Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

[Armando]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

I love Final Fantasy XI, but I also see it's age. I would love to get an Usukane set, a Kenkonken, and a K-Club. But I don't have the kind of time to play to achieve all those things unless I get real lucky.

What the heck does one thing have to do with the other?

All MMORPGs have near-unobtainable items, it doesn't have anything to do with age. It's not a new concept, introducing shinies that are goddamned impossible to get keeps people tirelessly grinding at your game, be it an old console game or a next-gen MMO.

[Ziero]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

You know, you and I are on the same page. I think that merits are too limited to give us any real customization, or to at least let us apply the merited skills in some meaningful way for all of the jobs we like. We can't really customize when most of the options are grayed out, imo.

That's always been my biggest irk with this game, a complete and total lack of customization. Ironiclly though, I feel more attached to my FFXI character then any other MMO character I've made. probably comes from all the time spent playing this game.

The thing about it though, is it isn't a huge issue for me. I was just pointing out what merits were by using an analogy that makes SE look like a bunch of greedy businessmen. I'm such a negative Nancy sometimes.

I could never get behind that whole "greedy businessmen" concept for some companies. I mean, yea, I know they really are just a buncha greedy businessmen when push comes to shove, but when you see interviews of them talking so enthusiastically about this game and all the small things they've added, it shows they really enjoy this stuff. It's just that when they work hard to create something tiny and most of the playerbase completely ignore it, I can't help but feel kinda bad for em. They're trying to make it fun, but still keep it profitable, and that's not exactly an easy thing to do.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

I could never get behind that whole "greedy businessmen" concept for some companies. I mean, yea, I know they really are just a buncha greedy businessmen when push comes to shove, but when you see interviews of them talking so enthusiastically about this game and all the small things they've added, it shows they really enjoy this stuff. It's just that when they work hard to create something tiny and most of the playerbase completely ignore it, I can't help but feel kinda bad for em. They're trying to make it fun, but still keep it profitable, and that's not exactly an easy thing to do.

See the thing is Ziero, those guys that do the interviews aren't the "suits" that make the decisions. Those are the developers that design the game so they are very enthusiastic about all the little tweaks. But when it comes down to bottom line and whether things get changed or put in and such, its the suits that make that choice. It costs them money to put stuff in/take stuff out/fix stuff/etc. and they weight that cost against the return. If they don't see enough return then they don't think its worth the effort no matter how much the developer wants to do that adjustment. So when you see an interview about what the developers would like to do, always temper it with "if they can get it past the suits" attitude.

[Potemken]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

SE needs to introduce 1 thing and the game gets all the customization you need.

Dyes. Just like guild wars. With every color of the spectrum.

Add a dye for free, dyes costing, but the apply not. Everyone has customized gears. Colors change ALOT of things, and everyone would find this appealing.

I bet Drg af peeps would go gaga over it.

[dirtyclown]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

I can't wait to dye my tanking gear safety Orange.

[Durahansolo]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

I can't wait to dye my tanking gear safety Orange.

LOL,

If they added dyes that you can use infinitely like on Fable 2, I'd pay up to maybe 10k a piece for each color, if they were free even better! Otherwise I can just see them adding dyes that can be created by alchemy, then you take the armor to a npc and the npc will die it according to your chosen color. I'm pretty sure we'd see so many PLDs with that Iron Musketeer Armet on, that I call the Power Ranger helm, in different colors. If I could get my gear to match colors then it'd be a epic bonus.

[Potemken]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

Yeah, i mean like some things stay, like say the color of the shoulder plates on the hauby, but the san'dorian looking red banner cloth could be changed.

However, if it was my way, everything could be customized to each slice of the spectrum.

So you could make a full pt, one person reppin each power ranger.

I would of course be Tommy, the kick ass white ranger bst/war with a tigger pet in a jug that was white.

Insert white Ranger theme song

I^ White ranger tiger power, white ranger...tiger....power
white ranger tiger power, white ranger....tiger....power

Go white rang-er, go white-ranger, go white rang-er
GO WHITE RANGER RIGHT NOWWW~~~~~

Ahh ah ahh ah ahh ah ahh ah ah ah
Ahh ah ahh ah ahh ah ahh ah ah ah
Ahh ah ahh ah ahh ah ahh ah ah ah I^

Seriously.... look that shit up. I remember. ^^

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

I just think in terms of customization that not all jobs should be treated equally. I said it a couple times already, but things that absolutely have no crossover value should be categorized differently.

With White magic we have: Enhancing, Healing, Divine and Enfeebling skill.
With Black magic we have: Enhancing Elemental, Dark and Enfeebling skill.

So two of those cross over between magic types and then you have them applicable to other jobs such as WHM, BLM, RDM, SCH, DRK and PLD.

Summoning, Singing/Wind/String, Blue and Automation Magic Skill can't really cross over, so why are they isolated from the other magic skills? Seems odd.

Most weapons can cross over into other jobs, but there's an exception: Great Katana. Why is it afforded the same space as other weapon types? Kinda screwy if only your samurai can merit GK, but at the cost of other weapons when none of your other jobs can use a Great Katana (outside of the crappy wooden one from Feast of Swords )

If somethings going to be useful to only one job in the game, might be best to let that job be isolated for some of its particular merits. A Samurai could merit GK separately from the other weapons, but Archery and Polearm skill would still be reserved for the general category as they're not exclusive to one job.

[Potemken]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

I just think in terms of customization that not all jobs should be treated equally. I said it a couple times already, but things that absolutely have no crossover value should be categorized differently.

With White magic we have: Enhancing, Healing, Divine and Enfeebling skill.
With Black magic we have: Enhancing Elemental, Dark and Enfeebling skill.

So two of those cross over between magic types and then you have them applicable to other jobs such as WHM, BLM, RDM, SCH, DRK and PLD.

Summoning, Singing/Wind/String, Blue and Automation Magic Skill can't really cross over, so why are they isolated from the other magic skills? Seems odd.

Most weapons can cross over into other jobs, but there's an exception: Great Katana. Why is it afforded the same space as other weapon types? Kinda screwy if only your samurai can merit GK, but at the cost of other weapons when none of your other jobs can use a Great Katana (outside of the crappy wooden one from Feast of Swords )

If somethings going to be useful to only one job in the game, might be best to let that job be isolated for some of its particular merits. A Samurai could merit GK separately from the other weapons, but Archery and Polearm skill would still be reserved for the general category as they're not exclusive to one job.

O'RLY? Ninja.

[Armando]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

No NIN would use those GKatanas though.

In any case it's correct, Katana is the weapon that's job-specific, GKatana has 2 jobs even if NIN shouldn't be using them.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

Hm. Got em backwards there. Anyway, point still stands - these two weapons aren't really applied with other jobs.

[Karinya]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

At the same time, this would be a Bad Thing. If it were put to a vote, lots of people would vote to have soloing be not only a viable way to earn EXP, but the fastest. That would be a pretty bad thing for FFXI in general. The way to gain EXP that I might find most fun would not the kind you would find most fun; a BST, NIN, and WHM could have completely separate ideals.

That's why there shouldn't be *a* fastest way to earn EXP. Several different styles of exp play (ideally, party and solo) should be balanced *against each other* to yield *equal* exp/hr. Then players really could play the style of play they enjoy and not have to be sacrificing a ton of effectiveness to do so. SE is making some baby steps in this direction with the improved Signet for duos and trios and FoV, but they're doing that while dancing around the biggest balance offender, the post-ToAU meleeburn. (Which the other huge balance problem in the game, Utsusemi, is implicated in to some degree, but the way the problem expanded and proliferated after ToAU proves that Utsusemi isn't the whole story.)

Or at least approximately equal - I know the devs are human and nobody can anticipate all possible contingencies perfectly. But what we have now isn't even close - melee DD heavy parties fighting low level, low HP opponents get ridiculous amounts of exp/hr and everything else is *vastly* less effective at getting experience points (which is a task that everyone has to do, and everyone has to do a lot of, and after the first couple hundred thousand, the fewer hours you have to spend on it, the better, in most people's opinions). Furthermore, it hasn't been meaningfully adjusted in years, which gives the impression that the devs are either unaware of the issue, or don't mind having one style of play privileged over others (and jobs that fit that style well privileged over jobs that fit it poorly, especially for merits which can be earned on any job).

Pre ToAU was enormously better balanced and everyone knows it - especially the jobs that don't want to turn back the clock because they benefit from the current imbalance.

[Malacite]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

That's always been my biggest irk with this game, a complete and total lack of customization. Ironiclly though, I feel more attached to my FFXI character then any other MMO character I've made. probably comes from all the time spent playing this game.

Compared to what you can do in Final Fantasy 5 and Tactics, FF 11 is a fucking joke.

EDIT: Shuriken are also job specific (again, NIN) even if the skill isn't.


Maybe they should put the skills that can't be shared in their own category?

[Raydeus]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

BBQ I know I shouldn't disect your post and give you more reasons to keep taking your happy meds, but meh I'm bored and I've been running away from Dead Space even though it's calling my name. (Damn game's scary)

This of course is from the perspective of someone who didn't have time to party*

From a RDM, a merit sponge who can get a merit invite without asking.

Maybe in your server everyone gets magically to xp camps in 5 mins but in the servers I've played just getting enough people, getting to a camp and start killing can take from 30mins to up to an hour, specially with jp parties. And that's not even counting that somehow I rarely got invites in less than 10 mins after putting my flag up.

(Although most of my invites came from players I'd already partied with before.)

So sadly no, even with my uber awesome RDM skillz 45mins still isn't close to being enough time, not even the couple of hours I usually had to play.

Ohshitihadanidea.

Oh... this kind of thing is already in the game - ENMs and COP battles. Only its not solo. MMORPG - work with people. God forbid, I know. You have 45 mins to solo as a RDM, you likely have 45 mins to merit as one.

Then you said...

Then this "SE fails" crap - it wouldn't be a Raydeus post if you didn't work it in. Sorry, but there are a TON of ways to get merits right now that you choose not to use. Instead you just sit on you ass and complain.

My point is, your point fails

You can't say my point fails if you can't even understand what I'm talking about. But then again I'm still learning english so my current skill probably still isn't enough to communicate with crazy people.

But someday.

And my gear plays my job for me? I practically get all the melee gear a RDM does and use it better for COR, my performance is hardly as phoned-in as yours probably is. Haste and Refresh and Cure, amirite?

RNG - as if you even knew anything about being RNG.

And you don't.

Then you'd know a lot more goes into it than gear. The gear is just pretty much free. There's a reason for that - I pay assloads of gil elsewhere, just like COR.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about when I mention your ability to miss the point by that much distance. But I'll just keep enjoying the show.

Hint: Irony at it's best.

What, solo? You don't have time to party, but you do have time to do the same half hour or more boss fight every few days, either solo or you've got to find a group to go in with? I personally happen to find half-hour boss fights to be one of the most annoying parts of single-player RPGs. They're just one of the ways that RPG makers artificially inflate the time it takes to clear a game, right along with forced encounters every 15-30 steps.

WHMs will not be your friend if you make them have to solo something like that. That is specifically why Maat has special victory conditions for WHM.

Yep, solo. It would be an option for people who can't or wont party, but it definitely wouldn't affect players who enjoy parties or have the time for them.

And you are right, because merits and other activities are time sinks created to extend the life of the game, which works awesome when people has a lot of time to actually play (even though you are actually talking about the fights in single player RPGs). But once you have an hour or two to play things change dramatically because just muling alone can take a big chunk of your playtime for the day.

I personally was never able to do anything in game that didn't take at least a couple of hours, except for Campaign. So no, 45mins or even a couple of hours were never enough to party as RDM, so campaign became the only sort of ok option for me.

And that's not even counting the headaches I'd get with pickup parties.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Forthcoming Job Adjustments (i.e. vague developer details from JP button)

Furthermore, it hasn't been meaningfully adjusted in years, which gives the impression that the devs are either unaware of the issue, or don't mind having one style of play privileged over others (and jobs that fit that style well privileged over jobs that fit it poorly, especially for merits which can be earned on any job).

Pre ToAU was enormously better balanced and everyone knows it - especially the jobs that don't want to turn back the clock because they benefit from the current imbalance.

SE seems well-aware of the trend since they've only added things to facilitate it even further than before. As for things being more balanced before ToA, I think it was just balanced in the direction of the few rather than the many.

Its not a great idea for one set to be favored over another, but no matter which way you tweak it its going to end up that way just due to human nature.