Concerns Regarding DPS Balance: Physical Ranged, Red Mage, and Summoner

[Valence]

I personally tried to be sympathetic towards Physical Ranged up until now. But watching your exchange was probably the most convincing argument that I've seen thus far for preserving the status quo. Were the situation reversed, it's clear that you would not offer the same courtesy.

I'm glad to read that you'd base sympathy to a role not on logic and what would be good for the game, but rather on personal feelings for somebody you don't like. What a community.

Finally, just for vanity sake, all phys ranged, smn and surprisingly rdm have noticeably smaller interquartile ranges than the other DPS jobs, suggesting that they are indeed easier to play, or atleast the average joe is executing them more consistently than the rest (coz its ez) with MCH being the easiest followed by DNC and then SMN. I mean hey, 2 of the 3 phys ranged jobs are easier than smn with the third not far behind according to the average joe~~ just sayin :P

That's not how it works....

[Lyth]

There's no point trying to stand up for the 'common good' if the people whom you're standing up for are looking for ways to drag you down at every opportunity. It's like offering a hand up to a megalocrab in a bucket only to get pinched for your trouble. I'm sure that there was a lesson about this somewhere in the Dark Knight questline.

...

If you're using DPS as a measure of player skill, you can only make that comparison within the same job. That's not just because different jobs have different weightings on their actions, but also because of Crit/DH variance. As an example, PCT can have under 200 actions over the course of a shorter fight, and many of those singular button presses could easily amount to anywhere between a 100k and 150k damage difference depending on whether they were Crit/DH or not. That's a massive amount of damage variance on a job with a tiny action count. A job's IQR might as well be evaluating coin flips at that point.

Regarding equivalent percentiles, there's no way to determine how your percentile on BLM correlates to your percentile on PCT, because that depends on your time spent playing each job. You might not even know how to play one of the jobs in question.

I do think that BLM needs relative buffs, because it relies on sustained damage rather than burst, and requires higher tuning to stay relevant in shorter, burst heavy fights. I think job difficulty comes out in the wash, because as you become skilled at meeting those difficulty checks through practicing your chosen job, your damage naturally goes up.

[Valence]

There's no point trying to stand up for the 'common good' if the people whom you're standing up for are looking for ways to drag you down at every opportunity. It's like offering a hand up to a megalocrab in a bucket only to get pinched for your trouble. I'm sure that there was a lesson about this somewhere in the Dark Knight questline.

I could be saying the exact same thing about you to put things in perspective. As a melee brain you've been consistently putting down the role. You're trying to pass for a nice and reasonable person when all of what you've been advocating for when it came to rphys was the systematic demolition of all of the role's identity. You'll excuse me if I'm not exactly on board with this, even if it DOES fit the current model of the game and where it has been going in the past expansions. And I don't think that's exactly a shining good example to follow either.

If you do like it, as many people as you seem to have been mostly pleased with the modern direction the game has been taking however, then that's great for you, but you'll find me at every corner fighting against it, because I don't like it. I want rphys to remain rphys and interact with MEANINGFUL rphys things, not a glorified caster dps.

[Router]

I wouldn't mind phys ranged doing less damage if they actually gave them mechanics to do. "Furthest player baits X" mechanics used to be fairly common, but nowadays they simply don't exist and everyone does the same shit regardless of role. Made you feel useful beyond your 1% stat boost.

[Lyth]

...

To be honest, I don't know what Physical Ranged's identity is, let alone trying to change it. If you're referring to the walking casts concept, I tried it out in PvP and thought that it was a lot of fun, to the point that I could envision its use in PvE with some tweaking. For that matter, I think a 'walking cast' style charged attack could be a great addition to a future melee job, especially if they ever go the Mystic Knight/Divine Knight/Unyielding Blade route in the future. But the way that I left it was 'it's a neat idea, but I have no personal stake in this'.

By the way, I'm up for creative support effects too, especially if they involve movement tools (Expedient's speed buff feels like it should have been a physical ranged effect, but I digress). What it comes down to is that after 10 years of playing this game, I'm up for anything novel that shakes up the gameplay a bit.

What I can say for sure is that I have no idea what additional benefit Physical Ranged currently brings to the table outside of the 1% buff. If there was no LB penalty for duplicate jobs it would much be preferable to have double PCT than a Physical Ranged. Would it be nice if things were fairer and more people felt valued and happy? Sure. But if you can't offer that same respect to the jobs that I care about, then it's easy enough to leave things as they are. Why make it my problem when it doesn't need to be?

[Reldhir]

If you're using DPS as a measure of player skill...

Oh I mean im not saying the numbers im referring can be directly translated to job difficulty 1:1 but it does indicate dps consistancy within each job, and a good theory behind that consistancy is ease of play.

While i do agree that jobs may be more crit dependant than others, MCH and especially DNC are both jobs with high base potency on a single skill, so you would imagine wild swings in dps given crit/DH chance but they are easily the narrowest range, even accounting for the lower overall output.

Still... hmm... yeah I suppose you'd have to adjust the ranges for expected crit/dh...but then that gets muddy because that data is across the entire player base with all sorts of varying gear combinations... yeah okay maybe not then xD

[Reldhir]

I wouldn't mind phys ranged doing less damage if they actually gave them mechanics to do. "Furthest player baits X" mechanics used to be fairly common, but nowadays they simply don't exist and everyone does the same shit regardless of role. Made you feel useful beyond your 1% stat boost.

Yeah! Also it would be nice if there were some add phases where you got to utilise those slow and bind skills too! Head graze and leg graze or whatever, I vaguely remember it being a thing in the petrifying medusa snake things from binding coils xD. That and pacify! though we saw that for the door boss in DSR. Still! That sorta phys ranged specific stuff would be a neat alternative to simply adjusting damage

It would be fantastic if we got mechanics where things pop up on the edge of the arena periodically and as a phys ranged you gotta slow/bind and then snipe them down while the team works at the boss. What might even happen is that we find the meta for those types of encounters turn into Melee, Caster, Phys ranged, Phys ranged. Would be a cool change of pace. /shrug its an idea :P

Expedient's speed buff feels like it should have been a physical ranged effect, but I digress

The idea never crossed my mind but now that youve said it im inclined to agree xD could be an extension of pelaton, shorter duration and long cd when used in battle

[BabyYoda]

To be honest, I don't know what Physical Ranged's identity is, let alone trying to change it. If you're referring to the walking casts concept, I tried it out in PvP and thought that it was a lot of fun, to the point that I could envision its use in PvE with some tweaking. For that matter, I think a 'walking cast' style charged attack could be a great addition to a future melee job, especially if they ever go the Mystic Knight/Divine Knight/Unyielding Blade route in the future. But the way that I left it was 'it's a neat idea, but I have no personal stake in this'.

By the way, I'm up for creative support effects too, especially if they involve movement tools (Expedient's speed buff feels like it should have been a physical ranged effect, but I digress). What it comes down to is that after 10 years of playing this game, I'm up for anything novel that shakes up the gameplay a bit.

What I can say for sure is that I have no idea what additional benefit Physical Ranged currently brings to the table outside of the 1% buff. If there was no LB penalty for duplicate jobs it would much be preferable to have double PCT than a Physical Ranged. Would it be nice if things were fairer and more people felt valued and happy? Sure. But if you can't offer that same respect to the jobs that I care about, then it's easy enough to leave things as they are. Why make it my problem when it doesn't need to be?

Working around job weaknesses what makes jobs fun

BLM, RDM have to deal with hard cast and you as a player you have to manage their weaknesses through the fight

walking casting is a great addition to jobs in PvP working around slow movement is great it gives skill expression and engagement to the job

[BabyYoda]

Addition to that I suggest some sort of weakness that Physical range jobs have to deal with:

BRD: walking casting/casting
MCH: walking casting
DNC: range+melee combos

[ForteNightshade]

I still find it incredibly stupid that they killed Raiton as a flexible disengage tool by tacking on a followup that requires you to be in melee range or go into melee range.

Then the very next expansion, they introduce a new scouting melee that can run circles around the edge of the map for 3 GCDs while losing nothing but autoattacks.

This seems to be a trend for them. They introduce pain points or weaknesses to one job so a different one (usually the new hotness) stands out. Granted, it's also very apparent there is ZERO discussion being had between designers. Case in point, Yoshida not only talked about the removal of Heavy Thrust and Straight Shot but made a whole lodestone post they removed those maintenance buffs due to casual players struggling with them and it leading to a larger gap between them and experienced players. Two expansions later and they put the same damn thing on Reaper and have even kept it.