Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[Taim Meich]

SCH still has the best Stun, and brings enough healing and much more utility to Nyzul, for example, than a WHM. Embrava nerf is very harsh, but as pointed before, you can't expect to change the player tactics with just a slight downgrade. Also, they probably think it's better to first announce a brutal nerf and then make it a bit better than the contrary, and I agree. People react much better when something that was nerfed hard gets a bit better than when something that was slightly nerfed gets further nerfed.

But yeah, the sooner they realize it's the attack power of the mobs, and not their HP totals what has to be revised, the better.

[Jurist]

Probably not as much as players hoped for, but it was adjusted, lol. I think SE is banking on the ideal that players will actually build solid PTs and not rely 2hrs to be successful. For 80 Nyzul, it's possible (esp with BRD and/or COR set ups). ADL will still be semi luck based. Legion will just take a little bit more of planning. Nothing is impossible, however-- NNI took the biggest hit if anything, and it wasn't that big a hit at all.

SE should start banking on their customers quitting when they don't ask their customers (at least besides the special bus morons that post on the official forum), giving their entertainment money to other game publishers. Normally in a market when you want to drastically change a product, you either anticipate those changes and roll that product out the right way to begin with (e.g., shoulda thought about strategies besides PD/Embrava for Legion/ADL/NNI first) or you ask your customers if this is change is going to piss them off, then weigh the pros/cons. I'd bet a chipstack they did not do either.

[Slycer]

This was a good one from the JP side:

"you should consider looking at the balance properly on the development side before you ask us to do it on the test server"

[Yugl]

If you think Embrava and PD design led to the "problems" people had with events, you're overlooking the fact that SE's fixes to the events have jackshit to do with the complaints initially spawned. It took Embrava to reduce Astraria from 25 to 5? Bullshit. Legion's biggest threat is mob HP? Bullshit. Odin is relatively untouched by this due to the short zerg nature.

There's no link between the spells-event issues and the current "fixes." Look at this issue-by-issue.

What possible content problems could have been caused by PD? Ridiculous ailments and high damage.
The fix: HP changes. The worst ailments weren't even blocked to begin with.
The result: Players still PD where they did before.

What possible content problems could have been caused by Embrava? Quite frankly, the only ones I can imagine would be Kaustra because super haste existed before Embrava. The main benefits of Embrava were the convenience and Regain/Regen. The regen is untouched and what kind of content design can we solely rest upon Regain?
The fix: HP changes again; reduction of Astraria.
The result: The latter is fine, but ultimately, the design flaw was dependence on luck and that doesn't change. Players may not care for Embrava for Nyzul, but given the undispelable nature and retained regen, that's still going to be bread and butter for legion.

[pchan]

SCh nerf is nice but not revamping the content is retarded. They should allow F60 to be cleared 25 times to get F100 gear. Simarly they should double the drop rate on odious for ADL or something.

[Obsidian]

That Embrava nerf is a little overkill, I'd say.

Perfect Defense adjustment brings it more inline with what it should be, given that it granted total immunity to an entire party for over a minute, while Invincible only grants physical damage immunity to the Paladin for thirty seconds.

NNI just became realistically impossible, though. It's unbelievable that they recognize that luck is the determining factor of success in that event and refuse to do anything about it.

[Slycer]

The kind of response that this is generating on the JP side would leave me unsurprised if we already have further comments from the development team as soon as tomorrow. I'll keep an eye out for that, of course.

There was actually a post about halfway through the thread saying something to the effect of "why hasn't this been translated into English yet? don't you want their responses?" Someone else dug up the post that linked to my translation with a few responses but they said their English wasn't really good enough to understand what we were discussing.

Edit: I find it amusing that my translation was more accurate than the one that the NA community team just posted on one point (the astrarium reduced BY 1/5 thing in their post is obviously incorrect). They did clarify the PD duration thing in that 600 summoning magic (60 seconds) is the cap for duration, not just a provided example, which actually makes it even funnier since you can't even come close to hitting it.

[Yukari]

That Embrava nerf is a little overkill, I'd say.

Perfect Defense adjustment brings it more inline with what it should be, given that it granted total immunity to an entire party for over a minute, while Invincible only grants physical damage immunity to the Paladin for thirty seconds.

NNI just became realistically impossible, though. It's unbelievable that they recognize that luck is the determining factor of success in that event and refuse to do anything about it.

Mostly because SE is one of those companies that likes to force designer intent above all. Thus, fuck you if you think that players get to actually decide what is fair.

[Toth]

From the get go, they have said these changes are planned, not finalized. Once they go live on the test server, I am sure they will see what the issues are. They gave themselves plenty of outs in their post, saying they would adjust based on feedback.

Two fixes for NNI: increase random floor range from 1-12
Timer should not start until you start floor 1 ( give us 3 free minutes in the lobby)

Fixes for everything else: lower mob attack power and AoE range of certain abilities.

There you go, SE.

[NynJa]

From the get go, they have said these changes are planned, not finalized. Once they go live on the test server, I am sure they will see what the issues are.

This is why we have to bitch at SE, and bitch at SE really fucking hard. The first time we had a retarded addition/change like this was the Heavy Metal plates. Everyone thought it was a joke, and then...1500 HMP enter the server, and their method of creation is slowwwww. Then we got the 99 requirements, and they were fucking absurd. REALLY FUCKING absurd. we bitched, and SE lowered them. We bitched more, because they were still fucking absurd. SE lowered them to manageable numbers.

The problem is, it shouldnt be like this. They should not be putting out fucking absurd numbers of requirement or fucking absurd nerfs then "see how they pan out" before adjusting them. They should have sufficient forethought to see "hey if we do this, whats going to happen to everything else, will these goals be attainable in this lifetime?".


off topic: you're doing something wrong if you spend 3 min in lobby >.>

[Byrthnoth]

New sources of Refresh have me looking at BLM tanking again. I see two ways to take it:

1) Scherzo and Earthen Armor seem to apply before Mana Wall, if I remember correctly. If your HP is low enough (Hi tarus and the Zenith set!) you could abuse these to take almost no damage from most/all of the 1k+ damage hitting mobs. 5% damage passed through and hit with a 60% reduction from Mana Wall. Phalanx applies after Mana Wall, I think, so you would eliminate much/all of the remaining 3% damage. You could take a 1000 damage attack for 0 MP with a 30 damage Phalanx. This setup could be done with pretty much a Bard and 5 BLMs and would work exceptionally well against something like the turtles in An.

2) You could kill it with Refresh. Only one Black Mage can be attacked at once even with AoE attacks as long as your group is smart. With available sources of Refresh, it's not unreasonable to expect you could give your entire party 60+ MP/tick (SV BRD, COR, Embrava post-nerf, RDM, gear). Including Accession'd Phalanx and full mitigation gear, you'd have to get hit for something like 475 damage/tick in order to come out negative on MP. Furthermore, you are perfectly safe riding negative MP as long as you trade hate. Trading hate is already an essential part of BLM strategies, and with multiple BLMs and >60MP/tick you should have no problems keeping up enough MP to nuke.

Downsides of this are that you need to kill things in 5 minutes, which is not actually a downside in something like a PW zerg because that's already the plan. Toss in some MP medicine and charge Sublimation beforehand if you're worried. Furthermore, these buffs make you essentially unkillable (except for Death) and last for 5 minutes. Even if you get status enfeebled all to shit, you will still unpetrify eventually.

[Mojo]

I agree with that sentiment. I feel like they don't playtest the game anymore. Random stats are tossed onto mobs and the playerbase deals with the consequences.

[Selamis]

Not to turn this off topic, but really, that is above all what I was most impressed with Blizzard about and how they run WoW. They don't just blindly nerf or adjust things, they take a look at how players play, what is broken and overpowered, what needs a boost, and then they take feedback from players on test servers about changes they are thinking about making. None of this "it's our game and we know what is best, take it or leave it" attitude that has persisted with XI since it's release.

[Tarage]

Not to turn this off topic, but really, that is above all what I was most impressed with Blizzard about and how they run WoW. They don't just blindly nerf or adjust things, they take a look at how players play, what is broken and overpowered, what needs a boost, and then they take feedback from players on test servers about changes they are thinking about making. None of this "it's our game and we know what is best, take it or leave it" attitude that has persisted with XI since it's release.

It's a very Japanese style of development.

[Damane]

New sources of Refresh have me looking at BLM tanking again. I see two ways to take it:

1) Scherzo and Earthen Armor seem to apply before Mana Wall, if I remember correctly. If your HP is low enough (Hi tarus and the Zenith set!) you could abuse these to take almost no damage from most/all of the 1k+ damage hitting mobs. 5% damage passed through and hit with a 60% reduction from Mana Wall. Phalanx applies after Mana Wall, I think, so you would eliminate much/all of the remaining 3% damage. You could take a 1000 damage attack for 0 MP with a 30 damage Phalanx. This setup could be done with pretty much a Bard and 5 BLMs and would work exceptionally well against something like the turtles in An.

2) You could kill it with Refresh. Only one Black Mage can be attacked at once even with AoE attacks as long as your group is smart. With available sources of Refresh, it's not unreasonable to expect you could give your entire party 60+ MP/tick (SV BRD, COR, Embrava post-nerf, RDM, gear). Including Accession'd Phalanx and full mitigation gear, you'd have to get hit for something like 475 damage/tick in order to come out negative on MP. Furthermore, you are perfectly safe riding negative MP as long as you trade hate. Trading hate is already an essential part of BLM strategies, and with multiple BLMs and >60MP/tick you should have no problems keeping up enough MP to nuke.

Downsides of this are that you need to kill things in 5 minutes, which is not actually a downside in something like a PW zerg because that's already the plan. Toss in some MP medicine and charge Sublimation beforehand if you're worried. Furthermore, these buffs make you essentially unkillable (except for Death) and last for 5 minutes. Even if you get status enfeebled all to shit, you will still unpetrify eventually.

dunno the wave 2 turtle was hititng me last time for 800 dmg on my sch on my PDT/MDT set and stomped me into the ground with a 2k headstomp on the same PDT/MDT set I had

[Yugl]

New sources of Refresh have me looking at BLM tanking again. I see two ways to take it:

1) Scherzo and Earthen Armor seem to apply before Mana Wall, if I remember correctly. If your HP is low enough (Hi tarus and the Zenith set!) you could abuse these to take almost no damage from most/all of the 1k+ damage hitting mobs. 5% damage passed through and hit with a 60% reduction from Mana Wall. Phalanx applies after Mana Wall, I think, so you would eliminate much/all of the remaining 3% damage. You could take a 1000 damage attack for 0 MP with a 30 damage Phalanx. This setup could be done with pretty much a Bard and 5 BLMs and would work exceptionally well against something like the turtles in An.

2) You could kill it with Refresh. Only one Black Mage can be attacked at once even with AoE attacks as long as your group is smart. With available sources of Refresh, it's not unreasonable to expect you could give your entire party 60+ MP/tick (SV BRD, COR, Embrava post-nerf, RDM, gear). Including Accession'd Phalanx and full mitigation gear, you'd have to get hit for something like 475 damage/tick in order to come out negative on MP. Furthermore, you are perfectly safe riding negative MP as long as you trade hate. Trading hate is already an essential part of BLM strategies, and with multiple BLMs and >60MP/tick you should have no problems keeping up enough MP to nuke.

Downsides of this are that you need to kill things in 5 minutes, which is not actually a downside in something like a PW zerg because that's already the plan. Toss in some MP medicine and charge Sublimation beforehand if you're worried. Furthermore, these buffs make you essentially unkillable (except for Death) and last for 5 minutes. Even if you get status enfeebled all to shit, you will still unpetrify eventually.

What are you tanking though? Most events either don't require tanking or dispel the hell out of you.

[Dotsudoku]

Sounds like he's suggesting a manaburn PW?

[Yugl]

No way to get hate on him I would think lol.

[Toth]

This is why we have to bitch at SE, and bitch at SE really fucking hard. The first time we had a retarded addition/change like this was the Heavy Metal plates. Everyone thought it was a joke, and then...1500 HMP enter the server, and their method of creation is slowwwww. Then we got the 99 requirements, and they were fucking absurd. REALLY FUCKING absurd. we bitched, and SE lowered them. We bitched more, because they were still fucking absurd. SE lowered them to manageable numbers.

The problem is, it shouldnt be like this. They should not be putting out fucking absurd numbers of requirement or fucking absurd nerfs then "see how they pan out" before adjusting them. They should have sufficient forethought to see "hey if we do this, whats going to happen to everything else, will these goals be attainable in this lifetime?".


off topic: you're doing something wrong if you spend 3 min in lobby >.>

Oh we don't. But it would be very nice if we could have 1 to 2 mins upon entry to apply buffs / boosts

[Dotsudoku]

No way to get hate on him I would think lol.

Is elemental damage useless against him? Honestly couldn't tell you. It seems as if a BLM-intensive strategy was what he was suggesting.

If you can nuke it, [BLMx4 COR BRD]x3 seems like it would be a pretty solid strategy.

Edit: Hell, that might even be a pretty viable lowman strategy for other VWNM. If four buffed, well equipped BLM can kill something within five minutes, I imagine you could do everything with one party.