Thread: 4.1 patch notes

Originally Posted by PotatoGirl

I'm not sure that AST "buff" will actually help, at all. Oh yay, rng chance to have an extra heal.

SE why.

Edit.

Just saw they straight up removed draw?
S E W H Y

Much more useful than a skill that was situational at vest and detrimental to your team at worst.

Also if you actually read the notes and used some common sense you'd know that Sleeve Draw is just an upgraded draw? Exact same thing except you also get a minor arcana on top of the regular card. And furthering on common sense and thinking skills you can see that the added Minor Arcana skill converts the specific cards into the specific arcana. Can't do that without regular cards can you? You have ast at 70 so surely you know how sleeve draw works in PvE x)

Originally Posted by Shirolumi

The developers recently said that when they balance PvP, they are doing it with The Feast (4v4) in mind.

Heh, I did read that and I'm still chuckling about it, because the implications of that are grave.

I mean, do you know what balance is? Imagine a pair of scales. The two scales should keep an even weight and the indicator should remain horizontal.

And so, if you weigh a mouse against an elephant, you'll find that the scales are very uneven, the mouse is going to sit considerably higher than the elephant, the indicator is skewed.
You can solve that issue easily by putting an elephant and a mouse on both sides of the scales, though. Suddenly, the scales seem a lot more even and you only have to make sure that any pair of elephants and mice you put against each other are roughly equally heavy, which means you only need to balance your elephants against other elephants and your mice against other mice. And then you add a Lion to one side and a dog to the other, realize they're unbalanced again and pull the same trick again to have a mouse, a lion, a dog and an elephant on both sides of the scales.

That is precisely what they are doing when balancing around 4vs4 Feast, because 4vs4 Feast has a forced role composition. It's a dreadfully defeatist statement, because you can balance "anything" without putting in any actual balancing effort by simply putting the same things on both sides of the scales. You don't even need to balance the jobs within the roles if you simply match every job only against the same job, if every summoner can only play against another summoner and every WHM only against another WHM, then it doesn't matter if a scholar is ten times as strong as WHM, they'll never play each other anyway, so the scholar won't have an advantage from that - until they meet in frontlines or other modes and completely rek the WHM. And the same applies to roles in general.
The deeper meaning of balance is the ability to substitute two things without changing the overall weight, which is apparent when you play around with a pair of scales. 100 gram chocolate weigh the same as 100 gram tomatoes, they are balanced and you can freely pick either if you need 100 gram for anything. If you cannot substitute two things, they aren't balanced - the chocolate and tomatoes may be balanced in terms of weight, but they aren't in terms of nutrients, so you cannot substitute them in that regard. A forced role composition admits that roles cannot be substituted and thus, it admits that there is no balance to be found. Balancing around that means that you don't and won't care about even glaring imbalances between the roles.
That in itself is a terrible statement. And that in turn makes any existing imbalance within the respective roles ten times worse, because it means that even though they only balance 3-4 jobs (the options within a role) against each other at a time and don't care about the rest, they still manage to create considerable imbalances with such a limited balancing scope.

I'm surprised people aren't more outraged about that, but I wager most people simply don't think about it. Or maybe the elephant is happy if he can jump off the scales and go into a room without people talking about him. Who knows? Either way, it is not a very confidence inspiring statement of theirs. But it does explain a lot about their overall balancing approach.


And as an addendum: In a game with group synergies (AoEs, buffs, CC etc), it is necessary to balance for a set group size, because they derive their value from the amount of directly or indirectly affected players and the total weight of a job thus depends on party size (See also: Trick attack value in 1-4-8-24 man groups - the dog is heavier the more people sit on the scales). You need to nerf jobs with such effects down from their base power level to be balanced in a group and the amount of nerf depends on the value of the effect which depends on the size of the group. In that regard, setting a group size to balance for is not just fine, but necessary. But they failed to establish the basis to nerf from.

One thing I really miss with this update is the absence of any updates to communication tools.

Just a simple "Ready to attack!" and "Not ready!" buttons would be very helpful in communication on when I have enough White/Black Mana for burst.

Notes on RDM changes -

Vercure and the changes to Monomachy are horrid - and this is coming from a compulsive optimist and avid defender of Red Mage. These changes were miserable to the class. The decreased recast on CaC and Displacement amounts to nothing as the skills themselves are not high impact and the cooldown on both were already low enough to be of no consequence.

Vercure lacks enough potency for its cost. If it were a free spell the 1500 potency would be validated as it would be a direct distraction form our other casting. Now that it costs MP it amounts to a resource drain with little piratical application.

Put bluntly, I would sacrifice both Vercure and Monomachy for Manification back, and keep the other adjustments, which were actually positive. But as it stands, Monomachi's changes were a net nerf and Vercure is going to be a liability in all but the absolute best hands, and even then it amounts to a highly situational tool that distracts from our role in the group, rather than redefining it.

Other adjustments were good with the boost to Mana and the added effects on Verholy and Verflare, though Verflare sees less use due to the lack of situations meriting heavy TP usage.

Suggestions:
1. Drop Vercure. We're not there to heal and it's not nearly powerful enough to merit the spot.

2. Swap Vercure for a Fletche that costs TP and it'll be balanced while having a demand for Verflare usage. Have Fletche also get a lower cooldown if it hits Monomachy and there may be some benefits to the change to Monomachy as well.

To stress: Pulling offensive power away from Red Mage was the exact opposite direction it needed to go.