[dev1206] Class Reforms: why the 15/11 limit?

[Monsalvato]

I'd just want to read opinions from other people as to why they implemented the 15/11 limit in their new design for classes (15 Actions, 11 Job Traits).
Maybe by putting all of our ideas together I'll be able to understand what developers had in their minds, and at that point maybe I'll be able to say I agree or not with their point.

To me it seems a particularly useless set of chains they're binding themselves with, with their own hands.
Let me explain further.

If it were about having a "generic goal" of making so classes stay as close as possible to 15/11 it wouldn't be that bad, but here we're talking about a very strict rule they have to follow no matter what.
They have to make so classes are:

• Fun to play
• Different enough from each other
• More or less balanced (can't have too strong and too weak classes

I perfectly understand and agree with this, but setting a 15/11 limit is not the way the go, it can actually create more issues than the ones it may solve.
What if a class reaches the forementioned three goals with, say, 12/9? They'd be "forced" to add 3 further actions and 2 further traits.
But since the class is already fun, different and balanced, those new things will most likely be useless, unoriginal and, in reality, just "placeholders".
They wouldn't add those things because the class needs them or because they thing the class would benefit from them, but because they HAVE TO, to respect the 15/11 limit they imposed on themselves.
Opposite situation, what happens if 15/11 is not enough?
They won't be able to do anything, because they have to respect the 15/11 limit.

Which brings us exactely to the Disciples of Magic problem with this incoming patch 1.20.
15 actions can possibly be enough for a melee class, which tipically relies on stances and abilities, but it will never be enough for a magic class which relies on a couple of abilities but also on a wide variety of spells.
The class reforms shows this issues quite clearly, 15 is not enough to offer variety up to the standards a Final Fantasy game is supposed to live up to.
They made quite a big mess there... even with the splitting of spells between CNJ and THM and the lack of water ones.
The source of these problems lies in two main causes, imo

1. They promised CNJ > WHM and THM > BLM. That's of course wrong because of many reasons, it should have been CNJ > WHM + BLM and THM > something else. But of course they couldn't help it because it wouldn't be "balanced" to add 2 jobs to CNJ and 1 to every other class (altough eventually that will happen, just not in time for 1.21 of course)
2. Even removing most of the debuffs, the majority of which had a debateable efficiency anyway, you're still bound to 15 actions between job abilities and spells, for a whole group of 50 levels... that's really wrong.

The problem at 1) wasn't an easy one, and the source of that is probably in the bad planning the original team did while creating the two different DoM classes.
But still... have they tried enough? And while I can understand there was no easy solution to this issue, is the one they found satisfying? For me, it's rather disappointing.
And the problem at 2) I just don't understand.
Which brings us back to the main question of this thread:

What is the purpose of having the strict limit of 15/11 actions?

What do they gain from that? What do we gain from that?
It seems to me just a limit for developers that will only bring issues, rather than solving them.

[Junpei]

Actually, you summed up the 15 actions pretty well in your opening statement

Fun to play - With fewer abilities, they can make them all worthwhile. Cant count the number of times I levelled up on CON and thought "wow, wonder what i get in another 2 levels cause thats piss."

Different enough from each other - unlike now where many abilities on melee classes are pretty much the same, or share animations with other abilities, this will no longer happen. class uniqueness is pronounced when the abilities are fewer and more useful

More or less balanced (can't have too strong and too weak classes) - by giving each character a set amount of skills, no one class will be more or less capable of coping in different situations. A mage with a skill for every possible outcome is more worthwhile that a melee that only has 1 avenue of abilities. By reducing them down to fixed amounts it will make balancing easier.

[Shneibel]

*read the wall of text*

how about try it out before make those thread (and why we need another one in the first place ? )

Even removing most of the debuffs, the majority of which had a debateable efficiency anyway, you're still bound to 15 actions between job abilities and spells, for a whole group of 50 levels... that's really wrong.

it is 15 + 10 = 25

They promised CNJ > WHM and THM > BLM. That's of course wrong because of many reasons, it should have been CNJ > WHM + BLM and THM > something else. But of course they couldn't help it because it wouldn't be "balanced" to add 2 jobs to CNJ and 1 to every other class (altough eventually that will happen, just not in time for 1.21 of course)

that is a way to make it, but the DEV choose another way to make the game so no, neither you or "them" are wrong

[Betelgeuzah]

Look at the song list: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Bard

How many of them are actually used in gameplay, especially at endgame?

Why have all that filler in there taking space and being generally useless? If you can't answer that question, they need to be removed.

[PrettyPrincess]

Look at the song list: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Bard

How many of them are actually used in gameplay, especially at endgame?

Why have all that filler in there taking space and being generally useless? If you can't answer that question, they need to be removed.

omg Betel stop making me agree with you WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO!? D:

[grandm]

i think it could be programming. if all classes have a 15 action limit the programmers only have to write out 1 program and not 7 different ones. we are always rushing them "quick, quick give me the next patch i need it now," we are like some kind of junky that needs their next hit :P

it could be as mentioned streamlining there was a lot of crap abilitities that never got used

or it could be that the old system with the number quota was tanakas vision of how abilities should be limited, and this system is how yoshi thinks it would work

(or i could be way off and it could be something else :P)

[Monsalvato]

that is a way to make it, but the DEV choose another way to make the game so no, neither you or "them" are wrong

I don't think I said they are wrong, or rather I did not mean it that way.
I wanted to say that while I understand it wasn't an easy situation, I still find the solution they proposed disappointing.
Concerning the 15/11 thing I think they're not necessarily wrong, but that I do not understand the reason why they went that way. Not being able to understand their reasons, I'm of course unable to say wether they did the right or wrong thing, wether I agree or not with them. That's one of the things I was trying to understand here. Sorry if I gave the wrong impressions, didn't mean to randomly whine or troll.

Once more concerning the 15/11 thing and replying to Junpei as well:
We should split it into the 3 full parts

1. 10 free actions - You "limit" the amount of actions from other classes you can equip, this number will be inferior to the total number of action you can equip. There's very little to argue here, I absolutely agree. The classes needed to feel more "unique" from each other. Going on THM and equipping 28/30 CNJ actions (extreme example) was just wrong.
2. 11 Job traits - Mixed feelings here. Why not allowing a small degree of flexibility here as well? Like... 9 traits and 2 "free slots"? Making sure that the "special" traits are made "exclusive" to a certain class? And aside from this, I don't think I really understand the "fixed total limit" (see below)
3. 15 Actions - This is probably the core of what I'm saying. Junpei you're saying that it's "fair" for all classes to have the same number of actions because that will ensure "balance" and will avoid waste of useless abilities. In my opinion this is not true, the're two completely different aspects: having 15 actions doesn't ensure it will be "fair" for everybody, since actions all have different mechanics behind, they have to be balanced individually. An action could be considered as "strong" as 3 actions from another class, and vice-versa. Balancing classes is a very delicate and complex process that you need to do with case-by-case fine-tuning, you can't do it by putting a cap to the total number of actions, and you can't even be so naive to believe that putting a cap there will ensure balance or will make the balancing job easier, for developers. Plenty of games clearly already showed that over the last years.

If they wanted to make things this way they had to make 15/11 a "generic goal", not a strict one. Now since english is not my main language, let me explain further what I mean with these two:

• Strict Goal - You ABSOLUTELY need to respect it, no exceptions allowed, EVERYTHING has to be that way. You feel like a job needs a couple more actions? Nope. You feel a job is already "complete" with less? Just add a few placeholder things nobody will use.
• Generic Goal - You will work hard to get as close as possible to the 15/11 result. If you feel some job is already balanced/strong/fun to play with fewer then leave it that way, you'll have time to add something in the future if need be. If you feel a job absolutely needs a couple more actions, then add them. But in any case, do your best to stay as close as possible to the 15/11 goal.

I could have understood the second solution, but the first one seems, to re-use the metaphor I mentioned before, like they're binding themselves with chains with their own hands.
I'm not trying to convince anyone btw, more trying to confront myself with other people's opinion, I might find some new enlightning details I missed so far

[Monsalvato]

How many of them are actually used in gameplay, especially at endgame?

Why have all that filler in there taking space and being generally useless? If you can't answer that question, they need to be removed.

You can't make a straight comparison, first you'd need a comparison.
1.20 FFXIV uses a "scaling actions" system, FFXI uses a "tiered actions" system. Also, FFXIV is a "new game" with a low level cap while FFXI is on its last days and its last level cap, so it's pretty understandable for the second to have "more things" than the first.
Second thing you may need to consider is game balance. FFXI nowadays is pretty unbalanced because many things in the game mechanics changed too quickly and unexpectedly. There are songs which are "useless" nowadays, but they certainly weren't back @75 where the game was overall, in my opinion, more balanced.
Still, after these two necessary premises, BRD in FFXI has:

1. 11 very unuseful songs. Basically the ones offering protection against certain debuffs plus Virelai and Minne. Some of these may situationally get an use, but... not really. Even at 75 you rarely used them. I added Hymnus to this list as well because nowadays you really get RR stuff from everywhere and lolxp anyway. Even at 75 it wasn't that great tbh but I wouldn't have labelled it as completely useless back then.
2. 4 (+8?) situational songs - Either you don't use them much more at the current level, or you do but in specific situations. Madrigal, Paeon, Prelude, Mambo. You don't really need accuracy/rangedaccuracy very often these days, just like the regen from Paeon. Mambo too, you wouldn't use it in a 18 people LS event, but it can still be useful when lowmanning things, especially with a NIN or a THF tank. The +8 in brackets are Carol spells. They're very useful imho but you only use it on certain fights. That's not necessarily a bad things, it's good to have a set of actions you perform only in certain situations instead of using the same ones everywhere.
3. 10 (+8?) songs you use very often - March, Ballad, Minuet, Elegy, Nocturne, Lullaby, Finale, Mazurka, Scherzo, Requiem (uhm...) plus eventually the 8 threnodies.

To this list you still have Etudes (7 of them) to add, I don't really know where. Somewhere between group 1) and 2)? Maybe in group 2.
If we're talking about songs to "delete", I wouldn't mind I guess if they deleted songs from group 1, but I sure want to keep the ones from group 1 and from group 2. Leaving Etudes aside we're talking about 14 actions +16 (Threnodies and Carols) for a total fo 30 different spells.
Oh but Bard also has job abilities though, I wouldn't give up those either if you ask me

This opens up the discussion about "elements".
In other games it doesn't matter which element you use. Different classes use different elements to make themselves different from each other. In FFXI it's not this way, the element you use has a strategical impact on your fight. Each enemy has a weakness and a strenght to certain elements and you have to use them accordingly.
FFXIV so far has been the same.
So, from this point of view, the 6 elemental spells conjurer had, should have been considered a single action, same with the light/dark counterpart of THM.
When you allow classes to use only certain elements, it's only obvious that game developers will be forced to reduce the impact the different elements have on the game, so the next step will be to make it trivial to use a certain element instead of another (they couldn't really afford certain classes to feel "useless" because they can only use elements a certain enemy is strong against, no?) and that, to me, is a potential loss in game depth.

[Firon]

Look at the song list: http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Bard

How many of them are actually used in gameplay, especially at endgame?

Why have all that filler in there taking space and being generally useless? If you can't answer that question, they need to be removed.

That is true on so many lvl's my brd was 75 on xi i had like 10 spells macro'ed lol

[Firon]

10 (+8?) songs you use very often - March, Ballad, Minuet, Elegy, Nocturne, Lullaby, Finale, Mazurka, Scherzo, Requiem (uhm...) plus eventually the 8 threnodies.

Now if you got what betel was saying if XI did the system XIV was gonna get even @ 99 brd would have only 20 spells cause 70% of that list can become more compact.