantum levels of computing in a video game, and while I can empathize I have to say while your hearts in the right place, its beat is all wrong in this regard.

In conclusion FFXIV is not the world of Harrison Bergeron, and I am diametrically opposed to even the slightest application of an auto balancing system. It leads to nothing but stagnation and lazy design. If Murphy’s Law and Moore's Law have taught us anything it’s that one day we will have this system, and it will go horribly wrong but at least not for a good decade or two.

Wait so let me get this straight. You want to add a system that adds more stats to underperforming classes per every trial and fight in the game and you want it to run this program once a day? Are you trying to make it so every class does the exact same damage?

This solution also ignores that there are multiple skill tiers. Balance/unbalance from a meta perspective is mostly related to highly optimized play (what the jobs can potentially do) and not based around whether they are balanced in lower tiers of skill. It's much more complicated than just pulling numbers and automatically adjusting potencies.
For example, there might be a class mechanic that higher tiers of skill use 70% more often than lower tiers. Making any change to this mechanic to balance lower tiers will skew higher tiers. The real issue is that most skills are like this so you can't just balance a class by upping numbers randomly, you need a real method.

Want to boost dps for lower tiers of skill? If they have some dot or debuff you might consider increasing the duration of the debuff so that less skilled players are less likely to let it drop, and higher tiers don't get anything out of it other than quality of life (aka SMN changes in 5.08 for example). And that's one of many examples that don't involve potencies or straightforward buffs/nerfs.

This also doesn't take into account encounter design where some classes may underperform because of boss mechanics and not actual numbers.

All that to say that you need a humain brain behind it for the most part.

I like the idea of an AI controling the game. When one class gets overpowered and becomes the new go to and you que up as it, the
"Hydaelyn ALgorithmic computer" denies you saying: "I'm sorry PLAYER NAME, I'm afraid I can't let you do that."

It's actually much more simple than what you guys are thinking.

Let's say the maximum potency per second BLM do is 100, and SAM is 99. This is the maximum these two Jobs will ever do on it's own.
Now, let's say Eden Savage every BLM still do a max of 100, but every SAM is doing a max of 96 because of the encounter design. The Auto balance system would buff SAM in order to reach 99 potency per second.
That's it. The success of this system entirely depends o how SE will program the data collection of it. Just by looking at FFlogs we can see that every encounter has different Job rankings, and this is because of the encounter design.

This can even be a not automatic system. But SE still needs to implement this feature to adjust inbalance of encounters between Jobs.

Instead of an AI just have a devoted team in focusing on Job Gameplay. AND, perhaps have that team, tweak jobs weekly / bi-weekly, and even every major patch have some fun changes to jobs.

I don't like pointing other games out, but something I enjoy about Destiny is that they have that "Weekly communication" news letter, "This week at Bungie?"

I believe we just need to ask for more transparency on a week to week basis, instead of having to constantly wait for a Live Letter or a 5.08 patch, 5.09 patch, hell, 5.1 patch etc. it seems that a lot of players are eagerly anticipating some sort of news that "hey, this week at Square Enix we've been researching some ongoing issues with [insert Job Here] or hey, Gunbreakers we hear you, your sounds sound like a wet towel being smacked into someone's behind" we hear you, we're working on a fix.

If they had a devoted team that communicated to the players, I know I for one would be calm knowing that the team is looking at these potency issues with certain jobs.

Now, SE, give Red Mage some love, and give them water and ice magic, thank you =D

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Originally Posted by PatronasCharm

Instead of an AI just have a devoted team in focusing on Job Gameplay. AND, perhaps have that team, tweak jobs weekly / bi-weekly, and even every major patch have some fun changes to jobs.

I don't like pointing other games out, but something I enjoy about Destiny is that they have that "Weekly communication" news letter, "This week at Bungie?"

I believe we just need to ask for more transparency on a week to week basis, instead of having to constantly wait for a Live Letter or a 5.08 patch, 5.09 patch, hell, 5.1 patch etc. it seems that a lot of players are eagerly anticipating some sort of news that "hey, this week at Square Enix we've been researching some ongoing issues with [insert Job Here] or hey, Gunbreakers we hear you, your sounds sound like a wet towel being smacked into someone's behind" we hear you, we're working on a fix.

If they had a devoted team that communicated to the players, I know I for one would be calm knowing that the team is looking at these potency issues with certain jobs.

Now, SE, give Red Mage some love, and give them water and ice magic, thank you =D

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Perfectly stated. Every Job balance feels like forever.
And, it feels like if we don't ever complain or send them feedback they will do nothing. Like, FFlogs are there for them to look at if themselves don't have a source of information, and yet they say "players are complaining about x job damage" instead of "we noticed a disadvantage of melee jobs in x encounter by collecting data from encounters".

The problem is that the goal is not to make every job do equal damage. The goal is to have some do other things as well.

If I have an ability that provides a group wide mitigation or movement buff or that can give me intense mobility... how much DPS should I lose for that is pretty fuzzy and can often depend on things like player skill. That’s just some of the reasons dancer SPS is low. Does the community value that high mobility more than they would another X points of DPS? What if it’s equal value? How does an automated system know which to favor? What if it’s equal today but tomorrow the community has a preference?
What is the neef is because the community has too much of a preference? As in weaken a job to encourage other jobs to be played...

A major amount of balance is actually balancing not the numbers but the moods and expectations of the players and the design team. Something best left to human hands.

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Originally Posted by PatronasCharm

I believe we just need to ask for more transparency on a week to week basis, instead of having to constantly wait for a Live Letter or a 5.08 patch, 5.09 patch, hell, 5.1 patch etc. it seems that a lot of players are eagerly anticipating some sort of news that "hey, this week at Square Enix we've been researching some ongoing issues with [insert Job Here] or hey, Gunbreakers we hear you, your sounds sound like a wet towel being smacked into someone's behind" we hear you, we're working on a fix.

If they had a devoted team that communicated to the players, I know I for one would be calm knowing that the team is looking at these potency issues with certain jobs.

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We have a dedicated and devoted team, however what you desire is more communication.

That said, it took over a year to create new formula for damage calculations in encounters and overworld with an overhaul of combat systems. Tweaks occur at patch intervals and major changes happen in planned segments. The Chinese Fanfest translation gave an incredible amount of insight into how YoshiP and the FFIX Team plan their resources and how it is mapped out over a two year development period and the patches therien while coordinating all teams involved.

I am going to sound incredibly patronizing saying this, but to expect at least four different teams (Encounter, Job, Coding, and Translation) on the FFXIV Dev team to bend over backwards in their already full schedule to sit down with community Reps for every region and YoshiP to detail every bit of their work just so a few people can feel better about what may or may not be in development for every job on weekly basis is absurd.

It is a wonderful notion I agree with the sentiment honestly. That said SE is a Japanese video game developer, not an American one. There are social and cultural precedents in office environments that differ greatly from Western preconceptions which must be acknowledged. The easiest way I can sum this up is the Vulcan proverb from StarTrek "Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." In this case as it is a need of the few it would be illogical to deviate from an effective schedule that has been used since HW. If the state of the business demands it then you can expect change.

I realize this is a poignant response, and we are all human in the end after it is all said and done. So we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

It's actually much more simple than what you guys are thinking.

Let's say the maximum potency per second BLM do is 100, and SAM is 99. This is the maximum these two Jobs will ever do on it's own.
Now, let's say Eden Savage every BLM still do a max of 100, but every SAM is doing a max of 96 because of the encounter design. The Auto balance system would buff SAM in order to reach 99 potency per second.
That's it. The success of this system entirely depends o how SE will program the data collection of it. Just by looking at FFlogs we can see that every encounter has different Job rankings, and this is because of the encounter design.

This can even be a not automatic system. But SE still needs to implement this feature to adjust inbalance of encounters between Jobs.

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Encounters are not designed to have everyone do the same damage outputs. And that is taken into account in the calculations and the overall fundamental design. YoshiP explained in the SHB Job Preview live letter that they look at the "Role" first and then move from Pure DPS down to DPS with Utility. Pure DPS will and or should be at the top of the list as BLM is. They recognized that SAM was not and have started tweaking as required to fit that paradigm. In the Ranged Physical Role as an example it is MCH > BRD > DNC, with MCH having the highest personal dps potential to the DNC having the lowest but the largest group enhancement potential. It is on the players to take the tools given in their chosen job to make that job achieve its maximum designed potential in the framework created by the game designers. If there is a glaring fault in the chosen design the Dev team will make the choice to change it. They themselves do play this game as well.

And if I may be so bold how would a composer know the beauty of different conductors and orchestras playing their music with the varying tones and pace if they are all uniform and the same! Where is the exaltation of practicing your job and seeing improvement as you master it? How would you know when the player who does nothing to prepare themselves does the same output as someone who spent weeks honing themselves?

This is not about numbers it is fundamentally about a mind set. A mind set that I can only see as wanting to turn combat in FFXIV into that of a mobile game or something you could play on a tablet. WoW did that and look where that got them along with the other poor design choices.

On a technical level the very system you want even if done by real people is only suited for PVP centric MMO's whos source code has been designed with instance specific controlled encounters or mobile games with limited skill sets. In those settings Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) works just fine. In FFXIV we have Overworld combat, Instanced Combat, PvP Combat (I list it separately because its done separately with its own skills), Raid Combat, and Solo Trial Combat. All of these are worked with in job balancing were talking the flying spaghetti monster from hell in coding trying to put DDA into all of that. And it would have to be uniform or portions of the community would scream from the deepest pit of the seven hells to the very pinnacle of the heavens. FFXIV just does not have the hardware, software, or human base required to do this cost effectively at this time. Even then if it was integrated it would be done as a tool to make it easier for the Dev team to do their jobs not to make it so every player no matter how good or bad they are does the same damage.

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Originally Posted by Mystrum

Encounters are not designed to have everyone do the same damage outputs. And that is taken into account in the calculations and the overall fundamental design. YoshiP explained in the SHB Job Preview live letter that they look at the "Role" first and then move from Pure DPS down to DPS with Utility. Pure DPS will and or should be at the top of the list as BLM is. They recognized that SAM was not and have started tweaking as required to fit that paradigm. In the Ranged Physical Role as an example it is MCH > BRD > DNC, with MCH having the highest personal dps potential to the DNC having the lowest but the largest group enhancement potential. It is on the players to take the tools given in their chosen job to make that job achieve its maximum designed potential in the framework created by the game designers. If there is a glaring fault in the chosen design the Dev team will make the choice to change it. They themselves do play this game as well.

And if I may be so bold how would a composer know the beauty of different conductors and orchestras playing their music with the varying tones and pace if they are all uniform and the same! Where is the exaltation of practicing your job and seeing improvement as you master it? How would you know when the player who does nothing to prepare themselves does the same output as someone who spent weeks honing themselves?

This is not about numbers it is fundamentally about a mind set. A mind set that I can only see as wanting to turn combat in FFXIV into that of a mobile game or something you could play on a tablet. WoW did that and look where that got them along with the other poor design choices.

On a technical level the very system you want even if done by real people is only suited for PVP centric MMO's whos source code has been designed with instance specific controlled encounters or mobile games with limited skill sets. In those settings Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) works just fine. In FFXIV we have Overworld combat, Instanced Combat, PvP Combat (I list it separately because its done separately with its own skills), Raid Combat, and Solo Trial Combat. All of these are worked with in job balancing were talking the flying spaghetti monster from hell in coding trying to put DDA into all of that. And it would have to be uniform or portions of the community would scream from the deepest pit of the seven hells to the very pinnacle of the heavens. FFXIV just does not have the hardware, software, or human base required to do this cost effectively at this time. Even then if it was integrated it would be done as a tool to make it easier for the Dev team to do their jobs not to make it so every player no matter how good or bad they are does the same damage.

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Why do you think every job will do the same damage with this system?
I explained that it will do little adjustments to the damage just for it to reach the EXPECTED damage for that encounter for that Job. It does not mean BLM that do 14k will make all of other jobs do 14k too. I does mean that If BLM is underperforming in that encounter, because there is no time to cast spells and is doing 13k, it will get a buff for that encounter to reach the expected damage of 14k. I'm saying damage, but in reality it needs to be potency. I'm sure every Job has a maximum output of potency per second that no matter what they do, they only reach that number. The only time where they don't reach that expected number is bases on encounter design, ex caster not having time to cast, melee not having time to stay near the target to damage it, boss jumping off the targetable view and thus expiring Job buffs etc...

It's not homogenization, it's balance. Because there is already a expected ranking in personal DPS in the dev team creation, and some encounters make it impossible to reach the expected value.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

Why do you think every job will do the same damage with this system?
I explained that it will do little adjustments to the damage just for it to reach the EXPECTED damage for that encounter for that Job. It does not mean BLM that do 14k will make all of other jobs do 14k too. I does mean that If BLM is underperforming in that encounter, because there is no time to cast spells and is doing 13k, it will get a buff for that encounter to reach the expected damage of 14k. I'm saying damage, but in reality it needs to be potency. I'm sure every Job has a maximum output of potency per second that no matter what they do, they only reach that number. The only time where they don't reach that expected number is bases on encounter design, ex caster not having time to cast, melee not having time to stay near the target to damage it, boss jumping off the targetable view and thus expiring Job buffs etc...

It's not homogenization, it's balance. Because there is already a expected ranking in personal DPS in the dev team creation, and some encounters make it impossible to reach the expected value.

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Classes not reaching the expected damage is not an issue of the class needing buffs, it's an issue of that class needing better players, unless there's a fundamental design flaw in the class, which needs to be addressed by human intervention, not an automated number tweaking system. I'm really curious how you're going to define a system that basically needs to rewrite mechanics and aspects of a class to fix the design, like what they are planning for NIN and SMN in the next patch.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

Would it be possible to implement a system that collects data from all encounters and changes the base damage of the Job automatically everyday differently for each relevant duty?

For now, I see that FFlogs is used by the players to judge if a Job has unbalanced numbers. Isn't this process the same for every time a Job Balance patch is implemented? And if it's always the same... Program it!

By adding a Trait (or invisible trait) to every Job that has a variable number that adds or subtract primary stats (INT/STR...) based on the data collected for each encounter, the dev team could put their time into other things and only focus on balancing Job internal potencies.

It would surely take time. But once it's done, it would be rewarding for everyone.

@Edit: Let's say the maximum potency per second BLM do is 100, and SAM is 99. This is the maximum these two Jobs will ever do on it's own.
Now, let's say Eden Savage every BLM still do a max of 100, but every SAM is doing a max of 96 because of the encounter design. The Auto balance system would buff SAM in order to reach 99 potency per second.
That's it. The success of this system entirely depends o how SE will program the data collection of it. Just by looking at FFlogs we can see that every encounter has different Job rankings, and this is because of the encounter design.

This can even be a not automatic system. But SE still needs to implement this feature to adjust inbalance of encounters between Jobs.

Disclaimer: Obviously, it is my humble example of implementation, and I'm aware of the level of spaghetti code FFXIV has. But even with spaghetti code FFXIV has some of the best systems of any MMO, and this could be another one. Since the game tend to follow the same formula for everything combat-wise, this system is imaginable, and I believe if anyone can imagine it, it can to be programmed.

Let's discuss.

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https://i.redd.it/vzomr2rp6ci11.jpg

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

Classes not reaching the expected damage is not an issue of the class needing buffs, it's an issue of that class needing better players, unless there's a fundamental design flaw in the class, which needs to be addressed by human intervention, not an automated number tweaking system. I'm really curious how you're going to define a system that basically needs to rewrite mechanics and aspects of a class to fix the design, like what they are planning for NIN and SMN in the next patch.

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I already said multiple times how it would buff the damage, read properly, please. It's all in the first post tbh.

There is such a thing as too much balance. That's all I'll say because I'm tired and honestly this suggestion is beyond absurd.

Call Thanos, I heard he is pretty good at balancing things.

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Originally Posted by LeoLupinos

I already said multiple times how it would buff the damage, read properly, please. It's all in the first post tbh.

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And as I and many other have said, what you're asking for is not doable, not healthy for the game.

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Originally Posted by NekoNova

And as I and many other have said, what you're asking for is not doable, not healthy for the game.

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Seeing the read properly please line in one of the OP's posts here sparked my memory. This thread is very much their modus operandi and given segments of their post histories what they seem to enjoy with great zeal. The idea postulated was never up for discussion in the first place tis best to just walk away.

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Originally Posted by Mystrum

Seeing the read properly please line in one of the OP's posts here sparked my memory. This thread is very much their modus operandi and given segments of their post histories what they seem to enjoy with great zeal. The idea postulated was never up for discussion in the first place tis best to just walk away.

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Forum implies discussion. Luckily for us this isn't a read-only board :D

So players getting better would result in their jobs getting nerfed... that's a new dimension of incentivizing subpar play ^^

Listen if actual people can't get the balancing right, I don't imagine a system they programmed to do any better.

I'd rather they invest their labor hours in something more meaningful, like original content/activities versus a hand holding system or glamours/races.