Thread: 3.0's Coming... What are the Craziest Game Changes you can Think of?

SMN and SCH will lv from 50-60 separately. That's my guess on a "crazy game change" lol.

Originally Posted by Krr

Honestly?

The tank str/vit split is probably one of the best design accidents this game has had. Yeah, it's bullcrap that costs WAY too much gil, time, and effort to make for an unfair reward, but it's a good template for future loot and reward design to give players an actual sense of power over their character's abilities. I want more tanks and healers doing interesting stance-dance "exploits" to maximize their contribution, I want more things like Dragoons and Bards clutch-tanking/kiting in emergencies, where skilled and adaptive play defines success, not the ability to perfectly recreate fight scripts or instantly shut down.

Hm, a design accident. I like that way of putting it. As I said, I'd love to try and brainstorm ways of making "alternative" primary stats viable for other classes the way STR and VIT interact for Tanks, but I'd have no idea where to start. It'd probably involve lots of changing the way the stats work entirely so that benefits can actually spread. One example I always thought of was giving MNK and DRG Dexterity as another stat to stack that provides small boosts to damage but also increases TP regeneration(or alternately reduces TP consumption), as dexterous limbs are not only fast but move efficiently.

Originally Posted by Donjo

There is, in fact, a severe imbalance existing within the game. SE royally screwed up, mostly with encounter design admittedly but with stats in one major area: most jobs have their main stat and their damage stat being exactly the same. Therefore, maximum potential is achieved mostly by maximizing this one stat. Tanks, however, are the odd duck. Their main stat is Vitality but their damage stat is Strength. This alone, though, wouldn't cause the huge problems we're currently experiencing with what is known as the "aggressive tank". All of the following things make it the case that for Tanks and Tanks alone, one cannot unambiguously reach a maximum potential while maxing their main stat.

1. The main stat and damage stat are different.
2. Crafted Accessories allow primary stats(STR, DEX, etc.) to be melded to them in enormous amounts(in relation to their benefit to the character in comparison to the secondaries), which allows Tanks to benefit most from them.
3. Encounters at the endgame are simply not doing enough damage to Tanks, thus allowing them to trade a disproportionate amount of their main stat for Strength. This is further compounded by the fact that many of them are, at these levels of hp, tanking the bosses outside of their tank stance for 90% of the battle. But, that particular diddle is caused by...
4. Single Hit Tank Busters are such an awful way to make an encounter "difficult". They directly propagate the logic of "if I can survive this one hit every time, I have enough HP". SE has already shown they can move past this kind of mechanic by providing examples of both multi-hit tank busters(Bahamut's Claw, Sword Dance, etc.) and encounters without busters but high constant damage(Shiva EX). The single hit buster should be eliminated entirely. Additionally, every single buster in the game should be physical damage. This would make encounters more dynamic and somewhat less formulaic in addition to making parry and block procs more useful.

SE didn't anticipate just how powerful crafted gear was going to become. When people can craft together things on day one of the existence of a raid and meld them to be explicitly better than the stuff the new raid gives, there's a problem with the intended speed of gear progression. Tanks wielding accessories with both STR and VIT on them are the most profited by all of this, which is why I directly targeted them so much in my suggested changes.

-Accessories are class locked: Tanks can't wear Slaying accessories anymore
-Main Stat materia is nerfed + no guaranteed slot on accessories: You're right; people will still try to do this anyway. But, they'll literally cry trying and be able to do nothing but max that other main stat, if there is enough room in the first place for it.
-Vitality determines Tank Damage: Now Tanks are in the same boat as everyone else; maxing the main stat = maximum potential in both mitigation and damage.
-Unmitigated attacks instakill: Stops tanking outside of tank stances. Buuut, this one is probably overkill considering the change above, unless bosses start doing enough damage to really need the extra mitigation.

Now, switching damage from Strength to Vitality for Tanks would solve the problem alone. Now they have to use the gear assigned to them like everyone else. It, however, is the "easy" solution. The alternate solution is "if Tanks can have two primary stats that are so important to them, why can't everyone else?", but that opens the can of worms known as "balance". I'd love to try and suss out possibilities for this as it could make gearing very interesting.

Oh, you were SERIOUS about those accessories changes and weren't just proposing CRAZY things that SE might do to piss off their players.

Those changes to accessories are AWFUL

GOD

F)*#$@#$

AWFUL

(i'm sorry if that's a little harsh, but seriously, I cannot emphasize how much I do not like these changes)

All it does is serve to take an already terrible overmelding system (that's only benefit is that it's less terrible than the 1.0 overmelding system, but it still sucks) and make it worse by removing guaranteed slots. They've already nerfed the crafted accessories by taking a secondary stat off them, if anything they should add in a 2nd guaranteed slot to the accessories now that they've been nerfed. For better or worse, these accessories are now designed and balanced around being max melded, so it only makes sense to ease the very frustrating and unfun aspect of getting there. Making the accessories more random and frustrating to meld is absolutely no way to fix the problem at all.

Seriously, the whole stat system and how it relates to materia is screwy. Elemental materia are completely pointless. Main stat materia are ONLY good on accessories (and really, only STR/VIT have much if any purpose, DEX/MND/INT are borderline useless too), and you pretty much want to kill that off.

Originally Posted by Vlady

Redesign of summoner would bring in more players then upset. I know dozens in my old ff 11 link shell that was turned off from wow clone ff 14.

As someone who mained a warlock in wow and was extremely serious about it, in both a hardcore raid environment and high ranked PvP environments.

I can promise you 100% that summoner plays absolutely nothing like wows warlock besides the fact that you have dots you put on mobs, and have a pet.

Originally Posted by Donjo

The accessory thing addresses imbalances that currently exist with the stat systems and helps to prevent confusion over which accessories one should be wearing. Would you want your WHM wearing a full set of VIT accessories? It also speaks of awful, awful design when the meta for a particular role calls for them not to use the gear that's explicitly assigned to them.

The only people that I see that may be confused about what accessories to wear are newbies that don't really understand how their stats work yet. I don't see what imbalances you're talking about, honestly. o.O

The only increased difficulty here is a harsher benefit for losing hate... which some people desperately need if they're ever going to grow as tanks and some DPS need in order to learn that aggro is actually a thing that exists. This point, though, primarily serves one purpose and one purpose alone: preventing Tanks from "tanking" something outside of the Tank Stance while in party based content.

Yeah... making it so the target gets one shotted unless they're mitigating is overdoing it a bit.

I honestly don't see why there's such a problem with tanking things in Sword Oath if you can hold aggro.

If the MT is full VIT and the OT is a Paladin in full Strength, that MT is going to lose hate to the Paladin. But, this is really just another method of discouraging tanking outside of the proper stance.

Not necessarily. If MT has a significantly better weapon than the OT, or if their gear is about the same and OT is out of their tank stance, it's not too hard for the MT to keep aggro while the OT puts some DPS on.

The idea is that if you slip into the stance while the fairy is already out, the healing potency decrease hits the fairy right then and there

You seem to have a real problem with non-DPS classes wanting to add some DPS... -.-

Is this a spot-a-person-who-doesn't-really-raid thread?
Awful, awful ideas.

Crafted gear isn't superior to the top tome/raid gear available. The fact that it allows to progress faster however is a good thing. It allows players even if unintentionally to find unconventional ways to tackle content, overcome it through the use of mechanics outside of the actual battling. This makes the game feel whole. If you want all balance all the time might as well remove all the gear and preset all the stats. That's gonna be fun.

Scholars and White Mages are NOT gonna be on equal ground if you gimp the fairy through Cleric Stance because White Mages have Regen. Also Scholars tend to DPS more not only because of the fairy but because they have easier ways to restore MP and a super useful tool called Lustrate.
(Also no, it doesn't matter if you summon the fairy while in Cleric Stance, her stats aren't altered)

Two-tanking is already properly enforced in FCOB, very creatively, by multiple mechanics. There's no need for every enemy move to be a tankbuster.

Nobody likes to fight trash. Especially not when the raid goes on farm. The content is built around the idea of repeatability and pretending trash is anything but a minute obstacle is just gonna get on people's nerves. Trash right now is used to wake people up for the raid essentially and that's a pretty good use.

Originally Posted by Donjo

3. Sure, play around with whatever you want in the dungeons. That's all fine and dandy because they're supposed to be facerolls. In Coil, being out of your Tank Stance should always be nigh suicide. The ways people are doing the "hardest" encounters exposes so many mistakes in encounter design it's not even funny.

What you need to remember is that the people tanking FCoB in Sword Oath are people that are pretty much already overgeared for FCoB and have the timing on the fights down pat by virtue of the fact that they have the turns on farm. People that are still progressing through FCoB are most likely using their tanking stances as normal. How much time you spend in your tanking stance depends on the comfort level of your healers in whatever content you're in.

5. Not necessarily. What I'm sniping at with the Cleric Stance change is that Scholars can add their DPS far more easily than a WHM can because of their fairy healing at 100% throughput while they're in Cleric Stance. If that is removed, they're on equal ground in this regard.

One word: Holy. White mage can deal massive damage AND reduce tank damage in one fell swoop. WHM is better for mass pulls, while Scholar excels at single target DPS (I rarely leave cleric stance on a lot of trials).

They seem pretty even to me when you take that into account.

Regarding the Tanks, it's that the current tank meta exposes massive failures in stat and encounter design that brutally killing the aggressive tank is just one step in resolving.

Honestly, I don't get what you have against the "aggressive tank" meta. It makes playing tanks a lot more fun. Probably the worst part about playing a tank is the feeling of utter futility when it comes to solo play. Everything is a battle of attrition - you mayaswell just leave yourself on autoattack and go afk for all the fun you're having dealing 100-200 damage at a time with your skills. Sure, you aren't really killable but neither is whatever you're fighting. Let's face it, mobs in the overworld aren't really even a threat for squisher classes anyway so all you're doing is slowing yourself down if you run around in a fending set.

Originally Posted by Donjo

1. I never said anything about SE making changes intended to piss people off or posters in this thread only submitting ideas they wouldn't like to see implemented. I'm not quite sure where you got that.

No I just assumed that's what you meant, given that's all those changes accomplish.

2. Crafted Accessories themselves are awful for game balance.

3. The only other way to address the problem is to eliminate crafted accessories from the game entirely or make main stat materia either non-existent or nigh-useless. At least this way the most persistent can make their god piece eventually.

4. Yeah, that's why it needs an entire rework. It's so hopelessly broken that it's better off removed than existing in such a state.

Crafted items are super narrow in their usefulness. Only crafted accessories are really decent for anything and those are already nerfed in their usefulness by both removing the 3rd stat and the fact that they get released a full patch cycle after everything else does.

The "problem" is very limited to the highest tier of guilds. "Fixing" the problem by destroying crafted items is no way to fix it.

A better solution would be to put VIT on all accessories and then balance around that so that there's not so much discrepancy between the two.

Even better, give tanks another secondary stat that actually reduces incoming damage in some way and/or make parry better so that tanks WANT to stack defensive stats, instead of ignoring them like they often do currently.