Red Mage: Potential adjustments

[Kalaam]

I can confirm playing RDM for 2 expansions has gotten boring.

[Rongway]

For one, different people have different ideas on what's solid or fun. Everyone's different and there's no pleasing them all, even if they all have similar levels of passion or interest for the same job.

Yes, you're absolutely right about individual differences and preferences. But let's put that aside because individual differences aren't something we can do anything about, and it ultimately doesn't change the merits of this exchange:

Jobs that are in a good place don't need to be changed every expansion.

keeping a job the same for a long time will make it boring for most, some change is required to maintain interest and because everyone's different some people will like those changes and some will not.

Keeping a job the same for a long time will make it boring for whom? The people who want change. And who will not like the changes? The people who liked the job the way it was. This begs the question, "Why weren't the people who want change playing a different job in the first place?"

If the answer is, "But they were playing a different job," then why did the job need to change to appeal to them? They already had other jobs they wanted to play instead. "So other people can enjoy the job too." Not everyone has to enjoy every job. The whole reason we have multiple jobs is because it's assumed not everyone is going to like any given job.

If the answer is, "They were playing it because they like it," then they will continue to like it until they decide they don't like it anymore, and then there are twenty other jobs they can play.

And so I stand by my point. If a job has no glaring flaws, it doesn't need to change at every expansion.

Right now, it seems like we have fairly widespread agreement that RDM's AoE mode is irreconcilably flat. Because it's just (1a/1b > 2) spam until it's time to (3) spam. Change that.

However, in single target, where lie the devs' primary interests in preserving balance and ensuring fun, RDM is a sound job.

"RDM is boring."
So play a less boring job. And if someone has a problem with me telling someone who is bored with a job to play a different job: there is no universe in which "play something else" is an inappropriate response to "this is boring."

Besides some improvements to AoE, RDM doesn't need any adjustments that could be better served by playing something that isn't RDM.

When it comes to a new expansion in particular they need selling points and a fresh coat of paint on a stale job is a good one.

They don't need to change every single job to sell each expansion. The expansions sell for their new jobs, new locations, and new story. In fact if you don't buy the expansion, you'll still get the changes that they made to the jobs, up to the old cap level that you still have access to.

But besides this, making changes to every single job for the next expansion quickly becomes an unwieldy development task. We're at 20 jobs now. They cannot continue to add new jobs in the future if they spend too much time revamping old jobs. If they want to continue to add new jobs, they need to start leaving the good jobs alone. We've already seen cuts made to many areas of the game because they wanted to spend the dev time elsewhere. Would you like them to spend time modifying existing jobs that people already enjoy playing at the cost of not having any new jobs in one of the expansions? I would rather they add new jobs and leave the good ones alone.

[Kalaam]

Keeping a job the same for a long time will make it boring for whom? The people who want change. And who will not like the changes? The people who liked the job the way it was. This begs the question, "Why weren't the people who want change playing a different job in the first place?"


If the answer is, "They were playing it because they like it," then they will continue to like it until they decide they don't like it anymore, and then there are twenty other jobs they can play.

Well, as I said earlier, I have been getting bored of RDM in ShB despite it being one of my favorite classes. Change doesn't mean doing something entirely different. What I want, not speaking for others, is for high level red mage to feel like a proper evolution of level 50 RDM. Right now it plays basically the same, no interresting new mechanic to manage or play around with.
Also the argument "well play something else" is stupid. I love red mage, I want to keep playing it. But as it is now, it started to feel stale. So I want it to become more enjoyable. Who are you to tell me to go play something else and shut up?

[KaerisKlyne]

I have nothing of value to add except to echo Rongway's post above because it's extremely correct.

[Tulzscha]

Keeping a job the same for a long time will make it boring for whom?

Everyone, eventually. Just a matter of time.

...there are twenty other jobs they can play.

"RDM is boring."
So play a less boring job. And if someone has a problem with me telling someone who is bored with a job to play a different job: there is no universe in which "play something else" is an inappropriate response to "this is boring."

And if they don't want to? Should everyone else just go play a different job or game so something you like can stay the same?

Just look at the dozens of SMN threads in these forums. There are lots of people who love SMN and want to play SMN and have completely different ideas of what SMN should be and how it should change and why it should stay the same. Thing is there's no right answer, just a bunch of opinions.

It may not be inappropriate to tell the bored players to play something else as it certainly is an option but it is ignorant.

They don't need to change every single job to sell each expansion.

I never said they did. A few certain jobs that need it, sure. A job that hasn't seen any changes for a couple expansions, maybe. Changes don't need to be complete reworks, they could be something like the AoE improvements you suggested or as small as a fancy new 2 minute cooldown. Regardless people like getting shiny new toys, that's the point I was making.

They cannot continue to add new jobs in the future if they spend too much time revamping old jobs. If they want to continue to add new jobs, they need to start leaving the good jobs alone. We've already seen cuts made to many areas of the game because they wanted to spend the dev time elsewhere. Would you like them to spend time modifying existing jobs that people already enjoy playing at the cost of not having any new jobs in one of the expansions? I would rather they add new jobs and leave the good ones alone.

If FFXIV continues to see growth they could hire more devs to handle everything. Cuts will always happen no matter what that's just part of the business. That aside when it comes to new jobs vs modifying existing jobs... personally I'm leaning towards the latter, I like the jobs that I play and don't mind them changing things up every so often to a degree. Job aesthetic and identity is important to me so I tend to pick a couple I like and stick to them. That's just me.

[Shurrikhan]

Ancient Magic Mastery basically analagous to Lance Mastery so we can do Enchanted Combo > Verflare > Verholy+ > Scorch, or E.Combo > Verholy > Verflare+ > Scorch. This alone would put us 9~12 mana ahead of where we would be after each of our current combos (21 mana gained, minus the cost of an extra GCD during which we would have cast another spell anyway), plus guarantee both procs.

My main issue with this concept is that it's very backloaded, balancing our average B/W Mana Generation per minute around something our very first combo cannot benefit from.

Granted, if we had a simple change like higher resting B/W Mana, then... sounds decent. Dull, as it's just extending our combo and/or effectively removing B/W Mana choices, but decent.

[Grimoire-M]

So, just some quick food for thought:

Those constraints have far less to do with the portion of swordplay than the bankability of sword skills. The reason RDM has such constrained melee play is that it only has 2-4 GCDs of bankability on an effectively single 4.2-GCD attack (the first two sword skills are 3/5ths GCDs), with thereby massive punishment for starts that cannot complete.

Change that and you could have far smoother, less constrained melee play even if 2/3s of your GCDs were melee, as one could effectively have Bard-like mobility with only a modicum of forethought in balancing out swings vs. casts.

That's not to say I want that much melee, only that, again, the portion is mostly irrelevant. Personally, I just want RDM's sword to feel like a feature, rather than a liability -- a way to improve uptime rather than limit it.

There are a few ways to do that:
1) Reduce the cost of melee combo to give more leniency in mana. This is the easiest but also increases the number of melee combos you have access to per fight. Has potential conflict with Manafication. Likely would lead to a melee nerf.
2) Provide a ranged alternative to the start of the melee combo at a slight DPS loss. This is more difficult as it would have to be balanced around those 4 GCDs of leniency.
3) Adjust mana generation to be overall less than current iterations, limiting the potential number of melee combos and therefore conflicts.
4) Shift the melee combo’s purpose to a gauge dump by nerfing the DPS it provides to match that of Red Mage’s GCD filler. Probably the worst but most effective option. Needs another layer to Mana generation and spending to justify its existence.
5) Increase the current Mana cap. Easiest and most boring solution. Affects manafication but otherwise doesn’t conflict with anything.

The fifth is likely the best option of the bunch as it allows more focus on other Red Mage problems, like the lack of lossless mid-fight movement options relative to the other two casters and a slight bump to the complexity of their filler GCDs. Ideally I’d like the damage on Displacement and Lunge moved off of both with Engagement getting removed entirely. Maybe have Contre Sixte and Flèche build up towards a new ability to replace it.

I also still would like to see Chainspell implemented as a cooldown, but it’s partially because it solves RDM’s opener issue as well as acts as an extended movement cooldown, if given charges. It could reduce the cast time of all damage spells by 5s and it’d work perfectly, Dualcast works as intended already with Swiftcast.

[Shurrikhan]

Sorry, Grimoire, I lost my previous post due to some sort of "thread ticket"(?) error, so I'm going to skip past my 1-5 comments this time and go straight to what, consequently, I'd be looking for.

Personally, I'd set the goals... something(?) like this...:

• Slightly accelerate the first melee combo only, likely by reducing the melee combo cost and then reducing the MP rewarded by Verholy, Verflare, and Scorch.
• If possible, try to either standardize or ramp up Enchanted skills' MP costs, such as all to 20 or 25, or the combo to 15-20-25 or 20-25-30. Standardization makes it more intuitive, while ramping costs helps with leveraging partial combos (below).
• Find a way to leverage partial combos. For instance, perhaps Enchanted skills could proc Dual-Cast or even Chain-Cast. Perhaps have this be how Verholy/Verflare and later Scorch are made instant-casts. Additionally, we can find ways to decrease the ppgcd costs of said partial combos through potency adjustments on the combo skills themselves.
• Redesign AoE slightly for greater available nuance and, ideally, intermixing with sword skills. If we wanted to go really crazy with this, we could even have Moulinet get a combo of its own and for the two to both progress one another (such that you could ST->AoE->ST->Flare/Holy->Scorch).

[Gruntler]

[*]Redesign AoE slightly for greater available nuance and, ideally, intermixing with sword skills. If we wanted to go really crazy with this, we could even have Moulinet get a combo of its own and for the two to both progress one another (such that you could ST->AoE->ST->Flare/Holy->Scorch).[/LIST]

I too like abilities that exist to handle content that doesn't exist.

We don't have the button room to add combo bits to the AoE to satisfy people for whom 6 buttons isn't enough. So what are we giving up for this?

And why would single-target/I need AoE but only for this one gcd/back to single target be a needed burst phase in any content in this game, and if that content were to exist, how is that problem not solved by 'Contre Sixte exists, is more flexible, and does a better job'? (This goes for people who want 'an AoE Finisher' after the single target combo, seriously what situation is this remotely useable?)