Opinions for Job Adjustments

[Bonisagius]

It's unfortunate that it would seem to be such a poor business move on SE's part to fix the system as so many players built their game around this aspect in the system.

That aspect limits so much of the possible versatility and self expression capable in the subjob system.

[The Q]

Why is it objectively better that this game use the same bloodtanking dynamics as everything else? You can argue that it limits subjob versatility, but those other games don't even have subjobs to begin with, so at worst, it's equal.

No one ever said to use the same tanking dynamics as everything else. Also, there needs to be the OPTION and ABILITY to tank in such a manner. As it stands right now, unless you're a pimped to the gills PLD it's sub NIN or die, and even then the pimped PLD is probably subbing NIN.

Fuck it, lets just keep our blinders on and ignore the REAL issues and just keep saying "They ain't gonna take away my guns!" Wait... I mean "They ain't gonna take away my blinkin!"

[Bonisagius]

It's kinda silly that blink isn't just an mp driven utsusemi really, why shouldn't whm or other support oriented job get the ability to reliably negate a finite number of upcoming blows? Jobs that require others to advance reliably should get the gifts which make them less likely to be harmed.

[Kyreth]

[Other MMORPGs seem to have introduced a worthy and acceptable balance between defense, gear, and not breaking the game in terms of how much you can dish out and take, so why do we always allow SE to just "get away with" not having a balance?

Other MMORPGs don't have Utsusemi, or really anything close to it. Blink tanking is something that's pretty unique to FFXI.

It is the existence of that spell that makes it complicated to "correct" DEF/VIT. And it's far too late in the game's development to try to rebalance the entire game around the removal (/drastic nerfing) of that spell. You might as well try to make mages get along without refresh.

/NIN Utsu works like Blink. Fixed. It's the absolute protection the sub gives that makes it so incredible- and combined with DEF/VIT being borked at the highest levels, we end up with shadow tanking being pretty much it. Quite simply, it makes most battles predictable outside of AoE's.

Alternative: Criticals bypass shadows. A mob that can pop Mighty Strikes = you're fucked.

[quote:38jz8c0u]You don't need to make the system a clone of anyone else, but you DO need to make a system that doesn't rely on blinking away all forms of damage that aren't AOE.

Why?

Why is it objectively better that this game use the same bloodtanking dynamics as everything else? You can argue that it limits subjob versatility, but those other games don't even have subjobs to begin with, so at worst, it's equal.[/quote:38jz8c0u]

Meh. Not that it has to use the bloodtank theory of things- I happen to think shadow tanking is neat.

It's when we had Bards tanking HNM's that I think I realized /NIN took this protection to absurd levels at the top. We don't have to have bloodtanks. But it'd be nice if the tank jobs 1-74 got to stay useful that way at 75/meriting.

I'd like to see more jobs whose primary role is "tank", and have it mean something. WoTG gave me hopes we'd see a TP-based tank (we got Dancer instead, and no Vikings) and they'd give /NIN a gentle poke to soften up the "/NIN or nothing" attitude.

That being said, Ninja is awesome, throwing weapons need a serious revamp (weaponskills, anyone?), and there's plenty else that can use improvement and fixing.

From another post:

It's kinda silly that blink isn't just an mp driven utsusemi really, why shouldn't whm or other support oriented job get the ability to reliably negate a finite number of upcoming blows? Jobs that require others to advance reliably should get the gifts which make them less likely to be harmed.

Quite the opposite- I think absolute protection from X number of swings is the problem, not making blink be a perfect shield. The "less likely to be harmed" part should be the guy taking the enmity and being able to absorb the hits in some manner.

[aru]

let me just say that i am not against making bloodtanking more powerful. the point of my previous post was to try to make the discussion more finite. it seems like any time this topic comes up everyone always says "just fix the def/vit formula", "nerf utsusemi to force bloodtanking", "do both!" or some other near thoughtless incredibly vague suggestion that leads to nowhere. but what very very rarely comes up is defining exactly what the outcome is that is being suggested and how it will effect game balance overall at different levels, against various nm's, and in the party/solo dynamics. the most that usually comes out of it is thf/nin's bitching that a nerf will kill their solo.

The Q says he doesnt want Tiamat/AV (i'm guessing) to "2-shot" him without utsusemi but leaves it completely open ended as to exactly how many shots it should take to drop the pld. what about during mighty strikes? at what point do we buff pld up to shrug off tiamat's 2hr? using a similar strategy, wouldnt that same pld be overpowered in other situations against weaker enemies? wouldnt it be absolutely broken if you took a pld/nin and had the defense boost stacked with utsusemi?

so why do we always allow SE to just "get away with" not having a balance? I could see if every single MMO out there had some glaring flaw in the way that defense and damage mitigation works, but that's simply not the case.

if it's so easy, why havent you (or anyone) figured out what to do?

at what point is def strong enough to say "forget /nin; /war,/blu,/pld would all be a much better choice to reduce my damage taken", but not strong enough to break the game?

you guys quoted me on this but didnt answer it. what kind of damage mitigation do you want with what amount of def to compete on equal footing with utsusemi and how do you balance that if stacked with utsusemi? if you cant answer that then the whole discussion is worthless and you're just spinning your wheels in the mud getting nowhere but regurgitating the same tired old allakhazam vagueness.

[The Q]

If you can't back up your arguments you're doing the same god damn thing you're accusing others of.

Pretty much all you're saying is amounting to "You're wrong, prove me wrong." All of your arguments fail on the logical fallacy of the "slippery slope" where you keep saying if defense is boosted it'll cause everything to be broken. You're making assumptions and what's worse, when you say...

wouldnt it be absolutely broken if you took a pld/nin and had the defense boost stacked with utsusemi?

...it proves you haven't really read a damn thing I've said, much less others.

If you're not going to give any thought to your argument than to ask the same questions over and over and tell people that x is going to happen if y is changed as if you actually know what you're talking about without any sort of backing you shouldn't say anything in the first place.

[aru]

my arguement is that i'm tired of reading the same vague bullshit over and over again.
all i see from you is "wah, SE fix it" and no suggestions on how it will be balanced better than the game currently is. where has this thread progressed from where people brought up wanting an utsusemi nerf/defence boost to were it is now? nowhere.

All of your arguments fail on the logical fallacy of the "slippery slope" where you keep saying if defense is boosted it'll cause everything to be broken.

no, i'm saying the defense boost that would be capable of REPLACING /nin would break any job with strong natural defence subbing nin. the best of both worlds resulting in the "OMEGA TANK" (who said that?). now you said that in the context of having a full powered utsusemi, but it would take a MASSIVE nerf to utsu (not just making it blink-like) for it to not be ridiculous.

you say that i'm not answering my own questions and you're right. i'm also not the one complaining that the game needs to be changed either, am i?

[The Q]

my arguement is that i'm tired of reading the same vague bullshit over and over again.
all i see from you is "wah, SE fix it" and no suggestions on how it will be balanced better than the game currently is. where has this thread progressed from where people brought up wanting an utsusemi nerf/defence boost to were it is now? nowhere.

All of your arguments fail on the logical fallacy of the "slippery slope" where you keep saying if defense is boosted it'll cause everything to be broken.

no, i'm saying the defense boost that would be capable of REPLACING /nin would break any job with strong natural defence subbing nin. the best of both worlds resulting in the "OMEGA TANK" (who said that?). now you said that in the context of having a full powered utsusemi, but it would take a MASSIVE nerf to utsu (not just making it blink-like) for it to not be ridiculous.

you say that i'm not answering my own questions and you're right. i'm also not the one complaining that the game needs to be changed either, am i?

Oh so basically if we don't provide a detailed defense formula then we have no argument? Oh fucking wow. Quit trolling.

There have been PLENTY of suggestions. Just because you ignore them doesn't mean they aren't there.

[Mytiwar]

What's the point in arguing over that anyway? You guys aren't even fighting to try and find a suggestion; you're arguing to argue.

[neochaos]

Reading these arguments further proves why this game wont evolve further than it is. Worried that raising damage mitigation to PLDs will overpower them vs. weaker mobs. Of course, they should. Come the fuck on. HNMs and sky shit of the 2004 era should be easily and swiftly dealt with by low numbers now. Then again, I do have to agree at this point changing the basic system of how everything works in this gmae would be negative. One huge painfully pathetic theme of FFXI endgame is conformity. It all comes down to being the most efficient/balanced bar none. And as nifty as that is, that only covers about 1/3 of all the jobs in the game and about 1/20th of all the possibilities in this game. Its this dire need for strategic efficiency that will always force DRGs, PUPs, SCHs, BSTs, MNKs, THFs, BLUs, and whatever else out there to sit on the sidelines or be 2nd, 3rd string. SE implemented 20 jobs at this point? and a good handful of them are seen primarily as useless, then again it doesnt help SE makes some of them that way too, like COR. COR has some amazing rolls, but the fact that they A. vary in value depending on "luck" and B. can bust and therefore be useless takes out their efficiency.

If I knew how to make this game balanced to be great but not broken, I'd be out there trying to make an MMO, not bitching about one, but I assumed the FFXI dev team made FFXI with this "balance" knowledge already there. I will be the first to admit, at this point I don't know what I want from this game anymore. I do know I DO NOT FUCKING CARE ABOUT A STUPID FUCKING VALENTINES DAY RELATED EVENT SO I DEFINATELY DO THINK THAT INSTEAD OF POSTING WORTHLESS BULLSHIT ON THEIR SITE, THEY POST SOMETHING THE OTHER 99.999% OF THE PLAYERBASE GIVE SOME FORM OF FUCK ABOUT. /endrant

[Raithen]

You guys aren't even fighting to try and find a suggestion; you're arguing to argue.

Exactly, but I'll post a couple suggestions anyway.

1. Make utsusemi: ni level 38.
2. Make this "uber defense" fix some JA that functions like Seigan: double ninjutsu recast timers.
3. Nerf utsu:ichi and ni while subbed much like ni is already. I imagine roughly halving the number of shadows a main ninja gets. Utsu:Ichi 1-2 shadows, Utsu:Ni 2-3

Basically the idea is you're using ninja as a subjob for defensive purposes, not tanking purposes. Shadows help you survive things. Unless you're actually a ninja they shouldn't help you straight up tank things.

Happy Aru? Discuss.

Edit: I honestly have to say I have no possible suggestions on how to "fix" the defense issue. I would definitely agree it is quite broken, but I can't see anything, short of adding more Damage Taken -% options, that would help and NOT break the way we hit monsters in return.

[aru]

well, i'm not sure where you're seeing all these suggestions... maybe i did glaze over them. i remember someone saying change def to -%dmg taken (didnt state how much or what effects how much-what i'm interested in hearing what people are thinking), "A) Fixed the def/vit issue. Maybe make def = (1 + Sum of def of equips) * (1 + (.05 * vit/2)) + level or fix the equations some other way" (which i dont quite understand. def is worthless so lets add more def to fix it? is that solving anything?), and "it works in other games, SE should make it work in ffxi" (pretty much the most open ended 'suggestion' if you even want to call it that since i have no idea what is actually being suggested here), and then we have a metric ton of : "correct DEF/VIT calculations on dmg taken problem solved" (this was someone's entire post ).

i dont understand what you're getting so worked up over, i'm asking an honest question that i think should be answered if this whole utsu nerf/def fix discussion is going to go anywhere. i'm not asking for some elaborate formula, just something more than "it needs to be weighted more"-- How much more? wouldnt you agree that quantifying this adjustment would be helpful in determining whether this suggestion has some staying power or if it's just a fart in the wind?

What's the point in arguing over that anyway? You guys aren't even fighting to try and find a suggestion; you're arguing to argue.

the thing is, i'm not argueing. there's nothing to argue over- that's why i'm asking to make the concept of "fix it" into something more defined. how can i get behind an idea (or dispute it) if i dont even know what it really is and how it will effect the game's balance?

what do i know though, i'm just a troll asking people to elaborate on their concepts. how absolutely aweful of me.

[SeraphusRagnarok]

The major problem with defense is unless you're a Paladin, defense basically does nothing. I get hit for the same damage with all my gear on as I do when I'm naked against anything higher than EM. Nobody gears for defense because you'd need at least 350 defense with gear on before buffs to see any noticable difference on anything EM+, depending on the mob's base damage. Hell Decent Challenge Lamiae hit me for more damage than Tough Sea Puks.




P.S Why do Decent Challenge Lamia give me 108 exp and Sea Puks give me 238exp without Empress Band? Seams like they should be conning higher than they are... -_-

[neochaos]

VIT and DEF by themselves do very little. VIT helps reduce the enemies' crit rate and slightly raises def, def itself as far as i know (which isn't far) i presumed factored heavily into whatever damage taken-% formula SE uses for that. I do like the Seigan style JA thing. Have a JA that reduces damage taken down by an impressive % (at least 25% for the sake of SE and those so woefully afraid of making this game the slightest bit easier), at the cost of doubling cast/recast timers of magic or double MP, w/e.

Basically the idea is you're using ninja as a subjob for defensive purposes, not tanking purposes. Shadows help you survive things. Unless you're actually a ninja they shouldn't help you straight up tank things.

My thoughts exactly.

[Max™]

Agi helps reduce Crit rate.

Vit/Str gives the minimum and maximum you will get hit for (your Vit/Mob Str with mob Dmg factored in, mob DAMAGE ratings are ridiculous, and this makes Vit/Str balancing mean little), Def gives the range of damage you will actually take.

Correct me if I've pooched that up horribly.

So, the problem is, monster Dmg is absurd, and makes Vit nigh useless, oh it will help to a point, but against certain mobs, the only damage you're getting mitigated is your shield, and your shadows.

Def doesn't do much, because again, monster damage is set so high that it skews everything, meaning theres no scale with Def, either you're turtled up at 500+ and seeing some damage resistance, or you're basically naked in the wind at 260ish, eating 300 Dmg crits.

Either they need to fix the base damage issue for monsters (could be simple as that, and the rest of the system might actually work) or they need to change how shit works.

Improve the effect of Vit in the monster Str > PC Vit calculations, make 1 Vit give 0.8 Def or whatever like Str/Dex for 2h, but give some JA the ability to activate it, like... oh I don't fuckin know, DEFENDER?

Make Def -phys dmg%, say every 100 Def added on starting at 100 Def gives -10% Dmg, 200 Def -10% Dmg, 300 Def -20% Dmg, 400 Def -30% Dmg, 500 Def -40% Dmg which is pretty much capping it out if you have jelly/askar feet/black belt/Dring.

Hi2u Pld/War?

DD/War?

War main tank again, subbing whatever the hell they want? Would be pretty cool, don't think it's TOO over the top to provide access to a large amount of -dmg (even if just -physical dmg) considering how broken monster damage ratings are.

It wouldn't kill Utsu, because it will still absorb magic, just make it less required for some mobs.

We don't need to nerf Utsusemi, just buff Defender to give people a reason to slap /War back on from time to time, and use /Nin when it is appropriate.

[Amok]

/nin is here to stay. Without actually giving a reason, /nin on a tank just 'feels' wrong. When Seigan was added I was sure that it would become a sub for tanks, but it didn't pan out that way, but even that would have 'felt' wrong. I don't have solutions but things that come to mind are:
-Reduce the casting time of blink (so it could possibly be cast between swings of a slowed mob) and give it to PLD natively. Maybe add a 3rd shadow to it.
-Buffing provoke. Probably dangerous, but giving it more of an ability to build up hate over time rather than a spike that disappears by the time you can use it again would definitely make /war make more sense. This could possibly make kiting too easy though. I'm not sure. Make part of it's enmity be CE.
-Actualy make CHR do something really important for tanking (it arguably already does, but it's not enough apparently).
-If war is going to get a counter-like ability make it accessible from /war. Would be interesting if it was a natural side-effect of Defender.
-Whatever the reflect ability is that PLD is 'going to get' could already take care of making blood tanking more feasible. However, I doubt it will be enough to make it better than /nin.

[Max™]

From what I read, War isn't getting counter, just revenge... I am betting on Enrage (/recast "Enrage") giving a "chance to strike back when hit" as opposed to "cancel an enemies attack with your own" so you'll still take damage, but you'll build TP faster/lose less hate because you're smacking the thing again.

Voke needs something, yes, because it's a lame hate tool, just a hate grabber/claim tool, and does little against hate buckets.

[Amok]

I am betting on Enrage (/recast "Enrage") giving a "chance to strike back when hit" as opposed to "cancel an enemies attack with your own"

That's a lot less interesting It doesn't seem like something that would make war a viable tank on its own. That's probably not its intention, but then it wouldn't be that useful, would it? Occasional extra tp+damage when you pull hate in an exp pt without shadows is a very niche application.

[Shassira]

I am betting on Enrage (/recast "Enrage") giving a "chance to strike back when hit" as opposed to "cancel an enemies attack with your own"

That's a lot less interesting It doesn't seem like something that would make war a viable tank on its own. That's probably not its intention, but then it wouldn't be that useful, would it? Occasional extra tp+damage when you pull hate in an exp pt without shadows is a very niche application.

Yup, this is what the description of the ability implied. You take damage, but you hit back (kinda like counter has always been in any FF game i think?). Apart from making wars want to get hit in exp parties for the e-peen parsing, i don't see a point to this in terms of improving tanking.

I assume that their current line of though is a WAR with defender, defense gear and defense food tanking, while "making up" for their lost damage potential by countering. Let's assume a 50% proc (rrrrright xD), you'd be attacking a lot if you blood tank, which will help you keep hate i guess. This is what i assume they envision, but with the current way defense works i don't see how this will work as intended. As with the "kick stance" for mnk, i'm pretty scheptical about its usefulness.

[Spider-Dan]

Honestly, I just hope Squenix ignores every post in this thread with the word "utsusemi" in it.

The game is better off now with bloodtanking taking a back seat to shadows. All these "solutions" (read: wildly speculative nerfs) to utsusemi would do nothing but make the game more tedious and stupid.

Answer this question: with utsusemi as it is now, do your mages have so little to do that you feel they need to spend more time/MP on cures?

If not, then what is the point of this argument?