Thread: 5.08 Patch - DPS still not balanced.

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Why did you include DNC? You only mentioned RDM, DRG and BRD in your original comment.

Shifting the goal posts? It's OK. But 1500+ would've been a more reasonable claim. 500 dps is a pretty significant number relative to the disparities that are present. Surely you could agree?

If you've actually read my responses, I've mentioned the bottom five several times and only specifically mentioned those jobs to avoid repetition in my replies. At this point, you're arguing semantics because your actual argument has no grounds otherwise. It's getting rather sad when all you can rebuke is the difference between "1,500+" and "nearly 2,000"

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Weird, I'm not finding the word massive in any of my comments. For your points:

1) It should be obvious how early clear groups are able to gear up their dominant jobs faster than others.
2) If there are high skilled players gearing up dominant jobs faster than others, and purposefully seeking to establish such "dominance", this fact would not be impartial to any statistics being gathered, particularly early on.

Doesn't have to be massive, which is why I never alluded to it being such. Within the intricacies of the statistics however, it should at least be considered as having the possibility of influencing them. If we are dealing in the range of 10% disparity, even finding 1% becomes relatively meaningful.

Nor did I imply you said it. Once again, I implore you to read my replies if you're going respond. What I said is your comment implied a contributing factor for the big three having such a dominant lead in overall damage was due to them being apart of speed kills. It's both a flawed and disingenuous presence because it's wholly reliant on the remaining jobs not being competitive. As that isn't the case, it has little relevant impact. In fact, we needs only look at the tanks to disprove this nonsense. Warrior is vastly underrepresented yet percentiles consistently show it being close enough to the remaining tanks that balance isn't an issue.

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

It depends on the discussion. If the argument is that some DPS need to buffed because it's more difficult meet damage requirements with them compared to other jobs, then looking at the bare minimum damage requirements and it's statistics is absolutely relevant.

That isn't how balancing works because it gives an inaccurate assessment of the job's performance. How many times do I have to spell this out for you?Looking at percentages where people have serious rotational or mechanical issues will result in false conclusions such as the assumption Black Mage isn't dominating Red Mage because at say, 20% the gap is much smaller than 95%. Only the latter is relevant because it depicts two players at equal skill, playing the job at a high level where overcapping or dropping resources won't skew the results.

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

If you've actually read my responses, I've mentioned the bottom five several times and only specifically mentioned those jobs to avoid repetition in my replies. At this point, you're arguing semantics because your actual argument has no grounds otherwise. It's getting rather sad when all you can rebuke is the difference between "1,500+" and "nearly 2,000"

No, your comment that I had a problem with, which is what we've being going back and forth about, clearly claimed BLM was nearly 2000 above RDM. It's not. It's about 1500 by your own example.

The problem is actually that you're clearly just not interested in playing fair. Otherwise you wouldn't have had to include dancer in order to justify your exaggeration of the disparity.

Just keep shifting those goal posts.

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Nor did I imply you said it. Once again, I implore you to read my replies if you're going respond. What I said is your comment implied a contributing factor for the big three having such a dominant lead in overall damage was due to them being apart of speed kills. It's both a flawed and disingenuous presence because it's wholly reliant on the remaining jobs not being competitive. As that isn't the case, it has little relevant impact. In fact, we needs only look at the tanks to disprove this nonsense. Warrior is vastly underrepresented yet percentiles consistently show it being close enough to the remaining tanks that balance isn't an issue.

Please quote where I either said massive or dominant lead as a result. And if you can't then stop putting words in my comments or implying I said things I didn't. Just because you can't wrap your head around the concept doesn't mean you get to make stuff up. I know there is some word that's defined as "an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument." but I just can't think of it.

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

That isn't how balancing works because it gives an inaccurate assessment of the job's performance. How many times do I have to spell this out for you?Looking at percentages where people have serious rotational or mechanical issues will result in false conclusions such as the assumption Black Mage isn't dominating Red Mage because at say, 20% the gap is much smaller than 95%. Only the latter is relevant because it depicts two players at equal skill, playing the job at a high level where overcapping or dropping resources won't skew the results.

You don't have to spell anything out for me since I'm well aware of what the statistics represent. So let me spell something out for you since it's such an apparently a difficult concept:

After some number of weeks the percentiles begin to become gear locked. It doesn't matter how well you play if you can't get an orange until you get weapon, therefore percentiles to do not automatically represent a given level of "skill". After some point in time your item level and gear simply has a much larger influence on breaking through to higher percentiles. That is why gear acquisition must play a role in the spread of the statistics. If the more dominant jobs are gearing up faster, it pushes their higher percentiles to a further degree compared to jobs which aren't being played as much. By the very same token as people start gearing up more jobs and running them through, the higher percentiles get pushed further out of reach for those lacking the same gear. Even if the jobs are played at an identical skill level the higher percentile is out of reach until you get the gear. To further illustrate this point, we can compare the number of e4s logs between DRG (10,312) and NIN (2,399). This would certainly seem to indicate there are more geared DRGs out there than geared NINs, and so the overall average of the 95th percentile DRG would be higher than the overall average of 95th percentile NIN - because the 95th percentile NIN doesn't have as many players pushing it's average up. Another way of putting it would be NIN is further away from realizing it's full potential compared to DRG. It doesn't have to be a large degree for this to make sense, as I stated previously even 1% is relatively meaningful within the current operating margin.

I looked at the 25% percentile for reasons I expressed in a previous comment. Upon doing some quick math, indeed at the lowest percentile with which a group can clear (full group of 8x 25%'ers) the group with the combination of weakest jobs will be 500 short of e1s enrage, while a group with dominant jobs will clear with 2500 to spare. I didn't care to do the other turns since I'm sure it'll play out similarly, but that's a pretty big difference with several different things that can be inferred. For one it aligns with the claims being made in this thread that it's more difficult for certain comps to meet damage checks. Fair enough. But on the flip side, we are talking about 25% which means there's plenty of room for improvement. Therefore the claim that taking certain jobs is a detriment, while it has some merit, is really more of an obfuscation of the facts. The fact is you only need to be a little above 25th percentile (as a group) in order to clear e1s (at least) even with the worst composition of jobs.

The second point these particular statistics illuminate is the disparity between a group of upper and lower jobs, again in this situation -500 to +2500 around enrage. That's something that should be looked at, do the upper jobs need that big of an advantage or do the lower jobs need to be boosted by at least enough to clear in the same situation? I haven't made a claim one way or the other, everyone will have their own opinion. Personally I think they could meet in the middle a bit.

You're basically making up an argument that I never disputed. I simply wanted to know for myself what the minimum requirements looked like and it's relevant statistics. Never did I make a claim that balance should be focused on the lower percentiles, again that's something you made up on your own for argument's sake. Citing the lower percentiles for an example to back up a claim is not the same as basing a philosophy of balance around them.

And I'll go one step further. If you won't bother to look at the lower statistics relative to the argument that DPS needs to be adjusted because enrages, then you clearly aren't interested in that being a real issue. By focusing on the upper statistics of potential, you are focusing on the ego of a job instead of it's actual utility, because the upper statistics don't indicate any sort of relationship with "hitting enrage". It doesn't matter if you compare a 95th DNC to a 95th BLM, they're both killing it and in neither case is their contribution detrimental to the team in any sense whatsoever.

To hearken back to Lynn's comment with which I sort of disagree, we do need to provide feedback, but it needs to be reasonable feedback. There is no place for exaggerated claims and incomplete pictures. The actual situation calls for something in the range of ~5% one way or the other. There are slight issues with DPS checks, and there are slight issues among players who feel their efforts aren't proportionately accounted for. The latter having a worse impact on the community. They've already said they are addressing some issues, clearly it's ongoing effort and we know very well how they like to take their time. In the meantime, there's no actual issue in jobs clearing content, only hypothetical situations. Any group putting in the effort will get their kills if they haven't already. The main issue is perception which we as players have a huge role in shaping, possibly even more than the devs.

If anyone is wondering what are numbers for other floors:

E2S:
40% lowest jobs - 71360
20% top jobs - 71591

E3S:
50% lowest jobs - 72243
20% top jobs - 72082

E4S:
60% lowest jobs - 75281
30% top jobs - 75846

But hey, it's totally fine as long as lower jobs can improve to 40/50/60%, right? While 20/20/30% top jobs are already fine - look at them, stallions!

P.S. For the love of god, please, stop mention how all jobs can clear - if you don't understand how it's absolutely irrelevant to the balance between jobs i suggest you learn first what the term "balance" means...

Originally Posted by AikenDrum

P.S. For the love of god, please, stop mention how all jobs can clear - if you don't understand how it's absolutely irrelevant to the balance between jobs i suggest you learn first what the term "balance" means...

Hey look someone used lower percentiles to make a point, haven't you learned that's not relative to balance?

Sarcasm aside, you realize you example isn't that much different from my own, right? I already conceded that at any given percentile the upper jobs have a significant advantage. Thanks for looking at the extra turns, though. Although I'm not so sure of the integrity of your claim. For example I used the lowest jobs of an average comp build of 2 melee, 1 ranged and 1 physical - if you simply added up the bottom 4 irrespective of imitating a reasonable composition then the results would be more misleading than necessary. In e2s the bottom 4 dps are DNC, RDM, BRD and SMN. If you're running that comp you probably don't deserve to clear in the first place honestly.

Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

What I actually said is your were implying speed killers influence the data to such an extent it would impact the accuracy of higher percentiles enough to at least partially explain the sizable gap between say, Black Mage and Red Mage.

The problem is that you can imply beyond original meaning. I simply choose to look at the statistics with a grain of salt. I mentioned the intricacies of the statistics about 15 times throughout my posts because there are an incalculable number of little things that make taking 1-2% off the spread one way or the other at least a reasonable starting spot. That doesn't mean the one or two things I mention make up my entire worldview. Either way, the conversation has been exhausted. I can't make my point any more clear and concise so if you haven't gotten them yet then you won't anytime soon, I guess. Peace.

Originally Posted by CKNovel

Sorry if I did not understood what you meant but are you saying that if 4 DPS players are playing the jobs they love and those happens to be DNC, RDM, BRD and SMN, they don't deserve the clear because they love jobs that aren't in the DPS Pantheon?

No. It means strategically building a team to clear content or else having enough skill/gear/desire to compensate for lack of such strategy. 8 people picking out of 17 jobs within 5 roles isn't exactly inflexibity. In cases where it does become inflexible you have choices, and the outcomes simply depend on the particular relationship of individuals in that situation.

Originally Posted by AikenDrum

Well this means that jobs aren't balanced, full stop. Whenever all jobs can or cannot clear, or what is the perception of those jobs is not relevant to balancing.

Balance for balance's sake? It's nice poetry I suppose.

Originally Posted by whiskeybravo

Snip

Assuming we go back in time to right before savage hit, when people had 450 Eden gear and Titania weapons/Innocence accessories, and gear is basically not a factor anymore, the dps rankings at 95th percentile were as follows:

BLM: 12,019
Monk: 11,631
Samurai: 11,390
Dragoon: 11,202
Machinist: 10,832
Summoner: 10,559
Bard: 10,475.35
RDM: 10,077
Ninja: 9,460
Dancer: 9,102

That's a difference of 2,917 between dancer and black mage, black mage literally does 32% more rdps than dancer. We have had some post savage updates to jobs, but unless I'm recalling wrong black mage and dancer have largely remained untouched, and even though savage content is way more movement demanding than extreme content so it should bring blm's damage potential down a bit, this just shows that even without the high hitting jobs being super padded with raid gear, there's a huge gap between top and bottom.

That being said, while a 95th percentile dancer and a 95th percentile blm are both conbributing well to a party's damage, it doesn't sit well with me that skill doesn't translate to high damage (relatively speaking) for a lot of jobs.

Edit: These numbers seem kind of low considering that going back to my own personal logs, 95th on Titania was 11k on dancer, and on Innocence 95th was 10.8k, but regardless, the numbers are probably lower on all the other jobs too, though I can't figure out what I did in the filtering options to make the numbers so low. My point still stands though on there still being a significant gap even when gear isn't an issue.