Goodbye Battle Regimens

[Zanfire]

It's obvious many people never experienced a well executed BR... vent helps ^^. If you stack 2 magic spells from 2 different classes, then pile on the weapon skills... the guys that stacked near the end will do massive damage. Ever seen a 1500~ damage Chaos Thrust on Batraal? Now imagine the 2 spells do either DoT or 300~500 damage, first 2~3 weapon skills do 400~600 damage and the last 2~3 weapon skills do 1000~1500 damage. That gives you a potential to do around 4000 damage on Batraal in less than 5 seconds. Did I mention if you do a defense down debuff you do more damage? When regular hits do more damage you get more TP. Then you can pile on other stuff and put restraint debuffs on the mob.

The ONLY downside is getting locked in BR. That can be solved with a close knit LS or even static party that uses voice communication. I only hope BR ver. 2 will be much more fluid while keeping or enhancing the effects of BRs.

Edit: You can even do mage DD parties. Two WS from 2 different classes then pile magics... damage is comparable or better if you tune the magics to the mob's weakness.

The big flaw here is communication, especially in a game is cross region and cross platform, we wont always have that option, particularly when your in a grind party or a quick raid or something with people who might not speak your language (after playing years of FFXI, im not the type who only plays with LS members)

[Rhylee_Mau]

It can be solved with party chat spam (though I don't really like spam)

/p {Battle Regiment} {Regiment of Ruin} defence down 3s. (Or any random timer adjusted to party compatibility)
/wait 1
/br on
/wait 1
/ac *normal attack/magic* <t>

and

/p {Battle Regiment} {Weapon Skill} {Ready!} 3s.
/wait 1
/br on
/wait 1
/ac *weapon skill/magic spell* <t>

You'll have your FFXI feel of skill chains.

Edit: Might as well try it, screw around with it and have some fun before they take it away. Who knows, it might help people burn through Ogre and Batraal on speed runs ^^

[Orca]

Are you serious?? o.O I remember in random exp parties I used to have a macro announcing my WS in 5 secs, saying wich WS I wanted people to use and wich SC would have come out, still I was having a hell of a time getting people to do that. Also I had to remember all of the different combinations and update my macros based on the party setup.
I never ever saw a SC coming out of nowhere.

BR is much easier, the only problem people have with it is that they don't know how it works. If I have to do BR first I ask if everyone know how it works, usually they don't, so I spend 2 minutes explaining how activating it and what different combination does. Then, since I am pretty familiar with the system I tell them that I'll open the BR whenever I see more than 2 ppl with TP and that if they see a normal attack they have to stack another normal attack, if they see a WS they have to stack a WS. This is just the basic knowledge of the system, there's much more to know when you're doing it in a well trained party fighting NM, but it's still ok for grind parties.

After explaining this usually the flow of the battle is pretty quick, there isn't any waste of time, any wasted WS or any failed attempt, it's easy to explain and easy to remember and once people see the benefit they love it.

I guess we've just had different experiences. ^^ Excluding a few new players, i never came across anyone who didnt know how to SC, the only reason i saw a decline was because people just couldn't be bothered to do it and that wasnt until around the time Aht Urghan came out. Im not sure if that attitude bred a generation who didnt know how to use it, or what but when i played there were more than enough players who could close a SC without having to be commanded, i loved doing it and id close them myself or do the MB. I havent touched it in a couple of years but people i know who still play are often very surprised to see a SC or MB below the 50's now. When i first got the game there were random SCs and MBs all the way up to crawlers nest, it wasnt til after that that i noticed it got a bit more organised.

I'm not saying BR is bad or ineffective, i dont disagree with anything you said. Again, maybe we had different experiences and you were out there on day 1 BR'ing for all your worth and taking to it like a fish to water. For me? I found it an annoyance for a variety of reasons. I do like SC and MB, but im not hung up on it, im cool with BR being the system, i just liked XI's system and picked it up very quickly. I found it fun as soon as i tried it and not stressful, unlike BR which i found clunky and finnicky, (my opinion) but im totally aware that i dont have experience with it, and im more than set to have another bash once SE brings it back.

[Alcide]

People like to defend unoptimized system just for the sake of arguing and calling people down by telling them they don't know how to use the BR.

Fact is, no one in their right mind could favor the BR "input action to queue and wait" system over the more intuitive system the SC had. It's not a matter of damage and how the mobs die quickly anyways. They can keep the idea of the BR and debuff system, just the way to USE it should be modified to be like SC were used

Want to do an attack debuff? Instead of iniating a BR with a normal attack and wait for someone to queue another normal attack and then wait for the BR to be initiated, why would people be so against just calling out you are about to do a normal attack and then someone else could do another normal attack to successfully perform the regimen.

The only adjustment would need to determine which normal attacks could be used for it and give them a proper CD (20-30sec) so that you cannot spam the regimen and forces you to coordinate the attacks.

Edit: just to be clear, I am not arguing the effectiveness of well executed BR nor the fact that SCs ala FFXI would be useless against grinding mobs (so are BR mostly). I am arguing that the current BR system is unoptimized and very cumbersome to use, not at all intuitive.

I might say that people like to defend an old and disorganized system like SC just for the sake of saying "XI was better".

Face it, BR is the natural evolution of SC, the reason why you have to stack a skill is that whenever you do so you're SURE a BR is gonna be performed, wheter it's gonna be effective or not depends on the player's knowledge of the system. You just can't say the same about SC, you could do tons of attempts, doing 10 WS asking for a SC and you could potentially never see one (honestly I find it hard to belive that anyone who played XI never had issues getting ppl to perform SC in random parties).

And we say that people don't like BR because they don't know how to use it because the only argument is the waiting time. You just don't have to wait, if you're waiting your party is doing it wrong. Organize yourself and communicate with your party (damn it's an mmo, you HAVE to communicate -.-) untill you get a nice timing.

@Zanfire: SHIFT+skill if using the keyboard, emote instead of select on the skill if using the gamepad, only one person press an extra button to release, I really don't think the execution can be made simplier...

[Arcell]

And we say that people don't like BR because they don't know how to use it because the only argument is the waiting time. You just don't have to wait, if you're waiting your party is doing it wrong. Organize yourself and communicate with your party (damn it's an mmo, you HAVE to communicate -.-) untill you get a nice timing.

@Zanfire: SHIFT+skill if using the keyboard, emote instead of select on the skill if using the gamepad, only one person press an extra button to release, I really don't think the execution can be made simplier...

Exactly. Honestly if the party I'm with is lagging on timing with BRs I just tend to start giving them timed ultimatums. Starting BR, 10 seconds and I'm activating it. This tends to get people to respond much more quickly Otherwise though if you communicate with your group it's very easy to get these done in less than 5 seconds.

Also now with auto-attack being "stuck" in BR mode isn't even as big of a problem. You can still use your auto-attack and move in BR mode.

[Zanfire]

really? what was so disorganized about it? it was simple and it worked. FFXIV just takes that system and makes you click to start it up and click again to execute it, and while in that process your locked in. I REALLY dont see how thats an "evolution"..to me that sounds like more inbetween annoyances.

But either way, they are changing it so i personally dont care how much you loved it, it not going to be that same thing anymore.

[Alcide]

really? what was so disorganized about it? it was simple and it worked. FFXIV just takes that system and makes you click to start it up and click again to execute it, and while in that process your locked in. I REALLY dont see how thats an "evolution"..to me that sounds like more inbetween annoyances.

But either way, they are changing it so i personally dont care how much you loved it, it not going to be that same thing anymore.

I already said why I think SC was unintuitive and disorganized, I'm not gonna repeat myself coz I know in a few pages someone is gonna point out that I'm always saying the same thing XD Still I fail to see why it takes so many "clicks" for you, it's just 1 extra button for only 1 person out of potentially 8 in BR, the process of stacking a skill is exactly the same as performing it if you know the hotkeys, you have to click 1 more button if you're doing it with the mouse, but I don't think you're gonna die of arthritis for 1 button...

But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a perfect system, I think it's really poor in combinations and gets boring after the "WHOOOOA DAMAGE!" thing, but still the foundation is easy to teach, easy to understand and easy to perform.
I think that with the correct tweaking it has the potential to be a much more interesting and intuitive system than SC. I know they're changing it and that's a good thing, but I hope they're gonna fix and improve it rather than scrap it and go back to SC.

[Perrin_Aybarra]

Exactly. Honestly if the party I'm with is lagging on timing with BRs I just tend to start giving them timed ultimatums. Starting BR, 10 seconds and I'm activating it. This tends to get people to respond much more quickly Otherwise though if you communicate with your group it's very easy to get these done in less than 5 seconds.

Also now with auto-attack being "stuck" in BR mode isn't even as big of a problem. You can still use your auto-attack and move in BR mode.

Maybe for a melee this isn't an issue, I'll give you that. An archer or a mage on the other hand just waits there like a fool until it's executed. Even if it's a 5-10sec wait, it's still 5-10 too long of doing nothing while maybe the tank needs a cure.

@Alcide, if you read what I said, I do not defend FFXI's SC nor do I attack the idea of the BR system. I like the fact that it's very flexible and the various effect it has. What is clunky and very unituitive is the way we have to execute it. It's not a matter of communication nor of understanding the system. It's a matter of execution.

Like I said, a 5-10 wait is still too long. I like how SC were executed and I don't see how it could not be applied to the BR concept when it comes to initiating and closing a BR.

Edit: Like you said though in the post above, BR is not perfect and could be improved which is exactly what they are doing. What's the point in arguing and defending it when it does need improvements.

[Armozel]

Yeah, the whole system seems wonky at times. BR needs to be something like the combo system in Chronotrigger, imo. Where an attack combo can be initiated but for more TP and MP (plus some timer or potency mechanic to reduce spamming).

[Alcide]

Edit: Like you said though in the post above, BR is not perfect and could be improved which is exactly what they are doing. What's the point in arguing and defending it when it does need improvements.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a perfect system, I think it's really poor in combinations and gets boring after the "WHOOOOA DAMAGE!" thing, but still the foundation is easy to teach, easy to understand and easy to perform.
I think that with the correct tweaking it has the potential to be a much more interesting and intuitive system than SC. I know they're changing it and that's a good thing, but I hope they're gonna fix and improve it rather than scrap it and go back to SC.

I think this has to be sayed since everytime they try to fix something they just scrap it >.>