job balancing discussion (1.22a-hotfix)

[Chardrizard]

And I'll have to step in and remind you that class stacking is very much SE's fault, between class/job design, ability and damage spread between jobs, and encounter design and balancing (or lack thereof). Pacing of content has had a hand in it, and of course speed runs never helped. Sure, you don't care because you run with a shell, but many of us PuG things, and it's not all sunshine and rainbows; not to say it should be the prime way of doing content, but it should also not be the uphill battle it currently is.

Game mechanics influence the way the playerbase does things. This is why the community was so self-mutilating in FFXI as far as player choices went, and you insta-sucked if you went against the grain.

As I've mentioned in other threads, class stacking should occur as freak occurrences that generate laughs while making the dungeon run interesting and doable, and a varied and balanced group comp should be the way most if not all groups aim to do content. XIV has a LONG way to go before that becomes a reality.

Do you think FFXIV devs never thought of trying to balance it so hard so every class can participate? every contents is doable with every class. But, people still go with the path of least resistance unless they are forced to. (example Garuda where u need both melee damage and magic damage to win)

When people asked for unique-ness, we have to sacrifice balance. Of course they will try so hard to balance everything but fact is, there are never true balance without pulling gimmicks like proccing colors at abbysea that FFXI pulled and force people to bring other class. No game out there has successfully pulled it off properly.

Why do you think that is? because devs are lazy? Balancing is not like flipping table, it's not just adding number here and there.

Everybody here liked the idea of varies class, who doesn't? but nobody.. let me repeat NOBODY has came up with properly written idea on how to do balance things properly. All they do is cry and cry somemore.

What you say applies for the few initial tries you do things. After 40 runs you kinda get bored annoyed and frustrated from a non efficient party.
You said yourself that farming darklight isnt fun, so explain me how it is more fun to farm it with slower and less efficient party?

For example, take the Ifrit NPC where you trade the lamp. After 200 ifrit you get bored to talk to him 3 times each to get a new lamp. This is called efficiency, why cant they just give you xp and direcly ask if you want another lamp? 1 click , 5 seconds done.

Same goes for jobs, class stacking is SE fault because they seem to not play the game and just listen to people in forums. Again you do things with your friends for fun the first times, thats fine, but after a bit you see that going with 6 blms 1 war 1 whm is 3x times faster than going with other jobs, why on earth would you frustrate yourself, waste time, risk to lose, going with another setup?
Makes no sense.

The more you play the game, the more you repeat the tasks, the more you repeat the content, the less time you wanna spend doing it, so you always try the fastest/more efficient way to do it. Especially cause we all are paying for the game.
I have no fun to waste minutes to speakin to NPCs and do repetitive and boring stuff because they dont have an efficient development team, same thing applies to job balancing and class stacking.

Do 300 ifrits then you'll tell me how boring it is to get a 20 minutes kill when you can kill it in 3 minutes with blms/war.

The way you perceive this is doing setup in non-cookie cutter setup will results in a very ineffecient runs. No that is not the case. It's 2-4mins late in raids. You don't drop one of your arms when you are suddenly 2-4min late. You still get 5chests like everyone else.

Also 20minutes ifrit means you are doing it with noobs.

That is not the setup issue, that the issue with the people you are playing with.

[Velhart]

Everybody here liked the idea of varies class, who doesn't? but nobody.. let me repeat NOBODY has came up with properly written idea on how to do balance things properly. All they do is cry and cry somemore.

Really now? Over the past few months I have seen wonderful ideas on how to properly balance jobs and events in this game that SE has never payed attention to. I can give some myself right now.

PLD - Needs an AoE attack (Needs Circle Slash back.), needs more oomph on enmity generation abilities on a large scale.

WAR - It is fine now. SE gimped it but we played with it last night and still a much better tank than PLD. I wouldn't consider a WAR tank OP anymore however.

BLM - I know people will grab the pitch forks and find which window in my home they need to break into, but I do believe BLM's need to be toned down. I mean in particular their AoE damage. Fire damage should spread depending on how many enemies get hit by it. How OP is it you can go into a dungeon and just take a few BLM's and kill all the enemies in a room in a matter of seconds before a melee can barely hit it?

As for dungeons. The idea of speed runs is the core of the problem here. Not to mention the abysmal drop rates. When people are forced to speed through the content as fast as possible at a abysmally low chance of getting a piece of gear with only a 15 minute cool down, of course they are inevitably going to find the quickest way of doing it. It is because they are sick of the content, they don't care about the dungeon itself anymore, it is all about the treasure chests at the end now. I don't know why other MMO's know exactly how dungeon content should be distributed but SE can't get something so simple right.

For bosses, they just really need to tone the AoE down. The biggest problem with Chimera is that it is just not melee friendly at all. Poisons and his AoE potentially instant kills whatever is near him. How do you expect WHM's to keep up with this? You are practically begging people not to use melee in this fight. Chimera is the most unbalanced boss fight I have ever gone against in my MMO career. Sure have AoE in there, but AoE should never be bad to the point that it isn't practical to be near him.

So if you want to make bringing melee and PLD viable, you really need to adjust the conditions of the dungeons. Speed runs screw a lot of things up.

If anything, I wish Darklight didn't drop in dungeons at all. Would be nice if it was just setup that you got points at a dungeon and you got a daily cap on how many points you can get and have a NPC sell you Darklight. This works in other MMO's, don't see why it can't here. You can get more points a dungeon run by setting conditions (Kill Marshall after Princess) or (Lure Chimera into a sandpit three times). Can still do dungeons if you hit the cap, but just won't be rewarded points (In case you wanted to help others). I would put at least a 30 minute timer on the dungeon so it is an incentive not to spam one dungeon, but alternate between AV and CC.

So Char, after all this, rather you agree with my ideas or not, it is still my attempt to help this game go in the right direction. Not all of us just come in here to whine, some of us use these forums only as a way to give developers proper feedback they seek. Rather my tone sounds frustrating or not, I strive to give feedback whenever I can and hope that developers will take into consideration my ideas.

[Chardrizard]

For bosses, they just really need to tone the AoE down. The biggest problem with Chimera is that it is just not melee friendly at all. Poisons and his AoE potentially instant kills whatever is near him. How do you expect WHM's to keep up with this? You are practically begging people not to use melee in this fight. Chimera is the most unbalanced boss fight I have ever gone against in my MMO career. Sure have AoE in there, but AoE should never be bad to the point that it isn't practical to be near him.

So if you want to make bringing melee and PLD viable, you really need to adjust the conditions of the dungeons. Speed runs screw a lot of things up.

You know how clueless you sounds right now? the only AoE's that will hit melee at Chimera is Voice of Ram and it does 1.7k-2k at most, easily avoidable because of the casting time. The other AoE is Poison Sting, very deadly and fast cast, but if you incapacitate the chimera's tail, it will stop using Poison Sting and it suddenly become a very melee friendly fight.

Every fight so far since CC/AV to Garuda is very melee friendly, i am not even sure u have tried to attempt meleeing Chimera properly, by properly i mean not mindlessly punching but playing cautiously making sure skills doesn't get you while attempting to incapacitate its tail.

I am sure we all are after the same thing here, but it's hard to agree with someone that doesn't even deliver the correct information.

and most of the suggestions is very biased to the jobs they wanted to play, nerf the one they hated, So no there aren't really any properly written suggestions. I would love being proved wrong though.

[Velhart]

You know how clueless you sounds right now? the only AoE's that will hit melee at Chimera is Voice of Ram and it does 1.7k-2k at most, easily avoidable because of the casting time. The other AoE is Poison Sting, very deadly and fast cast, but if you incapacitate the chimera's tail, it will stop using Poison Sting and it suddenly become a very melee friendly fight.

Every fight so far since CC/AV to Garuda is very melee friendly, i am not even sure u have tried to attempt meleeing Chimera properly, by properly i mean not mindlessly punching but playing cautiously making sure skills doesn't get you while attempting to incapacitate its tail.

I am sure we all are after the same thing here, but it's hard to agree with someone that doesn't even deliver the correct information.

and most of the suggestions is very biased to the jobs they wanted to play, nerf the one they hated, So no there aren't really any properly written suggestions. I would love being proved wrong though.

I have done Chimera enough to know how he works, and I know it kills players not in the right spot, that stacked with the poison also. If you are such an expert as you say you are, you would know even if that AoE doesn't kill the melees, you still have the WHM's not only having to keep up with them, but also watch hate on Chimera, which is a very delicate thing and most people don't want to deal with that. Not to mention I have been in a run with WAR/MNK replacing all the BLM's, did the run a few times and not once did his tail break off after using the correct abilities several times, the tail does not just come off. It is inconvenient and adds a huge risk factor to your party's speed run bringing in melee.

Is it possible with a diverse setup? Yes. Do people want to deal with this obscure obstacle if they don't have to? No. Congrats to you if your LS does it this way, but it is only ignorant on your end if you believe Chimera is a balanced fight. I don't think you can actually call an entire community out for using a cookie cutter setup. It is simply that they know better that the fight isn't melee friendly. Rather you can accomplish it or not, it is not balanced fight.

EDIT: Since you don't think it is a good idea, doesn't mean it is a bad one, you just don't like it simply. I love to play as all jobs and always go as what is needed, and I really love the BLM job, but I know that it's AoE needs to be toned down. Rather you agree or not is your own opinion, but that is how I stand on it.

Garuda is also melee friendly because it is forced. I rather be influenced to have a diverse setup, not one forced upon me. It pretty much says that SE can't balance boss fights, so they need to make forceful conditions to make players invite different jobs. Know the reason other MMO's are more successful in class balancing? Because the conditions for everyone is the same and each class brings something to the table that others can't give. So IMO people want diverse parties.

[Zaris]

...drop rates are abysmal and content has to be cleared hundreds of times. You'd have to be a fool to deliberately make those hundreds of clears take longer than necessary by needlessly using an inferior group composition.

...class stacking is very much SE's fault, between class/job design, ability and damage spread between jobs, and encounter design and balancing (or lack thereof).

...class stacking is SE's fault because they seem to not play the game and just listen to people in forums. You do things with your friends for fun the first times, and that's fine, but after a bit when you see that going with 6 blms 1 war 1 whm is faster than going with other jobs, why on earth would you frustrate yourself, waste time, risk to lose, going with another setup?
Makes no sense.

I read this and I think: if the game developers are truly responsible for us - the players - stacking classes and jobs, the solution should be to limit the number of jobs/classes in a full party.

One example could be incentivising balanced party setups. If the system detects a qualifying setup, it could enhance or increase battle rewards regardless of the time taken to complete it. However, it would be up to the game developers to set and recognize those parameters.

I feel I am inclined to agree with Chardrizard. Accomplishing and achieving difficult content should be a fun task. Efficiency is a choice. Steps can be taken to promote balanced setups (or so-called "inferior setups") rather than efficient ones. But it shouldn't be cakewalk for them either.

[Req]

I read this and I think: if the game developers are truly responsible for us - the players - stacking classes and jobs, the solution should be to limit the number of jobs/classes in a full party.

One example could be incentivising balanced party setups. If the system detects a qualifying setup, it could enhance or increase battle rewards regardless of the time taken to complete it. However, it would be up to the game developers to set and recognize those parameters.

I feel I am inclined to agree with Chardrizard. Accomplishing and achieving difficult content should be a fun task. Efficiency is a choice. Steps can be taken to promote balanced setups (or so-called "inferior setups") rather than efficient ones. But it shouldn't be cakewalk for them either.

Or just change the party bonus. Instead of say having a full party buff, for every member in the party you have of a certain job you will get a stat bonus that isn't stackable. Paladin could be defense and hp ( ironic i know), warrior could be attack power, archer accuracy and crit rate, monk attack speed blm refresh and dragoon tp bonus, white mage could give regen to everyone in party. Something along those lines would give us an incentive to use a diverse party and all of those bonuses are all really great things you would want to have in a party.

[Duelle]

Do you think FFXIV devs never thought of trying to balance it so hard so every class can participate? every contents is doable with every class. But, people still go with the path of least resistance unless they are forced to. (example Garuda where u need both melee damage and magic damage to win)

Considering the guy who gave us the horrid combat system where multi-hitters ruled the DPS world until the two-handed update is involved, it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case.

When people asked for unique-ness, we have to sacrifice balance. Of course they will try so hard to balance everything but fact is, there are never true balance without pulling gimmicks like proccing colors at abbysea that FFXI pulled and force people to bring other class. No game out there has successfully pulled it off properly.

This failed abyssmally when the official abyssea party became WAR, BLM/BRD, WHM, BLU, THF, NIN. Weakness procs are not the way to go. The issue there, much like here, is ability and damage spread between classes.

As far as uniqueness, I can only speak for myself. I'm willing to sacrifice uniqueness for balance and gameplay improvements. If it means that WAR and PLD have similar abilities with the weapon and certain parts of utility being what makes each stand out, I'm fine with it because it levels the tank playing field instead of creating an obvious choice. I follow the exact same philosophy when dealing with DPS, because what should matter is who is on when the group invites are going out, not what jobs a person has leveled and geared.

Everybody here liked the idea of varies class, who doesn't? but nobody.. let me repeat NOBODY has came up with properly written idea on how to do balance things properly. All they do is cry and cry somemore.

Between ability suggestions and not few, but numerous discussions on the topic, I beg to differ.