Community Discussion - Battle Theory

[Rydin]

Under Akihiko Matsui (FFIV, FFV battle designer, Chrono trigger Director, FFXI battle designer and director) the Battle system in FFXIV has undergone some drastic changes

1.18
Auto-attack implemented
Stamina removed
Enmity recalculated

1.19
Physical levels abolished
Damage formula redone
Battle regimen removed *tear*

1.20
Ability overhaul
Personal combos

The battle system is still a work in progress, however the basic structure should remain relatively like it is now.

Going further.... there are things I would love to see become a part of battle.
(*sidenote: one of the biggest hurdles to overcome will be the lag/latency and the horrid way your in game position is relayed to the client, but since these are all being redone for 2.0, harping on them feels like beating a dead chocobo)

OK, jumping right in...
Personal Combos are a very nice addition to battle.
I would love to see the return of Battle regimen in whatever new form they introduce, as well as Incaps playing a much MUCH bigger role in the game

Here's a suggestion on how it could work:
Every content I've done in this game has been with at least 4 of the same class in the party. Sometimes it was 4 archers, other content worked best with 4 thaum, 4 lancers... Strongholds once wanted as many Marauders as you could muster

I feel like that is fundamentally flawed

An in depth incap system and better designed content could alleviate this.

Imagine a boss who had a shield... and with that shield, he took very little damage. So you have a Lancer use the Vorpal thrust>Impulse Drive>Chaos Thrust Combo. If the chaos thrust is executed on the shield arm side, you get the message "Shield arm appears weak and shaky"
When that happens... a marauder uses Maim>Godsbane on the shield arm and the arm falls, Defense is reduced 40% but attack speed increases 10%
those are arbitrary numbers... The point is you make the fight doable but very difficult without completing the special objective... and easier but still tough when you do complete the optional objective
He still wouldn't be an easy fight with the incap but he'd go from being stupid hard to just Ifrit hard.

Then when his HP fell below 20% he'd put up a magic Ice paling. The only way to repel the magic paling is with a Battle regimen that had (in this order) fire, wind and then concussive blow
Fire to weaken the ice, wind to intensify the flames and concussive blow to shatter the paling
With the paling down... his defense and magic defense go down 25%
(again arbitrary number enfeeble, but you get what I'm saying)
You could make the debuff 50% decrease in defense... whatever....

At 10% HP, his regen increases. The only way to mitigate that is with Piercing arrow>gloom Arrow>Bloodletter combo
Once again... you can beat him without that. It is just noticeably tougher

The point is you could go into the fight with 5 of whatever class deals damage the best at the time, but without being able to complete the optional objectives, you're in for one hell of a fight.

Also by making multiple objectives in 1 fight... you allow for different parties to fight it their way.

You can say "We don't have a marauder for the shield incap... but thats ok, we've got the other 2 incaps covered.
Or "We don't have an Archer for the 'Final Blow' incap, but we've got a strong DPS team and we can do the Shield and magic paling incaps so we should be good.

This way, you could take a very mixed party and have fun on NMs
Instead of
/shout Ifrit party, 3/8, need thaums only

EDIT: 2/4/12
If there were special objectives to complete... How would you want to find out about it?
For instance "Garuda"
SE could tell you how to do the wing incaps (What classes, skills and method) and tell you what affect it will have on the battle
or....
The could tell you nothing and see how many times people get owned before they realize (If they ever realize) that they need a Pug and Lancer working together to incap one wing.. and a Marauder and Archer to incap the other

There is also various middle ground.
1. SE could tell us there are special objectives but not tell us what they are or how to do them
2. They could tell us what the objectives are but still not how to do them
3. They could have clues in game, through quest dialogue help you ascertain what you need to do to make the fight easier

[Fiosha_Maureiba]

I know that's an example only, but I like the train of thought you're on.

The class stacking is also pretty severe. I'm almost wondering if it's better to scale content down to Light Party size since it *seems* like once a strategy gets popular, class-stacking starts to happen more frequently.

[Rydin]

I know that's an example only, but I like the train of thought you're on.

The class stacking is also pretty severe. I'm almost wondering if it's better to scale content down to Light Party size since it *seems* like once a strategy gets popular, class-stacking starts to happen more frequently.

thank you... and I agree... class stacking just kind of annoys me at times... but I can see why people do it if that's the only way they know how to beat certain content. I think this would be a real way for SE to make content that is beatable by a myriad of party setups

[syntaxlies]

out of all the changes my biggest prob is with mages. they are way to streamlined now imo. they've made mages really boring to play.

[Rydin]

out of all the changes my biggest prob is with mages. they are way to streamlined now imo. they've made mages really boring to play.

Not to jack my own thread but I've had this discussion many times with my friends.

Yoshi P has stated that classes needed more defined roles and the ability changes plus jobs are here to make that a reality....
1 class - 1 job - 1 role
And while I appreciate how people are indeed accustomed to this, it does constitute a very antiquated paradigm.
his biggest concern was that you didn't know what role another person had in the party
So we need Tank, melee damage dealer, ranged damage dealer, Nuker, enfeebler, DoT specialist, enhancer, healer

thats a lot of roles... I don't see why we can't have each class/job responsible for 2 roles... and there will be no confusion because you'd be expected to fill both roles as one person...

Damage dealing tanks, enfeebling healers (Imagine being able to syphon HP from the MOB and give it to the tank), enhancing magic and ranged damage (Which is what Bard may prove to be). A REAL battle mage that has very usable weaponskills AND DoT's (through spells or weaponskill effects)

The fact that some classes in FFXI were relegated to simplistic roles at times... while others were multifaceted... thats a shame

[Nakiamiie]

Not to jack my own thread but I've had this discussion many times with my friends.

Yoshi P has stated that classes needed more defined roles and the ability changes plus jobs are here to make that a reality....
1 class - 1 job - 1 role
And while I appreciate how people are indeed accustomed to this, it does constitute a very antiquated paradigm.
his biggest concern was that you didn't know what role another person had in the party
So we need Tank, melee damage dealer, ranged damage dealer, Nuker, enfeebler, DoT specialist, enhancer, healer

thats a lot of roles... I don't see why we can't have each class/job responsible for 2 roles... and there will be no confusion because you'd be expected to fill both roles as one person...

Damage dealing tanks, enfeebling healers (Imagine being able to syphon HP from the MOB and give it to the tank), enhancing magic and ranged damage (Which is what Bard may prove to be). A REAL battle mage that has very usable weaponskills AND DoT's (through spells or weaponskill effects)

The fact that some classes in FFXI were relegated to simplistic roles at times... while others were multifaceted... thats a shame

That's actually how I view the classes: multiple roles.
As for jobs, there are the perfection of a single role.
So, classes have multiple roles without being perfect at them, while jobs are the ultimate perfection for that role (but you lack versatility to properly function in smaller groups).
I hope that at one point we'll see multiple jobs for each class, however that requires an huge amount of originality to prevent job overlap. That's where the community comes in, we throw our ideas in and the devs can model something unique.

Most of the time, people just complain "Make this better, change that" without ever going further and give the devs a hint at HOW you want it. Only then can the devs and fellow community members get into your head and understand WHY it's a good idea (and build upon it).

That's it for now.

[Headseed]

+1 for all of this Rydin I don't care what Poet says about you (j/k) you are onto something here . The only thing I would say is if you restrict the incaps to 1 class then you know that people will say they need each of those classes. However most people have most if not all classes leveled.

My solution would be maybe have a couple different combos available to do each Incap. So the shield incap could be done with Lnc/ Mrd or Lnc/ Pug with pug doing Pounce > Sucker Punch form the side. or any combo of those 4 jobs.

Again great post and great ideas ^.^

[Rydin]

+1 for all of this Rydin I don't care what Poet says about you (j/k) you are onto something here . The only thing I would say is if you restrict the incaps to 1 class then you know that people will say they need each of those classes. However most people have most if not all classes leveled.

My solution would be maybe have a couple different combos available to do each Incap. So the shield incap could be done with Lnc/ Mrd or Lnc/ Pug with pug doing Pounce > Sucker Punch form the side. or any combo of those 4 jobs.

Again great post and great ideas ^.^

Hey Brent...
yea... having 2 possibilities for each incap could work... you'd just have to make sure you dont have 1 class that can do all 3 or else people will just stack that class again.
Also, making it so only 1 class can do a certain incap would work as long as the content is still beatable without the incap. The special objective should just make the fight easier

[Headseed]

Hey Brent...
yea... having 2 possibilities for each incap could work... you'd just have to make sure you dont have 1 class that can do all 3 or else people will just stack that class again.
Also, making it so only 1 class can do a certain incap would work as long as the content is still beatable without the incap. The special objective should just make the fight easier

I see your point Sooooo as long as each job could be included on 1 of the Incaps then every job would be useful. bare with me I take a bit longer to catch on than most lol.

[Sephr]

One thing I didn't get was why the immediate method of making classes unique was stipping them down to basics rather than adding something unique to them?

I think the way they could've done this was through *unique resource mechanics*. For example, instead of stripping cross class capabilities, include a mechanic specific to that class that substantially optimises that class's own skills when used effectively.

Perhaps an example of this could be Pug getting something like 'Focus' or whatever from performing combos and using skills that are native to Pug (but NOT other class skills), which it can then apply to other abilities to augment them (for example, they might be able to use a skill to activate the stored focus, and then the next Second Wind applies a strong regen and can be used on someone else) or perhaps it could be used as a resource to activate some skills like their elemental fist abilities.

If the mechanics were substantially different from one another and worked in other ways than TP and MP, they could be pretty great. As an aside, TP is a crap resource because it limits what you can do 90% of the time, I don't see why it's used globally across classes in this game.

Edit: The other benefit would be that classes could be broader to accompany more jobs being added to them in the future, in their present build THM is pretty much a weaker BLM, once they add the second wave of jobs to existing classes they'll feel shoehorned unless the basic skillset is changed a lot.

Edit2: What about class-unique buffs and auras to help convince people to bring others along? The downside I can see is that content would have to be balanced with them in mind if they are substantial, and it might push it the other way where only one of each class is invited.

What is it that makes this happen in FFXIV and not in other games so much? I guess the ease of class changing but I'm not sure how that can be avoided outside of swap timers or something, and that would suck.