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.

[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

[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

[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 ^.^

[DeadRiser]

This is exactly what I was talking to my Linkshell about last night. I'm sick of these -insert class- only parties. I hate the way that the game has been going towards.

Darkhold-archers only
Ifrit- Lancers only
Strongholds- mainly marauders
Ifrit (after patch)- Thaumaturge only
Moogle- Archer only

I know people will say, "Well that's the communities fault for making it that way" when no it's not just the community. We need the developers to make content like what was said from the OP. Not necessarily requiring specific classes but it's recommended that you meet certain needs to complete a boss. Class stacking seems to be the only answer to any content and I'm personally getting sick of it.

I just don't see how content can go from archer only, to lancer only, and back to archer only. Do the developers not see anything wrong with this.

Oh inb4 "Well a group of pgl's beat moogle on jap servers"... no class stacking another class is not the answer.

[Fated]

Anything to promote class diversity in parties and discourage class stacking is good in my eyes. I like the idea of making incapacitation more important as both a means to encourage strategic combat and class diversity. I mean they introduced it for the Ifrit primal and it served a purpose, but it wasn't made important enough. I don't know why they completely ignored it for the Moogle primal in favor of running around like chickens without heads.

[Shiggysonson]

I hope they make the new battle regimen system require multiple classes so that taking a variety of classes is more effective. I also agree they should design the content so that one class doesn't have the clear advantage over others.

[Arcell]

That's a good use of the incapacitation system, I'm all for things like that. On the merits of any fight itself, it's almost impossible to make a fight, at its core, not subject to class stacking. If it's weak against one damage type but not another, you have class stacking. If it's better to be at a range or close up, you get class stacking. If you need more AoE or single-target, you get class stacking.

Something that requires the unique skills each class brings is the only thing that can really alleviate it and that's where Incapacitation shines. Though honestly I'm not a fan of how the zone hit (Front, Side, Back, etc...) detection works sometimes. I'm not sure how possible it would be for them but if they could allow us to target the different parts, that would be great. They could keep the same restrictions we have now or go further and allow all attacks to damage them but only the specific incap attacks can break them or they do a significant amount of damage.

Battle Regimens could also help dissuade class stacking if there were unique effects that only certain classes could add to the regimen.