/r/ffxivdiscussion: Interview /w Yoshi-P on the first Arcadion savage tier difficulty

[Aco505]

Changing PCT’s core design because of ultimate balance i don’t really like

The problem is that downtime happens all the time in many forms of content, high end or otherwise. You can get it in normal or Criterion dungeons, normal or Savage raids, Alliance raids, Ultimates...

This Savage tier had almost no downtime because it happened to be so, but it's not healthy for the game or for PCT itself if the devs cannot add downtime to fights or add it and then realize how strong it makes the job, thus being forced to nerf it without proper consideration.

PCT dealing more damage when downtime is involved is a huge boon because it's a job that it's meant to deal no damage for a specific amount of seconds in full uptime to prepare its actions. If its strengths were more niche, such as fights with two stacked targets, then it would be fine because they're quite rarer in comparison. But when the job is strong in normal fights with full uptime and extremely strong when downtime is involved, there is a potential balance problem.

The most elegant solution is to shift some damage from the burst into the filler. Ideally, the overall damage would be kept the same but the effect of downtime would be lessened.

I've seen you talk about the "gold parse" often. The max of a job is irrelevant. You could even ignore the 99 percentile as well. Just look at other percentiles from 95 and below in level 80 and 90 Ultimates and you will see PCT either dominating or very high up. Balance in old Ultimates is not relevant but it does show a trend that will be repeated if FRU is designed with plenty of downtime, as Ultimates tend to be.

Better that the devs take action on this to preserve PCT's game play than get a hasty nerf when they realize the problem.

[Supersnow845]

snip

You kinda just reiterated my point, the only content where actual DPS balance matters that regularly uses downtime is ultimate. They explicitly design savage to not have a lot of downtime. So if you change the fundamental design of motifs as the person I responded to suggests you’d be doing that explicitly for ultimate balance as it doesn’t affect savage, rarely affects extremes and below that balance by DPS doesn’t really matter and jobs are more about how people feel playing them.

I’m perfectly happy for PCT to receive some changes to how much of its potency is in its burst, I even suggested some in the post (such as no hammer in starry muse, starry muse being tied to hyperphantasia stacks, wings/fangs having a CD with mog/madeen so you can only use 1 in the burst or auto crits on star prism/rainbow drip/mog/madeen). Moving PPS back towards the aetherhue is also another potential solution but part of PCT’s identity is its powerful burst so I’m not sure if powering up the filler at the expense of the actual paintings is going to “feel” good

As for my comment about the gold parse that’s got nothing to do with ultimates, I’m fully aware PCT is overpowered in the old ultimates because of its burst design. My comments about the gold parse simply relate to people overestimate how overpowered PCT actually is because of its burst potential with crit fishing. If you look at EX1 and EX2 with 7.0 balancing PCT’s IQR fell roughly equally with the melee (hell it’s below 50% was actually below most melee), it was its gold parse that was excessively strong because PCT benefits so much from crit fishing. In the old ultimates PCT’s entire IQR is shoved to the right, that actually indicates it’s overpowered but like I said my gold parse comments never related to ultimates anyway

[Aco505]

the only content where actual DPS balance matters that regularly uses downtime is ultimate. They explicitly design savage to not have a lot of downtime.

As I explain at the beginning of my post, there's plenty of downtime in Criterion dungeons and in Savage fights (e. g. P2S, P3S, P5S, P8S, P9S, P12S-1). Whether we want to care about Criterion balance or if there's enough or not downtime in Savage are entirely different questions.

my gold parse comments never related to ultimates anyway

The point here is that PCT is a strong or dominating job in almost all forms of content. There's no duty in which PCT is weak. Whether you look at percentiles in Extreme, Savage or Ultimate fights doesn't matter. The job is very good all the time and it has nothing to do with how high you can get with crit luck or if the 100 and 99 percentiles are misunderstood or analyzed poorly.

[Supersnow845]

As I explain at the beginning of my post, there's plenty of downtime in Criterion dungeons and in Savage fights (e. g. P2S, P3S, P5S, P8S, P9S, P12S-1). Whether we want to care about Criterion balance or if there's enough or not downtime in Savage are entirely different questions.



The point here is that PCT is a strong or dominating job in almost all forms of content. There's no duty in which PCT is weak. Whether you look at percentiles in Extreme, Savage or Ultimate fights doesn't matter. The job is very good all the time and it has nothing to do with how high you can get with crit luck or if the 100 and 99 percentiles are misunderstood or analyzed poorly.

Criterion balance is literally less than meaningless because that invisible aura mechanic they use to compensate the buff jobs ends up benefiting the selfish jobs more because that aura is calculated by who receives it and not who offers it. Criterion balance is just a mess and PCT really doesn’t change that one way or another. As for those panda fights you are describing fights with literal 2-5 seconds of downtime (2 and 5) or fights that don’t count adds phases allowing everyone to prepare a burst (3). At that point PCT is barely getting more benefit than RPR gets from harvest moon. But like I said I’m not opposed to nerfing PCT, I oppose changing the way motifs actually work like lyth suggests. If that nerf is putting more damage back into aetherhue that’s fine, but actually removing motifs out of combat design I do oppose because that’s part of PCT’s core design. We already saw how badly removal of VPR’s debuff went

Saying “there is no duty where it’s weak” is a null statement as that applies to half the jobs in the game, there is no duty where SCH or AST are weak, there is no duty where GNB is weak, there is no duty where MNK or RPR are weak. This is the balance they have created, the melee and the melee competitors functionally are never weak in anything. Hell VPR beats out PCT at most percentiles in most savage fights and a 2 year old could play VPR

[Aco505]

Criterion balance is literally less than meaningless because that invisible aura mechanic they use to compensate the buff jobs ends up benefiting the selfish jobs more because that aura is calculated by who receives it and not who offers it. Criterion balance is just a mess and PCT really doesn’t change that one way or another.

PCT benefits a lot from Criterion due to all the downtime present, not because of the buff. The buff not being properly balanced is a different problem that's likely going to affect other jobs more than it does PCT.

As for those panda fights you are describing fights with literal 2-5 seconds of downtime (2 and 5) or fights that don’t count adds phases allowing everyone to prepare a burst (3). At that point PCT is barely getting more benefit than RPR gets from harvest moon.

PCT is balanced around dealing no damage for a specific amount of seconds. Any downtime that allows them to remove this hurdle will be hugely beneficial. Casting Soul Sow does not have the same level of relevance as getting even one motif out during a downtime phase.

Saying “there is no duty where it’s weak” is a null statement as that applies to half the jobs in the game, there is no duty where SCH or AST are weak, there is no duty where GNB is weak, there is no duty where MNK or RPR are weak.

Not to the same level as PCT among all levels and content type. RPR and VPR are awful at levels 70 and 80. We can then argue that we don't care about older content, which is fine, but I don't think it's a good idea to deny the fact that PCT is a rare job that does very well at most levels and duties regardless of difficulty.

On another note, several melee jobs were equal or below some ranged jobs in Criterion dungeons in EW, precisely due to higher melee downtime. MCH was curiously quite good there as a result although far from the best.

Hell VPR beats out PCT at most percentiles in most savage fights and a 2 year old could play VPR

Not exactly. VPR is better (rDPS and cDPS-wise) than PCT at the following percentiles and below:

- 50 overall, as well as in R1S and R2S.

- In R3S, VPR is never above PCT.

- 80 in R4S.

Whether VPR is an easy job or not and whether it deserves its damage is another question. PCT is strong. I personally don't care if it's #1 in rDPS. However, I do care if the job is top rDPS and very high aDPS-wise (usually just below buffless jobs) while also having higher nDPS than other rDPS-based jobs.

Good game balance is achieved when a job with high rDPS has lower aDPS and/or personal damage and vice versa, as otherwise we repeat what happened with SAM in ShB or BLM in EW.

We could also say that the difference is just of some hundreds of DPS and is not that substantial. That's fine but the premise of avoiding having jobs being high at/topping several metrics should be followed.

VPR was dominating every single metric some weeks ago, which was also unbalanced. The rankings have changed and may still shift as players finish getting BiS. I still think that the overall balance in this tier is relatively fine (besides MCH) but PCT and its relation to downtime should be considered for future Ultimates and Savage releases. We'll see how it ends up.

[Supersnow845]

Oh I definitely agree that PCT’s balance for high downtime should be considered i do agree

My point was always I don’t agree with lyth that motifs should be tied to forced uptime

[TomsYoungerBro]

when p8s is too hard, all the people cry
when m4s is too easy, all the people cry

I've done both week1 and they were both really really cool, there's no need to complain xd

dps check =/= difficulty =/= fun

Well the "p8s too hard" was due to balance problems that weren't noticed until we had such a tight check in that fight. We would probably have similar problems come 7.2 if they do the same thing again lol. And yes while a higher dps check doesn't mean the tier is more difficult overall, making a higher dps check does add to the difficulty.

Regardless, I think the tier's main issue was the undertuning of damage output from the boss. Seeing non-tanks survive partner stacks alone week 1 in some cases should never happen in any tier. Anabaseios body checks were incredibly overtuned for the entire last tier, while body checks this tier were incredibly undertuned even for a first tier. The much lighter dps checks and really no big puzzle mechs is fine for a first tier and the overall stylistic approach they took for the Light-heavyweight matches.