Speed run instances are killing PLD

[ejiboo]

you guys are dumb.

the armory system's big perk was changing class mid combat, something which i wish they would expand on even further and let you change class, somehow, actually in combat.

paladin is just a piece of shit as is-it's nothing to do with the dungeons. they can't hold hate like a WAR, do damage like a WAR or take damage like a WAR and it's inferior in every way. they'll fix it...eventually.

[fusional]

soooo you guys want to make the game even easier?

sigh

[Maxwell]

I think the PLD job might need to be entierly redesigned. Maybe give it a role more along the line of party support where eating all the damage and enmity would not be its only/primary purpose. Change it in a manner where it would make sense to have more than one in a party.

I never liked the PLD/NIN concept in XI. Hated it. If players have to rely on dubious tricks, extreme stats boost, constantly unorthodox gameplay, begging, etc. to make a job relevant in a group, then the job needs to be reengineered. Its kind of extreme, but i dont see how any scotch tape patch would help PLD without wrecking something else and going back to status quo.

Ultimately this is my own 2 cents. I dont think SE can and will do something along the line of my suggestion.

[Klive]

The main flaw of the speed run, it make only one metric matter for success. That metric is damage. More damage means faster we can kill everything. Making a team with less damage but more survivability, crowd control, or anything else; is not important. Only damage and killing the monster ASAP is. Paladins and dragoons are hurt the most because they have strengths outside of damage. Why take a paladin with support skills, that doesn't increase our damage.

I've played many MMOs and team based game; I have never seen stacking this bad. The stacking for highest damage resists freedom of game play in ways I'm just shocked to see. I have never had such a push in a game to maximize damage. Like it or not, unless SE does something about it, this will hurt the game. The current system rewards stacking the highest damage classes for that fight. You even can change your class mid-raid to fit the fight.

I agree speed run do hurt this game and the paladin's class playability. The paladin has fantastic abilities and strengths, sadly they don't fit the mentality encouraged by making speed run the only way to get all the gear.

[GreyJorildyn]

I firmly believe class stacking is a combination of two things:
•Players wanting the quickest and easiest method of winning (and not experimenting) - a result of watching how everyone else does it and flocking to that particularly strat religiously and,
•Players sucking at their jobs

So SE gets no part of the blame then? Just the players? Lol to that idea.

You might try these two:
- poor class balance
- unimaginative encounter/boss design

[GreyJorildyn]

The main flaw of the speed run, it make only one metric matter for success. That metric is damage. More damage means faster we can kill everything. Making a team with less damage but more survivability, crowd control, or anything else; is not important. Only damage and killing the monster ASAP is. Paladins and dragoons are hurt the most because they have strengths outside of damage. Why take a paladin with support skills, that doesn't increase our damage.

Except the metric isn't damage. The metric IS teamwork and execution (as shown in the heavily-cited DoW video with 7 jobs). Classes with damage and good crowd control just so happen to lie along the path of least resistance. If the metric was damage then people would not be having difficulty running this instance in 25mins with PUG groups. Oh and then thread would not have been made. If only.

Please think before posting!

[Klive]

Except the metric isn't damage. The metric IS teamwork and execution (as shown in the heavily-cited DoW video with 7 jobs). Classes with damage and good crowd control just so happen to lie along the path of least resistance. If the metric was damage then people would not be having difficulty running this instance in 25mins with PUG groups. Oh and then thread would not have been made. If only.

Please think before posting!

Thank you, I do think before posting. That was a needless comment.

Teamwork is a metric in an MMO? Thank you for telling me. Anyways, yes teamwork is required for any group based activity. Teamwork has to be there for anything to be successful. Damage is the only metric that people care about. This why people try to maximize it for faster runs. Yes it is possible to run it without stacking, hence the video, but doesn't mean it is the fastest. People want the fastest, hence the the damage being the only metric.

[GreyJorildyn]

And so your statement which was:

The main flaw of the speed run, it make only one metric matter for success. That metric is damage.

is therefor false, and you agree that teamwork is important.

"Damage" is what PUGs prioritize to support their grand delusion of success. It is not necessarily what they care about, so much as a false measurement for how well they believe they will do. You could say I am splitting hairs or speaking semantics, but there is a difference, and it is important to highlight the distinction between them.

That was my my point.

[Tsubaki187]

Yes it is possible to run it without stacking, hence the video, but doesn't mean it is the fastest. People want the fastest, hence the the damage being the only metric.

I don't think anybody who are capable of speed run care about clearing it faster as much as they care about just clearing the speed run itself. People don't want the fastest, they want all 5 chests. So declaring damage being the only metric just proves Grey right and that your post was made without thought. What would you rather have? 7 team mates that did great damage but played like shit or, 7 team mates that did decent damage but played like pros? If I had a group that is capable of doing 18 minute runs but sucked and couldn't achieve 25 minutes versus a group that can make 25 minutes consistently, I'd roll with the latter every time.

The only problems on SE's end at this moment is adjustments to PLD, drop rates and more challenging content. Speed run is decently challenging but only when you roll with people outside your core group who don't know the process. If you static with the same people for a good amount of time, the strategy is easy to pick up.

The people who complain about not getting parties because their current available jobs don't match up to the current class stacking trend should either level up other jobs or find better players to play with. Class stacking is going to happen, no point bitching about it. SE made it stupidly easy to level up. Even casual gamers can get a job leveled to 50 in little time and effort. If you're one of those people who refuses to level anything other than your main class, have fun being gimped both in versatily and knowledge/experience to how other classes function.

Speed run isn't hard, its just that a lot of people suck at it, and not because they suck as players but because they haven't played it enough or haven't had good people to play with. I bet in a couple months people will get better and PUG groups will be more efficient. Everyone will be doing speed runs and all will be well. Thats the one problem with the official forums, people come on here and complain when they should be in game getting better. So go, stop reading this and go do AV and CC! Quickly! Go master that shit so you can come back and complain about crappy drop rates!

[Maxwell]

Scotch tape PLD patch anyone ? :P