Quote Originally Posted by Vendalwind View Post
You are instantiating a limitation to knock it down. I spoke of that setup being generally the best, NOT of the the specific stormblood scenario singularly.
I'm pointing out that the "Optimal Scenario" that you envisioned, has existed and has not promoted the point about composition versatility that you claimed.

In StB we had your "Max DPS is 1 Selfish + 3 Support" optimal scenario. What did it lead to? It lead to a meta where people wanted just 4 Supports and non-meta jobs were shunned.

This is a very real aspect to balancing, cry as you might "But I only want to look at the numbers!" the fact of the matter is that balancing jobs goes beyond simply numbers.

I DONT CARE about the other support effects that aren't dmg because THIS POST WASNT ABOUT BALANCING those support effects. IT IS ABOUT BALANCE as an idea at numbers alone. You are so far off context here you are either intentionally derailing or incapable of understanding the scope I applied and limited my first post too. I specifically omitted class specific content because I'm not talking about anything class specific. I ONLY EVER HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT DAMAGE BUFFS and their effect on balance.
If you want to stop telling me I'm off context and actually read what you've been replying to, you'll note that I pointed out that your "Optimal Scenario" of 1 selfish and 3 support DPS was being critiziced by me as a poor goal.

As I mentioned, the ideal scenario is any 4 DPS jobs should be able to play together, irregardless of whether they are "Selfish" or "Support" (Barring things like duplicate classes) while being within a close enough DPS output so as to not matter.

This links directly back to meta and viability, because of the SITUATION WITH StB WHERE WE HAD A META THAT SHUNNED NON-META JOBS FROM BEING PLAYED IN CONTENT

Meaning that it was harder to do content on said non-meta jobs because people would refuse you a place in their party. I.e. It is not as viable to do the content on said jobs because you couldn't get into a party to do it.

You say that your way of balancing would achieve my ideal scenario where any combination of Support and Selfish DPS jobs can perform nigh equally well, whilst also saying that a situation that is exactly the same as what we had in StB is the "Optimal scenario" and disregard the fact that in StB there WAS issues with balance BECAUSE of the way the optimal party compositions ended up being.

...Thats my whole point. That its not common sense to these forums. Lots of places I've read someone saying something very close to 'pDps classes would be worthless if they didnt contribute more rDPS than utility classes'
The issue here, is that these sorts of statements aren't entirely related to rDPS related "Utility"

These statements are usually brought up in regards to non-DPS related utility.

I.e. If RDM and BLM did the same rDPS. Why would you ever bring a BLM when RDM has Vercure and Verraise?

You pull a bunch of numbers here out of thin air. Its meaningless ground those statements. There is no class in this game that has ever gotten anywhere close 6000 bonus rdps which is what your numbers loosely suggest. Where the heck are you coming up with numbers like 20700???
It was example numbers. To illustrate a point.

With the example numbers (Tanks dealing 10000 DPS each, Healers dealing 6000 DPS each, Selfish DPS dealing 15000 pDPS each and Support DPS dealing 13000 pDPS each) and Supports being a 10% buff to other players (Far in excess of current boosts purely for example)

20700 comes from the fact that the buffs to other jobs (10000 + 10000 + 6000 + 6000 + 15000 + 15000 + 15000)/10 = 7700

Plus their pDPS (13000)

Equals 20700 rDPS (Total DPS)

The further extrapolation from this (If you bothered to do the math, like you suggest other people do for you)

Is in this situation, if you pulled down Support pDPS to a point where 3 Selfish + 1 Supports is on par with 4 Selfish (You know, relating back to my previous point about all comp types being on par) then you'd have a case where any more than 1 Support is progressively worse.

Using example numbers, Support pDPS would have to go down to 7300 in order to achieve an rDPS of 15000 (The same as the 3 Selfish DPS in the party). However in doing so, it means that the rDPS of a Support in a 2 Support team would be 14230 and in a 3 Support team that would be 13460 and a 4 Support team would be 12690

Meaning that in this scenario, a 4 Support team would be dealing 70070 total DPS (All 8 players combined) compared to a 0 or 1 Support team that would be dealing 92000 total DPS (All 8 players combined). Approximately 25% less damage overall, which would be significant enough to make people shun those group compositions.

Of course, this is all exemplified using an inflated support boost figure, with more realistic figures things will be closer. It is however, an example of the difficulties of attempting to balance pure pDPS vs rDPS whilst trying to make compositions not boil down to a single optimal set up that becomes meta at the cost of others.

A Meta comp is a very specific definition of 'Most Effective Tactic Available'. Its not some Ideal, and it has nothing to do with viability. META is about the tip top best setup.
This is just laughably wrong.

The Most Effective Tactic Available, in video game (And specifically FFXIV) context is not the "Maximal DPS Tactic".

It is the Most Effective one. I.e. The one that more easily performs the best.

For example, look at the state of the game in Stormblood.

The Max DPS Tactic was 1 Selfish and 3 Support (Typically a BLM or a SAM being buffed to heck)

The Most Effective Tactic was 4 Support.

Why? Because it was significantly easier to perform well with 4 Support and thus would put out more consistently higher numbers than the "Max DPS" tactic would outside of paper.

Simply because, "Co-ordination" in FFXIV surmounts to pressing your CD's on CD.