Yoshida's post about p8s nerf and job balancement

[Aikaal]

This is the most important takeaway from the post. It's the first time they've admitted outright to using difficulty as a balancing metric.

What this means is that if you're playing phys ranged, or summoner (and probably red mage too), you're playing the designated beginner mode jobs and getting taxed accordingly. So you probably shouldn't expect any buffs because you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

I'm gonna say it the nicest way I can but that a load of crap.

Red Mage is hardmode this tier. Summoner is hot trash because it always desyncs from burst window. Machinist is just trah because it can't even outdps anyone and they provide no buff. Black Mage gets favoritism treatment because the devs are playing the job.

Let's be real. They didn't test all fights with all jobs. They'd have notice how horrendous SMN and RDM alone are. They simply play Black Mage and Black Mage does decent. To begin with, they balance with double melee in mind and not double caster or double phys ranged.

[Reimmi]

"Attempting to ameliorate this by buffing certain jobs without making changes to the raid itself would have negatively impacted overall balance within each role, and likely resulted in disappointment for those whose jobs were already dealing sufficient damage for the raid and therefore received no adjustments. Unfortunately, adjusting all jobs in such a short period is also not feasible."

It's this bit that has got me quite annoyed. Why would you not buff us underperforming jobs for fear of upsetting the jobs who are ALREADY performing to a good standard? Why should they feel bad they got no adjustment when they do not NEED one? My reaper should be able to get a buff on it's own for example and not be denied just because a samurai would be salty he is not hundreds of dps ahead anymore. The disparity should not have been there to begin with!

So they refused to buff us other lacking dps jobs because they didn't want to upset the jobs who are currently fine. And they didn't want to adjust ALL the dps just to make sure nobody got upset. So those jobs who are lacking will remain so. Unacceptable.

Didn't they also say they don't nerf jobs for this same reason?
So what, never do balance changes to not upset people?
wtf...

[Valence]

This is the most important takeaway from the post. It's the first time they've admitted outright to using difficulty as a balancing metric.

What this means is that if you're playing phys ranged, or summoner (and probably red mage too), you're playing the designated beginner mode jobs and getting taxed accordingly. So you probably shouldn't expect any buffs because you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

I would have to reparse LL 36 (or 37?) that released just before Stormblood, where they, if I remember correctly, specifically said they decided to stop balancing around difficulty of play. Dont hesitate to double check this for me though

[Mithron]

Let's be real. They didn't test all fights with all jobs. They'd have notice how horrendous SMN and RDM alone are. They simply play Black Mage and Black Mage does decent. To begin with, they balance with double melee in mind and not double caster or double phys ranged.

BLM needs to be the highest DPS in the game because it's by far the hardest job in the game to play and optimize while still offering no utility. It's far harder to optimize than SAM or SMN or RDM. The base rotation is much simpler than RDM's, yes, but to optimize BLM requires infinitely more skill for the inherent nature of Fire 4's cast time being longer than the GCD. It doesn't matter if they have two Triple Casts on 60s now or Paradox/Xenoglossy. It's still harder than RDM at the top 1% skill level.

Now, that being said, SMN and RDM most definitely need buffs. BLM should just be the highest DPS in all fights ever and always, and it's not even that now.

[Aelin_Ashryver]

This is the most important takeaway from the post. It's the first time they've admitted outright to using difficulty as a balancing metric.

What this means is that if you're playing phys ranged, or summoner (and probably red mage too), you're playing the designated beginner mode jobs and getting taxed accordingly. So you probably shouldn't expect any buffs because you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

If the melee are supposed to be the 'harder' jobs they aren't. None of the melee takes a genius to do their rotation well. The difficulty comes in keeping uptime usually and we don't really have that atm. And even when I do need to keep uptime, casters have similar thought behind keeping their own gcd's rolling when they need to move for mechanics. SMN and RDM should not be as far behind as they are and BLM aught to be higher than it is atm too.

As for phys ranged their tax on the mobility is also too high, esp for MCH.

Them saying they take 'difficulty' into account when they have mostly removed any such thing is worrisome indeed. All the jobs are pretty straight forward at this point, some have a higher apm if you call that difficulty?? I personally don't think so. I don't even mind a harder job doing a little more damage, but if you make that job do so much more dps then the 'easy' ones just get locked out and suddenly the devs just locked their casuals from raiding on the job they enjoy.

If a reaper can perform well enough to consistently parse orange it should be able to compete with a samurai doing the same, but on week 1 savage an orange sam vs reaper was about 800rdps difference. There is no competition in such a huge dps difference. You just take the samurai and say F the reaper. I am curious to see the numbers when we all have our BiS as atm the gearing caused some change, the gap closed a bit and is now widening again. I expect it to keep widening as we finish gearing.

Ultimately I want my skill in performing well to be the deciding factor on whether I out dps the monk/sam not the fact my job is just worse.

[Aikaal]

As for phys ranged their tax on the mobility is also too high, esp for MCH.

Yoshida: MCH is fine.



Prime example of a Monk doing major rotation mistakes and STILL put more weight than the best Machinist on that fight. This is not OK.

[rewd]

That's my 2 cents on the topic. Regardless, I don't have much hope for casters.

If this is the design philosophy they want to keep, I have no idea how we are supposed to get the likely new caster job in 7.0. It would make an already precarious situation even worse.

[Valence]

If the melee are supposed to be the 'harder' jobs they aren't. None of the melee takes a genius to do their rotation well. The difficulty comes in keeping uptime usually and we don't really have that atm. And even when I do need to keep uptime, casters have similar thought behind keeping their own gcd's rolling when they need to move for mechanics. SMN and RDM should not be as far behind as they are and BLM aught to be higher than it is atm too.

As for phys ranged their tax on the mobility is also too high, esp for MCH.

Them saying they take 'difficulty' into account when they have mostly removed any such thing is worrisome indeed. All the jobs are pretty straight forward at this point, some have a higher apm if you call that difficulty?? I personally don't think so. I don't even mind a harder job doing a little more damage, but if you make that job do so much more dps then the 'easy' ones just get locked out and suddenly the devs just locked their casuals from raiding on the job they enjoy.

If a reaper can perform well enough to consistently parse orange it should be able to compete with a samurai doing the same, but on week 1 savage an orange sam vs reaper was about 800rdps difference. There is no competition in such a huge dps difference. You just take the samurai and say F the reaper. I am curious to see the numbers when we all have our BiS as atm the gearing caused some change, the gap closed a bit and is now widening again. I expect it to keep widening as we finish gearing.

Ultimately I want my skill in performing well to be the deciding factor on whether I out dps the monk/sam not the fact my job is just worse.

Like, I really agree with the point being made, don't get me wrong, but I personally find actual monk rotations (not the dragon kick spamm cheese) like optimal drift and whatnot, to be completely galaxybrain. And that's just supposed to be the "lower level" of their rotations...

But I guess this goes a long way to just show how subjective difficulty is, and how illogical it is to balance anything around it, at least on high end encounters and skill level.

[Altera]

I am also wondering where BLMs fit into this as I have tried just checking PFs and tried applying to savage statics and very often in PFs, I see people deny BLMs from joining and trying to join a group, as a BLM i had to go through more hoops than any other jobs I tried applying as.

And when seeing Ultimate raiders post number/ranking of each Jobs, BLM is around 6th place, behind NIN SAM DRG RPR MNK by about 700-1000dps and BLM was virtually tied with SMN MCH, then the other jobs trailing a bit behind from there

I have not seen anyone deny any other Jobs than BLM. Why is that?

[CKNovel]

I feel like Yoshida completely misunderstood the community complain
Everyone felt that the DPS check was very tight but the community mainly said that tight DPS check are okay but not in combination of terrible job balance.

There are also point that aren't adressed:

1. Why are some jobs, within the same role, underperforming when they bring less support? Taking MCH and DNC or SMN and RDM.
   This contradicts:
   "When balancing jobs, each job’s base damage numbers at the applicable item level are adjusted with respect to the difficulty of playing that particular job and its rotation, as well as its support actions and their effects."
   Regardless of each encounter mechanics, those jobs are underperforming when competing against much more mobile or usefull support in all available battle.
   
   
2. Why the massive discrepancy between ranged, caster and melee when every encounter is designed for garanteed melee uptime?
   This speaks for itself, there is a massive melee catering during this expac. (see P7S and P8Sp2 in which all mechanics are solved within the boss hitbox)
   
   
3. Considering the 2nd question, what is going to evolve? Job design or raid design?
   I believe this is a very important question now that ranged and melee jobs plays exactly the same.
   
   
4. How is the 2 min burst meta going to evolve? There are numerous feedback that it's not enjoyable and kills jobs creativity.
   
   
5. Why is the job balance feedback ignored? It's been since 6.1 that the community asks for some jobs getting buff.
   Those jobs never received buffs and those are the very same that are struggling today.
   I can understand that "adjusting all jobs in such a short period is also not feasible" but the feedback is there since April.
   

We're once again in this situation because feedback was ignored and problems were shoved under a rug.
I understand the good will to communicate with the community