[dev1020], [dev1021], [dev1023], [dev1027], [dev1032] Top 3 Battle Issues

[AtryxEtair]

I see there was a post like this but it was unorganized and unstructured, no offense. So I made my own.

The most common occurring discussions(constructive) from my observations and top priority to the battle system.

1. Abilities; Not only do all classes get most of a players acquired skills and tend to blend together, the skills themselves are are very similar and not influential enough to feel situation changing.
A. 5-60 second recast timers make everything seem unimportant
B. Weapon skills all tend to do the same things
C. Higher tiers of like abilities have negligible benefits

2. Battle Time Expectancy; I have not done the actual number crunching here. But it seems like even the hardest battles are over in less than 30 seconds. Whether the enemy AoE spams and wipes out the party, or a party zerg the mess out of it and its almost immediately dead.
A. The monsters have small amounts of HP and earth-shattering attacks
B. We have no where near close to a proportional amount of HP in relation to
monster attacks
C. Our relatively low HP is offset my quick and substantial healing spells that would
be viewed as extremely overpowered if it weren't for the massive damage
monsters project on us
D. TP generation is ridiculously fast devaluing weapon skills, and paired with low
MP requirements for spells makes these, along with the abilities, uninteresting
E. In general battle seems like a sprint to the finish with no need for roles or
strategy

3. Enmity; I do not know why the guild leve initiator gets automatic hate and all popped mobs go directly to them. What if that person fills the healing roll and has little to no defense? It seems like and unfair setup to me that is more frustrating that challenging.
A. Even when not doing guild leves the enmity is extremely difficult to manage.
The monsters don't seem to care if the healers spam "Benediction's" equivalent
over and over
B. DD's are the main source of enmity generation and a monster in battle usually
seems pretty indecisive in terms of who it wants to kill
C. Given, with the correct setup in a party enmity can be managed effectively and
efficiently but it more trouble than it's worth when the mob is dead in 10
seconds

----------------------------------------------

There are obviously more inconsistencies, and unbalanced aspects, than these. However, these are the really the foundation the games current play mechanics and my biggest personal deterrent to fighting in the game.

Summary; Fights need to last longer. We need more impactful actions throughout the battle to strategize with. And we should be able to function logically in respect to each other and the target enemy.

[Oren]

Yeah I’d have to agree. These are probably my main issues with the game although I understand SE is trying to appeal to a wider audience, I feel they really need to increase the overall difficulty of the game or at least include challenging content for the players that want to be tested and feel a sense of achievement.

With a R50 party I wouldn’t say it’s a challenge but the only enemies which do require a decent amount of strategy and a fair amount of time to kill are the world NMs.

[Amsai]

Completely Agree! Battle feels unimportant and could use some more depth and especially needs to add weight to you decisions. The battles do go way too fast, and its not enough time to bother to strategize. Just as the UI feels like your spamming 11111 etc, the battles themselves feel like a spamfest as well.

The underemphesis on many spells and abilities makes them either non-effective, not worth the effort, or not special. If there is not a good build up to TP, then the WSs become lackluster because your using them every 5 seconds. If buffs need to be recast too often, then it doesnt feel worth the effort. If effects and abilities don't have any major or lasting impact, then they don't feel much different from your base attacks. If I can use a reaaly powerful abilitt every 30 seconds then it no longer feels special, it becomes a regular attack, and feels like its just being exploited.

Enmity definately needs to be fixed. SE should at least look into it. Also, class uniqueness, better party interdependency and strategy, auto attack, death penalty, and reduce durability rates/improve repair npc.

[Martin]

Agreed, all your points are proved correctly, they should really get a fix, I'd like a good, balanced, mid-peaced battle that is enjoyable than getting killed in one hit or a group of people killing mobs in a second, just what you said.

It would be more interesting if battles laster longer, we players had more hp, why not monsters too but it is certain that their attacks are too strong, and that when we have low defence and HP we get killed easily, nobody enjoys getting slashed out in 1 hit all the time if you're; as mentioned earlier; Leve-starer in a party... long story short, these suggestions should soon become the next updates

[Arcell]

They've already stated that they know these are problems and are working on them >.>

We've known for months that the enmity calculations are being reworked. I agree that it's a little wonky right now but it's tolerable. However a system should be more than tolerable.

They're working on class uniqueness which would alleviate the feeling that all classes and weapon skills are basically the same thing. We've even heard a bit about how they plan to do about it in the Letters from the Producer.

Lowering the party size from 15 to 8 and rebalancing encounters to work with this will certainly help with battle time expectancy. Especially during NM fights, there will be less room for error and you can't just throw more healers/DPS at it.

[Reika]

I see there was a post like this but it was unorganized and unstructured, no offense. So I made my own.

The most common occurring discussions(constructive) from my observations and top priority to the battle system.

1. Abilities; Not only do all classes get most of a players acquired skills and tend to blend together, the skills themselves are are very similar and not influential enough to feel situation changing.
A. 5-60 second recast timers make everything seem unimportant
B. Weapon skills all tend to do the same things
C. Higher tiers of like abilities have negligible benefits

2. Battle Time Expectancy; I have not done the actual number crunching here. But it seems like even the hardest battles are over in less than 30 seconds. Whether the enemy AoE spams and wipes out the party, or a party zerg the mess out of it and its almost immediately dead.
A. The monsters have small amounts of HP and earth-shattering attacks
B. We have no where near close to a proportional amount of HP in relation to
monster attacks
C. Our relatively low HP is offset my quick and substantial healing spells that would
be viewed as extremely overpowered if it weren't for the massive damage
monsters project on us
D. TP generation is ridiculously fast devaluing weapon skills, and paired with low
MP requirements for spells makes these, along with the abilities, uninteresting
E. In general battle seems like a sprint to the finish with no need for roles or
strategy

3. Enmity; I do not know why the guild leve initiator gets automatic hate and all popped mobs go directly to them. What if that person fills the healing roll and has little to no defense? It seems like and unfair setup to me that is more frustrating that challenging.
A. Even when not doing guild leves the enmity is extremely difficult to manage.
The monsters don't seem to care if the healers spam "Benediction's" equivalent
over and over
B. DD's are the main source of enmity generation and a monster in battle usually
seems pretty indecisive in terms of who it wants to kill
C. Given, with the correct setup in a party enmity can be managed effectively and
efficiently but it more trouble than it's worth when the mob is dead in 10
seconds

----------------------------------------------

There are obviously more inconsistencies, and unbalanced aspects, than these. However, these are the really the foundation the games current play mechanics and my biggest personal deterrent to fighting in the game.

Summary; Fights need to last longer. We need more impactful actions throughout the battle to strategize with. And we should be able to function logically in respect to each other and the target enemy.

I will have to disagree with you on a few points.

1B - Yes weapon skills damage, but there are many with added effects over the damage.
2B - The only monster attack that is currently over powered is Impish Incantations, Which can easily one-shot your party at 4 stars or more, regardless of your HP. (Or if you're below the Guildleve rank.)
2D - Tp generation is only fast for pugilist, lancer, and archer. Everyone else is slow, especially when fighting at higher difficulties or fighting NM's
2E - Fight at higher difficulties to increase the challange.
3B - Self buffs and debuffs are actually the main source of Eminity. A thm that spams debuffs, or anyone that uses any kind of 'self buffs' in succession will easily take the hate off of a tank. by self buffs i mean buffs like Blood Rite, Furiocity, Invigorate, Hawks Eye, Etc. Monsters for some (broken) reason love to go right after anyone using these skills.
3C - Behests are the only place this is really forced. with Guildleves it is up to the person setting the difficulty how long the monsters will stay alive.

[Kazimir]

2. Battle Time Expectancy; I have not done the actual number crunching here. But it seems like even the hardest battles are over in less than 30 seconds. Whether the enemy AoE spams and wipes out the party, or a party zerg the mess out of it and its almost immediately dead.
A. The monsters have small amounts of HP and earth-shattering attacks
B. We have no where near close to a proportional amount of HP in relation to
monster attacks
C. Our relatively low HP is offset my quick and substantial healing spells that would
be viewed as extremely overpowered if it weren't for the massive damage
monsters project on us
D. TP generation is ridiculously fast devaluing weapon skills, and paired with low
MP requirements for spells makes these, along with the abilities, uninteresting
E. In general battle seems like a sprint to the finish with no need for roles or
strategy

I wanted to talk about this specifically. I think a big issue with the game being seen as too easy and boring is how quick the fights are. In increasing the enemies survivability in both HP and defense, the battles would be much more interesting. It would require groups to actually use the regimen system to increase damage output for faster kills, and just make grouping as a whole more interesting. Obviously in doing this fights would take much longer, however if you increase the amount of SP and exp gained per mob to equalize it I think people will come to enjoy the everyday fighting.

Take into consideration this is a Final Fantasy game that is being played by many many Final Fantasy fans. We are used to longer battles that require some sort of strategy to defeat the enemy as fast as possible. It is a running theme throughout the series. We do not want the spam fest we have now that the FFXIV developers have seemingly taken from many other MMO's. You did it right in the last 13 installments including XI, there is no reason to make the length and strategy of our battles in XIV any different.

[Bethor]

While your points are right and I agree with them, you need to consider the battle regimen stuff. Currently I don't see them very often in normal parties or even during guild leves. A lot of people don't like them, since it seems to be such a hassle.

Let's say we raise the DEF and HP of the mobs for lenghty battles. The only way to decrease that time and "optimize" the fight would be the BR's. Then you need to overhaul the BR's a bit. At the moment there's no limitation on party members participating in the BR's order. You need 1 person who actually decides how many persons can activate their skills and of course, start the regime.

They could keep the BR-System but I'd add some time frames. Let's say Player A is setting it up and the other's only have like 5-10 secs to place their skills into the order and after that certain time has passed, the BR is activated. This would probably kill the possibility that more than 3-4 players participate in the BR but on the other hand, is that even neccesary?

The "old school" WS->SC->MB from FFXI was cool, but since S-E wants to create a new game, I wouldn't want to see it in FFXIV. On the other hand I wouldn't say "no" to them eitherway

Another word on the battle length. If they really increase the HP+DEF and maybe ATT of the mobs for more difficulty, they need to REALLY make big improvements on the classes. Like you said, there should be no spam fest of 1111111. Instead chosing a skill should mean something. And working together as a team should be more effective.

[AtryxEtair]

I posted this almost a month ago before I realized the magnitude of the system overhaul. I just came across it lurking forums and thought "this looks familiar." Anyway, my goal when posting is to get a feeling for the communities mindset rather than impose my opinions on others. Like a troll, but trying to get positive useful responses in place of ignorant angry belittling ones. Not sure why this has picked up in the past 2 days...but thank you for your responses? lol

[Steggun]

I see there was a post like this but it was unorganized and unstructured, no offense. So I made my own.

The most common occurring discussions(constructive) from my observations and top priority to the battle system.

1. Abilities; Not only do all classes get most of a players acquired skills and tend to blend together, the skills themselves are are very similar and not influential enough to feel situation changing.
A. 5-60 second recast timers make everything seem unimportant
B. Weapon skills all tend to do the same things
C. Higher tiers of like abilities have negligible benefits

2. Battle Time Expectancy; I have not done the actual number crunching here. But it seems like even the hardest battles are over in less than 30 seconds. Whether the enemy AoE spams and wipes out the party, or a party zerg the mess out of it and its almost immediately dead.
A. The monsters have small amounts of HP and earth-shattering attacks
B. We have no where near close to a proportional amount of HP in relation to
monster attacks
C. Our relatively low HP is offset my quick and substantial healing spells that would
be viewed as extremely overpowered if it weren't for the massive damage
monsters project on us
D. TP generation is ridiculously fast devaluing weapon skills, and paired with low
MP requirements for spells makes these, along with the abilities, uninteresting
E. In general battle seems like a sprint to the finish with no need for roles or
strategy

3. Enmity; I do not know why the guild leve initiator gets automatic hate and all popped mobs go directly to them. What if that person fills the healing roll and has little to no defense? It seems like and unfair setup to me that is more frustrating that challenging.
A. Even when not doing guild leves the enmity is extremely difficult to manage.
The monsters don't seem to care if the healers spam "Benediction's" equivalent
over and over
B. DD's are the main source of enmity generation and a monster in battle usually
seems pretty indecisive in terms of who it wants to kill
C. Given, with the correct setup in a party enmity can be managed effectively and
efficiently but it more trouble than it's worth when the mob is dead in 10
seconds

----------------------------------------------

There are obviously more inconsistencies, and unbalanced aspects, than these. However, these are the really the foundation the games current play mechanics and my biggest personal deterrent to fighting in the game.

Summary; Fights need to last longer. We need more impactful actions throughout the battle to strategize with. And we should be able to function logically in respect to each other and the target enemy.

I agree 100% with everthing you said here. I hope all of these will be addressed sooner rather than later, especially points 1 and 2.

I Really hope they can find the perfect combination of casual/solo friendly content and hardcore/party content. Right now I feel the game is 95% geared toward casual/solo friendly content when it should be closer to 50-50. I miss the fun and excitement of exping in a decent EXP party in FFXI, hopefully they can bring some of that to FFXIV.