Stat Potion CDs need some addressing please.

Onwards to the heart of the matter at hand.

I understand that Potions and Ethers share the same cooldown timer. I may not like it but meh, I get it and it makes sense. They're both in the "it recovers x,y,z' category.
However, stat boosting potions such as Potion of Strength should have their own cooldown timer as they are unrelated to the principle of what Potions and Ethers do. Moreover, their cooldown timer is five times longer.
For example, Potions/Ethers - 1m cooldown.
Potion of Strength - 5m cooldown.

Currently they share a cooldown, which means if you ever want to make use of a Potion of Strength you're out of a Potion or Ether for 5m.

The stat potions already have it in for them due to their extremely short duration.
For a 5m CD, I'd expect the duration to be at least 1m but that's neither here nor there.
Giving stat potions their own cooldown would at least promote their usage better.

I agree completely. The only actual potion that I've found sellable in any large quantities are HQ mega HP pots. I do like having a slightly shorter CD on the HQ pots though, it's a nice touch.

X potions are prohibitively expensive for most buyers (double cluster cost seems imbalanced) and people don't seem to have a large need for mega ethers. Lower level hi-potions and hi-ethers are handed out like candy from half the quests in the game so nobody buys those. Elixirs seem like they should be pretty useful but not many people buy them even at very cheap prices.

I'd like to also point out that hi-elixirs somehow got lumped together with the other ilvl 70 crafts and their now ludicrous cost. 9 lime sulphur to make 3 hi-elixirs? Yea there's a HUGE market for people just waiting to jump on those 500k one time use pots.

As for smelling salts, eye drops, antidote, gold needles and the like they are useful to have but you can't make money with them. That's fine though in my opinion, these should be cheap.

Now we come to the stat and resist potions (fire ward etc). The CD seems kind of crazy for how little they do, and they shouldn't share a CD with hp/mp pots. You should be able to pop a mega fire ward pot (stupidly expensive as well) and an x potion at the same time. You've already payed an exorbitant amount for the 15 seconds of resist so it shouldn't be a choice between health OR resist.

Lastly, i'd just like to say that I really like the idea of potent sleeping/paralyzing/silencing/poisoning pots but they are simply not necessary for most people. I'd love even using them on myself but even with gil not being a huge concern for me I can't afford to spend 10k on a one time use potion all day. Pudding flesh! Damn you!

Don't get me wrong, i still make great money with alch but it almost all comes from making HQ crafting ingredients for other crafters. I want to make potions not glue!

Sorry for the multi-post, 1000 character limit...

>_< Yeah.
I just wish they thought about the practical application of consumables like these. 15s is just too short of a time for anything especially when coupled with such long cooldowns.
Although, I too like that the HQ potions have a slightly reduced cd.

Another issue that I run into w/ some of these potions is the very limited space w/ my cross bar. It makes it difficult to have different sorts of potions even if they could be useful.

Hello,

We don't currently have any plans of changing the re-use timer for items.

As boss battles within instanced dungeons and primal battles can last longer than five minutes, the game has been balanced so that an item can be used once every five minutes and using any more than this would off-set the necessity for certain roles. The system was designed to ensure that the convenience of items isn't placed above other functions.

One thing I noticed is that potions that share the same timer, don't always have the same time. I can't give an example off the top of my head, but if you use a potion with a 5 minute CD and it shares a timer with something that has a 1 minute timer, you can't use the 1 minute one until the 5 minute timer is up. Slightly annoying...things that have the same time should all go on the same timer.

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Originally Posted by Kaliska

One thing I noticed is that potions that share the same timer, don't always have the same time. I can't give an example off the top of my head, but if you use a potion with a 5 minute CD and it shares a timer with something that has a 1 minute timer, you can't use the 1 minute one until the 5 minute timer is up. Slightly annoying...things that have the same time should all go on the same timer.

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this!

see the current cooldowns on items is JUST FINE. what is NOT fine is that i can't use an Ether or Elixer after using my Mind pot. it would be perfectly fine if there was some sorta GCD for potions. like no matter what you use you have to wait like 20seconds or something to use the next one. it should not be use a 5minute item and have to wait 5minutes to use the item that cools down in like 3.5minutes. seems broken :(

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hello,

We don't currently have any plans of changing the re-use timer for items.

As boss battles within instanced dungeons and primal battles can last longer than five minutes, the game has been balanced so that an item can be used once every five minutes and using any more than this would off-set the necessity for certain roles. The system was designed to ensure that the convenience of items isn't placed above other functions.

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You guys don't have plans to change anything. Seriously just make a nice big-lettered stick in front on the forum top that says "We don't have plans to change anything".

You think people really give a crap about some 15 sec duration potions? I tested them, they SUCK. Mega potion of str gives a max of 61 str, but it barely makes my damage go up at all, and for a measly 15 second duration and 4m30 sec cooldown (HQ stats)? They are a waste of time. Tell that dev team that they are a waste of time.

And seriously you cant remove the relevance of any single of the roles by upping the duration or lowering the cooldown, or both, because there is a potion that would be good for every class had all of them not sucked. Healers - mind potions, Bards - dex potions, Meleers - Str potions, casters - int potions, casters or healers - pie potions, tanks - vit or str potions. Where is the "o noes this class is useless because we made potions worth something" that you guys see? You think Dragoon or something is going to use a vit potion that has a 1m duration and suddenly be best tank 2013?

Should at least allow Potion Mixing. That is acceptable from FF Lore.

Not just good effects like HP+VIT or MP+INT, but funky even useless but hilarious and imaginative potion mixing combinations.

The stat potions are just not worthwhile. There's not a lot of opportunities for a 15 second boost to be useful. The current game mechanics flow on DPS, with no practical room for significant burst damage. Not sure if stats change the damage on Limit Breaks, but even that appears to be so minor it's not noticeable.

Agreed. The only current use for stat potions is leveling alchemy. :/

I never understood the long cool down times on items in FFXIV. Yeah, it might nix the need for some classes in some battles some of the time, but seriously - the reason we have items for use in battle is to help in battle. I would love to be able to to into battle and throw a few dozen potions on the tough fights and throw some phoenix downs and use antidotes as needed. Yes, I know the white mage can do this and often does a better job of it, but there has always been the option to use items in place of magics in final fantasy titles. No, they won't replace any class but they would make for a more versatile gameplay. I agree with what others have said - items become useless and not worth having in a game if they can't be used as needed.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hello,

We don't currently have any plans of changing the re-use timer for items.

As boss battles within instanced dungeons and primal battles can last longer than five minutes, the game has been balanced so that an item can be used once every five minutes and using any more than this would off-set the necessity for certain roles. The system was designed to ensure that the convenience of items isn't placed above other functions.

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Thanks for the heads up Camate but it seems as if the point that I was trying to make was missed by both the community reps and the dev team.
While I do think that too many of the CD's in this game are just too long to be of any use, i.e. potions, antidotes, etc... That wasn't the point of my thread since the reps have already stated that they have no desire to reduce CD's for consumable items.

My point for this thread was that Stat Potions should be on their own CD instead of sharing one with HP/MP recovery potions.

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Originally Posted by Anapingofness

Thanks for the heads up Camate but it seems as if the point that I was trying to make was missed by both the community reps and the dev team.
While I do think that too many of the CD's in this game are just too long to be of any use, i.e. potions, antidotes, etc... That wasn't the point of my thread since the reps have already stated that they have no desire to reduce CD's for consumable items.

My point for this thread was that Stat Potions should be on their own CD instead of sharing one with HP/MP recovery potions.

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Exactly. Fine to only be able to pop a silly 15sec +vit potion only once in a fight, but the long cool downs leeching over to shut down health pots make them more than useless. They then turn into a product of negative value.

I agree with the OP the different potions should not share cool downs. I understand having long cool downs on the potions, but the duration on the stat potions when combined with the GCD is simply too short to ever be of use. As an alchemist, I haven't seen a demand for potions on the markets, beside those needed to turn in for quests. The only potion anyone in my ls has asked me to craft for them is cordial, which I can't do. It seems to me that this is a copy of XI's system where potions where not over powered simply because they were largely so underwhelming there was rarely a use for them. If a system is "balanced" by not functioning by design, it seems silly to have it in the first place. Please give me a larger variety of useful crafts.

Earlier today, I had to use a Mega Potion. I pressed the button, died after pressing, heard the "used item" sound but never got healed. In short, the game removed a mega potion from my inventory and I got nothing from it.

Just leaving this here.

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Originally Posted by Reika

You think people really give a crap about some 15 sec duration potions? I tested them, they SUCK. Mega potion of str gives a max of 61 str, but it barely makes my damage go up at all, and for a measly 15 second duration and 4m30 sec cooldown (HQ stats)? They are a waste of time. Tell that dev team that they are a waste of time.

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Go try coil and then tell me they don't make a world of difference on turn 4, where you're put under very strict time limits and DPS requirements..

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Originally Posted by Camate

Please read my post

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Please tell me you plan on completely revamping or buffing consumables in some way? Right now, almost no one who plays this game uses them, and even coil groups don't use them. Some turn 5 groups might, but I highly doubt it.

Consumables are extremely weak in this game and cost far too many materials and shards/crystals/clusters to be worth their time, you're talking ~5k per attempt in coil when an average night of coil will see 20-50 wipes, no one is willing to pay that amount for consumables that aren't very powerful to begin with.

edit: DEX/INT potions are the only ones worth using in coil because they're actually pretty cheap to make(STR ones are not cheap), but it's still a TON of farming just for a single day of coil attempts, farming no one wants to do.

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Originally Posted by EmSix

Go try coil and then tell me they don't make a world of difference on turn 4, where you're put under very strict time limits and DPS requirements..

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I'm on turn 4 coil, I agree that the INT and DEX potions are pretty cheap to make and worth using on turn4 for burst damage, but the STR ones aren't at all because they require shark oil that's like 3-5k each on my server. Even though the mats for the INT and DEX ones are easy to farm/relatively inexpensive, it's still a lot of farming just for a single day of attempts and not really worth anyone's time.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hello,

We don't currently have any plans of changing the re-use timer for items.

As boss battles within instanced dungeons and primal battles can last longer than five minutes, the game has been balanced so that an item can be used once every five minutes and using any more than this would off-set the necessity for certain roles. The system was designed to ensure that the convenience of items isn't placed above other functions.

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So why have potions at all if it is acceptable to leave them being useless? Can you give even one example where 15s of an increased stat would help you even marginally?

Those stat boost potions are basically worthless.
I did find a use for them, though. When you're gathering and at a node that requires a certain stat in order to unlock a bonus, well you can use the potion then.

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Originally Posted by Aemun

So why have potions at all if it is acceptable to leave them being useless? Can you give even one example where 15s of an increased stat would help you even marginally?

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The more the merrier.

In SWTOR we had something similar called Adrenals. They lasted 15 seconds but provided an ample boost to one's DPS/healing/survivability for that duration. They were a cooldown in and of themselves. At max level they were certainly very helpful and had a mere 1:30-2 minute cooldown.

So I'm all for the stat potions being buffed. The five minute cooldown is silly. The shared five-minute cooldown that collides with healing potions/ethers is retarded. At least separate them.

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Originally Posted by Bufkus

Those stat boost potions are basically worthless.
I did find a use for them, though. When you're gathering and at a node that requires a certain stat in order to unlock a bonus, well you can use the potion then.

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Ah! Of course. Now it all makes sense. Stat potions are actually for Gatherers (well aside from Fishing). Maybe I'll start using them now (since I've decided to main in crafting and sub in gathering/hunting).

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Originally Posted by Reika

You guys don't have plans to change anything. Seriously just make a nice big-lettered stick in front on the forum top that says "We don't have plans to change anything".

You think people really give a crap about some 15 sec duration potions? I tested them, they SUCK. Mega potion of str gives a max of 61 str, but it barely makes my damage go up at all, and for a measly 15 second duration and 4m30 sec cooldown (HQ stats)? They are a waste of time. Tell that dev team that they are a waste of time.

And seriously you cant remove the relevance of any single of the roles by upping the duration or lowering the cooldown, or both, because there is a potion that would be good for every class had all of them not sucked. Healers - mind potions, Bards - dex potions, Meleers - Str potions, casters - int potions, casters or healers - pie potions, tanks - vit or str potions. Where is the "o noes this class is useless because we made potions worth something" that you guys see? You think Dragoon or something is going to use a vit potion that has a 1m duration and suddenly be best tank 2013?

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LOL, let em have it Reika! As someone who works in testing + support, I really feel for the community reps having to chant this like a mantra, giving reasons that defy logic...

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Originally Posted by Reika

You guys don't have plans to change anything. Seriously just make a nice big-lettered stick in front on the forum top that says "We don't have plans to change anything".

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+1 Reika!!!

I was hoping that the potions would actually be useful in this game. There are so many MMOs out there now, you couldn't cherry-pick great working aspects of each game and make one? So far you have done with this:

1) High cost for making the potions
2) super low duration (I mean come on, 15 seconds, really?)
3) botched up timer cross connecting timers.
4) blatently said (paraphrased) "We are not changing this, so your are SoL"

Agreed!

/10char

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Originally Posted by Reika

You guys don't have plans to change anything. Seriously just make a nice big-lettered stick in front on the forum top that says "We don't have plans to change anything".

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I couldn't agree more with this. I've been following all dev answers to suggestions made by the community and all of them are:

"Hey guys, thanks for your time and for making these suggestions, but we actually don't care about your feedback and aren't planning to change anything."

Making suggestions for this game is a big waste of time. It doesn't even matter if they're supported by the entire community, nothing will be changed.

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Originally Posted by Anapingofness

The stat potions already have it in for them due to their extremely short duration.
For a 5m CD, I'd expect the duration to be at least 1m but that's neither here nor there.
Giving stat potions their own cooldown would at least promote their usage better.

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I agree with this alot.
Using something different than a Vit-Potion (when talking about stat potions) rarely made any sense for me or the ppl I play with so far.
Edit: To survive some sort of big AoE dmg you can easily die from.

I would much rather see 30min potions that give less stats. Isn't it odd that food is far superior to potions?

The 15-second duration isn't that awful. Consider boss mechanics like the Infernal Nail; there are times when you need to crank out a quick burst. Odin and Zantetsuken (sp?) you have to bring him down quickly right at the end. The shared cool-down between restorative (HP/MP) and stat potions seems unreasonable though as they are so different in application. You also need to take into account that potions of any kind _should_ be powerful, they're consumables after all. Potions should out-stripe CD abilities because we have to throw so much money/time at each use.

That being said, the material cost of these consumables really does need to come down some. Larger batches and smaller requirements. Let me be clear Square- your potion system is balanced and working as intended when a large portion of the player-base uses them. Both in the 1-49 and endgame content. As it stands I just don't see that being true. You don't need to hit 100% required but 30-70% would be nice.

There are so many great ideas for improvements on the forums.

This is another good one, having the cool downs shared really takes away some of the strategy. Because most fights are over before the cool down finishes, giving you really only one potion to pick from.

Also splitting the potions up in to different groups with different cool downs would make fighting with ranged/magic a lot more exciting, especially for low level classes (below lvl30). Often you find yourself sitting there spamming buttons whilst the tank takes all the agro, imagine if you had to make more decisions about when to cast different potions and on whom.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Hello,

We don't currently have any plans of changing the re-use timer for items.

As boss battles within instanced dungeons and primal battles can last longer than five minutes, the game has been balanced so that an item can be used once every five minutes and using any more than this would off-set the necessity for certain roles. The system was designed to ensure that the convenience of items isn't placed above other functions.

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Really? Potions are so useless and the excuse you guys are using to not fix them is to not "off-set the necessity of certain roles"??? If that is your excuse then there are other stuff you guys need to be re-evaluating:

-All disciples of war and magic can use cure spells.
-Arcanist and summoner can tank with Topaz Carbuncle and Titan-egi

(Contunued....)

When I play my conjurer, ESPECIALLY when I'm in a party with an arcanist or thaumatarge they always insist on curing. It is extremely irritating as that is my role to cure. They often cure OVER my curing which not only is a waste of their MP, it stops them from attacking and negates my curing. Weather a party member is just a little low or less than half they insist on curing. Even below half-hp I find this annoying, it's not helping its actually insulting and hindering my ability to grow as an adept healer. I understand that some people do it to be "nice" but I consider it rude regardless. My role is healer, their role is DD. And if that's not " off-set the necessity for certain roles" then I don't know what is.

continued...

The worst part of this is every disciple gets an MP pool and their cure casting times is the exact same as a healing role. They may not cure for as much...unless you are an arcanist or thaumatarge. So saying that potions are undermining other jobs is laughable and a terrible excuse.

THEN you get arcanists/summoners with their tank pets. And yes, I know they can't tank as good as a real tank, but all to often I've seen them pull out these pets and keep them out the entire dungeon. They cause hate to bounce around and prevents the real TANKS who queued up to....TANK from doing their job. They are nice when a tank dies and are used in an emergency, but not to keep out the entire dungeon. Again perhaps some " off-set the necessity for certain roles"?

continued...

Now, I'm not here to discuss weather these things I mentioned should be changed, my point was to provide some examples of how potions are the last thing they really need to be worrying about to keep the game balanced.

As it stands, potions are useless. 15 second duration is laughable for buff potions and in no way do these types of potions " off-set the necessity for certain roles". Not like bard has any stat boosting songs. As for healing potions and the like, if they are really that worried about it then I see several options to get around this:

continued...

1 Increase their effectiveness and make them unusable inside dungeons, opting them as solo-able items.

2 Increase the effectiveness and make them more expensive causing them to be more of a "rich mans toy" so to speak. So that when a DD with a potion is faced with restoring a quarter of their HP or letting a healer do their job, they'll opt to save gil. Potions then become something not used frequently but are valued for their potency. Then they would be perfect in a scenario such as, say, all the healers are dead but the monster being fought is close to being dead.

Continued......

Now these are just a few ideas. Really though, Square Enix...your reasoning for a lot of the things you "are not planning to change" are always so...insulting to us players. You treat us like children and act like we haven't played a game in our lives before. Many of us have played for years, if not nearly their whole lives. Many people understand fairness. You guys really need to learn to take suggestions more seriously and stop insulting us.

Also please stop limiting our ability to post. I should not have to post multiple times to get a thought across.

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Originally Posted by Korie

When I play my conjurer, ESPECIALLY when I'm in a party with an arcanist or thaumatarge they always insist on curing. It is extremely irritating as that is my role to cure. They often cure OVER my curing which not only is a waste of their MP, it stops them from attacking and negates my curing. Weather a party member is just a little low or less than half they insist on curing. Even below half-hp I find this annoying, it's not helping its actually insulting and hindering my ability to grow as an adept healer. I understand that some people do it to be "nice" but I consider it rude regardless. My role is healer, their role is DD.

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As a BLM I can tell you we don't heal ourselves to be nice. We do it because we're used to dying constantly with bad healers. I frequently pull aggro, especially on AOE pulls where the tank just wants me to nuke instead of sleeping and going one by one. After 2-3 Fire II's I get 3+ mobs on me since the tank 'forgot' to keep flashing and if I don't immediately start healing myself I will die. The healer is usually busy tab + aeroing everything and won't get a cure off before I'm dead. Unless I personally know you're a good healer I'm gonna top myself off whenever I can.

That being said, I really shouldn't have access to heals at all as a BLACK mage. On more than one occasion I've become the healer after our WHM or SCH stands in an AOE and dies during a boss fight. Sure my heals aren't as strong but I can easily heal an entire party indefinitely. Thanks to umbral ice I effectively have an infinite mana bar. This is far more of a class destroying mechanic than being able to pop a whopping 15s stat pot, and then GHASP, also using a health pot to restore 1/4 of my hp every 2 mins.

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Originally Posted by Nenin

As a BLM I can tell you we don't heal ourselves to be nice. We do it because we're used to dying constantly with bad healers. I frequently pull aggro, especially on AOE pulls where the tank just wants me to nuke instead of sleeping and going one by one. After 2-3 Fire II's I get 3+ mobs on me since the tank 'forgot' to keep flashing and if I don't immediately start healing myself I will die. The healer is usually busy tab + aeroing everything and won't get a cure off before I'm dead. Unless I personally know you're a good healer I'm gonna top myself off whenever I can.

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Yeah, I can understand completely why you and other non-healing mages keep yourself healed. When I am playing healer I usually try not to say anything and enjoy other ppl doing my job ;P It's just really irritating for people like me who know how it's done it take away from my gameplay. There are a lot of bad healers out there sadly, so I can understand.

Ok, I get what you saying and I understand. You don't want to upset the balance and that makes sense.

On the other hand, are things like the mega-potion of strength or mega-potion of vitality even useful when the duration is only 15 seconds? Maybe the mega-potion of intelligence could last long enough to boost 1 big attack from a mage but does it really have a useful effect. In the case of these potions that last for only 15 seconds, is it long enough and a big enough boost to have any noticeable effect at all. I'm not so worried about the cool down so much in this case.

If a potion has negligible impact, why even bother to use it. I'm a level 50 in all crafts and gathering, I collect things like pudding flesh on dungeons runs and for other items I go hunting and I don't mind spending the time doing so I save gil and enjoy tracking things down. But if I can't prove they have anything more than at most a negligible effect, why even craft them for myself to use, let alone expect people to buy them?

An x-potion or mega-potion can restore enough hp enough to give you some time if a healer is swamped with heals. It may not always be enough, but it can help.

But some of the Alchemists potions are of very dubious utility. I feel like some things are just filler for the Alchemist crafting recipes list.