"A system that rewards effort and innovation" can't be buzzwords for imbalance-get

[RedAffinity]

You can fight the systems that are designed to keep weak players accepted based on what imbalanced jobs they ride on.
You can demand equality as a PUP. Will the blms, rdms, brds, rngs, and their ilk scoff and snicker again? Of course. You're a threat to how special they're treated. Without you down there, they can't be up where they think they are.

As they pathetically kite, hide, and cower at the game's difficulty, then brag about how good they are lol...

Stand up, PUP. Take what belongs to you.

I took what belonged to me, the right to enjoy what I invested countless hours in. After a while the effort wore me thin however and I leveled other jobs. What essentially drove me away from XI was the jobs I enjoyed ( DNC PUP SCH COR BLU) all had rivals that were much more accepted. Partially due to community/player creativity, and greatly due to lack of job balance - - looking at it from a technical perspective.

Considering how many things went wrong with XIV and its premature release, I assume job balance was simply another to add to the list. We don't really have much of an endgame right now, and the fact that abilities are being reworked, some from ground up, shows much promise.

While I admire your efforts Peregrine, I don't believe you're going to start a revolution, nor much great change. You may either post ideas on how to improve the system, or take what they give you. If you feel it's not your position as a consumer (as you are not a developer of SE) to do so, than there are other options as far as MMO's go out there.

[Issachar]

[EDIT]: Screw it, no sense trying to talk to a wall.

[Amineri]

[EDIT]: Screw it, no sense trying to talk to a wall.

"Why do things the hard way, when the guaranteed way is easier?"

Issachar, I'm going to include your signature tagline here, and contrast that with Matsui-san's goals for the battle system revamp:

Fostering Skillful Play
Creating a battle system that fosters skillful play.
The above is, in a sentence, the rationale behind the coming battle changes. Not exactly the punchiest catchphrase around, but perhaps there’s kindly a soul out there who could word it better. */poke Yoshi-P*

To elaborate, we are aiming to address issues such as the following:
Victories coming with little reliance on skillful play.
Lack of information needed for skillful play.
No sense of accomplishment even with skillful play.
In light of the above, our objective is to implement a battle system that rewards player effort and innovation in such areas as equipment, hunting grounds, and party structure.

Lastly, in conceiving these changes, we have kept one fact close to heart: simply making enemies stronger does not equate to an environment that fosters and rewards skillful play.

Easy =/= Fun
also,
Hard =/= Fun (see the part where he says "simply making enemies stronger does not equate to an environment that fosters and rewards skillful play" ?)

If you want the easy way, let me point you at this game : http://www.kongregate.com/games/back...uilder-classic

However, for my part, I agree with Matsui-san's vision of encouraging skillful play.

[Amineri]

Regimens and skillchains are proof that the population will quit any semblance of tactics and teamwork if mindless zerging is easier and competitive. The whole problem with class whoring is the fact that the players who do it over and over in MMOs are weaker than the devs are giving them credit for. They can't handle complexity when simplicity is competitive. They can't even win the fights as-designed for the general demographic.

They take archerx6 to fights because they're not good players, not because they ARE good players. The game difficulty is set to medium. They reset it to easy because they can't play on medium because it's frustrating to them. They have a high golf handicap. And instead of being made fun of because of it, they're encouraged to brag about how weak they are and how imbalanced their setups have to be for them to succeed in the game.

Don't even let that kind of player think they're a success. Kill their imbalance-getting and make them be good players for once in their MMO careers.

Like I said, you can already tell who has spent their entire MMO careers abusing imbalance in this thread. They're the people who balk at someone who laughs at their ranger ranger ranger ranger ranger ranger "innovation." They think they're great, when honestly they're not. That's why they need these lame tactics.

Take them from them. Maybe they'll get better and step up their game.

My guess is, though, that if you take certain players' access to imbalance as a means to progress and achieve in MMOs...they'll fall off the curve because they were never good to begin with without that developer subsidy.

Peregrine, I'm mostly on-board with you. Really I am. Not all the world is your enemy .

However, I want to sound a few issues:

1. Don't go overboard. If OPed Archers are bad and will ruin the game, then OPed meleers are bad and will ALSO ruin the game. I don't want either situation. Just because Rangers and Black Mages wrecked FFXI for a few years does NOT justify punishing players in FFXIV that choose to play CON, THM or ARC.
2. We need to give the battle team more positive, constructive ideas. You have beat the drum well and truly, and I think everyone can agree that you have ... persistence. I can't possibly imagine the Matsui-san is not aware of this, at this point. However, what are the mechanics that encourage party diversity, and prevent the cheeseball tactics that lead to the exclusion of certain classes?

Perhaps another thread could be started, where such constructive thoughts can be gathered together into a nice digestible chunk for Bayohne to pass along to the battle team.

In the meantime, continue beating your drum, and sounding the impending doom that approaches !

[Issachar]

Issachar, I'm going to include your signature tagline here, and contrast that with Matsui-san's goals for the battle system revamp:



Easy =/= Fun
also,
Hard =/= Fun (see the part where he says "simply making enemies stronger does not equate to an environment that fosters and rewards skillful play" ?)

If you want the easy way, let me point you at this game : http://www.kongregate.com/games/back...uilder-classic

However, for my part, I agree with Matsui-san's vision of encouraging skillful play.

Don't let my sig mislead you. I love a good challenge. But in most cases, I'd rather go about proven, tried-and-true route than take the road less travelled (though being a BLU main kind of makes me a hypocrite?). That doesn't always mean the guaranteed way lacks skill or substance, but rather avoids uneccesary difficulty where due. Kind of like Ark Angels strategies in FFXI...I'd rather go with the BLM nuke approach than try to fight them head on with multiple tanks.

In summary: The quote is to suggest that doing things the known, proven way will save you stress in the end. That doesn't mean that if you try to do things the hard way, you're stupid...just a piece of advice to provoke thought as to "Is doing this the hard way worth it?". To each their own And I hope this new battle system Matsui is detailing provides breathing room so certain things aren't so restricting like FFXI's challenges were.

[Peregrine]

Don't let my sig mislead you. I love a good challenge. But in most cases, I'd rather go about proven, tried-and-true route than take the road less travelled (though being a BLU main kind of makes me a hypocrite?). That doesn't always mean the guaranteed way lacks skill or substance, but rather avoids uneccesary difficulty where due. Kind of like Ark Angels strategies in FFXI...I'd rather go with the BLM nuke approach than try to fight them head on with multiple tanks.

In summary: The quote is to suggest that doing things the known, proven way will save you stress in the end. That doesn't mean that if you try to do things the hard way, you're stupid...just a piece of advice to provoke thought as to "Is doing this the hard way worth it?". To each their own And I hope this new battle system Matsui is detailing provides breathing room so certain things aren't so restricting like FFXI's challenges were.

Your way is a mediocre player's playpen. They should never give mediocre players the means to succeed if they want a successful and truly rewarding game.

Flocking to chickenwuss tactics is the lowest common denominator. This game deserves better than gimps riding bards and rangers to glory. The only players who want that kind of game are the gimps who need such imbalance to succeed.

Us Drgs, Pups, Thfs and drks will do just fine without their high golf handicaps.

[Issachar]

I wasn't talking to you, girlscout. And I'll have you know that DRG was my main from Zilart until ToAU, as well as my first 75. Long before you ever touched the game, I'm thoroughly convinced by now. Just because you bought the game the first day it was out on X360 doesn't make you a vet.

[Peregrine]

such constructive thoughts can be gathered together into a nice digestible chunk for Bayohne to pass along to the battle team.

How it should be done should be left up to the developers, who know what they have planned. What needs done can absolutely be said. How it should be done is speculative.

Reward diversity.
Block same-job stacking synergy.
Eliminate cliche challenge mechanisms that result in predictable advantages of the same jobs.
Prevent ranged jobs dominating endgame.
Eliminate job stigmas before they occur.
Do not allow imbalance to snowball.

How? Depends on what you have planned. Regardless, those things need exquisite attention to detail otherwise you have that guy up there, telling everyone to go level archer if they want to be "useful" and "guaranteed."

Same argument that guy makes is the same argument that kept thief off the roster for years. Why invite thief when the archer and warrior are guaranteed sp per hour. He's an apologist for the broken system, and a patron of it.

And as for that patron of the "guaranteed"...Meleer since the beginning of XI, son. You may have given up and sold out. I didn't.

You be the first to level bard though. I'm sure it'll help my meleer out, but I'm not going to treat you any differently than the summoner.

[Issachar]

"Selling out" in an MMO is akin to selling out by switching from Coke to Pepsi. I switched to BLU because I enjoyed it more, even if it didn't contribute as much as a generic SAM or whatnot.

And I was one of the people that kept THF off the map. And kept THF out of endgame roles other than having them proc TH, because RNG just plain did it better. Nothing against THF, but it's biggest role has mostly been increasing droprate. Sorry bud.

[Amineri]

Don't let my sig mislead you. I love a good challenge. But in most cases, I'd rather go about proven, tried-and-true route than take the road less travelled (though being a BLU main kind of makes me a hypocrite?). That doesn't always mean the guaranteed way lacks skill or substance, but rather avoids uneccesary difficulty where due. Kind of like Ark Angels strategies in FFXI...I'd rather go with the BLM nuke approach than try to fight them head on with multiple tanks.

In summary: The quote is to suggest that doing things the known, proven way will save you stress in the end. That doesn't mean that if you try to do things the hard way, you're stupid...just a piece of advice to provoke thought as to "Is doing this the hard way worth it?". To each their own And I hope this new battle system Matsui is detailing provides breathing room so certain things aren't so restricting like FFXI's challenges were.

Thank you for not taking offense at my weak attempt at hyperbole.

I guess I am one of the silly people that does things the hard way "just because" . That said, if the Matsui-san and the rest of the development team DON'T create a balanced system, no one can really blame people for using and abusing the system.

It's like people blaming consumers for buying a cheaper item over a more expensive one.

In the end, they question to ask is : Is such a system that promotes exclusionary behavior a fun game?

All this garbage about whether it makes you a "good" player or a "bad" player is just a waste. I vote for a system where all the classes / jobs bring something to the table. We could call it ... the "No Class Left Behind" initiative.