Battle Reform Blueprint

[Physic]

Read this guide by Meowshi about how to get good SP in the old system:

http://ffxiv.zam.com/forum.html?foru...199&howmany=50

yeah that was the best way for a healer to get SP, they probably needed to rework curing sp, or if they actually shared SP they might not need healing sp in parties. the system is gone, but basically

every action you do to an enemy could give you a skill up
every action you do while an enemy is engaged could give you a skill up
how much skill up you get scales with the effectiveness off the skill, ie the more damage you do, or the more you heal for (she said it doesnt but it did problem is if you dont proc)
so basically the best way to get SP overall, for most of the party was to do the best job you could, gladiators had it tough, because they needed to skill gladiator and sentinel at the same time, and since you have 1 stamina bar (they actually orginally planned for you to have two, but they scraped this) you end up splitting skills, the only advantage is that parry gave you ALOT of sp on high level monsters.

major flaw is it was random, so short fights you could get nothing, but over all over time, it balanced out. Other flaw is it was really bad for solo past 20, the things you needed to kill to get good sp per proc were able to kill you if you made the wrong move. If you had a bunch of subs(protect defender cure sacrifice etc), you could probably make this much better, but a newb isnt going to have a bunch of subs.


this is all pie in the sky though, they have a new system with new advanatges and new flaws, before battle will be entertaining they have to make it so that you get rewarded for good play. Right now, this is very far from the case

[Rentahamster]

every action you do while an enemy is engaged could give you a skill up

Nope, self, non-offense buffs like defender and sentinel did not give you SP.

the more you heal for (she said it doesnt but it did problem is if you dont proc)

Huh? Meowshi is right. You got SP based on how much % you healed of the total healing potential of your spell. The result being that 2 maxed out Cure 1 spells gave you more SP than one maxed out Cure 2 spell.

basically the best way to get SP overall, for most of the party was to do the best job you could,

Purposefully wearing crap armor and not bothering to repair it was not "doing the best job you could:

Purposefully standing in front of the raptors and efts to get blasted by the AOE fire and lightning attacks was not doing the best job you could.

Purposefully not using shockspikes since it cased damage that didn't give you SP was not "doing the best job you could."

Spamming every single move that you could that procs a debuff (trammel, heavy trammel, skull sunder, concussive blow, bloodletter, disorient, taunt, provoke, warmonger, comrade im arms, etc) regardless of whether or not it fit your party role and if it contributed positively to battle was not "doing the best job you could"

Not inviting archers because their DPS was too much so they killed too fast and leeched all the dmg dealing from the other DD classes was not "doing the best job you could"

Not using skills like Maim because it killed the mob too fast was not "doing the best job you could"

Whether you remember or not, killing as fast as possible was not the way to the best SP per hour back in September.

It is now, however.

[Rowyne]

Not inviting archers because their DPS was too much so they killed too fast and leeched all the dmg dealing from the other DD classes was not "doing the best job you could"

Ugh, don't remind me. I duo with my husband. He's a PUG, I'm a CON. When the game launched (under the old SP system), we did all the same leves together, and his PUG got 3 ranks ahead of me before we finally realized he basically had to stand there and do nothing half the fight, so that I could get in some hits and get some SP. After our leves, we'd still go out and grind on dodos so I could try to catch up.

And I would have to experiment to find ways to even get SP. I could heal, do magic damage, or physical damage, and it would always result in different amounts of SP. Half the time, it was best to just stand there and spirit dart with my '1' button all day. Is that really what you expect out of a caster?

The old SP system was horribly broken, and encouraged you to play in ways that you normally never would. Plus, it was very frustrating for casters. I'm glad it's gone.

[Physic]

nvm arguing about the merits of the old system is irrelevant. they need to fix the current sp.

to do that they have to remove a maximum dlevel sp cap

they also have to look at every monsters difficulty and adjust the base sp per species per skill group (like cocatrices get more skills as they get higher, they also should give more sp than a vanilla version)

they need to alter guild leve linking sp gains.

they could use other methods for sp gain besides leves and world map. maybe quests or dungeons.

they need to tweak monster populations or rework sp gains with the number of monsters involved

incentivize good play, other than speed killing, speed killing is always about fighting the easiest monster, they need to reward certain playstyles, or ratings, like giving sp bonuses for total damage recieved,

some of these things have been mentioned by renta or others, but until they change these factors, no battle system will achieve what they say thier goal with the battle system is.

[Rentahamster]

heres the key to most of the problems, SHARE ALL SP

That wouldn't have solved the problem. You'd just have people healing their parties over and over again all day long.

Actually now killing weak monsters fast as possible is best exp

Pretty much, yeah. Anything over dlvl 10 is meaningless.

before killing difficult monsters fast as possible is best exp.

"killing difficult monsters as fast as possible only if you had enough mobs to sustain them (which was usually never so not killing them as fast as possible was the usual way to go)" would be a more accurate description

all the debuffs your talking about were useful to the party, what debuff is not useful?

If you're a PGL, you would think that the best way to play would be to do the following:

• hit the rear of the mob for better accuracy,
• let the glad keep hate and keep it off yourself, use concussive blow 3 times to get "concussive blow x 3" status,
• use Victimize for massive damage

Under the old SP system, the best way to get SP for the PGL would be this instead:

• stand right next to the tank so that the mob blasts you with AOE so that the mages get more cure SP,
• use taunt provoke and warmonger on the mob whenever the glad's tant/voke/monger debuff wears off,
• do Concussive Blow only ONCE (since CBx2 and CB x3 don't proc SP),
• use skull sunder for the WS damage and debuff proc SP (even though it's not as useful as other WS),
• use trammel for the WS damamge and debuff proc SP (even though it's not as useful as other WS),
• totally ignore Victimize because it's a waste of TP,
• totally ignore other abilities like discerning eye or sentinel because they use too much stamina and don't proc SP.

Stupid, huh? Yeah, I know.

See this quote from one of the posters in that guide to getting SP thread from october:

It is sad but as a healer my best gains are from idiots doing stupid things.

reducing the monsters defense and making it weaker = GREATER SP FOR THE SAME ACTION. as long as you have enough m obs to kill your goal should be to get greater sp for the same action, you said buffs didnt overwrite, so basically you debuff the mob, and then kill it with as much damage as possible.

The problem was this this was hardly ever the case. The only time it was close to true was when killing raptors, or when fighting efts too early.

The biggest flaw was heal abuse, which is what your talking about that mages asked people to get hit so they could get SP, 3 things they would have needed to fix the old system

Base SP per kill regardless
Share all SP gains with the average of the party
Limit heal skill gains, or reward taking less damage in a party.

There will always be some actions that are more beneficial to SP gain relative to others so no matter what you do, you will always have the same problem.

e.g.
skull sunder + trammel better SP than using Maim
taunting and voking even if you are not a tank
not using shockspikes or stoneskin
etc
etc

That is the fundamental flaw with action-based SP-gain.

i remember getting as much as 35k per hour, 15k per hour was slow with 3 man killing as fast as we could, we always killed as fast as we could we never held mobs, and we got a ton of sp doing it. people were too obsessed with how much they got per mob, and not how much they got per minute. there is no way that you can get more sp getting 50-100 per proc than you can getting 100-300 per proc unless you run out of targets, there is no logical reason to hold mobs and kill slowly when you have another monster waiting to be killed.

"unless you run out of targets"

Which was usually always the case unless you were killing raptors.


Also, while you might have been getting good SP it was highly likely (especially for pick up parties) that other people were not getting good SP and proccing as much because they weren't playing like an idiot on purpose. Therefore you had to slow down and be courteous so you didn't hog all the SP at the expense of your fellow party members.

the advantages the old system had such as every monster was worthwhile sp

Nope, only crabs, efts, and raptors were worthwhile, everything else was garbage. Just like now.

f you had the right job, and it was the right level fighting more difficult monsters was rewarding

That part is correct

did you notice how before you would take dif parties to different monsters? when is the last time that mattered in this sp system.

Nope, the grind mobs now are the same as before: crabs, efts, and raptors.


Looking at your character's history, I see you only got to PGL rank 35-ish before the November "lol coblyn genocide is the best SP now" patch, at which point you quit and then started playing again in April, so I can see how you have the opinions that you do.

Your memories of the old ways are fonder than what was really happening.

[Physic]

That wouldn't have solved the problem. You'd just have people healing their parties over and over again all day long.


Pretty much, yeah. Anything over dlvl 10 is meaningless.


"killing difficult monsters as fast as possible only if you had enough mobs to sustain them (which was usually never so not killing them as fast as possible was the usual way to go)" would be a more accurate description


If you're a PGL, you would think that the best way to play would be to do the following:

• hit the rear of the mob for better accuracy,
• let the glad keep hate and keep it off yourself, use concussive blow 3 times to get "concussive blow x 3" status,
• use Victimize for massive damage

Under the old SP system, the best way to get SP for the PGL would be this instead:

• stand right next to the tank so that the mob blasts you with AOE so that the mages get more cure SP,
• use taunt provoke and warmonger on the mob whenever the glad's tant/voke/monger debuff wears off,
• do Concussive Blow only ONCE (since CBx2 and CB x3 don't proc SP),
• use skull sunder for the WS damage and debuff proc SP (even though it's not as useful as other WS),
• use trammel for the WS damamge and debuff proc SP (even though it's not as useful as other WS),
• totally ignore Victimize because it's a waste of TP,
• totally ignore other abilities like discerning eye or sentinel because they use too much stamina and don't proc SP.

Stupid, huh? Yeah, I know.

See this quote from one of the posters in that guide to getting SP thread from october:





The problem was this this was hardly ever the case. The only time it was close to true was when killing raptors, or when fighting efts too early.


There will always be some actions that are more beneficial to SP gain relative to others so no matter what you do, you will always have the same problem.

e.g.
skull sunder + trammel better SP than using Maim
taunting and voking even if you are not a tank
not using shockspikes or stoneskin
etc
etc

That is the fundamental flaw with action-based SP-gain.



"unless you run out of targets"

Which was usually always the case unless you were killing raptors.


Also, while you might have been getting good SP it was highly likely (especially for pick up parties) that other people were not getting good SP and proccing as much because they weren't playing like an idiot on purpose. Therefore you had to slow down and be courteous so you didn't hog all the SP at the expense of your fellow party members.


Nope, only crabs, efts, and raptors were worthwhile, everything else was garbage. Just like now.


That part is correct


Nope, the grind mobs now are the same as before: crabs, efts, and raptors.


Looking at your character's history, I see you only got to PGL rank 35-ish before the November "lol coblyn genocide is the best SP now" patch, at which point you quit and then started playing again in April, so I can see how you have the opinions that you do.

Your memories of the old ways are fonder than what was really happening.

lol i deleted that post so we wouldnt argue about it, but fine, hears the truth victimize is epeen, victimize is not best damage, i like seeing big numbers but victimize is with all the buffs going to hit for like 700 on mob thats 10 levels higher with 3000 tp, whereas concussive blow costs 1000 and debuffs the mob, and does 250-300 on the same mob. skull sunder, even better does a dot to the mob and also hits for 250-300 even on sub, but it only costs 500 tp of course since it has a long recast on sub, its not the best.

using voke for hoping to proc a skill up wasnt worth it, why? because voke costs about 2-3 times the stamina of regular attacks and about 1.5 the amount weaponskills used to cost. the SP gain was balanced for the stamina cost. voke was good for tanking, because hey your damage was probably going to suck anyway. and you need the mob on you, more importantly you could proc parries, which on high level monsters was very beneficial.

So being high dd monk, yeah go behind the mob, unless it was a raptor, or you wanted to incapacitate its head (which actually helps alot on bones, eyes, and imps)
heavy flurry flurry flurry concusive pounce skull sunder concussive (every thing else is on cooldown anyhow) which you know what, is actually one of the better ways to do DD now, and perfom my role now, i could throw in trammel, but then you start having too many skills, like you also want a feint there raging strike, blinside etc.
Being a good DD gave the most skill ups, which is why archer stole all exp and leveled faster than everyone.
BEfore everyone gimped thier exp to serve healing mages. but with a shared exp system, the other 5 people in the party getting good exp and not dying would make up for any healer gains.

i experienced all the SP booms and all the ups and downs, as people were really learning how to get SP it was actually pretty fun, and we explored the world. since raptors were often taken we went to tam tara.
when they did the coblyn sp nerf, i knew the first day that coblyns were going to be OP, and leve linking was good but honestly no where near as fun. before monsters were balanced based on thier stats, imps would give very large procs to damage probably because they could kill you so easily. the game had achieved making many mobs good for different types of parties or groups. There is no way that putting same sp on most mobs was going to be good, when they are totally different in levels of danger. and time to kill. it was obvious, i dont know why they even tried to have only like 3 or so SP classes

BTW most the mobs were good, pterocs in mines were excellent if you had a chain killing party, even though some times you only rolled 1 proc overall you got great sp, and this is with 4-6 man pts. Skulls were great but rare, but in tam tarra you could cake up in skull room, then kill imps wisps and bats till they respawned and still get large SP. there was also piestes for large parties, Monkeys were excellent sp for a small group, of about 3 people or duo, the monsters were very adaptive, there was different monsters for different playstyles. i remember antling parties in one of the thanalan mines as well, and hogs were great high level, oh yeah antelopes and hippogryphs in the 20s. (3-6 man) or duo when you got higher.

now the game is basically leve link only and behest only, at low levels of challenge. they need to change sp gains or no one will learn to use the new battle system well. and people will ignore 75% of the game and monsters.