What can the dev team do to satisfy the critics of 1.18?

[Reaujien]

I want people to understand what's behind the changes in this patch. In design, there are trade-offs. For instance, when a developer changes one thing, but creates a bug somewhere else, this is an instance of a trade off. The new thing works in the build, but the trade-off is that the old thing doesn't.

I'm sorry, but that's not called a "trade-off" - that's simply called a bug, or an unintended side-effect. A bug is when something is not working as designed or not at all, whereas a trade-off is knowingly making a change that affects two things (one negative while the other positive) but both are still working and working as designed.

Let's take a look at the anecdotal evidence here on the boards..

It should be obvious to people putting the facts together:

Wait a tick - how can something be anecdotal but at the same time factual as well?

Let's take a look at some of the (unintended) consequences of patch 1.18:

-Looking for members Darkhold GLA/CON/CON/CON/CON/ARC/ARC/ARC, leaving out other classes

That's because players either a) aren't good, or b) simply have separation anxiety from pre-1.18 and don't want to rework and rethink their play strategies. Trust me, as a game developer, we play-test changes/new content for it's "playability" before releasing to the players; and if the SE dev play-testers were only able to play Darkhold with the party setup that you asserted above then we all may as well quit the game. However, I've seen some good changes from this new dev team and I'm confident they were able to play Darkhold with a much different setup.

-Leveled Thaumaturge for months just for healing, but now have to set the whole class aside and level the healer class du jour

Beginning description from official THM description : "In the hands of a skilled practitioner, thaumaturgy can be a force of terrifying destruction." ... WHOOPS! And you (or whomever you're referring to above) thought this would be the best class to level just for healing? Interesting choice - to each their own I suppose.

-Running out of MP while soloing guildleves

This can't mean everyone because I only run out of MP while soloing guildleves if I rush and forget to pause for a few seconds between each kill and let my MP auto-refresh itself a number of ticks (not to mention running while in combat-mode).

-Baffling hate spikes throughout the game - need a R30 Lancer ability for tanking?

Maybe - why not? In FFXI you needed /WHM to get any regularly available AoE healing abilities, let alone the -na spells. (And before anyone rages out and goes "THIS IS FFXIV NOT FFXI" you'd do well to remember that EVERY FF game in the series has been influenced by past FF titles). So, to be a "good" tank you may need to swap out a few abilities, or maybe it would be worth-while to make sure to include a certain class/role in your pt to help with whatever it may be. I mean, after all, didn't Yoshi (or some dev post on a forum) mention that holding threat isn't always going to be 100% on the tank's shoulders? I think so but I can't recall the specific letter/post/etc.

-Offensive build Conjurers in low demand

And this is the dev's fault that players/groups can't see the benefits of an offensive CNJ? Or is it just that a good offensive CNJ just doesn't exist yet because he or she is getting re-acclimated to the overall changes to the DoM classes? So in that "GLA/CON/CON/CON/CON/ARC/ARC/ARC" setup that you mentioned above, not ONE of those CNJ is equipped for an offensive role?

-Hybrid Conjurers with less abilities to contribute in battle because resources shifted toward healing

Shouldn't you only have "hybrid" makeups when you're already solid on the roles that make up the "hybrid" in the first place? That is, assuming you mean a "hybrid CNJ" both nukes, debuffs, and heals, wouldn't that only work if you had a dedicated healer or dedicated nuker or dedicated debuffer already in the party/group? Seems to me that it's simply a bad role setup for the group/situation. Afterall, the hybrid DoW player would probably have some sort of a cure/sacrifice/protect/shell/etc. spell on them while they are soloing, but would set abilities specifically for say tanking or DD while in a group and ignore the other "hybrid" spells/abilities.

-Archers upset with their recast times

If someone took away the cocaine from drug addicts and replaced it with apples I'm sure they would would be upset too.

So we've seen that the trade-off for the above issues is the rewarding gameplay in Darkhold. Now ask yourself, is 1 dungeon's gameplay significant enough to throw the balance of the entire remaining game off? I'd say: the dev team got carried away in the rush to make a competent dungeon. They forgot about the rest of the game because they had too much riding on it. They were already nervous about releasing it before the battle changes were finished but they were embarrassed by releasing nothing for over 3 months straight. They were backed into a corner and they panicked. They balanced recast timers and ability changes around Darkhold -

Do you watch Glen Beck? Or do you follow Michelle Bauchmann on Twitter?

I'm not sure where you're getting the information that would support your suggestion that the dev team got "carried away" while making Darkhold and so they "forgot" about the rest of the game because I'm seeing a lot of content in this patch that has nearly nothing to do with the battle system or either of the two dungeons.

As far as the battle changes, it's been well-communicated that all the changes weren't going to be in just one single patch, but instead they wer going to span multiple patches. Are you sure you want to go as far as to suggest that they temporarily "balanced recast timers and ability changes" just so they could "nervously" release some sort of end-game content such as Darkhold? So does that mean, then, when they finish all the changes to the battle system that these "recast timers and ability changes" which you speak of will be ... re-changed/balanced again around whatever future content is added?

but the question is: is this arbitrary fact enough to justify going further down this path?

Actually, before anyone thinks about attempting to ponder that question I have an honest question: What do you mean by this? I mean, respectfully, I'm confused by this, and I'm thinking it's your word usage. What is an "arbitrary fact"? It sounds as if you're contradicting yourself because for something to be arbitrary (e.g., a decision) it is based purely on one's subjective perspective in that no context at all suggests nor guarantees the existence of any factual information.

Should the dev team reverse course on some of the unpopular changes and find another way to balance gameplay in Darkhold? Yes.

I might be missing something, but was there another survey that was sent out to the entire player [active/inactive] community related to the changes of 1.18 wherein the results provided empirical evidence to suggest that the changes you've mentioned were unpopular overall?

What are the dev team's options?

-Continue down the same path of balancing classes around dungeons
-Or balance battle in all situations, including dungeons

The dev team should take into account all battle situations: solo, party, guildleve, low-tier NM, world NM, dungeon, enthusiast soloing

I'm pretty sure the New Years survey suggested that the majority of players wanted to participate and group/party gameplay whether doing missions or quests or whatever; and I'm equally as sure that the majority of players also wanted more class/role uniqueness and less of a "melting pot". Why, then, should the battle system be geared in such a way to give special accommodations for any class/role to engage in solo battles and yet still be able to perform at the capacity that is required to fill a specific role during group/party battles?

MP costs should be balanced to take into account soloing, or it should be left as is and MP regen food should be added and MP restoring mana drinks between fights

First off, you can't formulate MP costs in favor of solo-play without unbalancing party-play. It's like wanting to pay less taxes and wanting a bigger social security check - ebb and flow. Also, isn't "Ether" a word to describe "MP restoring mana drinks"? The game has these already. And how do you know future patches won't contain MP-regen food/drinks?

Enmity needs to be tested thoroughly in all situations before being patched.

Actually, only non-solo, battle situations need to be "tested thoroughly" (which I'm willing to bet they already are) because enmity doesn't even matter when you're in solo-battle.

[Neptune]

I'm impressed that you wrote such a long response to me. I know it must have taken a long time to add all those tags. I will do the same in my response to you. I don't have time to read everything in this thread but I will respond eventually to it all.

We seem to have some fundamental misunderstandings. I'm not trying to be rude, but you may want to consult a dictionary.

a trade-off is knowingly making a change that affects two things (one negative while the other positive) but both are still working and working as designed.

This definition is in no way representative of the concept "trade-off". What you have defined is a trade-off to you, which is only useful to yourself and probably shouldn't be mentioned in conversation to other people. Let's have the American Heritage Dictionary define trade off for us: "An exchange of one thing in return for another, especially relinquishment of one benefit or advantage for another regarded as more desirable"

http://www.answers.com/topic/trade-off

Wait a tick - how can something be anecdotal but at the same time factual as well?

I'm not trying to make you feel bad but let's get out the dictionary once again:

anecdote: brief narrative of a particular incident. An anecdote differs from a short story in that it is unified in time and space, is uncomplicated, and deals with a single episode. The literal Greek meaning of the word is "not published," and it still retains some such sense of confidentiality.

http://www.answers.com/topic/anecdote

Hopefully the basic concept is clear now. An anecdote may or may note be factual, just as anything may or may not be factual - but in this context an anecdote is an account of what happened in-game.

That's because players either a) aren't good, or b) simply have separation anxiety from pre-1.18 and don't want to rework and rethink their play strategies. Trust me, as a game developer, we play-test changes/new content for it's "playability" before releasing to the players; and if the SE dev play-testers were only able to play Darkhold with the party setup that you asserted above then we all may as well quit the game. However, I've seen some good changes from this new dev team and I'm confident they were able to play Darkhold with a much different setup.

This statement shows some puzzling logic. Do you think that party description of GLA/CON/ARC means those are good players or capable players? I wonder why you would think that. All of the players of classes are on average of equal skill level - this skew to these 3 classes is because of game environment changes. It's due to the changes in the patch. Specifically, the Gladiator is the tank, the several Conjurers are there because of the increase in MP costs, and the Archers are there because they don't get hit by close range area of effect attacks. Why are these last 2 things so significant? You'll notice the changes in the patch to MP cost. The increase of MP means now there are 2-3 less spots for other classes because a party needs that much more MP just to stay alive. The proliferation of Archers is also due to MP costs. Since the (three to four) mages (still) don't have enough MP to cure 3 melee range classes, they are absent, with Archers replacing them. The moral of this simple story is that because of one change (MP cost) you lose about 6 class spots in a serious party.

On another note, I'm puzzled by why you assumed that just because those classes (GLA/CON/ARC) were mentioned that SE might have playtested the dungeon with them. You must have linked the fact that they are the "best" setup with SE's top-notch testing. In fact, it's the opposite. The dev team tested the dungeon with all the classes, as one would expect, but the playerbase follows the path of least resistance. In other words, the playerbase responds to the game environment. The dev team changes the environment, and the water flows in the shape of the riverbed they designed whether they designed it on purpose or not. The testing process is too limited of scope - that's why it can't detect what the playerbase will do. The dev team wasn't smart enough to see the outcome of what they were changing - because they would not intend for a 3 class emphasis to appear in the player base. This is something they have to change. Think of the riverbed analogy. They have to re-carve that shape so the water will flow correctly.. not into 3 classes.

Beginning description from official THM description : "In the hands of a skilled practitioner, thaumaturgy can be a force of terrifying destruction." ... WHOOPS! And you (or whomever you're referring to above) thought this would be the best class to level just for healing? Interesting choice - to each their own I suppose.

The website description doesn't show why many leveled Thaumaturge as a main healer. The website also says miners can help parties in combat.

Thaumaturge has a conal aoe. When it cast heals, they had a longer range than Conjurer and would travel out from the Thaumaturge to players at all distances between the monster and the healer. A Conjurer cure spell would only radiate a short distance around the target. It makes more sense to keep distance from the enemy and heal all the players in the party instead of just some. That is the reason.

This can't mean everyone because I only run out of MP while soloing guildleves if I rush and forget to pause for a few seconds between each kill and let my MP auto-refresh itself a number of ticks (not to mention running while in combat-mode).

The point of relevance here is that previously, guildleves as representing solo content were set up so that you could complete the objective without waiting to heal. They have slowed down. People have a problem with it because soloing is already slower than party play - it's like going from bad to worse.

Maybe - why not? In FFXI you needed /WHM to get any regularly available AoE healing abilities, let alone the -na spells. (And before anyone rages out and goes "THIS IS FFXIV NOT FFXI" you'd do well to remember that EVERY FF game in the series has been influenced by past FF titles). So, to be a "good" tank you may need to swap out a few abilities, or maybe it would be worth-while to make sure to include a certain class/role in your pt to help with whatever it may be. I mean, after all, didn't Yoshi (or some dev post on a forum) mention that holding threat isn't always going to be 100% on the tank's shoulders? I think so but I can't recall the specific letter/post/etc.

The problem I see with the R30 Lancer ability being a must-have for tanking is that nothing about that ability made it the dominant ability before this patch. It's just the random changes to the enmity system that made it stand out. The problem is that you can't go messing around with the game environment without checking to see the unintended effects en masse. Do you really think the dev team intended that ability to be more powerful than Provoke? No, they didn't. It's a coincidence. We need less coincidences when it comes to the enmity system.

And this is the dev's fault that players/groups can't see the benefits of an offensive CNJ?

Yes it is, you're exactly right. You don't see the burden as being on the dev team because you see that the initial contact of a certain build of class is with other players. Consider the view from the top-down. It should be obvious because of how dramatic the change was with the patch. It may seem unrelated to you, but the values the dev team chose for the MP costs are the cause of player behavior. It motivates people to see Conjurers as main healers.

Shouldn't you only have "hybrid" makeups when you're already solid on the roles that make up the "hybrid" in the first place?

This statement is irrelevant because there is no real hybrid build of Conjurer - its abilities are a combination of black magic and white magic. There is no precondition because existing as a Conjurer is a hybrid makeup.

Do you watch Glen Beck? Or do you follow Michelle Bauchmann on Twitter?

I dislike Glenn Beck very much.

I'm not sure where you're getting the information that would support your suggestion that the dev team got "carried away" while making Darkhold and so they "forgot" about the rest of the game because I'm seeing a lot of content in this patch that has nearly nothing to do with the battle system or either of the two dungeons.

Again we can see some logic that got off course. You are taking the thought "forgot about the rest of the game" and comparing it with all the new stuff you see that isn't an instanced raid. That might not be the most.. ..fruitful path to go down. My meaning was that they forgot about the rest of the battle gameplay outside the raid instance. This should be pretty obvious by now if you consider the whole picture of battle gameplay.

Are you sure you want to go as far as to suggest that they temporarily "balanced recast timers and ability changes" just so they could "nervously" release some sort of end-game content such as Darkhold?

Of course I'm sure. I think the case is built pretty well, except that I never said "temporarily". These changes are permanent and of course, subject to small tweaks if the dev team is left unchecked.