Job Balancing 6.08 (still needs work)

[Shurrikhan]

You're appealing to FFLogs data. FFLogs data ONLY includes clears. That introduces sample bias that excludes aspects of balance (including difficulty to attain clear) that are more valuable and relevant to job balance than speedruns. What you said or what phrases you used is irrelevant--you're appealing to FFLogs, and this is a criticism of that appeal with regards to data-validity.

Which would be relevant only if clearing were significantly harder on some jobs than other. But it's not.

An outlier is based upon deviation, and it is quite possible for 10% of players to be deviated too much to be counted as normalized data.

If it's deviation sufficiently differed from those immediately above or, more importantly, below. But it doesn't.

We don't see any such leap until after the 95th percentile, which is not what I'm suggesting we balance around.

All that looking at 90th percentile gives you is a reasonable view of a kit's strength among a reasonable level of error; the impact of those errors have more or less standardized, their deviations shrunk. The jobs are still necessarily played perfectly, but at least those values indicate what a kit, for the most part, is capable of, not just an average player still learning how to use it.

And you absolutely should be balancing jobs primarily around their kits, not just how easy they are to push from poor performance to halfway decent.

Which is not something FFLogs has any capacity to measure

I never said it did. That's exactly why I said it'd require us to comb the context to take those things into account. Our evaluation must, further, include those things. To see whether they have practical chance of value, you look at better runs first -- those who'd actually know how to use them. Then you overpower them slightly in accordance with how difficult that utility's value is to exploit/coordinate.

Let's put it another way. X job is taxed Y value for having Z utility. But in practice, that utility doesn't save even a single GCD of healing except in the very most optimized runs. That will not be sufficient. That it can save a GCD in an optimized run should be noted so that we at least have some idea to the form of its potential value, but its tax should be diminished to reflect those constraints.

[Kazimere]

I don't know why people keep whining, TBH. It's like people can't look at another bracket, or they put WAY too much emphasis on rDPS. Machinist is FAR stronger than Bard or Dancer. Translation, you aren't failing just because you bring a Machinist. BLM is what is too powerful at the moment.

[Shurrikhan]

It's like people can't look at another bracket, or they put WAY too much emphasis on rDPS. Machinist is FAR stronger than Bard or Dancer. Translation, you aren't failing just because you bring a Machinist. BLM is what is too powerful at the moment.

A job that provides your group with both a lower chance of sucess and a slower clear time is "FAR stronger" than those that provide more clear-aiding utility and, skill being equal, will more greatly increase the party's DPS (their own included)?

I'll agree that much of these differences get overemphasized, but the only thing missing from rDPS is how much your carry/increase others' rDPS (as the one exploiting the bonus damage for all its worth gets zero credit for having done so, that being given instead solely to the buffer). It is objectively a more useful and relevant metric than raw damage.

BLM, moreover, is still behind MNK despite being no easier to optimize and providing zero non-rDPS utility (rDPS utility already being fully accounted for in said rDPS and therefore irrelevant).

[Gruntler]

If it's deviation sufficiently differed from those immediately above or, more importantly, below. But it doesn't.

This is not a strong point. This would be expected in a normal distribution.

We don't see any such leap until after the 95th percentile, which is not what I'm suggesting we balance around.

You don't have the standard deviation to claim this.

All that looking at 90th percentile gives you is a reasonable view of a kit's strength among a reasonable level of error;

Or put differently 'By imposing a sample bias against the skill floor of a job, you exclude the skill differential as a part of balance consideration.' Which is not good thinking in terms of balance, and is frankly, terrible data-analysis praxis.

And you absolutely should be balancing jobs primarily around their kits, not just how easy they are to push from poor performance to halfway decent.

The answer to, in any data analysis, for any reason, 'which percentile should I focus on' is never 'only one percentile' unless the question is, and only is, 'what is that percentile's value?'

Then you overpower them slightly in accordance with how difficult that utility's value is to exploit/coordinate.

True, if, and only if, you're balancing towards post-mastery of content, and not the journey of mastery of that content. There's this idea that PvE balance somehow follows the same rules of PvP balance, where you're trying to ensure a fair competition in some sort of adversarial tournament. This game doesn't really work that way. The game balance itself is more concerned with how players interact with and succeed or fail against the content.

If I want to balance-check difficult mechanic, why would I even care about the throughput of the x players who have defeated it and have it down to muscle memory? That's irrelevant to my needs!

I'd look at the Y who haven't yet defeated it, and I'd look to see if the comparison between X and Y is a number that is considered reasonable. That will tell me if a job is struggling or not, in a more direct way than FFLogs.

except in the very most optimized runs.

But that's the problem. "Optimized run." is an 'invalid metric.' It does not paint a strong picture of the information you seek (job balance vs pve content) You would choose that other information.

You have people in the community who don't understand the concept of 'data validity' and so they come up with very long, elaborate justification why they can use the x percentile. This is easy. It's also lazy.

Game balance isn't about raw potential, it's about difficulty, and raw potential's not a measure of access to potential in pre-mastery learning, which is where the game balance lives. You need a wider spread for that information.

[Kazimere]

I'm not really seeing how it's going to lower your chance of success to not bring meta. If anything, bringing more selfish jobs will increase the chance of success for those who aren't as optimized.

All selfish DPS should behind their counterparts within their respective makeup to varying degrees. The DPS they gain from the buffs is given to the dubber, after all. Melee and pranged are the only ones with any semblance of this at the moment. Melee being the most balanced of the bunch.

I don't want to hear anything about "optimization" of BLM. It's got all the tools it needs to easily optimize around mechanics. Don't make me go level one up to 90 and gear it to prove this.

People were screeching about BLM and Samurai being too weak, without taking into account buffs scaling. It was the same thing with Reaper and Dragoon. They jerked their knee at the initial numbers without taking into account how much better Litany scales than Circle, or TA for that matter. This is not to say that they didn't need minor buffs, but I'm just saying.

[Kazimere]

snip

Potential of a job is all that matters. They can't balance the game around people who can't be bothered to learn their job. Outside of a disability (cognitive or physical), there isn't one job in this game that is hard to play at a competent level. Are you going to be parsing 100s with them? No, but then again most people don't bother to plug their rotation into spreadsheets (I don't blame them). Fact of the matter is that every single job in the game can execute a high purple without needing to do that, and that is more than enough to come in well under enrage. I'm pretty sure they balance encounters around the 50-75 anyway, which is pretty easy to achieve and doesn't require mastery of any job.

[Shurrikhan]

Or put differently 'By imposing a sample bias against the skill floor of a job, you exclude the skill differential as a part of balance consideration.'

As you should so long as you are balancing a kit, rather than attempting to force equity from varying forms of mistake.

The answer to, in any data analysis, for any reason, 'which percentile should I focus on' is never 'only one percentile' unless the question is, and only is, 'what is that percentile's value?'

I literally said as much. I have never advocated for caring only about a single percentile. The post at the start of this conversation asks that we consider what can be done to tighten gaps elsewhere. The difference is merely that I'm not willing to condemn diversity in job complexity or learning curves, which act to increase the zone of attraction available to players so that there's a higher chance of someone having something they enjoy at their present level (which is not limited to aesthetic, performance, or even playflow, alone) to achieve the same tightness for every span of player. It's (A) impossible, and (B) horribly constraining to job design.

I've used the 90th percentile only to point out at what degree of skill relative to others using one's job within the first couple weeks of progression where, given what I consider a good balance in design philosophy between job diversity and equity, I'd expect job performance to be tightest.

But that's the problem. "Optimized run." is an 'invalid metric.'

Optimized use is what determines what X is at best capable of. I have repeatedly now said that such is not the be all and end all of tuning.

You would choose that other information.

When, per the premise you're following her, the value of the utility in any other run is nil, then that leaves you with only two options: (A) to make that utility perfectly free, overtuning it for any party who knows how to put it to use, or (B) remove the utility, favoring equity over identity, available depth, etc.

I'd look at the Y who haven't yet defeated it, and I'd look to see if the comparison between X and Y is a number that is considered reasonable. That will tell me if a job is struggling or not, in a more direct way than FFLogs.

Why assume that the devs couldn't possibly have access to those numbers? I've already noted

You have people in the community who don't understand the concept of 'data validity' and so they come up with very long, elaborate justification why they can use the x percentile. This is easy. It's also lazy.

Then perhaps... give something yourself, beyond 'everything should be balanced everywhere from everyone' as if such had no destructive implications on job design philosophy?

Game balance isn't about raw potential, it's about difficulty, and raw potential's not a measure of access to potential in pre-mastery learning, which is where the game balance lives.

Which is exactly why I mentioned changes across percentiles...

I don't know why you're acting like I want to balance things only for perfectly theorycrafted, perfectly executed robotic performances. I don't. But until you have at least some rough line in the sand, you're as likely to overbuff all but the easiest few options, leaving jobs like Machinist crippled once its competitors move more than a few baby steps towards mastery. I am merely being mindful of both this and the impact that having diverse kits and thereby learning kits, something I do not want to give up, will have upon job equity at different points in players' learning of those jobs.

[AziraSyuren]

I actually think they balance encounters around even lower than that. World first clears have parses that are gray by today's standards. Which makes sense, honestly.

It's important to keep in mind that the average level of play is what encounters are expected to be cleared at. With that in mind, balance only truly matters insofar as it makes the game either too easy or too difficult, which is something that just does not happen at this point in time. There are other factors that the devs likely take into account, such as when imbalance causes elitist casuals to exclude jobs from PF, or when it makes people wonder why they bother playing a job they otherwise enjoy the gameplay and aesthetic of. But ultimately, this game has always been designed around clearing content, not competing at the highest levels. And designing around both is both incredibly difficult and not ideal unless you tune encounters so tightly that the two are more or less one and the same. And before you say that's a good thing, consider that even Ultimates aren't designed like this, and they take around five to ten times longer to prog than an entire Savage tier. Balancing around the highest of the high end would and has been shown to kill the game's raiding scene.

That's why I think it's perfectly okay for jobs with mega-cursed optimizations to be too strong as long as the average level isn't that far ahead- to design around potential would literally damage the game. And I say this as someone who generally prefers playing the most damaging jobs and competing for the highest numbers.

And I honestly think you'd have to take encounters completely out of the equation to think otherwise, which I think a lot of statistics-oriented players sometimes do.

[Kazimere]

I actually think they balance encounters around even lower than that. World first clears have parses that are gray by today's standards. Which makes sense, honestly.

It's important to keep in mind that the average level of play is what encounters are expected to be cleared at. With that in mind, balance only truly matters insofar as it makes the game either too easy or too difficult, which is something that just does not happen at this point in time. There are other factors that the devs likely take into account, such as when imbalance causes elitist casuals to exclude jobs from PF, or when it makes people wonder why they bother playing a job they otherwise enjoy the gameplay and aesthetic of. But ultimately, this game has always been designed around clearing content, not competing at the highest levels. And designing around both is both incredibly difficult and not ideal unless you tune encounters so tightly that the two are more or less one and the same. And before you say that's a good thing, consider that even Ultimates aren't designed like this, and they take around five to ten times longer to prog than an entire Savage tier. Balancing around the highest of the high end would and has been shown to kill the game's raiding scene.

That's why I think it's perfectly okay for jobs with mega-cursed optimizations to be too strong as long as the average level isn't that far ahead- to design around potential would literally damage the game. And I say this as someone who generally prefers playing the most damaging jobs and competing for the highest numbers.

And I honestly think you'd have to take encounters completely out of the equation to think otherwise, which I think a lot of statistics-oriented players sometimes do.

I agree. I think it's probably more accurate to assume that they are making adjustments based on showing than anything. It's sad that PF locks out players because of a specific job, when any makeup can clear any encounter at its release. PF is toxic though. In general, I'm seeing that statics tend to take what they get for a role...within reason. For instance, my static is running a whm for heals because our ast broke his arm. running war/gnb instead of drk/gnb. About the only meta in my group is me and the monk, and we're clearing just fine and having no real issues with dps checks...even before the tome weapons.

[AziraSyuren]

I agree. I think it's probably more accurate to assume that they are making adjustments based on showing than anything. It's sad that PF locks out players because of a specific job, when any makeup can clear any encounter at its release. PF is toxic though. In general, I'm seeing that statics tend to take what they get for a role...within reason. F

PF doesn't do this anymore really, unless the job is unreasonably lower than all the others in its category (like PLD was), or if they're trying to parse at the highest end and certain jobs sandbag their RDPS (like WAR for every job with a crit buff).

In the case of the former, it's just because the job, as I said, causes the fight to become noticeably more difficult than it would be otherwise (certain day 1 comps were within damage/crit variance of being impossible to clear the tier with, if I recall). In the case of the latter, lmao