Battle System Improvements (02/22/2008)

[Armando]

BBQ: No matter how much you think you're right or want to be right, Flash is not Blind, unless you can show that Blind decays over time. And even if they do behave identically, Flash is used with a different purpose in mind. Even if it were correct, saying that Flash is the same as Blind is as practical as saying Utsusemi is the same as Blink. Same effect? Sure, you could sort of argue that. Same thing? No.

Stop being so stubborn. Everyone knows it'd be stupid as hell to get "Itazura's Haste effect wears off" when March wears off, or "Itazura's Refresh effect wears off" when Ballad wears. Just because they do the same thing doesn't mean that their terms are interchangeable for every in-game purpose. The chat log is there to inform. If I have both effects, one of them wears off, and the chat log can't tell me which wore off, THEN THE CHAT LOG IS FAILING AT ITS PURPOSE.

I'm not arguing for the sake of doing so, but because half of the argument presented is flawed.

Flawed or not (I honestly don't know where you get the idea that it's flawed, or any more flawed than your own argument), there is a clear and obvious usefulness to making distinction between the effects. On the other hand, I don't see the usefulness to your side of the argument, other than possibly saving SE some work. There is no benefit for the player to the sort of ambiguity involved in calling things that have the same effect the same thing.

Really, if we asked SE to make all these petty distinctions, our status bars would be loaded with different icons and we'd probably lose track of which meant what. Best to keep it simple sometimes, I'm sure these guys have more than enough work.

No, the icons work just fine. If I go over them, the one for Berserk says "Berserk" and the one for Attack Boost says "Attack Boost."

You can argue the pros and cons of 6 lines of the same effect hitting a different target vs 1 line displaying six targets all you want, that's not really that important.

[Balfree]

Still going on about that?... daymn.

[Feba]

our status bars would be loaded with different icons and we'd probably lose track of which meant what.

GUI modders disagree.

[Saren]

Flash and blind wearing off should be uniquely identified in the chat log not because they are different things but because they stack and one person can put both on the mob so there are going to be times when you get a wear message and you won't know which wore off. I've noticed it soloing and while it doesn't usually matter that much but there are times when it does.

I would love to see AoE condensing suggested it would make a lot of things easier to follow. Searching through the chat log in Dynamis for who was in range for protect/shell is difficult even with a lot of filters and means I can't be watching the newest messages. Also as whm I really need to see what special actions people are doing and bard buff spam definitely gets in the way of following the chat log.

I'd really like to see more information on things like BPs, blue spells and Cor abilities too. Perhaps also a few extra chat filters, being able to see other peoples enfeebling effects hit and wear off the mob would make it much easier for smn and blu to be part of enfeebling while still having reliable enfeebles on the mob

[Malacite]

I may not have hit the top levels of SMN, but you don't have to to realize there's issues with the job. I've been around enough 75 SMN's to know too, that while they do find it fun at 75 they all hated leveling it and not getting the good pacts until 65+. Even then, the lv 70 BP's consume way too much MP when melee can do comparable if not outright better damage with 100 TP and much, much more frequently.

I do not care for summoning for 1 stupid BP then going back to WHM v.2. SE has admitted to this issue, and said they will do something about it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a lot more fun keeping their avatars out and wants to see them kick some serious ass. Shit, I would not care if they actually consumed more MP, so long as they gained a substantial power boost (something I've suggested before.)

[LyonheartLakshmi]

I may not have hit the top levels of SMN, but you don't have to to realize there's issues with the job. I've been around enough 75 SMN's to know too, that while they do find it fun at 75 they all hated leveling it and not getting the good pacts until 65+. Even then, the lv 70 BP's consume way too much MP when melee can do comparable if not outright better damage with 100 TP and much, much more frequently.

I can no doubt gear up as WAR, go into a merit party, and do far better damage just casually meleeing and spamming WSs every time I hit 100 TP than a SMN would. However, SMN can do thing I could never dream of doing as a WAR.

Out of those melee jobs that you were referring to, how many of them can you take 5 or 6 players of that job and expect to beat Carmine Dobsonfly? Or Ouryu in CoP 4-2?

Your complaints might be easier to read if you weren't constantly using exaggerative language in every post. But when you say things like "SMN is broken", it's hard to take those posts seriously. Broken means that something is so hideously overpowered that it is too good compared to the alternatives (e.g. you could make the case that NIN sub is broken), or that something is so hideously underpowered that it is practically never useful to consider over an alternative (e.g. you could make the case that PUP overall is broken).

However, just because players find that a job is boring to level does not make it broken.

[Karinya]

I may not have hit the top levels of SMN, but you don't have to to realize there's issues with the job. I've been around enough 75 SMN's to know too, that while they do find it fun at 75 they all hated leveling it and not getting the good pacts until 65+. Even then, the lv 70 BP's consume way too much MP when melee can do comparable if not outright better damage with 100 TP and much, much more frequently.

Which ones are the "good" pacts? The ones that do the uber damage, of course! SMN couldn't possibly be designed as something *other* than a primary DD - that would make it "broken"!

Face it, SMN is just not the job you think it is or the job you want it to be. That doesn't mean it's not good at what it *does* do.

I do not care for summoning for 1 stupid BP then going back to WHM v.2.

If you think all BPs that don't do 1000+ damage are "stupid", SMN is not the job for you. Play something else and don't try to break what isn't broken.

(P.S. Two BPs. Welcome to 2006.)

SE has admitted to this issue, and said they will do something about it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has a lot more fun keeping their avatars out and wants to see them kick some serious ass. Shit, I would not care if they actually consumed more MP, so long as they gained a substantial power boost (something I've suggested before.)

No matter how many times it's pointed out to you, you just refuse to get the point that "kicking some serious ass" is not all (or even primarily, in most content) what SMN is about. FFXI SMN is not FFV SMN, and it's not ever going to be. Play the job it *is* or STFU.

If you really want a job that turns your MP into huge amounts of damage, I'm sure you can manage to unlock BLM.

[Lmnop]

...And getting my friend's SMN to 75 was a pain in the ass. With me only having WAR to offer, and him having BRD 75 already, there were no layouts we could make (even layouts that already had a BRD) where he didn't feel he would be doing more good for the party as being BRD #2. Whenever 2 of the same job is better than job diversity, there's an issue.

But I get flamed whenever I bring up that I think BRD is broken, so I'll instead say that shows a lot of what's wrong with SMN.

And no, I don't think SMN parties can get the exp I get in my tardburn layouts.

----

But higher MP cost doesn't help SMN. If anything, they need less MP cost. More things for staying power. If they're going to be a job that can buff and DD at the same time, they should be decent with at least one of them (Corsair stepped in and filled these shoes, though). Granted, I think the biggest issue with SMN is that no parties actually use them as this (just doing nothing but resting for 1 minute, then doing 2x BPs and resting for the next minute would no doubt be better than how they're currently used), but it's still not as good as another dedicated DD or another dedicated buffer.

This thread has been off topic for 5 pages.

Oh, one more thing: I honestly feel PUP is less broken than SMN. If people knew how to deal with PUPs, and if PUPs knew how to vary their roles (BLUs could benefit a lot from this, too), it would at the very least, be seen as valuable as a War or something.

[Mhurron]

But I get flamed whenever I bring up that I think BRD is broken

Then I'll open this can of worms. How on earth is BRD broken?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

(I honestly don't know where you get the idea that it's flawed, or any more flawed than your own argument).

Flaws began when "March isn't Haste" started being uttered. If you're going to tell me March is not a Haste, I'm going to give up hope for any intelligence in this discussion. Its not really anyone's problem but yours if you can't distinguish Flash from Haste by duration and potency effect alone.

Then I'll open this can of worms. How on earth is BRD broken?

Its a job so blindingly awesome that everyone levels it for merits and nobody wants to be one at endgame. You become so awesome you lose your name and are just called "Bard" and fought over in alliances like an object, yet with any other job people seem capable of learning your name. You get stuck with the BLM PT as a manabucket, sometimes never playing anything but fucking ballads all day. Meanwhile, the COR's out of the sideline, much better capable of handling a BLM PT but nobody bothers to learn what it does. We could put the BRD where it specializes, with the melees and tanks, but I suppose the chance of a COR/BRD getting anything less than 4 MP a tick on the BLMs is far too risky. I mean, its not like BLMs carry gobs of +hMP gear or anything

Aside: BRD could actually stand to become quite liberated in endgame if people weren't so cheap and flabbergasted by the pricetag on COR. It would really open BRDs up to doing what they specialize it - and mage support has never been thier strongest point.

[Feba]

BBQ: Get out of this thread. You don't understand squat, which while impressive for how long you've been playing FFXI, makes you extremely annoying.

[Yellow Mage]

Flaws began when "March isn't Haste" started being uttered. If you're going to tell me March is not a Haste, I'm going to give up hope for any intelligence in this discussion. Its not really anyone's problem but yours if you can't distinguish Flash from Haste by duration and potency effect alone.

You act as if the statements "March is Haste" and "March is a Haste" are logically equivalent. Hint: they aren't.

Everybody here knows that March reduces weapon delay, et cetera. Therefore, it is a Haste. But, because it stacks with Haste, and Haste does not stack with Haste, it is also therefore not Haste.

Furthermore, Itazura's whole point behind the analogy was that he'd be pretty ticked if they changed the message "Itazura's March effect wears" with "Itazura's Haste effect wears," because the effects themselves are not same, even though they function similarly. It's a generalization, which is almost always bad, and all he wants is when the message "Enemy's Blind effect wears," the Red Mage can be certain that it doesn't actually mean "Enemy's Flash effect wears," and may start casting again as necessary.

Heck, furthermore, the JP client already does this, so it obviously isn't something that's all that impossible to do.

[Malacite]

C rated skills for a start. Never mind that every damn song sounds the same, and we tend to just cast the same 4 songs by end game (which is something else SE has admitted to and is working on). Please let that single-target ability come with this update > < I am beyond sick of trying to refresh PLD's while not messing up the group's buffs.

Also, you can not seriously argue that the DD pacts pre-65 are good. Some of them can do decent damage (particularly in promyvion) but most are a just large waste of MP compared to the power a BLM can dish out, or a melee with a WS.

Of course SMN isn't entirely about DD, but traditionally (and keep in mind the dev team said they wanted FFXI to closely resemble FF1-3) it's been about dealing with mass groups of enemies swiftly. High power at high cost.

Well, make with the power already. Some of the buffs really suck (Frost Armor, Rolling Thunder and Crimson Howl are a joke) and BLM's can out damage the Tier 2/4 nukes with ease using lower tiered nukes! Last I checked in the history of FF, BLM's edge over SMN has always been on MP conservation (against single enemies) and utility spells. Hell, like RNG, the job's 2-hour is eventually outshined by the 70 BPs (against a single target that is).

Do you really think I'll get very far by seeking and putting in my comment "Main Heal No Thanks." ? There are a lot of other mage jobs meant to fulfill that role. Hell, I wouldn't mind doing it on SMN if it was through the use of the avatars and not /WHM. DRG, BST and PUP all get to keep their pets out full time, so why not SMN? Why is it the only pet job that doesn't get to (in a practical application) keep it's pet out? Avatars are horribly inefficient, both on MP and damage dealt vs TP given to the mob.

So what if a group of them can do some crazy stuff? 18 BLM can 1-shot Divine Might. More to the point, SE's taken measures against abusing multiple people of the same job before, they can do so again if the need arises.

You're not winning on the issue of the job not getting to do what it was meant for, which is summoning. Not when the company itself has openly admitted that there's a problem that needs to and will be addressed.

People can tout all they want about how this is an MMO, blah blah blah but as long as it's called "Final Fantasy" there are certain obligations to the fan base SE has to come through with. I for one, will not touch SMN again on my Elvaan until SE makes it viable to keep avatars and spirits out in parties and make use of them as opposed to my subjob to full my duties in the party.



-----------------------------


/rant off.


Okay, yah we're *way* off topic now > <;


How far do you suppose the battle music range will be? More to the point, won't it be rather weird if you can switch between BGMs simply by moving 1 step back/forward? Won't that put a horrendous strain on your PC/Console?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

C rated skills for a start. Never mind that every damn song sounds the same, and we tend to just cast the same 4 songs by end game (which is something else SE has admitted to and is working on). Please let that single-target ability come with this update > < I am beyond sick of trying to refresh PLD's while not messing up the group's buffs.

BRD is already rather powerful with those C skills, it would be broken to change that rating at this point, seeing as they scaled up COR's buffs in August to be comprable or exceed them when they're lucky"

Also, you can not seriously argue that the DD pacts pre-65 are good. Some of them can do decent damage (particularly in promyvion) but most are a just large waste of MP compared to the power a BLM can dish out, or a melee with a WS.

The job scales up in power, like many, many other jobs. If they ended up being just like BLMs, there would be no advantages to being one or the other. There's no better subjob out there for SMN than /WHM, so by nature of the main jobs design, /WHM fufills a higher capability for healing than it would if you was under BLM main.

Of course SMN isn't entirely about DD, but traditionally (and keep in mind the dev team said they wanted FFXI to closely resemble FF1-3) it's been about dealing with mass groups of enemies swiftly. High power at high cost.

Offline games.

Well, make with the power already. Some of the buffs really suck (Frost Armor, Rolling Thunder and Crimson Howl are a joke) and BLM's can out damage the Tier 2/4 nukes with ease using lower tiered nukes! Last I checked in the history of FF, BLM's edge over SMN has always been on MP conservation (against single enemies) and utility spells. Hell, like RNG, the job's 2-hour is eventually outshined by the 70 BPs (against a single target that is).

News Flash: Online game. We usually fight one mob at a time here and have melee jobs to think about and balance as well. Mage and support jobs come with so many perks and advantages that I find the "woe is me" attitude annoying when uttered by a RDM, BRD or COR. Woe is nothing, they have it pretty damned good. They have something that gets them invited.

DRG, BST and PUP all get to keep their pets out full time, so why not SMN? Why is it the only pet job that doesn't get to (in a practical application) keep it's pet out? Avatars are horribly inefficient, both on MP and damage dealt vs TP given to the mob.

DRG's wyvern and PUP's Automation have extremely weak defenses and 20 minute recast timer. When SMN's pet dies, they just summon another one or sit on thier ass until they can do so reasonably again. If a wyvern gets one-shotted shortly after its called, DRG has to wait much longer than a SMN would. BST's jug pets aren't exactly what I'd call sturdy save for CourrierCarrie, which is a lousy DD jug. They're trusty for farming and the DD jugs that are good are tremendously costly or time consuming to far, not to mention some are dependant on how many KS runs were being done that day. Oh, and they're crafted.

As for making Avatars cure like automations, PUP just got two big boosts that made it more inviteable and none seem to complain that Soulsoother head and /DNC making them healers. Should we just kick PUP right in the nuts and take away something that sets them apart from other pet jobs?

You're not winning on the issue of the job not getting to do what it was meant for, which is summoning. Not when the company itself has openly admitted that there's a problem that needs to and will be addressed.

So Summonters summon? I mean, Dancers dance, Rangers shoot from a range and Beastmasters master beasts! That's crazy. We should just take all these names to the literal extreme, obviously.

People can tout all they want about how this is an MMO, blah blah blah but as long as it's called "Final Fantasy" there are certain obligations to the fan base SE has to come through with. I for one, will not touch SMN again on my Elvaan until SE makes it viable to keep avatars and spirits out in parties and make use of them as opposed to my subjob to full my duties in the party.

Balance is always going to come before what people want in an online game. How about I never pick up COR or RNG again until I get my ammo for free? Gee, I'm going to stop playing until Kitase gets on as a writer and gives me some real emocharacters like he did in FFVII and FFX. I want my damned BCNM with Sephiroth! Putting him in Kingdom Hearts was not enough!

[LyonheartLakshmi]

...And getting my friend's SMN to 75 was a pain in the ass. With me only having WAR to offer, and him having BRD 75 already, there were no layouts we could make (even layouts that already had a BRD) where he didn't feel he would be doing more good for the party as being BRD #2. Whenever 2 of the same job is better than job diversity, there's an issue.

But I get flamed whenever I bring up that I think BRD is broken, so I'll instead say that shows a lot of what's wrong with SMN.

You could take out "SMN" from that first paragraph and insert about 16 other jobs not named RDM or COR and that statement would hold true. So how does that little anecdote show what's wrong with SMN?