This needs to be said

[yoshinoharu]

Hello,

I normally don't post on the forums so I wasn't sure where to put this so I just decided to put it here.

With the release of the Abyssos raid tier, we were explicitly told that fights would not be tuned to account for extra one week of gear or EX weapons we were able to obtain due to the delay of the savage gear, that the fight would be tuned to 610 ilvl. We found this to be a blatant lie as world-racers and week-1 raiders got to the final floor of the raid tier.

That being said, we were all willing to just accept the really tough DPS check, because even though we were lied to about the tuning of the fight, it was still doable. The higher end community as a whole identified the real reason for the struggles in this fight quite quickly by looking at the representation of jobs that managed to clear: Job balance. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that certain jobs are heavily under-represented in the first week of clears.

Now clearly, Square Enix does have some idea that job balance is an issue due to the Paladin and Warrior job changes that we've seen in this morning's patch notes. This is good, and they have also taken the approach of applying the band-aid fix of lowering the HP pool of the boss. These are not the things that I take issue with. The issue that I take is with the reasoning behind the changes.

"The team's overall performance proved to be higher than usual."

This statement right here was the biggest gut punch, so I'm going to go ahead and call it out: There is no world where your balance team tested and tuned this fight to be clearable with every comp at full 610 iLvl. Whatever the reason, your balance and dev team failed, and rather than taking it on the chin and just admitting it, you came up with the bitter excuse of a sore loser that your testing team was just 'too good' and out-skilled the player base.

It is insulting that you would make the implication that your testing team is better at the game than people who have spent years attempting to perfect their play. I can forgive being lied to about the fight not being tuned to the week of extra gear, I can forgive not balancing out underperforming jobs outside of Paladin and Warrior just yet and applying the band-aid fix of adjusting the boss rather than the jobs.

Insinuating that your development team has more skill than many people out there that have devoted multiple years successfully clearing savage content on the first week is an affront to their time and dedication.

I can't speak for every person out there that has dedicated time into becoming a strong player, but I personally am appalled at the poor excuses that Square Enix has given regarding this matter. I feel that Square Enix is going in the direction of Blizzard with how horrendous the balance and PR has been, and rather than just sweeping it under the rug, something needed to be said about it.

Fix your game, Square.

[Deceptus]

This tier also blows the "Fights aren't tuned to account for healer DPS" folks argument out of the water as well.

[Last_Username]

The balancing team literally gets payed to be exceedingly good at the game. The amount of players that clear savage that get payed to play the game is likely less than 1%. Also odds are the balancing team has just as much time played, if not more, then the "people who have spent years attempting to perfect their play". I don't have proof of that, but you don't have proof of the contrary so its a mute point. Odds are that their balancing team is infact more skilled than the average player attempting to do savage, especially the average player attempting to do week 1 savage. That doesn't mean there aren't players that are on-par or better than the balancing team, but you have to understand that it is part of their job to play as well as possible. The motivating factor of money is a surprisingly strong one.

I personally don't agree with their decision to nerf the boss, maybe buffing some of the weaker jobs is fine but overall nerfing the boss is going a step too far in my personal opinion.

[xenahawk]

You really shouldnt get your panties on a bunch. If im not mistaken the wording was that the teams overall performance was higher then normal, which dont know about you but me just being a peon with ok playing skill i can deffinately see how sometimes i might play much better then other days. And in truth if they spent a lot of time testing it you know what they say practice makes perfect. Lots of factors to look at.

[yoshinoharu]

I have no doubt in my mind that their balancing team is more skilled than the average player in the game. Heck, I'm willing to bet that they are pretty good at the game. However, to think that their dev team is so good at the game that the entire community, even at the top tier of play, notices a problem with how out-of-whack job balance is within a day or two is copium at best.

To be clear, I'm not talking about balancing for the average player. The average player is entirely unaffected by any of this, fight was totally fine un-nerfed from week 2 onward. I'm only talking about the playerbase that is attempting week-1, which I do concede is a vast minority.

Minority or not though, people at that level of play do deserve to have a voice, particularly when it comes to content that's supposed to be catered specifically to them.

[yoshinoharu]

I do want to make it perfectly clear that the balance itself is not the frustrating part. Having to change what you play in order to have a chance at week 1 is something that, unfortunately, can and will happen. Mistakes happen during balancing and I don't blame them for making mistakes. I'm merely stating that their statement regarding the skill of the balance team holds no water.

Make no mistake, from week-2 onwards, even un-nerfed, the fight itself is not a problem. This argument is literally only for the players that go through the process of trying to clear week-1, which is an incredibly small portion of the playerbase, but one that deserves to have a voice nonetheless.

[Saraide]

I have no doubt in my mind that their balancing team is more skilled than the average player in the game. Heck, I'm willing to bet that they are pretty good at the game. However, to think that their dev team is so good at the game that the entire community, even at the top tier of play, notices a problem with how out-of-whack job balance is within a day or two is copium at best.

To be clear, I'm not talking about balancing for the average player. The average player is entirely unaffected by any of this, fight was totally fine un-nerfed from week 2 onward. I'm only talking about the playerbase that is attempting week-1, which I do concede is a vast minority.

Minority or not though, people at that level of play do deserve to have a voice, particularly when it comes to content that's supposed to be catered specifically to them.

Good job balance is technically only important for week 1 raiders but in practice many more people will feel its lack. We've seen paladins get locked out of PFs back in asphodelos and while most of those PFs were out of their minds to lock paladin out of stuff like p1s and p2s, the image of good job balance is as important as good job balance itself. People who love playing paladin and warrior shouldnt have to feel like they are holding their party back specifically because of the job choice. That feeling has to be reserved for skill issues.

[Jeeqbit]

I can see how it sounds, but their skill level probably did become good from repeating the content. They were probably doing it with a good job composition as well.

The balancing team literally gets payed to be exceedingly good at the game. The amount of players that clear savage that get payed to play the game is likely less than 1%. Also odds are the balancing team has just as much time played, if not more, then the "people who have spent years attempting to perfect their play".

This is a good point. The people who get paid to play this game, mostly, are streamers and content creators. There isn't any magic about why they go around clearing savage and ultimate before everyone else, they just have more time to do it than most players who have to spend a lot of their time doing a job that isn't related to the game. Spending more time on the game usually translates to being better at it as well.

[Rilifane]

Good job balance is technically only important for week 1 raiders but in practice many more people will feel its lack. We've seen paladins get locked out of PFs back in asphodelos and while most of those PFs were out of their minds to lock paladin out of stuff like p1s and p2s, the image of good job balance is as important as good job balance itself. People who love playing paladin and warrior shouldnt have to feel like they are holding their party back specifically because of the job choice. That feeling has to be reserved for skill issues.

Adding to this some people seem to forget that balance still affects lower gameplay levels as well.
If a PLD is signifcantly behind DRK, he is at pretty much all gameplay levels. The average PLD is still weaker than the average DRK, not just the top-tier PLD weaker than the top-tier DRK. So the average player will also feel the lack of job balance; they reach the tight dps checks later and have gear to make up for their lack of skill compared to a top-tier group but they are still affected.
While the average PLD can just "git gud" and definitely has more to worry about than being inherently weaker it still doesn't change the fact that if a class is noticeably ahead, it is at all gameplay levels. Balance makes or breaks kills for week 1 raiders but it still trickles down into midcore/ casual statics as well.

I can see how it sounds, but their skill level probably did become good from repeating the content. They were probably doing it with a good job composition as well.

This is a good point. The people who get paid to play this game, mostly, are streamers and content creators. There isn't any magic about why they go around clearing savage and ultimate before everyone else, they just have more time to do it than most players who have to spend a lot of their time doing a job that isn't related to the game. Spending more time on the game usually translates to being better at it as well.

And that is a bigger problem than they gave it credit for.
I'm sorry but I struggle to believe that a party of experienced 1st week raiders that all sit around 99% uptime (or more), potted twice, have no deaths, no damage down, only minor rotational mistakes if any is so far behind in terms of gameplay that they can't clear the doorboss while the team from SE can; some of the first week logs that ended with wipe after wipe were amazing in terms of gameplay and they still failed because they had some classes that were simply too much behind others. Comp had to play a role in this.
Trying to to twist it into a "Guess we got too good" as the only reason won't work.

[Somnolence]

Adding to this some people seem to forget that balance still affects lower gameplay levels as well.
If a PLD is signifcantly behind DRK, he is at pretty much all gameplay levels. The average PLD is still weaker than the average DRK, not just the top-tier PLD weaker than the top-tier DRK. So the average player will also feel the lack of job balance; they reach the tight dps checks later and have gear to make up for their lack of skill compared to a top-tier group but they are still affected.
While the average PLD can just "git gud" and definitely has more to worry about than being inherently weaker it still doesn't change the fact that if a class is noticeably ahead, it is at all gameplay levels. Balance makes or breaks kills for week 1 raiders but it still trickles down into midcore/ casual statics as well.



And that is a bigger problem than they gave it credit for.
I'm sorry but I struggle to believe that a party of experienced 1st week raiders that all sit around 99% uptime (or more), potted twice, have no deaths, no damage down, only minor rotational mistakes if any is so far behind in terms of gameplay that they can't clear the doorboss while the team from SE can; some of the first week logs that ended with wipe after wipe were amazing in terms of gameplay and they still failed because they had some classes that were simply too much behind others. Comp had to play a role in this.
Trying to to twist it into a "Guess we got too good" as the only reason won't work.

100% this. Weak comps of average players in casual statics or PF will still need to grind more gear.
However if switching to better job is easier and gives more dps than getting gear or getting better on weaker ones then playing these weak jobs only for their flavor etc. does feel like griefing to a certain degree.

Also PLD strict rotation punishes weaker players more, not only you do lower dmg on average you can screw your rotation more easily.