Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Tarage]

Clearly this is how Cait Sith will become the light DD avatar we all wanted...

[Priran]

Both Tojil and Muyingwa have full AoE physicals, Tenzen has AoE skillchains, and Eald'narche is pretty AoE happy in his second form.

I can't speak for VD but up to D, tenzen's aoe skillchains are about 1k damage and he only gets maybe one off per fight, so that wouldn't be sufficient to kill an avatar.

[Spira]

I never understood why they didn't solve the pet-dying issue the same way they did in many other MMOs.
Make pet get a very very high -DT for all AoE moves that aren't targeted directly at them.

That probably wouldn't translate very well in all of the possible FFXI situations, but it would sure help a lot with their survivability.

i would like this lol. would make astralburn style parties rather popular again.. but not on anything serious i suppose.

would love to see them fix Avatars Favor into something useful.

It's initial implementation was really to give smn reduced perp cost and a somewhat defensive/supportive stance to work with.. but this doesn't work in practice.

if they want SMN to be taken seriously as a hybrid support class they'd need to tweak avatars favor in quite a number of ways.. most of which have been mentioned by others.

1) auto-cap potency: allow potency to still scale according to SMN magic skill. for more challenge, allow it to scale dynamically, so SMN will want to put on skill gear for stronger favors, but once its on, it should be on at its max effect instead of having to charge up , and shouldn't be affected by BPs
2) increase avatar survivability even further: perhaps with favor on, avatars can have innate 75% DT instead of 50%.
3) greatly increase the range of avatar's favor. like 20' or something. each SMN can only have 1 avatar favor out anyway.
4) remove the penalty on attack/def/MAB, but instead introduce another trade off, which as they've suggested themselves, could be increased perp cost.

this might then be problematic for SMNs who may be using favor for perp cost reduction.. so maybe they could introduce an ability that reduces perp cost for a limited amount of time... like idk.. Astral Ebb, perp cost -2/3/4 for 3 minutes, on a 10min timer.

that being said, at this point they could probably do anything to Avatar's Favor and it'll probably be good

[dasva]

Well it's not really just a smn thing all pets have survivibility issues that stem from 3 main problems. You can't cure them really (sure some have some jas you can use now and then but not the same), can't buff them, and hardly any gear out there worth using boosts there survivibility. If DDs had those restrictions even easy battlefields would be hard.

I can kinda accept not curing them it's kinda there thing. Plus they have little death penalty so seems a fairish tradeoff

Buffs on the other hand.... well no real need to go into the difference between never having buffs to the 2 rows of buffs that players get when they go into these fights.

And look at how the skirmish sets basically gave all dds armor that let them still cap haste while getting a nice amount of dt and def. Meanwhile try getting just capped pet haste or even small amounts of pet pdt and def are hard to get. Sure you could argue the def and stat vomit is accounted for in the ilvling of the avatar. But still seriously lacking in the dt and/or haste department.

You know what might be kind of cool... if there was a way to swap all your stats with your pet!!!

[Sechs]

i would like this lol.

And really, it's nothing particularly original or anything, it's been implemented in other MMOs for ages.
It helps their survivability TONS, but at the same time doesn't make them "invincible tanks" because once stuff is targeted directly at them they die very quickly.

It's initial implementation was really to give smn reduced perp cost and a somewhat defensive/supportive stance to work with.. but this doesn't work in practice.

Yes and, honestly, I liked that idea a lot, maybe even more than the one they proposed (altough given the amounts of -perp/refresh we can get today, that's probably not an issue anymore.).
I mean the idea was really cool. Cut A BIT (not that much >.>) of your damage but in return get a buff.
If you remember, at that time, you were hardly keeping the avatar out, just BP, BP, release and resummon, mostly.
The main goal why they implemented it was also to give further reasons for SMNs to keep their avatars out (I remember them mentioning it before adding the JA).
Things didn't work out as we all hoped, but I think if only the bonus reset on BP wasn't in place, the JA would have been waaaaay more useful.

Also, as Foldypaws already said some pages ago, I'm not against the "building up over time" thing, as long as it doesn't get reset with normal pet actions but only when you change pet.
As an idea I find it cool honestly, but the current implementation is just way too punishing for it to be useable.

Well it's not really just a smn thing all pets have survivibility issues that stem from 3 main problems. You can't cure them really (sure some have some jas you can use now and then but not the same), can't buff them, and hardly any gear out there worth using boosts there survivibility. If DDs had those restrictions even easy battlefields would be hard.

Yeah I was talking in general not just for SMNs.
There's also some big pros in pets though.
They are easily disposable and resummonable, in other games it's not always as easy as it is in FFXI.
Think about pet strategies... they could get abused too much, that's why SE needs to keep an eye on the thing or everything would go crazy.
I think they can relax a bit AT LEAST for the accuracy.
Keep the damage down I can accept, but at least make so pets can HIT stuff.
The idea I proposed (which, really, I swear is very common in MMOs) would be nice, since even in other mmos you have the thing where you can't directly heal/buff pets, wouldn't be a solution maybe but it would really help.
I have no clue how easy it would be (or possible at all?) to implement it with the FFXI technology though... who knows.
It would just a thing like:

"If you're not among the first X places of the monster's enmity list, and if you're a pet, then AoE damage of all forms is going to have a vey very very reduced damage effect on you"

Buffs on the other hand.... well no real need to go into the difference between never having buffs to the 2 rows of buffs that players get when they go into these fights.

In other games they solved the issue in other ways. In FFXI they implemented ilevel for Pets in various ways (Animators for PUP, ammo for SMN, ilevel weapon for DRG and BST) which seem a bit convoluted to me and do not offer long-term solutions.
In other games Pet has his own stats which raise with level, with special equipment on the master and with special talents/traits/abilities, but they also have another very important part which is not present in FFXI.
Their stats scale, in part only of course, according to the master's stats.
So if the master becomes more powerful because he gets some buffs or some very cool new item, the pet is gonna become slightly stronger as well.
It's not a definitive solution but it's a very good compromise between the 2 extremes of "no buffs for pets" and "all buffs available" (which honestly might be a bit too much, let's admit it)

[arshesney]

I have no clue how easy it would be (or possible at all?) to implement it with the FFXI technology though... who knows.
It would just a thing like:

"If you're not among the first X places of the monster's enmity list, and if you're a pet, then AoE damage of all forms is going to have a vey very very reduced damage effect on you"

We have THF's Conspirator that works on similar conditions: buff is applied to everyone but the current target

[pancakesandsex]

Nm

[Damane]

I never understood why they didn't solve the pet-dying issue the same way they did in many other MMOs.
Make pet get a very very high -DT for all AoE moves that aren't targeted directly at them.

That probably wouldn't translate very well in all of the possible FFXI situations, but it would sure help a lot with their survivability.

i think this is an excellent idea for all pet jobs. Didnt SE add something similer to players (to a much much lesser extinct) 2 years ago with Voidwatch and legion, where as the actually targeted player would get the normal damage on AoEs and the players around him less?

[fantasticdan]

They said they did something like that, I don't think anyone bothered to test/quantify it thou.

[dasva]

They are easily disposable and resummonable, in other games it's not always as easy as it is in FFXI.
Think about pet strategies... they could get abused too much, that's why SE needs to keep an eye on the thing or everything would go crazy.

Well part of the problem is they aren't necessarily easily resmnable. Sure smn can always cast again but as already said it loses a bit doing so. Pup either waits on a 20 min timer or a 1minute timer that puts their pets out at 32% just asking to get 1 shotted again and either way comes out with enough strain to effect your manuevering. And bst if it's pet dies has to wait a good 3:45 to 5 minutes to pull out another jug... basically very large portions of fights

[dasva]

i think this is an excellent idea for all pet jobs. Didnt SE add something similer to players (to a much much lesser extinct) 2 years ago with Voidwatch and legion, where as the actually targeted player would get the normal damage on AoEs and the players around him less?

hmmm did they do that just to VW and legion? Because doing other testing for other things makes it seem like it isn't working in abyssea at least

[fantasticdan]

I only remember them talking about it for voidwatch.

[Falkirk]

"Voidwatch Adjustments:
Effect area damage dealt by the following enemies will be reduced for non-targeted characters"

February 14, 2012 Version Update

[Damane]

I only remember them talking about it for voidwatch.

they actually only did talk about it, the only thing that got implemented was weakening AoE of WoE bosses. just checked olde version updates in 2012.

EDIT: nvm someone was more clever and found it and I missed it!

[Anomie]

From Matsuyi etc

2. There is a large hurdle in organizing PUGs

When recruiting PUG players, it is inevitable that recruitment will hover towards higher success rates, and I believe there's nothing we can do about that. Ideally players that become experienced would go back and help less experienced players clear content, and joining linkshells is believed to serve such a role. In the case you really have to join a PUG without knowing anything, try to join groups of people that are less experienced.

However, the community isn't something that we as developers can create for you, so we ask for the cooperation of the players as well, to make playing easier for everyone.

H.I.L.A.R.I.O.U.S.

What he really said translation;

We're sorry everyone is bad, we can't fix that. Beg people who paid for wins to help you get yours. Joining pick-up fails enough will help you be still not good enough to get a win, but keep doing it instead of quitting! The community is full of jackasses, good luck using your trusts!

[Ligray]

Wardrobe picture:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/at...3&d=1397549279

[Malithar]

Why do you find that hilarious? That seems like an honest perspective he'd have of the community, and honest hopes for it as well, and they're not really that far off base. Run shit with your tight-nit LS group, figure it out, clear it, farm it, etc. Down the line, you see a PUG forming for it, and you go for it (since tales/mats/plasm are useful regardless where they come from), bringing with you the knowledge and experience to help guide the group. Does that happen often in practice? Nah, not really. But that's a general thing that one could expect and hope for. As he said, they can't build or shape the community. No reason to expect everyone to carry a piss poor attitude that's generally displayed in MMOs.

I'm more interested in what they're discussing concerning the LS system and what changes they may be bringing to it. TBH, I've grown used to their bare-bones "guild" system for FFXI. Most MMOs have far more available in their own systems, although FFXI is the only one that comes to mind where you can actively switch between guilds/LS, with the only cost being -1 inventory.

[Damane]

while this is wishfull thinking, some form of duty finder or party search like in 14 would help alot. Not for everything but things like hardmission battles SCN Delve etc. where you can define the roles yourself.

what i think they will do is add 3-4 big hub LSs (like chatchannel) that are defined by different interests. 1 for Delve 1 for mission battles and SCN 1 for miscellenious stuff 1 for exp merit cp forming. Maybe they even add some average ilvl equipment check lol

[Hitou]

I'm more interested in what an acronym with that many letters could stand for.

[Draylo]

H.I.L.A.R.I.O.U.S.

What he really said translation;

You sound like a bad player.