How we determine balance and its flaws.

[Vendalwind]

So... You basically want StB balance back? Where every raid was Bard + Dragoon + Ninja + [Selfish DPS] (Or often, SMN because they did pDPS equivalent to that of selfish DPS but also had utility and rDPS boosts too... Like they still do!)

No.

The "Ideal" scenario is where any 4 jobs can be used together and be close enough to not matter in terms of DPS.

Yes, but with caveats being that proper group diverse composition yields some rewards and having all roles also yields rewards. Last patch for example if not for the role bonuses and duplicate class reductions a team of 4 SMNS probs would have been the best and safest to play in any fight. Thats unhealthy. A meta will always exist. but the nature of the meta and the balance as i suggest above will yield your ideal scenario most effectively.

You assumed much beyond the scope of my post. I spoke of maximized dps. not viability.

[Kalise]

No.

Well, that was the "Optimal DPS is 1 selfish + 3 support"

Where max DPS was using BLM or SAM plus the aforementioned 3 supports, it just required a really good BLM/SAM to work and was far easier to do near enough DPS with SMN instead (While having an extra Swiftcast Raise to boot)

A meta will always exist. but the nature of the meta and the balance as i suggest above will yield your ideal scenario most effectively.

It won't. Your way of balancing will push people towards the aforementioned StB meta, where people will use the comp with the most bang for the buck, not the max DPS one but the one that provides the highest DPS without requiring as much skill (With the max DPS comps being used only by those who do speed clears)

You assumed much beyond the scope of my post. I spoke of maximized dps. not viability.

Maximized DPS and viability go hand in hand. Since viability is determined by the players on which jobs fit into the "Meta" which is determined by maximized DPS. For example, situations where people would decline BLM's, RDM's, MCH's and SAM's for raids during StB because they weren't "Good Enough" (It wasn't universal, but it did happen). Could you clear all content with non-"Meta" jobs? Yes. But some people didn't care about that, in favour of "Max DPS".

[Vendalwind]

[

Well, that was the "Optimal DPS is 1 selfish + 3 support"

Where max DPS was using BLM or SAM plus the aforementioned 3 supports, it just required a really good BLM/SAM to work and was far easier to do near enough DPS with SMN instead (While having an extra Swiftcast Raise to boot)

Read what I said again. I will not continue this conversation if you try to assume things tangential to my post.
I said 1 selfish 3 support
IE
1(SAM,BLM,MCH) 3 (ANY COMBINATION OF EVERYTHING ELSE of which there are 7) So proportionally. 1 or 2 slots to the selfish dps that make up 30% of the dps is fair with 1 slot being the closest mark.
and to quote myself
"This is not to exclude them (selfish dps focused classes) from playing in meta content but to include as best as possible every class in meta content."
"Disclaimer. I may like certain Classes. I don't deny my bias and i know many external factors effect balance (mobility, defensive and healing utility etc.) This isn't some end all statement."
of course there are other factors like the ridiculousness caused by tank stances and shadewalker.

I am not saying this because i want ninja buffed. Please do what I asked:"abstract that bias and see it separately from my initial post." or at least the numbers in my post.

I also talked about this ONLY looking at the damage to conclude ONLY one thing. That selfish dps should not in a vacuum contribute the most rDPS. if that occurs mathematically they will be the most chosen class when people pick classes with damage in mind. especially since most utility classes literally offer only utility in the form of... more dmg. because consequently if selfish DPS have the best RDPS at max percentile. it follows immediately that they will have the best dps at ANY percentile. while that does not hold true mathematically when an rDPS focused class has the highest rDPS contribution at maximum percentile.

It won't. Your way of balancing will push people towards the aforementioned StB meta, where people will use the comp with the most bang for the buck, not the max DPS one but the one that provides the highest DPS without requiring as much skill (With the max DPS comps being used only by those who do speed clears)

Why wont it? Prove it then. Give me some numbers that say otherwise. You are guessing at something without any backing to your statement just because you disagree with some portion of mine. Why does what i say irk you so? This is exactly what I'm talking about People blindly making statements that just don't actually have any bearing. I left things un mathed completely to encourage people to math things for themselves. go try to prove your point.

Maximized DPS and viability go hand in hand. Since viability is determined by the players on which jobs fit into the "Meta" which is determined by maximized DPS. For example, situations where people would decline BLM's, RDM's, MCH's and SAM's for raids during StB because they weren't "Good Enough" (It wasn't universal, but it did happen). Could you clear all content with non-"Meta" jobs? Yes. But some people didn't care about that, in favour of "Max DPS".

That's just entirely incorrect. Viability and Meta are absolutely separate Ideas. Do you know what Meta means?
Maximized DPS is talking about a team of all 100 percentile players. Viability generally includes teams of grey parsing 25th or lower players. When i talk about perfect class play you have to look at the numbers. And when i talk about balancing you have to look at the effect skill levels have on the changes of value rDPS focused classes provide.

[Kalise]

Read what I said again. I will not continue this conversation if you try to assume things tangential to my post.

It is not assumed. This is fact. This is what it was like in Stormblood.

The max DPS WAS 1 selfish and 3 support. But people had better overall success with 4 support because it was less skill reliant (Since, co-ordinating is easy, you just push your 60s/90s CD's every 60s/90s. Optimizing the selfish DPS's uptime especially during burst windows was hard and ensuring that said selfish player NEVER made any mistakes in the content because that would mean death and weakness from a raise)

It just so happens that due to the way that the different supports provided support in different ways, it ended up being the jobs that synergized with each others supports that became meta. I.e. Bard was the best rDPS job, so you wanted one of them and DRG had Piercing buff that helped the Bard's pDPS and then NIN was always there because Trick Attack was the most broken skill in the game.

At best you occasionally saw speed clears swap the DRG for a SMN for the extra magical damage debuff to support the BLM

I said 1 selfish 3 support
IE
1(SAM,BLM,MCH) 3 (ANY COMBINATION OF EVERYTHING ELSE of which there are 7) So proportionally. 1 or 2 slots to the selfish dps that make up 30% of the dps is fair with 1 slot being the closest mark.
and to quote myself

But you have to remember that not all "Support" jobs support in equivalent ways.

In no world would you want to run a BLM with MNK, RDM and DNC as your supports for example. Since MNK and RDM only buff PHYSICAL damage while DNC's pDPS relies on using many weaponskills/spells which BLM's slow casts do not fit well with.

Hence, we would go back to a meta of the jobs that synergize best, much like the old DRG + BRD + NIN combo.

I also talked about this ONLY looking at the damage to conclude ONLY one thing. That selfish dps should not in a vacuum contribute the most rDPS

This particular point does not need to look at compositions at all though.

It's common sense that jobs that sacrifice pDPS for rDPS should not thus have to deal less overall rDPS than jobs who's rDPS is equal to their pDPS.

The only time composition would matter for such argument, is when you try and look at what rDPS is being provided by the support jobs depending on the composition.

I.e. If a "Selfish" DPS does 15000 DPS and a "Support" DPS does 13000 DPS and buffs everyone else by 10% with Tanks that deal 10000 DPS and healers that deal 6000 DPS

Then a Selfish DPS's rDPS is simply a flat 15000.

However, a support DPS's rDPS can range from 20700 (With 3x Selfish DPS) to 20100 (With 3x Support) with this range increasing with a larger gap between selfish and support pDPS as well as increases in the boost they provide to other party members.

Though, it is not always the case that jobs lose pDPS for rDPS, as people have noted jobs like RDM have had pDPS penalties for utility such as "Vercure/Verraise" despite their lack of actual worth in most parties.

Why wont it? Prove it then.

Look at every expansion prior to ShB.

That's just entirely incorrect. Viability and Meta are absolutely separate Ideas. Do you know what Meta means?

Viability and Meta are 99.99% of cases the same thing. Outside of some terrible balancing that makes a job literally unable to perform in content (I.e. ARR Warrior before it got buffed).

Viability is being able to complete content.

Meta is the player controlled "Ideal" composition. Which, some players, will hold as a set in stone viability scale. If a job is not meta, it is not considered viable by these people and thus would get excluded from parties (Even if it is still possible to clear the content using said non-meta job)

Maximized DPS is talking about a team of all 100 percentile players.

Maximized DPS is only compositions.

Since, all talk of balance tends to use a situation where players play perfectly. Since that is the only tangible data to use. It is impossible to calculate DPS losses from "Lower skill levels" and apply them to data to get meaningful results.

This is where the divergence of "Max DPS" compositions and "Meta" compositions comes in. In perfect scenarios, there will be some compositions that will push out the highest numbers. However, these don't usually become meta due to the vast majority of people's inability to perform perfectly. Even the highest skill players will often shy away from the Max DPS compositions until they've practiced the encounters hundreds of times, instead favouring the "Meta" compositions that are easier to play and deal good numbers with.

And when i talk about balancing you have to look at the effect skill levels have on the changes of value rDPS focused classes provide.

Skill levels affect the value of pDPS to the same extent or more than rDPS. Selfish classes often do far worse than support classes at lower skill levels, due to selfish classes having to perform all of their DPS themselves. While support classes still get a portion of their rDPS done even if they themselves are not performing well (So long as you can "Co-ordinate" pressing your CD's on CD)

It is why jobs that can do "Max DPS" are often not widely used (Typically, this is seen with BLM which requires intimate knowledge of an encounter to be able to position correctly so as to have good uptime. Without this, a BLM's damage can become absolute garbage)

[Vendalwind]

It is not assumed. This is fact.

You are instantiating a limitation to knock it down. I spoke of that setup being generally the best, NOT of the the specific stormblood scenario singularly. Your belligerence in insisting you know what I'm talking about more than I do is exhausting. Stop assuming you know what I'm referring to when my words are plain and read the words

But you have to remember that not all "Support" jobs support in equivalent ways.

Please again refer to my first post where i specifically frame the context as DISREGARDING such other factors for the sake of simplifying the portion of the argument I was making.
I DONT CARE about the other support effects that aren't dmg because THIS POST WASNT ABOUT BALANCING those support effects. IT IS ABOUT BALANCE as an idea at numbers alone. You are so far off context here you are either intentionally derailing or incapable of understanding the scope I applied and limited my first post too. I specifically omitted class specific content because I'm not talking about anything class specific. I ONLY EVER HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT DAMAGE BUFFS and their effect on balance.

In no world ...

None of the rest of that statement matters in the scope of my argument. I AM NOT TALKING about specifics here.

It's common sense that jobs that sacrifice pDPS for rDPS should not thus have to deal less overall rDPS than jobs who's rDPS is equal to their pDPS.

......Thats my whole point. That its not common sense to these forums. Lots of places I've read someone saying something very close to 'pDps classes would be worthless if they didnt contribute more rDPS than utility classes'
That is the only thing i am trying to argue against. So you agree with my conclusion but still felt the need to argue with me about stuff i didn't even mention? What the heck?

The only time composition would matter ...

You pull a bunch of numbers here out of thin air. Its meaningless ground those statements. There is no class in this game that has ever gotten anywhere close 6000 bonus rdps which is what your numbers loosely suggest. Where the heck are you coming up with numbers like 20700???

And then here you go coming up with your own arbitrary semantic definitions for statements Please use English not your own made up version of what words mean. Lets clean this up.

Viability and Meta are 99.99% of cases the same thing. ...

No they are not.
"vi·a·bil·i·ty
/ˌvīəˈbilədē/
ability to work successfully."

IE viability refers to a job being able to clear content in the context of ffxiv.

"What does Meta mean in gaming?
most effective tactics available
In the world of gaming, meta is used in two ways. Meta can be used as an acronym for “most effective tactics available,” and calling something “meta” means that it's an effective way to achieve the goal of the game, whether it's to beat other players or beat the game itself."
Alternatively Meta as a latin root means: above or beyond.

Regardless When i say Meta i mean: Most effective tactic. And my point is because there are 3 selfish dps and the rest have utility of varied sorts for balancing purposes the Meta should be a 1 selfish 3 support setup. Not any specific setup, not some specific set of classes. Im talking about meta setup. not "The meta team composition" You keep insisting im talking about a specific team here. I'm not. Im talking about balancing the core general distribution of damage BEFORE taking into account anything that makes classes unique and balancing outward from there. And my only purpose in doing so as I said before, which you even agreed with is:"selfish dps do not need to be the top RDPS and asking for it as if its the expected norm"

Viability is being able to complete content.

Yup

Meta is the player controlled "Ideal" composition...

Nope. Not within the context of my argument.
And not in general either. A Meta comp is a very specific definition of 'Most Effective Tactic Available'. Its not some Ideal, and it has nothing to do with viability. META is about the tip top best setup. And in the context of my argument when I use META im talking about the Optimal combination of selfish and utility classes and how to balance class choice the best a 1 selfish 3 utility Meta would be ideal and enable more classes across the spectrum to feel more equally needed. Balance should make a meta similar so more classes are valued.

Maximized DPS is only compositions.

Nope.
Max dps is max dps. IE The best DPS.
When i use this word im talking about the DPS.
NOT the compositions. And MAXIMIZED directly suggest PERFECT play because in terms of numbers the MAX is PERFECT.

Since, all talk of balance tends to use a situation where players play perfectly. Since that is the only tangible data to use. It is impossible to calculate DPS losses from "Lower skill levels" and apply them to data to get meaningful results.

Thats just frankly untrue.
It is very obvious and easy to see with the data available. The worse a utility players companions play the worse benefit the utility provides. Data is not even necessary to see that. If i give people a 10% bonus. And those people perform at 25th percentile my 10% will be less than if those people performed at 50th percentile. That just how it works. 10% of 75 is bigger than 10% of 25. and thats meaningful result.

Skill levels affect the value of pDPS to the same extent or more than rDPS. Selfish classes often do far worse than support classes at lower skill levels, due to selfish classes having to perform all of their DPS themselves. While support classes still get a portion of their rDPS done even if they themselves are not performing well (So long as you can "Co-ordinate" pressing your CD's on CD)

This is false.
BLM has varied damage because the skill for the class ranges greatly as players become more familiar with fights.
But the player is in control of their own performance.
When i talk about skill level I talk about the coordination and skill of the whole team.

When a selfish dps plays at low skill lvl the only thing effecting his output is himself BUT he also hurts the rDPS of the utility classes on the team. Nothing external forces him to perform worse. But his play externally impacts the rDPS of other classes.
When a utility plays at low skill level not only is his output neutered but he doesn't get benefit from his teams efforts which compounds the loss on any failures his teammates might also have. This is very very easily seen. The lower the percentile OF THE TEAM the lower the average output rDPS gained from trick, or embolden, or steps whatever. AND everytime another support is added to the group it increases the risk reward of the group because the maximized dps requires cooperation. When a selfish does his thing his dps is entirely self reliant. Very simply buff classes have more of their output effected by their team than selfish do. In the absence of buff classes selfish dps just do their own thing. The moment a buff/utility job is added to the mix things get trickier to optimize and risk and reward should increase.

But my whole point just wraps up anyways in what you said. : "It's common sense that jobs that sacrifice pDPS for rDPS should not thus have to deal less overall rDPS than jobs who's rDPS is equal to their pDPS."

Because I agree with you there. They should be able to deal MORE RDPS but generally should deal LESS in practice because it is difficult to play perfect AND get a team to play perfect.
But based on the people i see most often in these forums that notion is not common.

[Kalise]

You are instantiating a limitation to knock it down. I spoke of that setup being generally the best, NOT of the the specific stormblood scenario singularly.

I'm pointing out that the "Optimal Scenario" that you envisioned, has existed and has not promoted the point about composition versatility that you claimed.

In StB we had your "Max DPS is 1 Selfish + 3 Support" optimal scenario. What did it lead to? It lead to a meta where people wanted just 4 Supports and non-meta jobs were shunned.

This is a very real aspect to balancing, cry as you might "But I only want to look at the numbers!" the fact of the matter is that balancing jobs goes beyond simply numbers.

I DONT CARE about the other support effects that aren't dmg because THIS POST WASNT ABOUT BALANCING those support effects. IT IS ABOUT BALANCE as an idea at numbers alone. You are so far off context here you are either intentionally derailing or incapable of understanding the scope I applied and limited my first post too. I specifically omitted class specific content because I'm not talking about anything class specific. I ONLY EVER HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT DAMAGE BUFFS and their effect on balance.

If you want to stop telling me I'm off context and actually read what you've been replying to, you'll note that I pointed out that your "Optimal Scenario" of 1 selfish and 3 support DPS was being critiziced by me as a poor goal.

As I mentioned, the ideal scenario is any 4 DPS jobs should be able to play together, irregardless of whether they are "Selfish" or "Support" (Barring things like duplicate classes) while being within a close enough DPS output so as to not matter.

This links directly back to meta and viability, because of the SITUATION WITH StB WHERE WE HAD A META THAT SHUNNED NON-META JOBS FROM BEING PLAYED IN CONTENT

Meaning that it was harder to do content on said non-meta jobs because people would refuse you a place in their party. I.e. It is not as viable to do the content on said jobs because you couldn't get into a party to do it.

You say that your way of balancing would achieve my ideal scenario where any combination of Support and Selfish DPS jobs can perform nigh equally well, whilst also saying that a situation that is exactly the same as what we had in StB is the "Optimal scenario" and disregard the fact that in StB there WAS issues with balance BECAUSE of the way the optimal party compositions ended up being.

...Thats my whole point. That its not common sense to these forums. Lots of places I've read someone saying something very close to 'pDps classes would be worthless if they didnt contribute more rDPS than utility classes'

The issue here, is that these sorts of statements aren't entirely related to rDPS related "Utility"

These statements are usually brought up in regards to non-DPS related utility.

I.e. If RDM and BLM did the same rDPS. Why would you ever bring a BLM when RDM has Vercure and Verraise?

You pull a bunch of numbers here out of thin air. Its meaningless ground those statements. There is no class in this game that has ever gotten anywhere close 6000 bonus rdps which is what your numbers loosely suggest. Where the heck are you coming up with numbers like 20700???

It was example numbers. To illustrate a point.

With the example numbers (Tanks dealing 10000 DPS each, Healers dealing 6000 DPS each, Selfish DPS dealing 15000 pDPS each and Support DPS dealing 13000 pDPS each) and Supports being a 10% buff to other players (Far in excess of current boosts purely for example)

20700 comes from the fact that the buffs to other jobs (10000 + 10000 + 6000 + 6000 + 15000 + 15000 + 15000)/10 = 7700

Plus their pDPS (13000)

Equals 20700 rDPS (Total DPS)

The further extrapolation from this (If you bothered to do the math, like you suggest other people do for you)

Is in this situation, if you pulled down Support pDPS to a point where 3 Selfish + 1 Supports is on par with 4 Selfish (You know, relating back to my previous point about all comp types being on par) then you'd have a case where any more than 1 Support is progressively worse.

Using example numbers, Support pDPS would have to go down to 7300 in order to achieve an rDPS of 15000 (The same as the 3 Selfish DPS in the party). However in doing so, it means that the rDPS of a Support in a 2 Support team would be 14230 and in a 3 Support team that would be 13460 and a 4 Support team would be 12690

Meaning that in this scenario, a 4 Support team would be dealing 70070 total DPS (All 8 players combined) compared to a 0 or 1 Support team that would be dealing 92000 total DPS (All 8 players combined). Approximately 25% less damage overall, which would be significant enough to make people shun those group compositions.

Of course, this is all exemplified using an inflated support boost figure, with more realistic figures things will be closer. It is however, an example of the difficulties of attempting to balance pure pDPS vs rDPS whilst trying to make compositions not boil down to a single optimal set up that becomes meta at the cost of others.

A Meta comp is a very specific definition of 'Most Effective Tactic Available'. Its not some Ideal, and it has nothing to do with viability. META is about the tip top best setup.

This is just laughably wrong.

The Most Effective Tactic Available, in video game (And specifically FFXIV) context is not the "Maximal DPS Tactic".

It is the Most Effective one. I.e. The one that more easily performs the best.

For example, look at the state of the game in Stormblood.

The Max DPS Tactic was 1 Selfish and 3 Support (Typically a BLM or a SAM being buffed to heck)

The Most Effective Tactic was 4 Support.

Why? Because it was significantly easier to perform well with 4 Support and thus would put out more consistently higher numbers than the "Max DPS" tactic would outside of paper.

Simply because, "Co-ordination" in FFXIV surmounts to pressing your CD's on CD.