SE, can you test the damn patch b4 releasing it?

[Hotohori]

I honestly did not want to comment about the MP cost changes but this topic is very clear that there is a situation where both sides of the argument are right. On one side there is an opinion that the change was balanced but this opinion is coming from the side where the player is often rank 50 mage and physical level 50 (character is well developed). The opposing side is in severe dissatisfaction with the change and are often a mage of low to mid rank and not physical level 50. I myself have tested the new cure costs recently and even observed my friend play her rank 13 conjurer with physical level 16 this morning.

My opinion on the MP change is that it is balanced, but not for any character that is not well developed in skills and physical level prior to the change. I have many mp recovery tools at my disposal and excess skill points to distribute to mind if needed. The change of cost to cures did not effect my game play greatly in any way. My friend has 400 hp and 430 mp as I saw today and she was struggling to kill monsters of equal rank and severely slow in mp recovery. She does not have Thaumaturge even unlocked and asking how her stat distribution was set, I realized she did not even have any points to really remove from her other stats to add into vitality or mind.

The MP change was surely not balanced with an underdeveloped character in mind. It was balanced with the ideal of how strongly a factor it would be for a high ranked, high leveled character with optimized skills and gear. My friends gear was very good because I personally crafted them for her and the amount of damage she received at her rank in proportion to the amount of healing she required was not fair in the least. Mages will get hit hard is simply the truth and when soloing, it is a factor that needs to be considered.

The concerns that I have for post 1.19 with the soon removal of the physical level system is that there will be a new wave of low to mid rank mage players who will feel their capabilities have been reduced further through the fact that their formerly physical level 50 characters have only the stat point totals of their rank 20 mage class to spend into attributes. When you have 500 points to allocate onto a rank 20 class, nothing is difficult to kill still honestly regardless of class.

My current opinion about battle post 1.18 would be something like so.
1) Mages are now very inefficient soloists who have the most difficult circumstances of to overcome in battle. Mage classes are now highly dependent on another to ease or make proficient use of time to skill up. (it's overall a lot slower if character is not well developed enough to be self proficient.)
2) Melee classes are overly easy in comparison with increase accuracy and reduced input through auto attack. If I wanted to, my lancer could stand and attack a monster in party and never pull hate by simply not using skills while providing substantial dps for the group. My damage may not be optimized but chances are my emnity will not rise greater then an attentive tank + healer.

Again this is just my opinion from what I felt playing as these classes and could easily be argued by other peoples opinions equally. My mage class ranks are 46 conjurer and 32 thaumaturge while my friend is 13 conjurer with no thaumaturge. Watching her play today reminded me of how hard it was to start as a tarutaru black mage in final fantasy 11 back in 2002 without having a white mage sub job. If you can remember how that experience felt originally back then, you can probably relate to the current situation for a low/underdeveloped mage is feeling now in final fantasy 14 but without a suitable party outlet of experiencing afterwards.