Players connot join the party while you are engaged in combat

[Ilean]

Seems that most of us agree that the issue is people who DC during the fight not being able to rejoin.

Maybe someone could make a thread requesting a fix for that particular problem, and people can start asking for it and hitting the Like button, instead of arguing with people who just want to be able to throw bodies at stuff.

[Frebaut]

THis has been talked bout sence Beta. It's such a bad design just get ride of it.

[Baelari]

As for job switching, I think it was a bad design decision to have DOH/DOL as separate classes who are unable to contribute to combat. It dumbs the missions down to a boring level, and annoys the party when someone was repairing their weapon while someone else engaged. I like being able to make stuff, but doing missions as a crafter is just boring to me; I want to hit stuff to save the world. Originally, DOH/DOL were supposed to help with combat (I think?) but it seems like the idea was scrapped, so having them as a main class should have been scrapped as well, IMHO.

Maybe creating new equipment slots for DOH/DOL tools and subtools, and leaving your main job as a combat class would help? Of course, stats on the tools shouldn't affect your stats during combat, and stats on the weapons shouldn't affect your stats during crafting.

[Kurokikaze]

By the way, you're all wrong in how to handle the matter at hand;

The most obvious fix to this is - since dungeons are going to be instanced; put a cap on how many players can be inside that particular instance. In FFXIV's case the cap will be 4 or 8 for light and full party dungeons. Aside from keeping that d/ced character in the party as "OFFLINE" for 5-10 minutes until booted. <--- This will also fix the d/cing = failing leves stupidity that has been plaguing this game since its inception. You've got 10 minutes to log back in - safe to say that if you don't log back in in that time you probably wont.

This coupled with the removal of stupid delimiters like not inviting/disbanding while engaged, etc etc - will fix the issue and prevent abuse.

SE should hire me right? I know. Its called common sense.

[origamikitsune]

On topic (as per the OP), not being able to invite party members in combat is a flaw IMO. I understand why it is there, and I even agree with it, however it makes partying very difficult, especially with NMs. I'm not talking about party swapping. I'm talking about three people getting together to kill an NM for drops the can actually use, and being able to manage (if just barely) until one person drops.

Today, for example, I was fighting Unknown Soldier. A rank 35 LNC, a rank 35 Arc, and a 25 Con. We were surviving, and it was taking a long time to kill, but we were managing. Then, the arc dropped because of connection lost. Now its just me and the con. We survived, but as the only DD, I -could not- out-damage the NM's drain attack. We tried for 30min and could not, under any circumstances, get it below 50% health. We had to disengage, run away, re-invite the arc, and then go back in. We were lucky there was no one else there to re-claim before we could.

This is a prime example of why this needs to be addressed. For us this was a fun, hard battle; at our ranks it is exactly the sort of battle that FF is supposed to be about. Not easy, but takes skill, but not impossible.

Couple this with the fact that outside healers cannot heal people engaged with NMs, and it means if you are relying on a main healer and you loose them in the combat, you are screwed.

Now, I happen to agree with what they are trying to do, but they need to do it in a way that doesn't hamper play. My suggestion would be that if someone joins a party mid-engage, they have some sort of weakness. Its a simple, elegent solution, that mitigates the problem of cycling players.

But I would say, whats wrong with cycling players? My LS frequently goes out to do things that, at our ranks, take a lot of people. Only we're limited to 8 people now because of a lack of alliances. We go out NM hunting and we have to have two parties trading out claims just for our own LS? Thats kind of silly, IMO.

Anyhow, that's my two cents.

[Grundy]

Let me ask this question - how many people have lost connection since 1.17a with that stupid "connection to the server lost" error. I swear to god I get it once a play session and I have a dedicated FC line and have very little degradation on pingtest.net. My connection is as reliable as your Tax bill.

In the fight I mentioned in my OP our THM became our main healer and we eventually won the fight @28 mins (for most of the group this was there first roaming NM fight) and we had managed to break both horns. If we'd wiped we'd have been majorly pissed, especially as Bloody Bardiche Head and Buffalo Horn dropped (Barbarians Bardiche <mine>).

Regardless of whether it's a deliberate move on SE's part to stop work-arounds in NM fight shouldn't really matter. It's unfair to the playerbase and is one of the things people can just add to the laundry list of complaints that went with this release. If SE refuse to change it at least fix their server stability so we don't lose connection as much as we do.

[darkstarpoet1]

Let me ask this question - how many people have lost connection since 1.17a with that stupid "connection to the server lost" error. I swear to god I get it once a play session and I have a dedicated FC line and have very little degradation on pingtest.net. My connection is as reliable as your Tax bill.

at least once a day.

[Volsung]

I know if this were the XI days, job changing with that much ease would probably be considered cheating, but this game was advertised as being able to change on the fly. They mentioned changing, curing yourself, then changing back since the game was talked about. I think its silly all the restrictions they impose because somebody is engaged.

The other day my behest group asked me to buff them by changing to conj before it started so I did, but some nutjob ran off and engaged mobs before I could change back and he stayed engaged, this hindered me and my group, and there is nothing you can do in such an event. Kick him and he'll just ruin the exp anyways...

I think changing should be allowed it was advertised as such while in development and never said it would be different, and SEVERAL other things such as party invites. Just off the top of my head, a friend comes to help you midway through an nm fight, for instance I camped for joytoy in XI and would never force someone to camp with me but theyd be more than willing to join part way through.

[Bayohne]

As you can see by the discussion taking place, there are many facets involved in the current design of not being able to invite while engaged. We checked in with the dev. team and were informed that because we have not designed content centered around the need to swap party members, we do not plan on changing this. However, depending on the content we add in the future, there is a possibility that we may change our policy or implement specific exceptions.

There will always be "what about [xyz] instance!" where being unable to invite is a hindrance, but overall the system was designed for specific purposes. We do appreciate the comments and feedback presented, and I'll be sure to pass these along as well.

[Ava]

As you can see by the discussion taking place, there are many facets involved in the current design of not being able to invite while engaged. We checked in with the dev. team and were informed that because we have not designed content centered around the need to swap party members, we do not plan on changing this. However, depending on the content we add in the future, there is a possibility that we may change our policy or implement specific exceptions.

There will always be "what about [xyz] instance!" where being unable to invite is a hindrance, but overall the system was designed for specific purposes. We do appreciate the comments and feedback presented, and I'll be sure to pass these along as well.

Thank you for the response to this, but I think that should be reconsidered. While I think this type of mindset is acceptable in certain situations, those situations should be player controlled situations. When a player gets disconnected, it's not something the player has any control over. If you are going to stick to this mindset, then at least make it so that disconnected players do not leave the party upon disconnecting.