Battle Reform Blueprint

[SuzakuCMX]

over all id say the new sp system is worse, because before you would find parties all the time, you could log in and get some decent SP fairly quickly, and you didnt have to rely on leve failing. You also got to explore the world and fight various different types of monsters.

Now, regular mobs are by and far worthless, only raptors are good for high level exp
it takes no skill to get sp in behests, and not much to beat leves 10 levels higher than you.
leve linking discourages random parties, and encourages leve failing in the same locations with the same people.
The current SP reward system is killing parties/socialization/explorartion even more than the old one turned people off. there are a lot of people who didnt even know that la noscea had efts, and have 3 jobs at 50. How many of you have fought the zombies and skeletons at the bottom of tam tara? how many of you have fought the level 64 dragons that roam around looking for trouble.

How many people have exped outside of ul dah from level 30-44?

The current SP system is really bad, not because hard or confusing, but because it rewards you for fighting the same crap, in the same places, no matter what your party make up, with the same people, with a very low level of skill required, and encourages you to log off right after.

until they make other content besides leves give SP no one will do anything but leves, until they give more sp for fighting difficult stuff, no one will fight anything difficult, until they reward you for learning how to do your job and maximize your potential, no will learn how to play thier jobs at a high level of skill. Until they give you different SP for fighting mobs with different skills people will always fight the easiest mob with the weakest skills.

this SP system is the worst thing to happen to this game overall. they need to fix it, or all the battle changes in the world wont matter

You don't have to rely on leve failing unless you're one of the impatient people who wants to rush to R50 instead of learning the nuances of all their spells and abilities. Levelinking and Behests a bit above your level give plenty of XP/SP to level up at a reasonable rate.

Everyone XP'd outside of Ul'dah because you cannot XP inside Ul'dah.

Old SP system encouraged playing badly. Getting hit by tons of stuff, making skills that reduce damage detrimental, using broken armor so that you would take more damage = more SP, etc. Solo play was impossible for something that was supposed to be a more casual MMO.

Your argument seems to be centered around skillful play and lack of mob variety for strategy and SP drops...that is a problem with the battle system, not with the way SP is gained. All abilities are more or less the same because Rank matters far more than stats. DoM do not function differently in a party, meaning they're basically heal spambots with occasional nukes and DoTs. Everyone else just spams 1 and damage abilities. The new SP system works better since the most efficient way is to kill things quickly. Buffs that reduce damage and self-buffs are not useless, Archers are not going to be excluded from parties, Healers can heal themselves, you don't have to wait for someone to be low enough to give you the best possible SP from a heal before healing them, you don't have to draw battles out long enough so everyone can get the best SP for their class, etc.

Sorry but you're favoring a flawed system over one that leaves room for more important things. Maybe if they super balanced the old system it would work better, but right now the system works fine and the problem lies within mob difficulty vs. SP rates, not within which way of awarding SP is better.

EDIT: Also, was the amount of XP/SP needed to level/rank up higher with the old system? From that thread it seems like people are getting an insane amount of SP from stuff :X

[Rentahamster]

over all id say the new sp system is worse, because before you would find parties all the time, you could log in and get some decent SP fairly quickly, and you didnt have to rely on leve failing. You also got to explore the world and fight various different types of monsters.

this SP system is the worst thing to happen to this game overall. they need to fix it, or all the battle changes in the world wont matter

You could find parties because all anyone would ever do is just log on and log off at the raptor and eft camps. Plus, we had more overall people back then. Grinding back in September on open world mobs is exactly the same as it is now: kill efts and raptors.

Just because the new SP system still has its problems doesn't mean the old SP system was good.


Back in September, there was no balance because open world SP party grinding was decent SP and guildleves was crap SP.

Then in November, there was no balance because open world SP party grinding was crap SP, solo coblyn genocide was so-so SP, and guildleves were sorta decent SP.

Then, with the SP system as it is now, there is no balance because open world SP party grinding on raptors and efts is decent again, but it pales in comparison to the SP bonanza that is guild leve llinking.

As the devs fixed certain issues over the past 8 months, they caused almost as many problems as they fixed.

A lot of the problems with SP and partying today are made even worse due to the fact that there's hardly anyone playing this game anymore. At least back in September, we had the luxury of a large-ish population to play with.

so wrong, but at this point its also irrelevant.

I'll agree that it's irrelevant.


Anyway, there are a lot of things wrong with the SP system as it currently is now, and a lot of that has to do with the bad way in which the guild leve system is designed and how that incentivezes all the wrong behaviors and encourages players to do stupid stuff like fail on purpose.

One way to bring open-world mob grinding back into balance would be with the suggestions I made in the "how to fix SP" thread.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-How-to-Fix-it

also, this: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Dynamic-Erozea

[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.

[Jinrya-Geki]

I hated the old sp system with behest as a conjurer. I started casting fire, oh look the monsters dead, no sp for me.

So happy with the current sp, I may not hit the target before it dies, but at least I was attempting to do so.

[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.

[Colino]

So uh... What's Speed Surge going to do?

[Physic]

So uh... What's Speed Surge going to do?

prolly increase your auto attack speed, or..... nothing but drain hp.

[Soukyuu]

When that was in some Nanny Goats were blocking a cave and i couldn't get in to do my GL. I was to low at the time to fight the goats. The goats were cock blockin me from mt GL. I failed it because of that.. It sucked.

Just an idea, why don't you pull them and run away? Also, if SE haven't turned off monster curiosity, it wouldn't have been a problem - but people complained about monster following them forever and instead of simply reducing the distance, SE turned it off.

Sorry, but real life is not a video game. In real life you have far more options as far as maneuverability is concerned than you do in any game, which usually means that games have to make compensations in one way or another.

It's only a matter of creativity. Many people nowadays seem to be either rather uncreative or lazy.
I had zero problems when the collision was still on.
Yet people wanted to dumb the game down - congratulations, SE gave in yet again.

It seems as if SE is willing to do anything to make this game succeed, but they seem to have lost a clear direction of where they want the game to head to and are jumping back and forth changing everything to appeal to countless requests. I have no problems with changes to the things that are clearly in need of changing, but dumbing the game down is what breaks it for me. The more realism this game loses, the less chances it has to interest me to stay. The only reason I'm still here is that I don't have time to start playing another game and that I still have a (really small) hope SE will get their act together.

[Seif]

I agree with Soukyuu.

They could have fixed so many things that they decided to ruin completely because it was easier.

Even the battle system fixes that were promised to be a complete overhaul seems like they're just tweaking some stats. Same with the crafting system. The gameplay during crafting isn't fun so instead of making something enjoyable they decided to cut the whole process.

Same applies to quests and missions too. Everything works like a leve nothing more. I don't even care about their endless explanations on the lodestone I'd rather just see something substantial in the game itself that works in an enjoyable way but there's nothing there.