DRK QOL changes for 5.4

[Beddict]

-do we make it a 60 sec cooldown that gives you 5 stacks of "blood weapon" that generate 600mp/10 blood per weaponskill/spell?

Yeah, that's literally all it needs for the current ShB DRK. Right now with the right Skill Speed a player will use five GCDs under Blood Weapon and generate 3,000 MP and 50 Blood. Changing Blood Weapon to give five stacks of 600 MP/10 Blood means the skill is generating the same amount of MP and Blood every 60s, you're just not getting screwed by the tight timing or ping issues. Make the stacks last for 12s as WhyAmIHere mentioned, make it last 30s like Bunshin does, who cares, it's not going to change the amount of resources DRK generates. The other questions you're asking hinge on big changes to the leveling process for DRK and a complete rework of our Delirium burst phase which makes it a 6.0 problem and not really a 5.4 QoL change.

[bundythenoob]

OK guys, I updated the original post with the proposed BW -> bunshin change, and another one that was posted earlier about allowing Delirium to generate more mana for after burst windows, so hopefully they can get that implemented. thanks for the feedback.

As for this:

It doesn't matter that it's a "dedicated tank dev" or not, but as long as SOMETHING is conveyed LOUDLY and in an organized manner enough, then eventually change will happen. The developers are not lazy, but they are slow to react, but they do listen. In hindsight it makes sense why DRK turned out the way it did in 5.0, because a lot of the comparisons for SB DRK were made to WAR, as "wow WAR can do all this why cant we do all that?" So of course the development team would've been lead to think "oh the DRK players just want to have WAR's style of gameplay? okay!"

what's wrong with asking square enix to use some of the money we pay into the game to hire a dedicated tank dev? this would allow necessary changes to come faster, plus it would allow the currently overworked DPS devs to focus more on fleshing their preferred roles out as opposed to balancing something they don't like. it's a win win for everyone isn't it?

If you leave everything to us, then we are gonna end up in a state where some people ask questions that pertain to the present, while others post stuff that might be relevant for the future. that's why I asked all of those other questions, just in case any of the other changes get implemented. better safe than sorry

[WhyAmIHere]

what's wrong with asking square enix to use some of the money we pay into the game to hire a dedicated tank dev? this would allow necessary changes to come faster, plus it would allow the currently overworked DPS devs to focus more on fleshing their preferred roles out as opposed to balancing something they don't like. it's a win win for everyone isn't it?

If you leave everything to us, then we are gonna end up in a state where some people ask questions that pertain to the present, while others post stuff that might be relevant for the future. that's why I asked all of those other questions, just in case any of the other changes get implemented. better safe than sorry

I mean no disrespect by the following, buuuuuuuuuut...
We're not entitled to having a "tank dedicated dev." Firstly for the aspect of we don't control SE's hiring policies, secondly for the false idea that just by having a developer or two "focused on tank issues" wouldn't still have to share their feedbacks and inputs with everyone else on the development team, thirdly because if we got a "tank dedicated dev" then we'd be opening the floodgates for healers demanding their own "healer dedicated dev," and lastly because people will play what they enjoy, and it'd be foolish to expect someone to only play one job. Extra to that: we pay a monthly fee to access the servers, and the developers take player feedback because it's monetarily sound to do so but they're ultimately not at all obligated to listen to the players. Good will doesn't pay bills.

It's good to worry about what might be, and I'm not faulting you for it, but obfuscating current issues with so many potential variables in the future just makes the current, more pressing matter, get lost in the noise.

[bundythenoob]

It's good to worry about what might be, and I'm not faulting you for it, but obfuscating current issues with so many potential variables in the future just makes the current, more pressing matter, get lost in the noise.

if it's good to worry about the future, how is asking for at least 1 dedicated tank and 1 dedicated healer dev not a good thing? the 4 devs working on battle system changes have been overworked for awhile now with having to balance all of the jobs, and considering how little communication there is between them and us (especially healer players, they get nothing) I don't feel that I'm being "entitled" because I'm asking for a dev to be hired using the money earned from this game. I feel that it's necessary constructive criticism that should be addressed for the game's future to be better. I think hiring a pair of devs for the future could help avoid problems that exist now due to their absence.

Either way, this doesn't have much to do with the topic of DRK QOL changes, so I'll just agree to disagree with you so we can move on.

[Lyth]

Actually, convincing SE to implement job-based or even role-based representatives who directly and consistently interact with the playerbase would have a far greater impact on improving this game than anything we could suggest design-wise. The near complete lack of dev interaction with the playerbase is one of SE's greatest weaknesses. Warcraft's dev team was having outright debates with their forum members circa 2004. You should have seen the morale boost from the playerbase when even one community rep showed up in the DRK feedback megathread in the year before last and said hi. It was the one suggestion that I wished that they had actually implemented out of all of those recommended.

Also, just look at the number of people who seem to know that Yoshi-P 'mains' BLM (regardless of whether he actually does in practice or not). It may sound trivial, but knowing that someone on the dev team "actually plays your job" has a massive impact on players perceptions and their feedback, especially if they're speaking out on your behalf on what they'd like to see done. The reason why this doesn't happen is because FFXIV operates on more of a Steve Jobs-esque model, so there's essentially only one public mouthpiece for the game as a whole. I think the Apple keynote style speeches worked better when the game was smaller circa ARR/HW, but now they need an interactive community-based team to step up and engage with the players. Otherwise they'll just lag behind the competition.

[shao32]

While i support change the order of learning certain skills and bandfixes to Bloodweapon and abyssal drain i considering the increase of the resource generation right now it's kinda useless, i mean yes i want more resource generation and have real management but considering DRK MP is scriped now to be in the 60s window and being a TA slave i doubt it would be worthy change that now considering the cost of the skills and the status of darkside, MP generation and usage need an extensive revision buffing it a bit now won't help much to his downtime more than forcing you use 1 edge early and increase the chances of fit 1 less on raid buffs or use your dark arts when you don't want it.

the same happen with delirium, i preffer the skill don't get any change whatsoever right now after complete ignore the mid expansion rework request so it become more easy to rework/delete it in 6.0 apart the MP contribution of the skill is not only there to just look pathetic but to compensate the lack of syphon strikes under his duration so better keep it MP neutral.

[HyperiusUltima]

I think that DRK in general should just get the Living Dead localization fix that people have been asking for YEARS now, ever since Heavensward. It's too convoluted in words to understand properly; and as a standard, they should try to use as little words as possible to describe skills like this.

For instance, I can summarize what LD does:
Living Dead: *flavor text* - If an attack would reduce your HP to less than 1, changes to Walking Dead.
Walking Dead: *flavor text* - If the amount in Maximum HP in total is not healed, you will be KO'd.

[Lyth]

I think that the dev team or the community team should just make any kind of public comment or statement regarding the years of feedback that they've received over Living Dead. Even an acknowledgement would be a start.

They seem to deliberately avoid it, even if it gets massively upvoted in Q+A sessions. Because you know, the fluff questions on Housing and Estinien's dating profile feel just that much safer to answer.

[WhyAmIHere]

I think that the dev team or the community team should just make any kind of public comment or statement regarding the years of feedback that they've received over Living Dead. Even an acknowledgement would be a start.

They seem to deliberately avoid it, even if it gets massively upvoted in Q+A sessions. Because you know, the fluff questions on Housing and Estinien's dating profile feel just that much safer to answer.

Wasnt there the Fanfest where Yoshida was asked directly and he basically said "but muh DRK class fantasy"

[Danelo]

Wasnt there the Fanfest where Yoshida was asked directly and he basically said "but muh DRK class fantasy"

It’s a crazy statement if that’s what was said. In my favorite form of escapism I want to die because I had the wrong healer comp in a clutch situation. Or worse my whm wanted to get that sweet 10th second on wd before bene and let me die. I don’t think that’s any DRKs fantasy. I haven’t seen this one proposed...

LD same as before 10s to drop to 1 hp.
WD needs 2 conditions to cleanse: 1. A small heal gate of... 10% max hp. Something so that you’d be viable for tactics like regen(& maybe Ogcd heal) with a tank swap. 2. After the 10% heal gate is reached you control coming out of WD, instead of your healers, by tapping the LD button. The shorter amount of time you stay in walking dead the shorter the recast for LD is. If you come out of WD before heal gate is reached you are KOd.

If you need to eat multiple tbs you can use all 9 seconds. If you only need 4(Or whatever number of seconds below the max duration) then you’re rewarded with a lower recast time corresponding with the amount of time in WD. The devil is in the details but it’s an interesting concept to me.

Doesn’t seem like it’s been tried with any other tank and maintains a high risk high reward.