Famitsu Interview with FF developers

[Lordwafik]

I give up trying to squeeze logic into a brick wall.

[FFXIFlux]

Cure through Cure IV could be removed and just allow a normal Cure to scale with your healing magic skill the same as elemental magic.

So I'm a RDM and I have someone in my party with 200 damage on them I have no choice but to cast Cure IV on them because it's my only heal spell and so I spend 88 MP when all I need is Cure III for 46? No thanks.

[NynJa]

A level 90+ mob that isn't weak to Thunder should resist it.. not take 2000 damage and only get 10tp.
Black Mages are incredibly overpowered, and its scary how many of people don't "get" it.

Yeah because nuking for 2000 dmg on Faf won't get you killed in 2 seconds.
So you want BLM so suck in EXP AND HNM? wow that IS fair...
I love how they want to add mobs that what you can't manaburn? Yeah there are SOOOOOOOOO many places to manaburn, and very few BLMs. Also TPburn PTs have got it really hard atm, there is like no where for them to exp, so they clearly need more mobs!!! Of course we don't want any of those filthly BLMs going near them.
I know let's make a zone that only WAR NIN RDM and BRD can enter!!! And fill it with a fuckton of mobs that you can chain till the cows come home and give sick exp.

WAR/NIN: "BLMs are overpowered on HNMs! Nerf!"
*Limit Chain 170: 250 limit points*
WAR/NIN: "Yeah and those manaburns need to stop, they're totally not fair. I mean they get a bunch of the same job together and kill the mob without taking much damage. That's hax!"
*Limit Chain 171: 180 limit points*
*Limit Chain 172: 230 limit points*
WAR/NIN: "I already have all my HNM gear. BLMs are"
*Limit Chain 173: 170 limit points*
WAR/NIN: "worthless to"
*Limit Chain 174: 210 limit points*
WAR/NIN: "me now"
*Limit Chain 175: 190 limit points*
WAR/NIN: "except for"
*Limit Chain 176: 200 limit points*
WAR/NIN: "D2."
*Limit Chain 177: 250 limit points*
MNK/WAR: "Hay guys thickets is getting too crowded wanna go to the pudding camp?"

*meanwhile back in March(I think) in a Garden of Ru'Hmet*
BLM: Man this is boring
*Limit chain 5: 100 limit points*
BLM: /doze
*Limit chain 6: 115 limit points*
-fast forward-
BLM: ok, I'm seriously falling asleep
*Limit chain 150: 110 limit points*
BLM: next one we go
*Limit chain 151: 115 limit points*
*Limit chain 151: 220 limit pojnts*



why does one get nerfed and one doesnt ?

[Jeryhn]

Maybe because its easier to bot one than the other?

Not too hard to keep Sleepga 2 and Stoneskin on a timer towards the SMN mob who is constantly summoning fresh exp, I guess. Same with Ballad. Meanwhile, one actual player could be operating 4 characters gilseller-style to nuke mobs down.

Hi2u instant RMT'd characters.

[Lokim]

They did this because they wanted another way to take gil out of the economy. Hi2u 30,000g Fire III scroll.

This was, of course, back when 30k worth of gil actually meant something to most players.

True enough, I didn't think of that :D

So I'm a RDM and I have someone in my party with 200 damage on them I have no choice but to cast Cure IV on them because it's my only heal spell and so I spend 88 MP when all I need is Cure III for 46? No thanks.

Also true, but really, as a red mage you've got four cure spells - how often to you use the first two? If your answer was anything other than "never" or "when I have to wake people up from Sleep" you might want to look into the efficiency of said spells.

I would have no problem keeping a spell like Cure IV separate from Cure so long as there was something significantly different besides just "it cures more HP."

Of course, this entire argument hinges on the fact that there's is (almost) never a reason for BLMs (or anyone else) to do less damage than their maximum. In that respect attack magic differs significantly from healing magic, so I would certainly agree that you need something more closely resembling a tier system in the area of healing magic.

You could also simply adjust the MP expended to HP healed. I see no intrinsic reason why you have to have healing spells that waste MP when they can't heal for their max (except in the case of spells with special rules, ala Cure V).

[Faranim]

If you think about it, the problem with elemental spells is that SE was too fucking lazy to come up with anything unique. I imagine the developer conversation went something like this:

Dev1: Okay, so we have Thunder, Blizzard, Fire, Stone, Water and Aero. I think we need more than 6 spells for 50 levels though, that seems kind of boring.
Dev2: How about we give them Stone II, eh?
Dev1: Fucking brilliant! Let's go get smashed.

The entire concept of "tiered spells" is so ridiculous it makes me want to slap people in the face. When you come down to it there's as much need for a Thunder III or Cure III as there is for a "lol I hold a sword III". Melee damage and accuracy scale with your skill in that weapon which (gasp!) scales with your level!

You've obviously never played a FF Game before FFXI.

The spells are tiered because you don't always need to use the strongest nuke. If you're farming or helping noobs or something, you'd be screwed if your cheapest Nuke costed 200 MP.

There's nothing wrong with the tiered magic system, the problem we are talking about is how Elemental resistance means nothing in the long run. BLMs will always use Thunder > Blizzard unless they have a reason not to (aka Thunder-Ghrah and Yovras).

Kirin was brilliant because the chance of landing an un-resisted Aero is way higher than any other element, so BLMs actually use Aero.

Seriously if they just added damage bonus/reduction based on resistance that would be enough. In previous FF Games they had resistance "levels" like:

Takes 200% Damage
Takes 125% Damage
Takes 75% Damage
Takes 50% Damage
Takes 25% Damage
Takes 0 Damage
Restores 25% Damage
Restores 50% Damage
Restores 75% Damage
Restores 100% Damage

AFAIK the only mobs in the game that recover HP from nukes are Puks and Jailer of Love (and maybe some BCNM mobs or something).

[Lordwafik]

Maybe because its easier to bot one than the other?

Not too hard to keep Sleepga 2 and Stoneskin on a timer towards the SMN mob who is constantly summoning fresh exp, I guess. Same with Ballad. Meanwhile, one actual player could be operating 4 characters gilseller-style to nuke mobs down.

Hi2u instant RMT'd characters.

Had nothing to do with botted xp (yeah gilsellers are gonna get sea justtttt for manaburning, when they could have gotten lvl75 in the time spent getting sea). It had everything to do with the SS's of blms getting chain300-500, and melees penii shrinking simutaneously.

[Lokim]

You've obviously never played a FF Game before FFXI.

The spells are tiered because you don't always need to use the strongest nuke. If you're farming or helping noobs or something, you'd be screwed if your cheapest Nuke costed 200 MP.

Well, I certainly have played FF games before (most of them, in fact) but you are correct that I didn't cover that problem in my first post. I mentioned it in my second, though, which I imagine went up while you were still making yours

I agree with that resistance needs to be an important mechanic - I was just speaking to the posters who were convinced that "making all elemental spells in a tier do the same base damage" was somehow a stupid statement. The idea that you could do away with tiers entirely was a way to demonstrate the point.

Part of the problem is a question of MP efficiency - BLMs, as a rule, are best off sticking with their biggest damage spell because that's what they do...spike damage. They can't legitimately use their lower-tiered spells for DoT even in situations like Kirin. They may cast Aero IV and Aeroga III but most of them aren't casting any of the lower tiers.

I'm not sure how you solve the farming with newbs problem of doing more damage and expending more MP than you need to, though.

Edit: I spell gud.

[Quicklet]

Time to beat a dead horse...

The biggest thing they could do to make "balanced" PTs more popular again is to add IT mobs with shitloads of HP but give BLMs (and maybe to a lesser extent other mage jobs) some kind of ability/effect that would increase renkei damage / decrease renkei resists. As has been said so many times, skillchains+MBs are wasted on level 75 PTs because mobs don't last long enough for it to be worth it anymore. If you have mobs that have 5-6k or more HP and a skillchain whose total WS+renkei bonus+MB damage won't be wasted, and if they actually gave better xp, balanced PTs would be more worthwhile.

It would be nice to see HNMs that actually required a little more creativity in beating, maybe along the lines of AV but, well, maybe slightly less obscure/random in its "scripting" if you want to call it that. Instead of seeing 3 major HNMs in CoP that basically required all the same strategy with slight variations to account for their abilities/2hrs, it would have been nice to see, say, a HNM that required you to use specific element skillchains, spells, or some other debuffs on it to negate regen or WSes.

[Jeryhn]

Maybe because its easier to bot one than the other?

Not too hard to keep Sleepga 2 and Stoneskin on a timer towards the SMN mob who is constantly summoning fresh exp, I guess. Same with Ballad. Meanwhile, one actual player could be operating 4 characters gilseller-style to nuke mobs down.

Hi2u instant RMT'd characters.

Had nothing to do with botted xp (yeah gilsellers are gonna get sea justtttt for manaburning, when they could have gotten lvl75 in the time spent getting sea). It had everything to do with the SS's of blms getting chain300-500, and melees penii shrinking simutaneously.

I've seen many of Cerberus' RMT in Promyvions lately. I would not doubt in this day and age, that a character with Sea access would be worth it to a potential buyer given how hard it is to currently complete CoP.

[Kerberoz]

Here's something to think about:

What exactly is the problem with Thunder > Blizzard > Fire > Aero > Water > Stone?

I mean... how does that unbalance anything? Is stone IV some poor neglected child that's going to grow up and be a serial killer because it never gets used? No... it's just data.

If anything, they should keep tiers the way they currently are but add a damage bonus for nuking to the mob's weakness. For example Tiamat currently takes 700 or so dmg from a Thunder IV and 500-ish from a Water IV. Make water do double damage for 1000 and Thunder be unaffected since it's neutral.

[Kyreth]

Or they could simply raise the base damage of each tier of spells is learned.

Example, learn Stone II and it's base dmg is 200, then a few levels later you learn Water II whose base dmg is 220, you increase the base dmg of Stone II to 220 also, that way they could easily force more focus on picking the correct element.

Or, to make it terribly simple- give spells an Elemental rating much like Summoners have one for summonings (as of the coming update). Pacts that you exceed the summoning skill on get a bonus, ones you don't get no penalty but are "base" stats. So a Stone II that's cast by someone with elemental skill = Water II deals Water II-level damage (in earth type damage), =Fire II dealing Fire II level damage (in earth type damage), etc.

Extending this to the elemental tiered spells (and AM/AM II's) and you get a coherent system for them all and people no longer check everything and then toss Thunder IV regardless. In fact, Thunder being the top of the board, you'd probably give it a slight ability to boost damage based on skill and that's it (since everything else would then match it). Problem solved.

[FFXIFlux]

If you have mobs that have 5-6k or more HP and a skillchain whose total WS+renkei bonus+MB damage won't be wasted, and if they actually gave better xp, balanced PTs would be more worthwhile.

They need to fix Ku and Decimation and all the other WSes while they're at it, othewise fuck BLM, just spam Jin and Rampage etc.

[shotgn]

That actual interview is long as heck. Could someone who knows Japanese do a full translation please?

[Keider]

The biggest thing they could do to make "balanced" PTs more popular again is to add IT mobs with shitloads of HP but give BLMs (and maybe to a lesser extent other mage jobs) some kind of ability/effect that would increase renkei damage / decrease renkei resists.

http://ffxi.somepage.com/mobdb/3815

[aurik]

Bring all tiers down to close to their lowest base damage spell.

So a level 25 BLM will still be using a 30 damage nuke as their top damage? Thats just brilliant.

Scale the damage? That was hard

In the scheme of things, this does not change the overall power of BLMs - it possibly slightly increases the mp efficiency of GOOD blms.

Making every spell identical will do nothing for changing MP efficiency, it will just make it easier for people who are retarded to pick which spell to use.

Uh, are you serious? How can you get easier than "hmm I think I'll cast ThunderIV..." for every mob except thunder elementals?

[Kerberoz]

Or they could simply raise the base damage of each tier of spells is learned.

Example, learn Stone II and it's base dmg is 200, then a few levels later you learn Water II whose base dmg is 220, you increase the base dmg of Stone II to 220 also, that way they could easily force more focus on picking the correct element.

Or, to make it terribly simple- give spells an Elemental rating much like Summoners have one for summonings (as of the coming update). Pacts that you exceed the summoning skill on get a bonus, ones you don't get no penalty but are "base" stats. So a Stone II that's cast by someone with elemental skill = Water II deals Water II-level damage (in earth type damage), =Fire II dealing Fire II level damage (in earth type damage), etc.

Extending this to the elemental tiered spells (and AM/AM II's) and you get a coherent system for them all and people no longer check everything and then toss Thunder IV regardless. In fact, Thunder being the top of the board, you'd probably give it a slight ability to boost damage based on skill and that's it (since everything else would then match it). Problem solved.

The problem with changing the way Elemental Skill works is... it actuall does something right now, as opposed to Summoning skill. Changing the way it works screws current BLMs who have gear based on the current system.

Why do so many people want to mess with BLM? There's nothing wrong with it... leave us alone and go TP burn...

What is the problem with just casting Thunder and Blizzard on nearly everything? How is it different than using Rampage, Slug Shot, Asuran Fists, etc, nearly exclusively?

[Lithiani]

If you have mobs that have 5-6k or more HP and a skillchain whose total WS+renkei bonus+MB damage won't be wasted, and if they actually gave better xp, balanced PTs would be more worthwhile.

They need to fix Ku and Decimation and all the other WSes while they're at it, othewise fuck BLM, just spam Jin and Rampage etc.

Is there a penalty for agreeing with Flux?

Anyway, regarding "Tiered" spells, what I've always wanted to see done in an MMO game was the ability for mages to craft their own unique spells, selecting variable such as area of effect, element, power, and even advanced options like cone, ray etc...

[levish]

That actual interview is long as heck. Could someone who knows Japanese do a full translation please?

Don't throw them off guard or the derail might actually go back into the thread it belongs ...

[Kyreth]

In otherwords you want every spell to be exactly the fucking same except the animation? FFXI has a relativly generic magic system as it is, make all the elemental nukes the same then whats the point of even having them?

Yes, make mob resistance mean a bit more than it does now, but make all nukes the same, dumbest idea ever.

Actually, I'd love to see them up magic resistance a tad based on elements. More monsters should get a chance to absorb/buff, rather than merely resist favored elements. Likewise, matching elemental weaknesses should produce an elemental debuff. Hit the worm with an Aero? Chance for a VIT down (Choke-type) effect, with the same rules for overwriting that apply to normal elemental debuffs. The bigger the spell, the higher the debuff (so Tornado II would produce a massive VIT down, while Aero would be something along the lines of 50% of Choke). Smack it with a Stone spell instead and you risk giving the Worm a DEX up (anti-Rasp) and/or absorb heal, TP boost, whatever.

As it stands, the "check everything, then Thunder IV for max damage" applies. (see my earlier post on changing that, too.)