Cross-post Suggestions Thread for Official FFXIV Forums

[Celeras]

I'm assuming you mean stacking Quick Nock in the 7th or 8th slot of the BR. You could alternatively stack something like Profundity Tier2 nuke and get about 1200-1500, so I think the damage is more a product of the slot in the BR rather than anything else. While this does encourage the overall use of teamwork etc. it is a bit overpowered. But its effectiveness in the current system should be reduced in max 8 party size since you likely won't have 8/8 players in every BR for safety issue on 'hard' mobs.

I think you're exaggerating with 1500, it's more commonly under 1000 in my experience. Especially on something like Uraeus that is 50/50 landing probability at best. Either way though.. to start a BR where you could end with magic, you have to start with a (missable) WS. Magic>Magic>WSx6 is far better, because even 0 damage nukes count towards the regimen and won't screw up the chain or subsequent boosts.

We've tried the big magic boost chains and felt it paled in comparison. The multi-hit WSs dominate everything else by a very wide margin. Sorry for the sidetrack since I know its not really relevant to the purpose of this thread, just throwing it out there when I saw your post. And you're right where its probably not even going to matter anymore once 8 player parties are brought in.

[Hyan]

[dev1017 - hyan]

it's funny cause when i read the first part of your post, i was thinking "oh one easy thing to do would be to let crafters do enhancements."

gimme a link and description and i'll plug it into OP

'Aight.

"Crafting enhancement feature by Hyan"
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-quest-rewards.

"With the addition of equipment rewards from loot and quests, new crafting concepts are needed to keep crafters important to the game. Enhancing existing equipment could be one of those concepts."

Much like Seph's thread it got largely ignored. Still, would be nice if we could get the rep's attention to raise the issue to the table.

[Psion]

Yeah, my thread isn't ignored since its got 27 posts, but it fell from first page to like eighth due to the sheer amount of thread spam, and I partly blame Belgianrofl because he keeps posting a bunch of shit posts and having the poor mods nuke all the repeats.

And I posted last so I'd feel awkward posting again. XD

[Shazaam]

Yeah the people over there are perfectly content with pretty pictures as opposed to the logic/balancing going on in the background: which is another reason why I think any type of talent trees works and why I think we should keep conversations of concepts over here before submitting them. lol

That was my bad, I was posting on *SHINY* new forums before thinking. I'll use this BG forum for any bright (or not so bright) ideas first from now on.

Unless I drink enough to convince myself that I am temporarily the most brilliant game developer ever... even when I know I have absolutely no knowledge of real game dev, and my profession is about as far away from game development as you could probably get with a skill set. Apologies for any future indiscretions given now, just in case, lol. The only really decent thing I added so far was one line of text.

EDIT:

One thing I am concerned about: does your system allow for multiple leveling? Say I am a lvl 25 GLD, and I pick Paladin as my advanced class, and am now leveling as a PLD. Do I still get levels in my base GLD rank? (meaning swd levels)? So that when I gain experience points, I am gaining them for both my PLD advanced class, and my GLD base class... or do I just get the PLD points?

Personally I would think that as a base GLD 25 I would pick the PLD adv class, and still gain both sentinel and sword points from my actions, as well as PLD points, leading me to cap both swd and shield, while still leveling my PLD. If I chose to level DRK as my advance class later, the DRK class would start at it's base (lvl 1), but all my GLD levels from swd and shield would be at the cap for lvl 50 (like FFXI where you would have a cap at each level).

Just something I didn't \understand from the OP. I might have been obtuse, but I further wanted an explanation of the system.

EDIT 2: The nomenclature for the system might need to be addressed as well: The current ranks being referred to as 'base class' and the proposed 'classic jobs' being referred to as 'advanced classes'.
Looking for a definitive system of naming things that we can stick to. I don't care what it is, but clear cut word usage is a sign of an organized group effort. I want to know what definitions to use. It's your idea and I like it, sorry if I am trying to prod you too much.

[Kurokikaze]

That was my bad, I was posting on *SHINY* new forums before thinking. I'll use this BG forum for any bright (or not so bright) ideas first from now on.

Unless I drink enough to convince myself that I am temporarily the most brilliant game developer ever... even when I know I have absolutely no knowledge of real game dev, and my profession is about as far away from game development as you could probably get with a skill set. Apologies for any future indiscretions given now, just in case, lol. The only really decent thing I added so far was one line of text.

EDIT:

One thing I am concerned about: does your system allow for multiple leveling? Say I am a lvl 25 GLD, and I pick Paladin as my advanced class, and am now leveling as a PLD. Do I still get levels in my base GLD rank? (meaning swd levels)? So that when I gain experience points, I am gaining them for both my PLD advanced class, and my GLD base class... or do I just get the PLD points?

Personally I would think that as a base GLD 25 I would pick the PLD adv class, and still gain both sentinel and sword points from my actions, as well as PLD points, leading me to cap both swd and shield, while still leveling my PLD. If I chose to level DRK as my advance class later, the DRK class would start at it's base (lvl 1), but all my GLD levels from swd and shield would be at the cap for lvl 50 (like FFXI where you would have a cap at each level).

Just something I didn't \understand from the OP. I might have been obtuse, but I further wanted an explanation of the system.

EDIT 2: The nomenclature for the system might need to be addressed as well: The current ranks being referred to as 'base class' and the proposed 'classic jobs' being referred to as 'advanced classes'.
Looking for a definitive system of naming things that we can stick to. I don't care what it is, but clear cut word usage is a sign of an organized group effort. I want to know what definitions to use. It's your idea and I like it, sorry if I am trying to prod you too much.

Your PLD is an evolved form of your GLD. Any progress you do on it you will have on GLD because its the same class it's just that you leveled up to the point where you changed your appearance/role. Think of RO, or in for a console RPG think evolving in Pokemon.

Current Class = Base Class, FF Class = Advanced Class/Specialization. No problem but as I said before, since my thing is already up on the forums we'll discuss there, new ideas here.

[Takiwaki]

I am at work so I dont have much time to really organize this but here is the quick run down plus i cant log into the offical forums at work.

I was thinking of an Idea but it may not be able to be implemented with the current structure as it will involved major changes to the class structure

A cross between tactics and FF9 that will really go well with the horizontal growth that they are trying to accomplish

- Do away with phys levels, each class will now become lets say an expertise that gains skill points based on usage of any ability within the class, so whm expertise will be its own thing and blm expertise will be its own thing. each expertise will have active skills and passive skills. passive skills contain slottable traits like HP and MP so depending on your expertise level u can slot more enabling you to customise ur hp mp etc.
- You can equip most passives across class but I think most weapon skills should be locked to the weapon you are using, the way you learn skill is why I say this

- you will gain skills based on each expertise ala ff9 where the actual abilies you will learn is tied to the weapon so if you equip a staff that has cure and fire u will be able to use both but every time u use, u will have points towards unlocking.

- weapon and armor will be equipable based on ranks in different expertise some allowing for multiple expertise to use

-I think this way will be great for crafting as there will always be needs for weapons or armor and also allows for more customization in each expertise

-From there we can use the tactics based system to unlock other expertise having for example whm 20 and blm 20 will allow u to unlock rdm through a quest. Once that is done u can equip armor items and weapons that will allow you to learn rdm type skills and abilities like convert double cast etc.

From here you can see how it can easily be balanced by having a point based system for slotting skills (affinity) but yea this is the inital idea which I honestly thought was how it was going to be the very first time they gave us info on the armory system lol

I honestly hate the system in place right now. it is just not Final Fantansy.

[solracht]

I wanted skills through armor ever since they announced the game, but I don't think I'd bother integrating it into the job system at this point, especially if they end up allowing us to customize passive skills through the job we pick (see Kuro's system, for example).

That said, small things like Maneater, Dragon Killer, HP+5%, MP+5%, Auto-Regen (small, during battle), Auto-Refresh (small, during battle), Defense+2%, Attack+2%, and other grey, misc passive skills I could vote for.

[Takiwaki]

Yup I agree. . its just think it would be awesome to learn what we want, when we want, and not depend on a skill tree per say.
Even though you will need a certain rank to equip the weapon with the abilities you want. you can choose to learn which skills u want first. Also gaining skill points or exp on any equipped ability is nice, it really will allow for custom characters, if you play as a tank the skills that you will need for tanking will level faster than other equipped skills, but they will still gain levels just from usage.

[jwang]

Why not have the number and type of abilities set determine your jobs, and have your job be a title that confer extra abilities and stats? Then make certain titles available only through questing after a certain rank of class is reached? For example, to play "basic job" White Mage, you equip any 3 combination of healing or astral alignment abilities (Cure, Sacrifice, any debuff removal ability, Banish, or Dia) and then set your job title to "White Mage". The job title gives additional bonuses to amount healed, HP regen during combat, and Esuna/Erase abilities. To play Paladin, complete a quest at rank 20, then equip 6 GLA abilities, and any combination of 3 "protective" abilities or astral alignment spells (Protect, Shell, Cure, Aegis Boon, etc.). The title gives bonuses to defense, max HP, MP regen during combat, TP bonus to shield blocks, and additional astral alignment abilities (Luminous Spire EX? Excalibur? Savage Blade mk 2 GO!). This way, they don't have to change the class system and lore, while giving job restrictions to equipment by having certain gear equipable while having certain titles available.

[Kaylia]

FFIX ability system was pretty fun, I wouldnt mind something like that.

[Kurokikaze]

Thats how a lot of us thought the system was going to work when it was initially proposed and thought it was amazing. Doing that now seems like a ton of work though considering that they have to go through each and every weapon/armor and make sure they spread out abilities evenly.

[Celeras]

Thats how a lot of us thought the system was going to work when it was initially proposed and thought it was amazing. Doing that now seems like a ton of work though considering that they have to go through each and every weapon/armor and make sure they spread out abilities evenly.

Still get pissed when I think about their whole 'THERE WILL BE NO LEVELS/EXP' thing. The entire system feels like a bait-n-switch over what they were talking about pre-beta.

[Kurokikaze]

Yeah that was pretty screwed up. We were all expecting some never before seen shit in an MMO and we got... well yeah you already know. "Grind classes, grind crafting, then grind the logout button."

[solracht]

Still get pissed when I think about their whole 'THERE WILL BE NO LEVELS/EXP' thing. The entire system feels like a bait-n-switch over what they were talking about pre-beta.

"This time, there will be no experience points or level system," said producer Hiromichi Tanaka in the interview, which you can watch on YouTube or read about on Scrawl. "It will be a different system altogether."

FFXIV's director Nobuaki Komoto told Famitsu that Square Enix wants "people who may never have tried an online game before have the freedom to try many different things and tackle any number of quests and grow naturally from their experiences... That's our priority: players enjoying the process of character growth."

Quoting for laughs, in case someone doesn't remember.

[Tortalius]

Aight, so here're some of my thoughts on overhauling the battle regime system into something more interesting. Let me know what you guys think


Reflecting on FFXI's Skill chains/Magic Bursts and FFXIV's current Battle Regime system, I feel that the current regime system is inadequate, confusing, and slow, but that its core goals are good.

The goal of XI's systems and XIV's systems are to cause players to work together when executing actions instead of just performing abilities that they want. The concept is "if I work together with my teammates, we can do extra damage." However, the current system has many problems, all of which have been discussed at great length in other posts. Therefore, I propose a new system, which is tentatively titled the "Unity" system.

The system would have 2 distinct type of actions. Actions where 2 or more players (based on the unity action chosen) both choose the same action to perform, and when they both have adequate stamina, the action is performed. Ex: A gladiator selects the "Magic Blade" Unity Action, while a Conjurer selects "Fire Blade." Once they both have enough stamina, the action is performed, in which conjurer casts a spell, fire appears on the Gladiator's blade, and he attacks for increased fire damage. This attack's strength would be more than just using similar stamina cost attacks.

The second type of attacks would be similar to skill chains/battle regimes, called Chain Actions.. I choose the appropriate chain action , and perform it. Within a time period another person must select another appropriate unity action, and so on, until a max of each party member performing an action on the mob. Once the actions are all performed, the chain is closed either via a single party member using a closing move, or the entire party using the same closing move. The closing move deals damage/heals based on the number of actions performed, and applies debuff(s)/buff(s) based on the actions performed.

Ex: Party member one uses a chain Fire spell, party member two then uses a chain lancer attack. Then they both use "Slow Finish" to end the chain. This attack deals damage based on quantity of moves, and slows the target.

You could have chain finishes that deal damage based on number of debuffs on target, one that adds debuffs based on number of different elemental attacks done, one based on simply number of attacks in the chain. etc. etc.

The goal here is to encourage people to work together, but not require any huge time investment during combat. The amount of coordination is no worse than a skill chain used to be, and while the Unity chain finishes would require the most coordination, since you have to do skills in an order, and then all do the same move, these attacks would be the strongest to compensate.


To sum up the actual abilities: Unity Actions: Both chars perform an action together. Chain actions: Party performs various actions in sequence and then finishes chain together.

Next, some system things: A PC builds up Unity points when he performs actions on a target while in a party. Unity points decrease overtime when one is in passive mode. The amount of unity points per action is based on the stamina cost. A simple attack may be worth 100 points, while casting water may be worth 200.
Next: Above the skill bar would be a unity bar on which one would place unity attacks. Unity attacks would be set ahead of time and cost points to set, like other actions. Setting a unity action costs UP not regular AP. So one could set "Magic Blade" at UP of 2, and then Slow finish for 3 UP.

Finally: the goal is for many of these attacks to be relatively cheap. So "Spell Blade" may cost only 500 unity points to activate, so about 5 regular attacks. This would make combat more more dynamic in a party.

[Kaylia]

^
Picking a skillchain and repeating it every fights isn't what I would call teamwork. It doesnt really add any depth to the gameplay, and it quickly become as mindless as spamming your own ability. If you want to add a functionality to the battle system, it need to make the fight more involving, otherwise, it's just another dry concept.


In my opinion, FFXI's skillchains system was perfect when you could make them on the fly, or at least, it would have been with better balance (weapon skills werent happening often enough, holding TP was not a good idea, and you only had 1 good WS per job). If everyone were spamming 7 or 8 differents abilities every 30seconds, you would constantly have an opportunity to use different skillchains, and it would create a completely differents dynamics where you have to watch for everyone's actions while picking your own.

[Elcura]

^
Picking a skillchain and repeating it every fights isn't what I would call teamwork. It doesnt really add any depth to the gameplay, and it quickly become as mindless as spamming your own ability. If you want to add a functionality to the battle system, it need to make the fight more involving, otherwise, it's just another dry concept.


In my opinion, FFXI's skillchains system was perfect when you could make them on the fly, or at least, it would have been with better balance (weapon skills werent happening often enough, holding TP was not a good idea, and you only had 1 good WS per job). If everyone were spamming 7 or 8 differents abilities every 30seconds, you would constantly have an opportunity to use different skillchains, and it would create a completely differents dynamics where you have to watch for everyone's actions while picking your own.

I loved that about certain merit parties on MNK. When you plan a skill chain, it's feels so stilted and dry, as mechanical as a fight without it. But when you do it freeform, you have have a SAM watching people randomly throw a WS out, then using the right WS to make a decent SC, and someone in your party is also paying enough attention to see a Fragmentation or Fusion and bursts off it (I used to burst debuffs if I could on RDM, or throw out a nuke if I had excess MP).

It wasn't required for the type of parties it mostly happened in, but it was still an awesome extra source of damage.

[Kurokikaze]

[dev???? - Tortalius]



Sorry I had to...

And its crazy that I see this post now; I had a dream about something that could work with BRs to make them less clunky (yeah thats sad but w/e). This could also work with your system which seems nicer and a bit more tactical - something you would think is in the game based on the intro movie:

Archer uses Sidewinder.
Conjurer casts Fira.
Flamestrike!

But anyways the idea was more of a system and execution thing since that is really the biggest problem with BRs. Instead of having your character lockout when you press the square button and enter BR mode or have to click on that stupid button in the first place.. Let's just make Square the BR Charge. When you press the Square button on an ability:

- Press Square
- Ability/Spell will be highlighted red and your character can be seen charging (CHARGIN THE LAZER). This is more for other players to get a visual confirmation that you're ready. That column of abilities on the side is pretty annoying (not sure if thats just me).
- While you're charging you can still use other spells and abilities with the X button (as you normally would).

Now depending on whether they change BRs or not the following things can happen:

- When all party members are ready they press Square in sequence. Abilities/Spells will be used in that order. Any graphical effects/debuffs/buffs occur.
- When all party members are ready they press Square (sequence doesn't matter - time window ~3s). The system will see the combination of abilities used and give the appropriate outcome. In the above example a new move will be created (think Chrono Trigger) Flamestrike.

Oh and to add to your system; instead of having another set of points to keep track of I would say that any abilities that are to be used in Unity/Chain Attacks have their costs increased by 25 or 50% for TP or Stamina. Of course the outcomes need to be much stronger to justify the saving up of TP/Stamina.

Besides all this, the biggest thing that would help BRs is more encounters where they can be made useful.

Lemme know if any of that makes any sense, I'm still a little drunk. lol

Edit: Hmm no dev tag for Battle Regimens.

[Elcura]

I reckon all they have to do to make BRs more widely used is not lock character actions. If you use a BR, only the ability you stacked should be locked out, otherwise you should be free to act. Execution wise on a gamepad... yeah it could be better.

[Lucavi]

I loved that about certain merit parties on MNK. When you plan a skill chain, it's feels so stilted and dry, as mechanical as a fight without it. But when you do it freeform, you have have a SAM watching people randomly throw a WS out, then using the right WS to make a decent SC, and someone in your party is also paying enough attention to see a Fragmentation or Fusion and bursts off it (I used to burst debuffs if I could on RDM, or throw out a nuke if I had excess MP).

It wasn't required for the type of parties it mostly happened in, but it was still an awesome extra source of damage.

Well said. Some of the most fun I had as drg/sam was following people's random WSes for extra frag damage on flies and shit in ToAU. Freeform is so much fun.