[Suggestion] - Revise Party buffs (Strength in numbers) & (Comradery)

[Reynhart]

If you change Garuda to specifically resist BLM spells, people will start refusing BLM in PT cause they won't be effective enough. Generally speaking, adjusting content is a lazy solution "You can't get an invite to Garuda ?" "Just go kill Ifrit more and more if you want to play your BLM".

If jobs are made equally usefull strictly speaking, people will always stack the easier ones to play. If they change them to be equally easy to play, all the jobs will be the same, and so what's the point of having seven jobs.

As I said, for each content, one setup will always be the best. And any "best" setup favoring a job will see less invites for the others.

Basically, if devs announce a new job ability for PLD that reduces damage for all party members, like an "enhanced sentinel stance", i'm sure all people will say "Wow, what a great idea". After all, it will be a huge boost to PLD's effectiveness. Such ability is no different from having a party boost for including a PLD in the PT.

[Jinko]

^ Yup I agree, also as Deltara said above as they add more jobs/class the different types of combinations could get very interesting.

[Roaran]

If you change Garuda to specifically resist BLM spells, people will start refusing BLM in PT cause they won't be effective enough. Generally speaking, adjusting content is a lazy solution "You can't get an invite to Garuda ?" "Just go kill Ifrit more and more if you want to play your BLM".

If jobs are made equally usefull strictly speaking, people will always stack the easier ones to play. If they change them to be equally easy to play, all the jobs will be the same, and so what's the point of having seven jobs.

As I said, for each content, one setup will always be the best. And any "best" setup favoring a job will see less invites for the others.

Basically, if devs announce a new job ability for PLD that reduces damage for all party members, like an "enhanced sentinel stance", i'm sure all people will say "Wow, what a great idea". After all, it will be a huge boost to PLD's effectiveness. Such ability is no different from having a party boost for including a PLD in the PT.

My statement was, IF BLM are really awesome against Garuda, have Garuda resist magic spells or more specifically BLM spells. Maybe I wasn't being clear enough, but I meant that the developers would tone down BLM's effectiveness, by increasing Garuda's magic defense. The goal being to bring them in line with one another.

People are like electricity when considering options; they always follow the path that is easiest to travel. When one option is clearly superior, people always choose the obviously superior path.

The objective in balancing classes, is to make all those different possibilities as close to the median effectiveness as possible. In doing so, player preference will play a more considerable role.

Once again. If we implement the OP's idea, the new best thing to do, will either be stack all the classes with the good buffs, while ignoring all the other classes, or simply force groups to have 1 of each class.

SO, let's say your core group of 8 players loves playing PLD PLD WHM BRD MNK MNK WAR DRG. Let's say the game is balanced, and every person in the group has a defined and purposeful role in the party. Now, imagine if they felt like not having 1 of every class was detrimental? So one of the PLDs and one of the MNKs would have to switch. Maybe they're fine capitulating... maybe theyre good at it... But do you see how some people will view your "Party Buffs" in the EXACT SAME light as being forced to stack BLM.

Look, I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I'm saying it's one of the worst ideas. It's a step in the wrong direction, and it demonstrates the EXACT opposite type of fixes that are necessary. And I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings or whatever...? But I don't want to risk the Battle team picking this up and trying it out.

[Jinko]

I actually think a better way to do the Garuda fight is to have her change phases, one where she is weak to magic and one where she is weak to phiscal attacks, this would force parties to have both types of DD in a party.

Of course people would still only stack BLM and BRD (considering how BRD is physical damage), this isn't really a development problem its a player made issue.

My suggestion was to lessen class stacking not to negate it completely because nothing can do that.

One thing SE need to stop doing is having so much close range AoE moves it really has a negative effect in having close range DPS in your party.

Anyways lets not turn this into a "what can SE do" thread.

Look, I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I'm saying it's one of the worst ideas. It's a step in the wrong direction, and it demonstrates the EXACT opposite type of fixes that are necessary. And I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings or whatever...? But I don't want to risk the Battle team picking this up and trying it out.

That's fine like I said you are allowed your opinion, of course 17 likes say its not such a bad idea so I guess if the dev team do implement it (which is unlikely anyway) you will just have to live with it. (check the bolded part of my post thanks)

[Roaran]

I actually think a better way to do the Garuda fight is to have her change phases, one where she is weak to magic and one where she is weak to phiscal attacks, this would force parties to have both types of DD in a party.

First you have to ask yourself: Why are you trying to lessen class stacking? What is the reason that makes class stacking bad?

Why isn't one class used for raids while other classes are used for other purposes? What is wrong with that?

My reasononing this whole time has been that players who want to raid usually tend to have a preference on which class they would most like to play. When one class becomes dominant in for any time, there are people who capitulate their preferences for some greater goal. I see this strong desire to class stack on the part of raid leaders or raid groups in general and even those themselves who capitulate as purely a balance issue. If there were no dominant class, player preference would play a larger role, and thus players would be able to have more fun (it IS a game designed for entertainment).

Perhaps you have some other reason for disliking class stacking? Maybe you can explain.

However, your idea is actually counter productive in creating real balance. It makes things much more complicated and unintuitive for the player and the developers. It is completely unnecessary. Why should certain classes need to bribe their way into a party? Why not just simply balance them?

That's fine like I said you are allowed your opinion, of course 17 likes say its not such a bad idea so I guess if the dev team do implement it (which is unlikely anyway) you will just have to live with it. (check the bolded part of my post thanks)

17 likes say that people like the idea of getting more buffs because they think it will improve their DPS or whatever. Battle Encounters are always balanced with a certain set target of time and difficulty involved. Sure you will get some buff, but then the devs will balance it and essentially negate the effects completely.

I would never consider 17 random people on the internet a good measure of a good idea.

[Reynhart]

We try to lessen class stacking because people tend te reject some classes.
In pick-up raid, party setup is not made for "what people like to do", but for "what is effective".
If I earned 10gil for each time i read "PLD {No thanks} Do you have something else ?", i could buy some of the best stuff in game. If you have 7 friends for you raids, of course you will play what you like.

But let's say you core group doesn't have a WHM because no one wants to play one. If the game is balanced as you want, and anyone can play what they want, then healing can't be mandatory in raids. If healing isn't mandatory, WHM is useless. On the other side, if healing is mandatory, WHM is mandatory.
The same goes for PLD. Its sole purpose is to survive against powerful mobs. If survive is an issue with any other class, PLD is mandatory. If not, PLD is useless. In a pool of seven jobs, two are either mandatory or useless.

Now, what if nothing is made mandatory, but these buffs will make such a giving better results ?
Nothing is mandatory = People can play what they like
Better setup = No one will reject any class

[Roaran]

If you allow buffs to stack for each additional class you have, people will automatically stack the most useful buff for their group and the encounter. If you only allow 1 stack for each buff, then people will stack first the most useful classes with the most useful buffs, then they will either continue to stack useful classes unless the buffs from the other classes are significant enough to compensate for their class not being as good as the others. This means that the only time the suggestion ever functions as intended is when there is an inherent imbalance among the classes. So, in order for this suggestion to be viable, the classes must as of necessity be unbalanced.

Secondly, it wouldn't matter if classes were rejected if noone preferred playing those classes. What you're suggesting, instead of having BLM BLM BLM BRD BRD WAR WHM WHM and rejecting all other classes, you will have something like PLD WAR DRG MNK BRD BLM WHM WHM and rejecting all duplicates. Let's say you want a party for some raid, and all that is available are 3 monks, you take 1 yet reject the others. That is the problem you create. And instead of letting those 2 people play monk, they can join if they switch to classes they dislike. You will still have people rejected for almost identical reasons. In fact, instead of all switching to a known over powered class, people will randomly switch to whatever job that is needed. You actually make things worse with this suggestion. And the whole time while doing this you purposefully ignore, in fact you make it necessary to ignore the real problem - actual balance.

[Orophin]

I like the concept, however this will kind of create an opposite effect of class stacking in that groups will feel required to bring one of each job, which will alienate certain players from playing their favorite job. A lot of content requires a second healer so that means every other spot would have to be filled by one of every other job if you want every buff.

Some groups will probably feel that having all the buffs aren't necessary and just bring whatever, but there are definitely some people that will build their group around the buffs, and after watching some first kill videos, a lot of groups will conform that this is what MUST be done.

Other than this small potential issue, I think it's a great idea.

[Reynhart]

First post precisely said : "Auras would not stack".
I's clear to me that means "SAME Auras would not stack", so having 2 WAR won't give you 2xWAR Aura.

I'm a lvl 50 GLA and it really matters to me that most people reject PLD in pick-up. Of course, since your main is MRD, you're not really concerned about uselessness. For setup, you will have PLD WAR DRG MNK BRD BLM WHM and WHM. So basically, any people who want to join will have a chance unless the setup already have one of the job.
But you forget one important thing. It's not that easy to gather precisely one of each in pick-up, so you will invite duplicates because you need 8 people.

Nowadays, if you make a PT and 3 WHM want to join, you won't invite the three of them too. If 3 PLD want to join, you won't invite any of them if you can have a WAR...and in my several Ifrit fights, i only saw WAR stacking and BLM stacking, so, leaders would rejects duplicates on 3 BRD, 3 DRG or 3 MNKs.
So the problem is already there, but worse because stacking favors only 2 jobs.

As I said, you speak of balance as "Anyone can play anything", so you basically removes any setup strategy and any class differencies. Why don't you suggest WAR gets some healing spells, so people won't be forced to play WHM if they don't like it ?

[Reynhart]

Some groups will probably feel that having all the buffs aren't necessary and just bring whatever, but there are definitely some people that will build their group around the buffs, and after watching some first kill videos, a lot of groups will conform that this is what MUST be done.

Once again, that MUST NOT be done. But if you can, jackpot !
And as I said, if these are powerful enough to lessen the need of a full PT, that will cut a lot of "Waiting for the final member to come" time.

If people see videos of a group using really high-quality-triple-melded-gear, will they decide that it MUST be done and reject anyone with lesser stuff ?