Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[fantasticdan]

Maybe they'll leave old embrava in neo nyzul, the same way they're putting new embrava exclusively (for the time being) into neo salvage?

Making the event more difficult (or just take more runs if you're aiming for floor 80 KI), is silly anyway considering how many people are already done with it.

[Elizara]

who knows. but what I think they're doing is adding a pathos that nerfs Embrava/PD. One you CAN'T get rid of. That would seem like the most straightforward way to do it.

...But that's my imagination running wild atm. Who knows how they are doing it. ^^

[pchan]

it seems overly complicated to have a JA that works differently in salvage or outside.

[Motenten]

Honestly, if he implemented a Haste (and DW/MA) nerf as I suggested earlier the balance of damage would be much more even than at present. It would require massive rebalancing to pretty much all content, though, so it will never happen I think. At worst they're going to cap Delay a little higher and call it a day.

With full buffs, DRKs would be attacking <50% as fast in formerly-delay-capped situations, at least on 2H jobs.
In situations where we only have 15% Haste now (and 25% in gear), we would attack ~16% slower than present.

I don't think it will ever happen. It would require too many changes.

Can you point to the original post you're referring to? I'd like to see what you put together.

[Hirronimus]

it seems overly complicated to have a JA that works differently in salvage or outside.

How is it complicated? From what I gathered, they are trying to make New Salvage on par with Legion/Odin II. They want to see people's reaction and their ability to clear the content w/o the use of Embrava before they go ahead with full Embrava nerf. I think it's a brilliant and straight forward way for them to see if New Salvage needs any adjustment to justify the lack of Embrava/PD.

P.S. Lack of Embrava/PD in New Salvage implies that zerg strat is not going to be needed in New Salvage. Which is a welcome addition.

[Damane]

How is it complicated? From what I gathered, they are trying to make New Salvage on par with Legion/Odin II. They want to see people's reaction and their ability to clear the content w/o the use of Embrava before they go ahead with full Embrava nerf. I think it's a brilliant and straight forward way for them to see if New Salvage needs any adjustment to justify the lack of Embrava/PD.

I dont think new salvage will be on par with legion/Odin II. It will be more casual friendly, and prolly will be clared, but competent groups will just plow through all NMs instead of targeting only 1-2. Same like the old salvage.

[pchan]

How is it complicated? From what I gathered, they are trying to make New Salvage on par with Legion/Odin II. They want to see people's reaction and their ability to clear the content w/o the use of Embrava before they go ahead with full Embrava nerf. I think it's a brilliant and straight forward way for them to see if New Salvage needs any adjustment to justify the lack of Embrava/PD.

P.S. Lack of Embrava/PD in New Salvage implies that zerg strat is not going to be needed in New Salvage. Which is a welcome addition.

Old salvage is a zerg fest. If you think they are going to let PLD/BLM/BLU/DNC/BST.. etc join the fest you are dreaming.

[Byrthnoth]

Can you point to the original post you're referring to? I'd like to see what you put together.

On the phone at the moment, but this: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/112...=1#post5494720

Remove haste caps, change haste's effect on delay.

[Alistrianna]

I wonder how the the change to Astraria will affect things in the long run, especially for ppl that have alot accumulated already. It's my understanding that you can only have 1 completed Astraria at a time. So what happens if you end up completing a non 80/100 Astraria otw to 100, reach 100 and get clear? Do you just get screwed out of a superior piece of gear or will the Platinum replace the lower tier one. It obviously doesn't matter if you complete an 80 set before reaching 100, since it snags you a 100 piece anyways.

[Selamis]

I wonder how the the change to Astraria will affect things in the long run, especially for ppl that have alot accumulated already. It's my understanding that you can only have 1 completed Astraria at a time. So what happens if you end up completing a non 80/100 Astraria otw to 100, reach 100 and get clear? Do you just get screwed out of a superior piece of gear or will the Platinum replace the lower tier one. It obviously doesn't matter if you complete an 80 set before reaching 100, since it snags you a 100 piece anyways.

As far as I know (but I leave room to be corrected in case I don't understand this correctly) you can have one complete astaria for each level currently. All levels except the platinum require 25 to make full, where as the platinum comes fully assembled and you have to redeem right away. After the changes go into effect, you just will need 5 to make whole instead of 25, and still have to use that to pick your reward. What you have already is being lowered, as explained here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/28290

[Alistrianna]

Yeah, I just looked it up, can definitely have one of each type. Should've just looked that up before posting >.>

[Motenten]

#4
In addition to Haste, the whole battle system is also under consideration. Because it is a huge part of the game and changes will have major implications, we have to take these considerations very seriously.

This one scares me a little. I find the exponential growth of DD potential in larger and larger parties to be one of the few features of FFXI that still forces us to party up and allows us to actually defeat the monsters we party up for. If they, for instance, removed the Haste caps and changed the formula (like Delay/(1+Haste%) instead of Delay*(1-Haste%) ), then it would certainly change the balance of the game but (superficially, at least) it would be in a very negative way.

DRK would potentially get:
Haste 15%
Apocalypse 10%
Gear 30% (I assume)
Marches (40% with +5 and Marcato on Victory March)
Last Resort 25%
Hasso 10%

Sounds like a lot, but that's equivalent to 56% Haste at the moment (less than Gear + Last Resort + Haste). Toss in SV and you're ~approaching~ Gear+LR+Haste.

Note: Purely speculative math analysis. Don't really have a good thread to put it in, so keeping with the existing discussion.


I was actually messing around with the haste ratios the other day, after that note from Matsui. The main thing I was looking at is how haste scales as a damage multiplier compared to other types of boosts to damage output.

In general you have three categories of damage aggregators:

1) Scaled solely to the user. 1% DA is +1% damage regardless of what mob you're fighting, cRatio, or other things of that nature. Direct damage increases are: haste, DA, TA and QA. ODD is similar, but affects melee only, rather than melee+WS as the others do.

2) Scaled relative to the mob. Aside from caps, the value of attack depends on the mob's defense and level correction, not the user's attack.

3) Scale is impacted by both aspects. The value of crits depends on attack/defense (ie: cRatio) as well as dex/agi comparisons. Crit damage depends on crit rate, so yet another level of indirection.

fStr is technically under #3, but fairly closely approximates #1, at least for melee.


As such, the comparison of haste is best done against others in its own category: DA/TA/QA. QA is rare enough that there are never really any large quantities to compare to, so will leave it out and just deal with DA/TA. Will also keep things simple and not deal with things like WS delay issues.


DA/TA are linear increases, while haste is exponential. For comparisons, I'm always considering the total gain of a given percentage relative to the baseline of 0% for any given trait. 10% DA is +10% damage, 20% DA is +20% damage, etc.

If you graph it out, haste is always more valuable than the equivalent amount of DA (not counting the secondary value of DA from traits, which increase weaponskill damage on top of melee damage + weaponskill frequency). However at low values, the difference isn't very large. At 30% values, haste is 1.43x baseline while DA is 1.30x baseline. (IE: total damage is a mere 10% higher using haste, and relative benefit for 30% of that trait is 43% higher using haste)

The difference rapidly diverges after that point, though. At 50% quantity, DA is at 1.50x baseline while haste is at 2.00x baseline. Haste gives twice the point-for-point gain, while total damage is 33% higher.

50% also happens to be the point where haste intersects with TA. Below 50%, TA is always more valuable than the equivalent amount of haste. Above 50%, haste is more valuable.


Overall, the 50% quantity point is a relatively low-grade difference. Haste and TA have only just reached 2x baseline damage -- substantial, but not completely out of scale with each other.

Above 50%, though, things diverge wildly. 100% DA is necessary for the DA trait to reach 2.0x baseline. 100% TA reaches 3.0x baseline. Meanwhile haste reaches 2.0x at 50%, 3.0x at 67%, 4.0x at 75%, and 5.0x at 80%.

Stacking haste very quickly completely overpowers any possible gain from a comparable amount of any other trait. This exponential scaling causes problems in keeping things in balance relative to other possible traits, and with respect to different users, which in turn means that mobs have to be balanced a much wider spread of potentiality than is probably pracitical to do.


In addition, that gain is limited in the cases of DW and MA.

25% DW has a max gain from haste of 3.75x, achievable at 74% haste.
35% DW has a max gain from haste of 3.25x, achievable at 70% haste.
45% DW has a max gain from haste of 2.75x, achievable at 64% haste.
55% DW has a max gain from haste of 2.25x, achievable at 56% haste.

MA5 (base pup w/Vere) has a max gain from haste of 3.49x, achievable at 72% haste.
MA7 (base mnk w/Vere) has a max gain from haste of 3.12x, achievable at 68% haste.



So the absolute best gain any native dual-wielder or H2H user can get is 3.75x baseline damage. No DW/H2H users gain any benefit above 75% haste, which is nominally a 4x gain over baseline. 2H weapons are not restricted that way, but instead can reach 5x their baseline damage. That additional overhead significantly favors them (anywhere from +33% to +100%) when considering that weapons and jobs are likely largely balanced at or a bit above the baseline level.

Given that 2H weapons are mathed out to be, at the top end, perhaps 25% better than the equivalent 1H weapons, it would appear that a large fraction of that advantage comes from the advantage they have in haste.

So the first change I would consider if I were adjusting haste would be to limit the total haste cap to 75% instead of 80%, which restricts 2H weapons to roughly the same level of gain from haste as 1H weapons. I would not be completely against a 70% cap (3.33x over baseline), either, but it may be a bit too much of a restriction.

At a 70%-75% haste cap, and factoring out 25% gear haste, that leaves 45%-50% available for JA and magic. At 70% cap, magic alone would very nearly cap out the entire haste range, largely obviating any benefits from JA haste.

256/1024 gear + 448/1024 magic = 704/1024 == 68.75% haste. JA haste would push things to 75% cap while also allowing room for imperfect March setups (ie: two +4 marches would cap if combined with Hasso/Samba).

Overall, that seems to be the first step to bring 2H weapons back in line with DW/H2H weapons (single wield weapons have additional issues to deal with) -- set total haste cap at 75% instead of 80%. Or, if considered from the perspective of minimum delay, set the minimum delay for 2H weapons at 25% of base delay, while leaving it at 20% for all other weapons.


The above change puts the top-end damage for 2H weapons closer together (drk in particular gains more than most from the higher haste cap), and puts all of them in the same general neighborhood as the DW and H2H weapons.

If, at that point, you could consider all DDs as being close enough together to be 'equivalent' damage-wise, that makes it easier to balance things on the mob side, since you don't have to balance mobs against the extreme high-end of damage potential. (Aside from special abilities that a job brings to the table, which would still lend preference to certain jobs, but more as a tactical measure than a pure damage output measure.)




The alternative -- changing the haste formula from Delay*(1-haste) to Delay/(1+haste) -- puts haste at a scaling level roughly equivalent to DA, which is the weakest of the direct damage aggregates. Changing haste in that way drastically limits the potential damage output of any melee DD (though I can't say offhand how things would scale between melee and ranged DDs if you did that), and I would go so far as to say it would not be very 'fun'. Normal weapon delays are horrendously slow if you exclude all haste, and one would hope that in endgame fights one could swing notably faster than the rough equivalent of a non-brd colibri merit party.

It would also require a ludicrous degree of rebalancing all haste values in the game, whereas lowering the cap doesn't need any significant adjustment of that sort. Overall, I don't see any likelihood of them progressing in that direction.

[Taruking]

If neo salvage gears are significantly better there will be no reason to keep doing NNI - whether or not SE adjust the content and difficulty of NNI is irrelevant.

Old salvage is a zerg fest. If you think they are going to let PLD/BLM/BLU/DNC/BST.. etc join the fest you are dreaming.

BST might have a place in neo salvage thanks to new level cap and stronger post lv75 jug pets that do decent damage to EP-DC mobs on early floor - provided they can get their hands on JA/range/SJ. Pet pulling can be extremely useful too. Killer instinct grants 10% killer effect and boost damage output of party member by 15% for 3:40 mins with a recast of only 5 mins. I am not saying ppl should bring BST to neo salvage but the job can definitely deliver more now compared to old salvage.

[fantasticdan]

If neo salvage gears are significantly better there will be no reason to keep doing NNI - whether or not SE adjust the content and difficulty of NNI is irrelevant.

This isn't WoW where ilvl 400 gear is just better than ilvl 390, gears are full of situational stats, NNI armor especially. Do you think neo morrigan legs are going to double as super cure potency + refresh legs, and also somehow be an awesome TP/CDC piece to replace thaumas for blu? Do you think neo skadi head is going to happen to have enough agi/mab to replace thaumas hat for wildfire? etc.

It doesn't seem likely that many NNI gears will be obsoleted.

[Jem]

in their current form, the only one that reaches past the mage line is Fulm, which is 30'+ I believe, and I'd say its the most devastating of all their special moves (stun and a very potent paralyze on your mages >>>>>>>> 20hp burn / curse+poison on your front line)

I think Fulm in Legion is only 20 / reduced range. Only reason I say that is because the mages never seem to be hit by it and I still get cures.

[Taruking]

This isn't WoW where ilvl 400 gear is just better than ilvl 390, gears are full of situational stats, NNI armor especially. Do you think neo morrigan legs are going to double as super cure potency + refresh legs, and also somehow be an awesome TP/CDC piece to replace thaumas for blu? Do you think neo skadi head is going to happen to have enough agi/mab to replace thaumas hat for wildfire? etc.

It doesn't seem likely that many NNI gears will be obsoleted.

Ppl used to have the same opinion before NNI gear came out. It's their game, they can do whatever they want.

Cure potency/ refresh aren't game breaking for BLU - I doubt any BLU will full time Nares trews. Thaumas kecks are kind of nice but again not game breaking. I am pretty sure new skadi head is going to have enough agi to keep all THF/COR/RNG happy.

[Jem]

The point he is making is that it's unlikely NNI will be obsoleted and I agree. It's very unlikely that Neo-Salvage gear will beat NNI for every one of their uses. Not as good as they were? Sure. Completely redundant due to being outclassed in every single way? Not a chance.

As long as items are best in slot for X situation then people will want them.

[NynJa]

I doubt any BLU will full time Nares trews.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ELFl2_1q7D...if_serious.jpg

[fantasticdan]

Ppl used to have the same opinion before NNI gear came out. It's their game, they can do whatever they want.

Cure potency/ refresh aren't game breaking for BLU - I doubt any BLU will full time Nares trews. Thaumas kecks are kind of nice but again not game breaking. I am pretty sure new skadi head is going to have enough agi to keep all THF/COR/RNG happy.

Blu can't wear nares. My point was that neo morrigan legs aren't likely to have cure potency/refresh on them, so rdm/blm(/sch?) will still want nares. Thaumas kecks (and body/hands/feet for that matter) are unlikely to be replaced for blu, unless you think the new morrigans is going to be a totally baller tp and dex-crit WS set in addition to whatever mage stats it has.

As for thaumas hat, the 6 mab on it is a big deal for wildfire when combined with the 14 agi on it. You think the skadi hat will happen to have mab on it too?

[NynJa]

SOME NNI gear will (hopefully) be outclassed for certain slots on certain jobs by Neo-Salvage gear, but even NNI gear, as great as it was, and still is, is not end be all, otherwise you'd see mages in 5/5 Nares, Light DD in 5/5 Thaumas, and heavy DD in 5/5 Phorcys full time, which is not the case.

I just hope that the Neo-Salv gear isnt a fucking disappointment like the shit put out by the 2 more recent "neo" events.