BeastmasterXIV - Repeating XI's mistakes

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

All the recent discussion surrounding drg and wyvern pets has got me, and I'm sure a lot of you, reminiscing about the pet jobs in FFXI. A lot of interviews from Yoshi-P seem to suggest that the pet jobs in FFXIV won't be straying too far off from XI's design. While some of you may agree with this direction, having your own fond memories of your old pet class in XI, I'd like to respectfully disagree on the particular topic of beastmasters.

FFXI veterans will recall that beastmaster was often noted for being the best job to play solo with. Players of the job were often regarded as being camp stealing introverts who scoffed at the idea of joining a party. Those that made it to 75BST usually garnered the respect of their peers for having accomplished such a feat without the aid of a party.

As an avid fan of pet classes in MMOs, and having played a BST in FFXI, I can tell you that more often than not, soloing was in fact not a choice for BST, but a necessity. It is for this reason that I'm making my arguement against following XI's design for beastmaster in XIV.

For those that may not be familiar with beastmasters in XI, I'll explain what I mean.

The beastmaster job revolved around a single ability: Charm. This ability allowed the beastmaster to take control of monsters for a limited amount of time. After the time expired, the monster would return to its aggressive state and attack the master until either the master re-charmed the mob, or the mob was defeated.

Charm was limited in several ways:

1st) Charm was not guaranteed to charm the target monster, it could fail. If it failed, the monster would aggro you. The success rate of charm was determined by the difference between the mob level and the master's level. If the mob was a lot higher level than the master, you would most likely fail to charm it. If the mob was a lot lower you could charm it easily.

2nd) The duration of charm was also effected by master vs. mob level. The higher the mob was compared to the master, the faster charm would wear off. So even if you succeeded in taming something higher level than you, you wouldn't be able to use it very long. Lower level mobs on the other hand remained under your control for quite awhile.

On paper this seems to make sense, something that's higher level than me should be able to resist my charms right ? It sounds good, but let me tell you why it isn't.

The woes of partying as a beastmaster:

Let's remind ourselves why parties form in the first place: to take down things that are too powerful for any one player to take down on their own. This means you'll almost always be fighting something higher level than you while in a party, and this is where the problems begin for a beastmaster.

Being a pet class means that your job was balanced knowing that you'd probably be using a pet most of the time. This means that without a pet, you're going to be considerably weaker than you should be. If the ability for a beastmaster to use a pet is entirely dependent on the level of the beastmaster vs. the mob, then a beastmaster will never be able to use a pet while in a party because the chance of charm succeeding against the higher level mobs that you're fighting is very slim. Even if you do tame it, you won't have control of it very long. To add insult to injury, when the charm wears off, your party now has an extra threat to contend with while you struggle to regain control of the mob. If you can't get it back, guess what, you just wiped your party.

So not only will the beastmaster likely be gimped in the party by the fact that they can't use a pet, but if you try to use one, you end up being a threat to the party.

This is the reason why beastmasters were soloists in FFXI. No one wanted them in their parties.

Furthermore a beastmaster's pet was limited to the monsters he could find at his level. Often times this meant using a pet that was exactly the same as the ones you were getting exp from. So you had no choice over what type of pet you could use which greatly limited a beastmaster's ability to take advantage of mob weaknesses, which were a key part of the job. Your pet was dictated by the exp camp and the mobs that were available there. If you wanted to strategize, you either had to 1.) Use expensive jug pets (summoned by using an item) that were crafted only, or 2.) go way out of your way to tame a mob that could intimidate your exp mobs.

In order to solve these issues, I think FFXIV should move away from this type of design for beastmaster. Instead I'd like to look to another beast taming class from another MMO for guidance:

WoW's Hunter class.

I hope you'll refrain from closing your minds at the mention of WoW, and think of how a similar system of beast taming could work in FFXIV.

For those unfamiliar with Hunters I'll explain how it works.

Like beastmasters, hunters also had a charm ability. It was also effected by the differences in levels between the mob and master. The higher the level of the mob, the less chance you had to charm it. (It was a spell with a long casting time, if the mob was a lot stronger than you, you would die before the spell was complete.) However, when a Hunter charms a monster, he controls it forever. The monster will remain at the Hunter's side until he releases it from service. While the Hunter has the monster in his service, he can not charm another one. However, unlike beastmasters, the hunter's pet could gain experience points and level up alongside the hunter. This allowed you to keep the same pet for as long as you desired. If your pet was killed in battle, the hunter can use an ability to revive it. The hunter could also summon and dismiss his tamed beast at will.

This system of pet taming where the tamed beast stays with the master forever and levels up with the master, allows the master to tame any beast he wants, and then strengthen it so it remains powerful as the master levels up. This allows the beastmaster to be strategic in his pet selection and choose one that best suits his style of play. This will also make beastmasters unique from each other, in that each beastmaster will have a different pet. You might find beastmasters that like to do a lot of damage and choose a raptor for a pet, or you might find a beastmaster that likes to tank with their pets and choose a crab. You might find beastmasters that want to play a support role and choose a pet that can heal or use crowd control abilities. If the beastmaster decides he wants to change his role, he can simply release his tamed beast from service and tame a new one. Because there are various mob types at all levels, he can always find a pet that suits his role without having to re-level his pet from the beginning. And because the pet stays with you as long as you want, you're not limited by the mobs at your current location. This allows beastmaster to be a very versatile job that can both solo and party effectively.

Anyways, I just wanted to open the discussion about beastmaster and make clear to the devs the flaws surrounding the FFXI style beastmaster. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past and give the devs the feedback they need to make a pet class for the modern MMO.

-cheers