Thread: The Current Status of FFXIV Patch 3.1 and How to Address it Moving Forward

Originally Posted by Kaurie

Personally, I'd rather have an interesting extremely unbalanced game than one where we all are the same with only 1 button to press. I know those are both the extremes, and I doubt we'd get either. The point still stands that I'd rather some imbalance if it meant we had more interesting stats to play with.

I'm the same way. A controlled degree of imbalance is actually fun for a certain type of player, who enjoys finding efficient combinations and discovering the best way to do things. We can do that to some degree with rotations and priorities (BLMs are a great example of a class that gets a lot of experimentation, what with all the Flare rotations that were discovered in ARR), but with how linear and straightforward gear is here, there's very little room for it when it comes to gear choices. Once you know the stat priority for your class (hint: it's probably Crit > Det > Speed), you can typically look at an item and know if it's better than another one without much thought.

Originally Posted by Kaurie

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What happens when you are the one that no one wants? Its fun to preach that some imbalance could make things interesting, but how fun is it when your job you poured hours into for weeks and no one wants you because you lack a certain something that another job does? Lets go back to 1.xx when only BLM's were wanted for certain content. Lets go back to FFXI where certain jobs were dead on arrival. Again, where is this assumption that you create a system like this and the community, who is well known to take the slightest exploit and abuse it relentlessly, to not create chaos out of it? Your expectations do not match the reality of the situation.

It is funny that people give ideas like these and don't think of the consequences of adding that system in the long term. Everything sounds good on paper, it is execution that is key. Can call the vertical progression system boring all you like, but it has no where near the balancing issues that a game with horizontal and unique stats do.

Originally Posted by FeliAiko

'Hardcore raiding' is being given 4 bosses/encounters every 6 months. Compared to the variety of stuff casuals/non-raiders get, to imply that SE cares more about the forner crowd is ridiculous.

Pretty much. SE should be using easier content as a means to influence people to take on more challenging content. Instead they just dumb down the challenging content to meet the needs of the people who don't like pressing more than one button. It is very backwards thinking in the MMO genre. It is embarrassing honestly.

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

That's when you need to keep that within reasonable balance of each other. Bard is better than mch in almost all aspects in regards to progression for pushing Dps, and speed kills, but some groups still run with a mch over a bard, and same with meld and caster to an extent. There needs to be some flavor or at least a sense of empowerment with the job, otherwise you're playing at the same pacing and strength for the entirety of the expansion.

That is something that is debatable. Obviously each job should play differently and have it's own flavor, but in cases like MCH and BRD I wonder if their support functions in general should be more symmetrical since it doesn't completely break the differences MCH and BRD have. That can have it's own issues however. They did say in 3.2 we would likely see changes that in fights that require more tanking and healing, so that alone might balance which one you take in terms of heavy progression. Just have to see.

Originally Posted by Kaurie

First, I thought we were talking about stats balance, not job balance?

It ultimately falls into the same category. Since you have to completely rework the job system to favor the new stat system.

Third, this game has shown that player skill trumps class balance by a long shot.

And the system proposed could put that into question.

Sure, i think of the consequences. I just think that the dev team is not fully incompetent, and that having variation is fun.

It is not a matter of if they are incompetent or not. It is simply over the top balancing that couldn't even be approached steadily in FFXI/1.xx, so expecting them to bring a similar system to that back and not be a mess balance wise does not seem realistic.

Outside of raiding, I fully agree. I think the nerf to Steps of Faith was uncalled for - for example. I've never been in a group that had to vote abandon this fight, and was able to clear it on my 2nd run with my first group on the first day. It wasn't a hard fight, but it required a bit of game knowledge and coordination.

Yep. Instead of giving a small push to players, they simply dumb down the fight. For Steps of Faith in particular, what they could of done to make it easier is simply doing a better job explaining what is going on and what function does what. It wasn't a fight that needed to be dumbed down, it was just a fight people needed to understand. Before the nerfs, going in the only issue was people didn't know what the canons or dragonkiller did.

Originally Posted by Velhart

It ultimately falls into the same category. Since you have to completely rework the job system to favor the new stat system.

That is a pretty big assumption. That said, the jobs are already imbalanced. (i.e. See who wants a PLD over DRK for Savage).

Originally Posted by Velhart

And the system proposed could put that into question.

See last point. This is a pretty big assumption. As the game is already imbalanced, but shows that player skill trumps balance. I mean you can have 600 DPS DRG and a 1400 DPS DRG. I am sure that the added stat variation will amplify this, but it won't make the 600 DPS DRG any less wanted. People will still look for player skill over player job.

Originally Posted by Velhart

It is not a matter of if they are incompetent or not. It is simply over the top balancing that couldn't even be approached steadily in FFXI/1.xx, so expecting them to bring a similar system to that back and not be a mess balance wise does not seem realistic.

I am not sure why you think that FFXI is the only place which has done horizontal progression or interesting stats before. I never played it, so I can't speak to them. That said, Guild Wars II is quite successful and focuses on Horizontal Progression (Even though I hate their system). WoW has much more interesting stats and trait lines in jobs, and has been very successful.

I think that the devs are fully capable of making their own system, and not copying FFXI, and balancing it.


I think the TLDR is, just because it has failed before does not mean it will always fail. Further, the failures that you're talking about are already present in this game.


If I were to propose a solution this is how I would do it:

1. Make every item have materia slots
2. Make coloured materia slots and types to limit certain types of materia (i.e. a Eso Chest Piece may have 1 red and 2 purple slots, Crafted may have 3 green, whereas the raiding chest piece has 2 red and 1 blue slot etc)
3. Increase the number of stat types and categories

RED: Damage oriented
Crit Severity
Crit Chance
Determination

BLUE: Resource oriented
MP Refresh rate increase
TP Refresh rate increase
MP consumption decrease

Purple: Speed oriented
Spell Speed
Skill Speed
Ability Re-cast time
Auto-attack rate increase

Green: Health oriented
+ set HP (not VIT, just HP)
+ HP Regen in battle

Yellow: Other/Movement
Increased movement speed (10% out of battle 5% in, or something)
Stealth (lowers the chances of being seen when sneaking past mobs)
Decrease falling damage

4. Have more ways to obtain Materia - Diadem was a great step. Add Materia as rare drops in Expert Roulette and common drops in raid content
5. Make Materia meldable by anyone, or at least have a vendor that can meld it for you for Gil if you do not have the crafting job