[dev1206] Class Reforms: why the 15/11 limit?

[Monsalvato]

I think you will be surprised that we haven't lost much at all.

Conjurer-wise we lost 4 out of 6 elemental spells, and 6 elemental debuffs (no big deal).
Anything else? Nothing particularly important, but the "mess" they did with CNJ and THM (blaming the original team here, not Yoshi's) continues to have its consequences now.
That's why I said to make things right without creating lore or in-game issues they should have made CNJ get BOTH WHM and BLM, but alas that's not what's going to happen.

THM lost, or rather "changed", way more than CNJ did, imho.

[Chardrizard]

There is no depth and strategy in many barspell/-na's/threnody.

FFXI's example,
For Tiamat, u use barfire only. There was never a time u'll reconsider to use barwater or any other bar's.
For Kirin, you will only be using barstone and wind threnody, never anything else.

This is what i mean by the illusion of freedom, you are pigeonholed to specific spells on specific contents, sure on some case like Salvage Bosses, u have to do Silena and Paralyna, but pressing one more button doesn't add more strategy or depth in it.

Regardin Elemental Wheel, Maybe we could see them splitting into two group, Astral Elements/Umbral Elements, both of which will covers 6 elements but only needing it to be only 2 variety of spells. While i actually prefers 1 spells compacted together, but this might make it for both sides to be happy.

[Jinko]

Agree with Prettyprincess.

The only spells which need tiers really are cures, but now we just have a weak heal and strong heal.

Is it tactical for me to cast stoneskin 1 when I could have cast stoneskin 2 .. nope didn't think so.

And as a mage/blackmage your job is to do as much damage as you can (well in most MMO's) SE's idea of hate and enmity is a stupid one, in most cases it holds you back from doing your best, yes some may consider it strategical and tactical but it really isn't, standing around for 10 seconds after I cast a powerful spell is no fun.

Having a spell which scales with my level and is less likely to pull massive hate is a lot more fun imo. (assuming it works this way :P)

[Monsalvato]

SE's idea of hate and enmity is a stupid one, in most cases it holds you back from doing your best, yes some may consider it strategical and tactical but it really isn't, standing around for 10 seconds after I cast a powerful spell is no fun.

I wouldn't say that's not a fun/important aspect.

I agree if you're saying FFXI was too extreme in that regard, but having a bit of it is a good thing for me.
Sorry if I use WoW once again as an example, but over the last years, "enmity" there changed so much up to the point i hardly ever matters anymore.
Sometimes you can even argue why using a threat meter, most of the times you have no reason to hold back (I'm generalizing of course).
In FFXI it's the opposite, you have to hold back too many times, and not being able to express your full potential becomes frustrating and yes, that's not fun.

But why should we jump from one extreme into the other? Is the world really black & white?
Why not aiming for something in between these extremes?
Somethings that makes enmity matter, that makes your holding back capabilities matter, that makes it into a strategic element of your battles but, at the same time, not as frustrating/annoying as it can often be in FFXI?
Or am I asking for too much?

[Lucifer]

I don't want to say WoW is a game without depth (it sure has a lot!), but still what I'm saying is that I SURE HOPE the elemental tactical use typical of FF games is not going away.
I'm not saying this is what will happen, just what I'm afraid of after reading the changes to DoM.

That is what I think is going to happen, but if you look at Stone, you can reduce stone evasion. Obviously it's not enough information to determine anything, but you can at least hope they are keeping elemental weaknesses.

[Jinko]

That is what I think is going to happen, but if you look at Stone, you can reduce stone evasion. Obviously it's not enough information to determine anything, but you can at least hope they are keeping elemental weaknesses.

I hope also they keep elemental weakness but also hope they update the wheel to take into account the lack of water damage spells.

I wouldn't say that's not a fun/important aspect.

I agree if you're saying FFXI was too extreme in that regard, but having a bit of it is a good thing for me.
Sorry if I use WoW once again as an example, but over the last years, "enmity" there changed so much up to the point i hardly ever matters anymore.
Sometimes you can even argue why using a threat meter, most of the times you have no reason to hold back (I'm generalizing of course).
In FFXI it's the opposite, you have to hold back too many times, and not being able to express your full potential becomes frustrating and yes, that's not fun.

But why should we jump from one extreme into the other? Is the world really black & white?
Why not aiming for something in between these extremes?
Somethings that makes enmity matter, that makes your holding back capabilities matter, that makes it into a strategic element of your battles but, at the same time, not as frustrating/annoying as it can often be in FFXI?
Or am I asking for too much?

Yea WoW is more about getting the highest DPS scores and that is where you have most of the fun playing as a mage type.

FF onthe other hand is about holding back and releasing that power at the right moment.

I suppose both have their place, I do prefer the first though because I like the competition between DPSers, we even see that in this game between MRD and LNC, hopefully SE balance it enough to make other classes competitive as well.

This concept is alien to FF11 players and they turn their nose up at the idea but being on the top of a DPS list does make you feel like you are truely excelling at your class.

[Lucifer]

I hope also they keep elemental weakness but also hope they update the wheel to take into account the lack of water damage spells.

The removal of water is another factor that made me question the possibility of abolishing weaknesses. They didn't state anything of course but it does leave you wondering.

[Monsalvato]

The removal of water is another factor that made me question the possibility of abolishing weaknesses. They didn't state anything of course but it does leave you wondering.

It's exactely what I wanted to say.
The things that made me afraid of the possible removal of elemental weaknesses are

1) Those spells aren't concentrated on a single job anymore. You can't make "elemental weaknesses" matter a lot in a scenario where only one of two jobs can use the element
that enemy is weak to. In such a scenario you're *FORCED*, from a gamedesign point of view, to either make so weaknesses are ther but hardly make a difference, or that simply they won't be there anymore.
2) The lack of a water spell, which destroys the "balance" of the elemental wheel.


Too early to say of course, but still I definitely am afraid.

[Icecylee]

It's exactely what I wanted to say.
The things that made me afraid of the possible removal of elemental weaknesses are

1) Those spells aren't concentrated on a single job anymore. You can't make "elemental weaknesses" matter a lot in a scenario where only one of two jobs can use the element
that enemy is weak to. In such a scenario you're *FORCED*, from a gamedesign point of view, to either make so weaknesses are ther but hardly make a difference, or that simply they won't be there anymore.
2) The lack of a water spell, which destroys the "balance" of the elemental wheel.


Too early to say of course, but still I definitely am afraid.

I find it kind of strange that you're so worried about this, considering you mentioned the Persona series in an earlier post when talking about elemental weaknesses and what not. There (well, in 3&4 at least), a large number of the characters only had affinity with a single element, but exploiting elemental weaknesses is easily one of the most important aspects of combat.

Not dumping all the elements in a single place and making you work to exploit weakness that are available to you, rather than constantly having tools at your disposal to hit all of them at once makes an elemental system a lot more worthwhile, IMHO.

[Monsalvato]

I hope also they keep elemental weakness but also hope they update the wheel to take into account the lack of water damage spells.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but that doesn't really make sense.
It's a game with 6 elements (technically with 8...), adjusting the wheel to make it so it works with just 5 doesn't make sense.
And removing one element from the game completely doesn't make sense either.
It would be easier to just ADD a water spell to the game.

Which *hint hint* they couldn't do so far. And why couldn't they?
Simple: because they had already reached the limit of 15 actions for both THM and CNJ.
Now if things were like I said, it wouldn't have mattered.
But since they have to STRICTLY FOLLOW the 15 limits, this is what you get.

It's exactely what I was trying to say in the first posts, pretty good example.