Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Ophannus]

Or Boosted SATA Fullswings :D

[Sechs]

I don't know much about the current meta, but MNK has been historically pretty powerful. I mean they used to be really good, required even, for delves back when they were new and you needed Formless shenanigans. Isn't Victory Smite still a top tier ws, or have 1h jobs like dnc blu thf completely overtaken?

Historically when exactely?
Old days => You had a hard time getting a pt invite unless it was a KRT one, there you were pretty much wanted and those PTs rocked. End game? You were pretty much sitting out of alliance charging chi blast until ready, hoping someone would invite you before boost wore off.
ToAU => MNK was pretty good in Salvage, but that's it. Name me one other event where MNK was useful, good or "historically pretty powerful" aside from Salvage, where it really shined of course
WotG => lolmnk and lolwotg in general
Abyssea => MNK was king, maybe after WAR but probably before NIN and it was quite a beast. Vsmite was insane.
Following Abyssea Era => MNK was nowhere close to other DDs but it didn't suck if you had like a completed Verethragna or stuff like that. In VW it wasn't particularly more (or less) useful than any other job because of procs. Around this time Vsmite got nerfed, it was still okaysh though
SoA => MNK was a beast. Tanking was not viable, MNK was a nice dd/tank, lots of HP, Mantra to boost HP of other MT members making it easier to survive, nice white damage, Vsmite was one of the best WS out there despite the nerf, easy to play, easy to gear up and it's the job that got granted the highest benefit from the +skill patch. Last but not least, small stuff like Formless Strikes.

Then several changes happened. Tank finally became able to fulfill their roles, and several patches increased pretty much the damage of any source of damage (except H2H) and any WS (except H2H ones, again!)
So now everybody does like 10 times the amount of damage they used to do before, whereas MNK does only a bit more of what it used to do.

[Ophannus]

monsters will not simply be able to use attacks which suddenly defeats or heavily cripples players randomly.

Pretty much sums up most of FFXI's battle content. I mean did SE expect players to PLD+RNG to be the main strategy for VD fights (especially DM/AA:EV), or the Ravenous Wail NM in Marjami Delve, or to fight everything with Scherzo?

[Damane]

Pretty much sums up most of FFXI's battle content. I mean did SE expect players to PLD+RNG to be the main strategy for VD fights (especially DM/AA:EV), or the Ravenous Wail NM in Marjami Delve, or to fight everything with Scherzo?

actually most battle contents are designed in a way that you need either stun or scherzo or EW or vex or a combo of those. this is considered support so yeah they expect you to make use of those spells which is totally fine. the problem atm is that the acc and atk requirements are so high you cant fit all the stuff in with acc haste attack buffs etc.

[dasva]

Or you can but fitting all that in raises the nms too much for you to handle

[Sechs]

actually most battle contents are designed in a way that you need either stun or scherzo or EW or vex or a combo of those. this is considered support so yeah they expect you to make use of those spells which is totally fine. the problem atm is that the acc and atk requirements are so high you cant fit all the stuff in with acc haste attack buffs etc.

Even more than that, it's scaling system that makes what you described even worse.
Without the scaling system you wouldn't be hurting yourself by bringing more support, but in a world where every new player brings an unfairly balanced amount of additional HP, you have to think twice before getting someone else into the alliance.

This aspect, in combination with what you said, makes the current situation even more dire than it could've been otherwise.

[Sechs]

Anyway I might be a pessimist but I don't think the level of balance that some people expect from this game is even possible.
Better than now? Sure. The "perfect balance" someone seems to be demanding? Imho not possible.
Name me another MMO that has the degree of variability, math-depth and possible different setups with fluid, non-homogeneized roles, and a more balanced Battle System.
There might be something I can't think of but... atm nothing comes to mind.

Everything I can think of is either more or less as "unbalanced" as FFXI, or it's way more balanced but then you also have a much stricter (homogeneized) classification and definition of roles (see WoW, FFXIV etc)

[arus2001]

It gets tricky to compare to other games at times simply because we're looking more at one that started with a different foundation (EQ) than others (WoW). While the line has blurred at points, I'm not so quick to call XI a lost cause. Rather, what some people might need to come to accept is that some fights will be akin to Rock, Paper, Scissors where the Paper formation is what you want against the Rock mob. SE just needs to make sure not every challenge is a Rock mob, otherwise we get frustrated and burnt out even if the Scissors composition could squeak out a win.

A while back I touched on things they could do to make the melee game more reasonable, but they don't quite seem interested in entertaining such options. Obviously, instant death/doomga stuff blows when there's no readily distinguishable mechanic to work around. Such fights usually just boil down to hoping the mobs don't use that particular move much, and that's a degree of RNG you don't see too often in other games even if they do have their own FU mechanics. In terms of status effects, I'd probably strive for some kind of diminishing accuracy rate based on the people in range. The main target, if AoE, should probably be guaranteed to get afflicted. However, if you've got 5 other melees in range, it could probably be closer to a 20% chance as a floor value. This shifts things from the healers having to prioritize to instead reacting to who gets hit with what after they handle the tank, further freeing up a bit more time for more cures or other options.

On the other hand, if the Legion arena is where we basically expect all future challenges to be fought, this frees up making fights a bit more complicated by letting the environment be conditionally important. Things like NPC luopans can both help and hinder the fight, either by weakening mobs, strengthening them, or serving as straight counters to certain attacks (like if it has a 150/tick Poison AoE, could have a 150 regen bubble somewhere in the field). It might not be as elegant as more modern games, but I think there's something to be said about situational awareness and making player reaction a bit more complex than something an onevent script could counter.

[Damane]

oh i dont expect perfect balance. Its impossible to reach and I am totally fine with it. I rather have imbalance but flexibility like in 11 as compared to 14 balance but a total inflexibility on how to set up partys/runs/events.

[Byrthnoth]

Been wondering about this a while... does anyone else find the FFXI anime-style rebranding a little weird and perhaps a strategic error?

The banner from: https://twitter.com/FFXI_EN + Iroha character design and comics + etc.
vs.
https://cdn.bg-wiki.com/images/d/d8/...Zilart_box.jpg


Stay with me here, but one of the things that has made FFXI last is its graphics. I'm not saying the graphics are comparable to current AAA games, but FFXI's graphics are still tolerable because they picked a conservative style/color palette and executed it well. The goal was more "reality" than "flashy, cartoony fantasyland." I mean, for a few years the only glowing weapons were 0.1% drops or required thousands of hours of effort. There are certainly times when this effort fails and equipment floats inside your body, you walk through another player, etc. but overall they really did a pretty good job.

Skeeved me out a little bit to see Irmoeha with her anime eyes and companion comic series. Would have been a bad direction for the game. Whew, dodged that bullet via senescence.

[Psion]

uh? ffxi banners and art styles have been massively different for many years now. some are animeish, some like paintings, some like amano, some more realistic, etc. just look at the various event articles, releases for things like abyssea, wings of the goddess, and so on. you'll see the styles vary quite dramatically and there's quite a few different ones.

[Hitou]

There's no re-branding that I can see. The banner is from the teaser poster-thing of Rhapsodies of Vana'diel and is basically just a stylized representation of the games characters in 2D. And if you don't like the comics because the artist style was too "moe" for you, that's fine. It's not like they're pushing that imagery outside of the comics. Also the game in no way resembles Amano's art style. No FF really does besides that one game where they actually used his art as the character's busts. If it did, all our characters would look ashen-grey and have purple lips.

[Loona]

Stay with me here, but one of the things that has made FFXI last is its graphics. I'm not saying the graphics are comparable to current AAA games, but FFXI's graphics are still tolerable because they picked a conservative style/color palette and executed it well. The goal was more "reality" than "flashy, cartoony fantasyland." I mean, for a few years the only glowing weapons were 0.1% drops or required thousands of hours of effort. There are certainly times when this effort fails and equipment floats inside your body, you walk through another player, etc. but overall they really did a pretty good job.

Skeeved me out a little bit to see Irmoeha with her anime eyes and companion comic series. Would have been a bad direction for the game. Whew, dodged that bullet via senescence.

The examples you linked to still lean more towards the fine arts than the Aloha Iroha comics - AFAIK, the only other FFXI medium using something similar consists of the FF Grandmasters companion comics at that game's official site, and there aren't even that many of those.

I'm not sure we'll ever see more illustrations for seasonal events though, those were a nice touch, and the closest we got to portraits like those in the old Vana'diel profiles blurbs...

[Ophannus]

FFXI's art style was my favorite. It was pretty conservative but armor looked pretty reasonable compared to 14. 14'a armor is for the most part very garish and flamboyant. DRG armor in 11 was lavender, sure, but it was still plate mail. 14's DRG AF has all of these random spikes and blades sticking out of it that make it seem over the top ridiculous and very WoWish. The weapons are the worst culprit. There are several weapons that look great, but the vast majority of 14's weapons are gigant and bulky. Some of the axes look like tombstokes with a handle. The battle stances look rather silly too. Ninjas in 11 stand tall but have a narrow stance with their blades held back. In 14 rogues and ninjas stand superrrrrr wide and look ridiculous (although their attacks and skills look cooler in 14). I think 14 woulda been more successful if it had more of a similar serious direction in the art style instead of particle effects everywhere and giant plastic WOW cartoon armor.

[Kincard]

I definitely like the more "grounded" (yet still distinctly JRPG) fantasy art style of XI more, but I doubt having that art style for XIV would've made it more successful. I think it's mostly fantasy nerds that care about that sort of thing and theme park MMOs now are all about getting casual players in on it as well, and that means glowy super weapons and crazy Rob Liefeld shoulder pads and whatnot.

Also I actually agree with Byrth assessment somewhat. There was something of a "creep" of how outlandish and anime-styled FFXI got as the years went by and much of the original art and lore team went onto different projects. The people who succeeded them tried to preserve the style, but it changed bit by bit every time. One thing I thought was a missed opportunity, for example, was how all the Aeonic Weapons and Reisenjima armor weren't designed with Japanese (Or at least East Asian) aesthetics in-mind...would've made more sense that way, no?

[Hitou]

So they're gonna change sharpshot frame's "ranged attack and ability damage" because someone pointed out it sucks. Any JP mind pointing out Ranger job has the same issues?

[jacobs67]

FFXI really does have a great artstyle that has aged well. I always wonder why people ask for it to be remade with FF14 graphics... I don't think my eyes could take that. In 11 everything looks like it has substance and physical presence, in 14 everything looks like it's made of plastic and fake

[fantasticdan]

Are they still charging the full subscription fee?

[Byrthnoth]

Yes, however, the inflation-adjusted value has decreased about 25% since 2013.

[dasva]

So they're gonna change sharpshot frame's "ranged attack and ability damage" because someone pointed out it sucks. Any JP mind pointing out Ranger job has the same issues?

I've pointed out over there how they didn't do shit for ranged pdif pretty much since the update but I'm not a jp so....