Balancing is Half the Battle (11/19/2010)

[Gokulo]

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...80e4ae1f950ff8

One area of focus for the November 24 version update is battle balancing. Among the many adjustments being made are changes to the accuracy of physical and magic attacks, enmity rates, actions for all classes, and reductions to the amount of skill points needed to rank up, and more.

Character Progression
Accuracy

The accuracy rates for actions in general, both physical and magic, have been increased, making it easier for players to land attacks. This will, subsequently, result in more skill points.

Skill Points in Parties

Skill points earned in battle are now awarded after an enemy is defeated. Additionally, discrepancies in the amount of skill points awarded to party members have been reduced. Together with these changes, the overall number of skill points awarded has also been increased, making progression easier even in smaller parties.


The above changes will serve to increase the tempo of battle, and also allow players to obtain more skill points than was previously possible. To further facilitate the process of ranking up, the amount of skill points required to attain ranks 11 through 31 has been reduced. The reductions are most significant for the rank range of 11 through 20, as we would like to enable players the ability to engage in more goal-oriented content, such as the hunting of notorious monsters, at an earlier stage of play. Further information regarding these changes will be released in the version update details Topics post of November 24.

http://static.finalfantasyxiv.com/to...c682f7c416f80d

Balancing Adjustments to Actions

In order to improve the uniqueness and flavor of each class in party battle, we have made a number of adjustments to the effects, durations, execution costs, and enmity generation rates of a number of actions. Below is a sampling of these changes.

Pugilist
Featherfoot
Active duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
Evasion rate increased.

Gladiator
Luminous Spire
MP cost reduced from 20 to 10.

Marauder
Foresight
Stamina cost reduced from 5 to 3.5.
Active duration increased from 15 to 30 seconds.
Parry rate increased.
Bloodbath
Stamina cost reduced from 6 to 3.5.

Archer
Trifurcate
MP cost reduced from 30 to 15.

Lancer
Speed Surge, Life Surge
Active duration increased from 120 to 180 seconds.

Conjurer
Cure, Cure II, Cure III
Enmity generation adjusted.

Thaumaturge
Scourge

Amount of damage dealt increased.
Sacrifice, Sacrifice II, Sacrifice III
Enmity generation adjusted.
Amount of HP healed increased.

[Hyan]

Ask the Devs! (11/19/2010)

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...87cdffc821f8f9

Following the Topics post of November 17, entitled New Features and User Interface Improvements, the FINAL FANTASY XIV community has expressed interest in and provided feedback regarding several of the changes planned for the coming version updates.

In today's post, the development and management teams address some of the most prominent questions and concerns in an ongoing FAQ series.
Changes to User Interface
Q.

I see that the inventory space for PCs and retainers is going to be expanded. Will this require me to complete a quest of some sort like the item-fetch gobbiebag quests of FINAL FANTASY XI?
A.

Not at all. The inventory expansion will take effect for all players and retainers immediately following the version update on November 24.
Q.

What is the difference between the automated and manual item sort features that are planned for release?
A.

The automated item sort feature will organize a player's inventory by grouping together items of the same kind. Within these groupings, items will further be listed alphabetically. By using the manual sort option, however, players may arrange the items in their inventories however they see fit. Additional sort options will be added in future version updates, as well.
Q.

What kind of features will be added to the Keyboard Settings section of the Configuration menu?
A.

The new commands that can now be mapped to the keyboard are listed below.
Targeting Functions
Target Party Member 1
Target Party Member 2
Target Party Member 3
Target Party Member 4
Target Nearest PC
Target Nearest NPC

Other Mappable Functions
Open Attributes window
Open Gear window
Open Actions & Traits window
Open Point Allotment window
Open Loot window
Open Inventory
Open Journal
Open Bazaar
Examine target
Begin Synthesis action
Begin Gathering action

Enemy Distribution

Q. The before and after screenshots in the previous Topics post illustrating the changes to the distribution of enemies made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. What changed exactly? And why are they gazing into my soul?
A. What the pictures come up incredibly short of depicting is an approximately 50% increase in the number of enemies. This figure is subject to some variation across areas. Soul-gazing may or may not be addressed in a future Topics post...

[Hiroishime]

Soul-gazing may or may not be addressed in a future Topics post...

gave me a good laugh xD

[TacoTaru]

Good to see a double post of information today. The only thing I'm worried about is I'm curious to know if I can use the party targeting/nearest NPC targeting while using the gamepad keyboard setup. I'm assuming they're mapping those functions to the F-keys as it would make the most sense, so not allowing someone to use the F-keys with the gamepad would just be stupid. Also excited for the SP gain/rank reduction as hopefully this will make the pacing feel a bit more like XI in those first 30 levels instead of XI post 40.

*Edit*
Yeah the soul gazing part made me laugh as well. I was surprised to see them address the confusion of yesterday's post, and even moreso in a humorous manner.

[Celeras]

Skill points earned in battle are now awarded after an enemy is defeated. Additionally, discrepancies in the amount of skill points awarded to party members have been reduced. Together with these changes, the overall number of skill points awarded has also been increased, making progression easier even in smaller parties.

-They were always awarded after an enemy is defeated.. does that mean the procs won't be shown anymore?
-Discrepancy lowering is good, but it should be zero outside of rank difference.
-Success for smaller parties also good, but I hope it remains that there is no hard 'sweet spot' like XI@6 since I happen to enjoy being able to roll with whatever is available without turning people down and be successful.

[Elrina]

I agree, I thought it was funny as well :3 I also really like how they added that bit referring to yesterday's post in, responding directly to feedback so quickly, and the way they did it.

Although, weirdly, it took me a minute to actually read the "Balancing is Half the Battle" post, since the Details link brings you (or at least, me) to the Japanese version of the update. >_> Took me a few moments before I actually clicked the title link which brought me to the English version of the page.

[The Q]

I have to say I lol'd hard at the soul-gazing mention as well.

That said I sure as hell hope the Gladiator changes are MUCH more than what we were shown. Nearly all of our skills need serious stamina cost reduction.

[sruon]

Newsletter I received today, nothing new but I don't think I ever seen this picture.

http://na.square-enix.com/ffxiv/eu/n...sletter_03.jpg

[miokomioko]

the amount of skill points required to attain ranks 11 through 31 has been reduced.

I'm glad my efforts in pushing all but 3 classes to Rank-10 so far weren't in vain.

[Hiroishime]

-They were always awarded after an enemy is defeated.. does that mean the procs won't be shown anymore?

what i thought is, u gets SP from the mob and then some more SP gain from when your stuff landed. maybe.. i can dream u see

[Toth]

The SP change is really vague...I hope it means we now get SP from mobs regardless of actions, and that certain jobs will get more SP for actions than others (i.e more for Conjurer if they use an occasional spell rather than a Pug constantly attacking).

Looks good though XD

[Tamjin]

This was the best sample they could choose for gla?

Gladiator
Luminous Spire
MP cost reduced from 20 to 10.

/sadface

[Tomino]

I guess theyr'e going from "each action rewarding SP at a certain %, sum total at the end",
to "each defeated monster rewards certain SP (may vary just like craft SP)"

Basically they're cutting the whole % mess

[Elcura]

I still get a feeling there's some RNG with SP, but it can be taken both ways. Regardless, the last week has been pretty awesome with all the updates and news, even their response to the last article is good (and made me laugh).

[CaptainN]

I guess theyr'e going from "each action rewarding SP at a certain %, sum total at the end",
to "each defeated monster rewards certain SP (may vary just like craft SP)"

Basically they're cutting the whole % mess

We can only hope, that it will work statically like the crafting system.

Still find it odd that they didn't reduce the amount of exp to rank up all the way to 50 but then again if it is set to a static amount then getting 100k "might" not be to bad.

[Riposte]

If we are combining posts, then title should note it.

Pretty hype stuff, aside from the SP explanation being written in SE-ese. Looking at the newsletter, I really hope the NM is that big in play.

A good compromise of the SP system would be giving players access to a neutral(additional?) pool only if they did a respectable amount of SP-earning actions(even if they didn't get the SP proc on each or any of those). If they are saying they want players to earn a similar amount, then give them a bonus on their share of the pool to catch up with the ally who got the most points out a monster.

(As for making huge parties against one monsters more interesting - just have monsters summon a party, like leves, based on conditions such as party strength and party number. If working under this system, don't give out SP until the entire party of enemies is defeated. This should also be applied to leves. The end result would be: 1) More use of tactics and AoE attacks in exp parties, 2) Combat designed around encounters and teams rather than piece by piece, 3) In party vs party play players won't fall behind because they tanked/attacked only one monster, 4) Higher risk vs reward - more SP gain, harder battles, 5) if it ever comes down to it, camps would be able to support more players and more camps will be viable for much wider ranges.)

(Fuck it, since I am on a roll - Hitting viable leveled monsters with offense abilities / spells should temporary let you gain SP while using entirely defensive abilities / cures, even when solo. Likewise, when an ally is hit by a viable leveled monster, they also should gain a similar invisible condition, so when they are quickly cured by someone else the healer gets a big bonus to SP. This should matter more than how much damage was taken. A further bonus if the person being hit is under the healer's buffs. Working with temporary conditions like this, you could add bonus SP for being hit when under stuff like Defender or based on enmity lists for enmity abilities(being hit while being high on the enmity list or doing something and not moving to the top of the enmity list, etc.)

[Dein]

First we got a picture comparison of the mob placement changes which got "addressed" by a FAQ today and now SP is being changed to where it's "awarded at the end of battle" (despite it already being awarded at the end of a fight)? SE's getting so vague with update teasers that pretty soon they won't even tell us what they plan on changing outright.

[Elrina]

It seemed to me that the SP change didn't get rid of the RNG, technically. It sounds like there won't be a notification anymore through the fight, just an amount earned at the end of the fight, but that it's still gained based on those procs. To me, it sounds like they're basically making it a lot easier for each class to hit the SP cap on each mob, so that almost every action will gain SP invisibly, and then just showing that total at the end of the fight. That would help reduce the discrepancies between how much SP people get as well, since if most people tend to hit the SP cap on most mobs, they're getting roughly the same SP.

Why they wouldn't just change it to award that as a flat amount of SP at the end of the fight, like exp, I don't know. Maybe they're hoping by leaving it this way, but making it easy to reach the cap if you participate, it will still serve it's originally intended purpose.

[Ragnus]

I'm really liking all these changes. Hopefully the game will recover enough to the point where XI players can't use it as their feel good punching bag anymore.

[Franzer]

As with all updates in FFXI I used to say, i won't believe the hype till i see it. Everything always sounds better on paper. This isn't a flame post, as I'm genuinely excited for the updates, I just keep my hopes low so I'm impressed come update day. I'm glad they picked a day before the holiday weekend so I can spend some time with it.