Pick something you hated about a class in XI and express your hopes that it will not rear it's ugly head again. Then provide an alternative to meet a similar end. Go!



Do not bring back Utsusemi, or anything even close to it. If there -is- a ninja class, do with it what I believe Enix probably had in mind. A mix of quick melee damage and frontline debuffs.

Instead of using shadows as a way to completely avoid damage, (I believe Utsusemi was primarily introduced as a way to fend off a mob that was attacking you because you pulled aggro, not so much a way to tank.) instead make a way for the ninja to either drop their aggro completely, or whittle away at it over the course of a fight to avoid pulling the mob off of a tank.

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 1:10am by Zackary

THF- Sneak Attack- Trick Attack

I played as a THF, among other jobs, and was fairly good at it but over time I found these abilities more of a hassle (specially when coordinating with other people) than anything else. Sure it gave nice numbers coupled with a SC and it was cool to contribute with hate control when other classes weren't able to, but it sure made leveling and getting parties difficult until the 60ish range.

After 30-60 stretch THF had gotten a bad rep of not dealing enough damage (bad THFs) or needing too much support making it hard to get parties even after 60. I think a lot of players felt that way and SE decided to give THF some new abilities. I can't comment on how THF works now because I don't play XI anymore but I hope it's better and SE continues to work on the job in its incarnation in XIV.

Single target buff cycles.

Are you kidding me?

Taking away sneak attacks away from a thief is like taking away status-cures or curagas from a white mage. It is, among 'Steal,' the ability that defines them most.



As for me, I'll have to agree with Utsusemi. It was an interesting alternative to tanking, but let's face it, it broke several aspects of the game.


I wouldn't mind something similar to ZenshinSeigan, though. (Edit: never post when tired)

Paladin did have Flash, which was great, but it really could have benefited from a Provoke II or the like.

As for me, I'm going to state the obvious about Summoners and the MP drain with summons. I could see the MP drain being necessary if the avatars were decently hard-hitting, but not so much the way they turned out. Also the lack of a clearly defined job role essentially doomed the job to healerdom.

Spending the majority of my time as a Bard, I had little to absolutely no room (until the Mog Satchel) on account of my 20+ instruments I had to lug around. Here's to hoping there will be less completely situational gear for similar classes.

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 2:27am by Kirbster

Ninja:
As a ninja in FFXI I agree about shadows to a point. I think if they gave us some shadows but not make it nearly as effective, it would probably be fine. On the other hand, if they took it out completely I wouldn't cry over it.

My biggest "ninja" request for FFXIV would be make us more ninja like. You know the whole stealth/sabotage/assassin thing........ That is kinda their thing.

That being said, if "ninja" is not a tank (totally ok with that), make them have some purpose endgame. I mean don't get me wrong my lil taru nin/drk could tank the hell out of some sky gods. But have you ever seen a ninja try and DD on Kirin? Its pretty funny...... or tragic...... depends on if you are the ninja. Anyway, all jobs need an area of expertise at endgame, including ninja. Aside from sky gods, there were some other areas where I would help kite sometimes. However, for the most part especially in newer areas like any ToAU or Sea and most every other major endgame events, I had to switch to my ranger. While I liked my ranger, I wanted to be ninja.

I agree with this. If Gladiator is the new Paladin, it looks like they'll already have native hate tools, based on what I saw in the Gamescom video. I think they even got an AoE Provoke.

Also, one thing that bothered me in FFXI was inconsistent late-game JAs & JTs. What I mean is this: Warrior gets Retaliation at 60, Paladin gets Rampart at 62, and Monk gets Footwork at 65. Why not just make them all level 60?

Debuffing the mob so mages do more dmg! :D


(am I the only one that remembers NIN/BLM?)

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 3:21pm by shintasama

1. A job that's in way more demand for endgame than any other job (blm).

2. Jobs that are "lol..." for endgame (bst).

July 09. What's changed? Has SCH risen to fame?

@ Shintasama, I do remember nin/blm. It was awesome for mid level exp, some 40 Cap BCNMs, and a very few other areas here and there. But in ENDGAME activities like sky/dynamis/einherjar/sea completely useless. The small benefit that mages might have gotten off high level mobs in these areas was not worth a ninja slot. The blms in particualr would benefit greater with bard, red mage, and later corsair in their parties. If not that, then they would just add another blm. Leaving me with two choices: cheer from the sidelines or switch to my ranger. So don't get me wrong, I love the idea of nin/blm almost as much as I love a haste ninja build. However, taking nin/blm to an endgame event is just asking to be laughed at.

Now if you are implying that FFXIV should use the idea for ninja to enhance blms spells, I have no objection to it...... as long as it is effective. I was just saying ninja needs an ability that is very useful/in demand for endgame purposes. For me, it doesn't have to be a DD. Could be some kind of support role such as you suggest, or maybe they can do some lighter DD, but have an ability such as Angon (just an example).

Personally, I'd like them to use the ninja and assassin abilities from FFTA2. They appear to be decent DD that specialize in thwarting an enemies actions: paralyze/sleep/addle/confuse/blind/silence/stop/slow/bind/petrify. These types of abilities seem in line with a ninja, one that uses sabotage and underhanded techniques to help achieve victory. FFXI ninjas did a few of these spells, but on high level mobs they would either not hit(most of the time) or else last like 1 second. I say use the FFTA2 ninja/assassin model. The only thing I would change is get rid of the magic damage and step up the effectiveness of the disabling abilities.

Sorry I hi-jacked the post. Got a bit carried away there. :(


Edited, Oct 11th 2009 5:49pm by AmsaimSutavarg

Edited, Oct 11th 2009 5:50pm by AmsaimSutavarg

-yes-
idk +1%TA/DA per merit is pretty damn good compared to what some other jobs have available.

@Amsaim- I'm not sure what you're point is? W/O utsu NIN still had debuffs (elemental wheel as well as blind/slow/poison/para), and avg DD dmg via DW. A large part of you getting laughed in endgame at would just be because the "stigma" is that NIN are tanks and only tanks. Had utsu never been included/weaker I'm sure NIN would be played much differently. If you really put the effort into making a NIN/BLM endgame build you wouldn't do horrible dmg (whoo not having to rest for mp), and you'd be helping the rest of mages ("mage angon", particularly for stuff with high magic resistance). You don't need to be "the best" damage dealer to be viable.

I see what you guys are getting at, but let me put it another way. If there is a more effective job that can accomplish a ranged attack or debuffing, how many LS Leaders did you run across that would be ok with ninja filling those roles? And to be fair, I did state I would not mind not being the best DD.

You guys are technically right. Honestly, I think you are nit picking at what I was saying. I will retract the statement that other builds besides nin/war or nin/drk are useless in endgame. However, just because they CAN be used doesnt mean they SHOULD be used. As to both the nin/rng build and the nin/blm build I really did fully try both of these options. So its not that I half-assed it, and just excepted people looking down on it. After trying them out in endgame events, on several occaisions, I got results that were sh*tty to say the least. Thats not to say they were completely ineffective, but in most cases not effective enough to give me a sense that I was contributing.

Now, that being said, my opinion doesn't even matter. Whos did? My LS Leaders' did. The Leaders in my LSs were nice folks. Even though several others voiced their opinions about how much it would hurt more than help, they let me experiment. The end result was that while you guys are right that it was not completely ineffective, it was not effective enough to waste the slot on ninja. So baring kiting, blink tanking, and stun tanking, I was told to bring ranger. That basically ended up being about 90% of the time if we were not in sky. You are right about being good in a pinch, Zackary. I don't know how many times I did emergency Kiting, when things got bad. I am also damn lucky I had ranger, the other option was that they would have made me level black mage. Which I did not want to do. Hell, I even experimented with nin/dnc. It was fairly effective for a couple of Salvage bosses and doing nyzul isle runs. It was kind of a rare situational thing. Then again those events didn't have mobs of such obscenely high levels. They were designed for low-man groups.

Again, I am not opposed to ninja being a support job, or ranged DD for endgame events in FFXIV. And it is not a matter of it being "the best". It is a matter of it being effective enough. And if you honestly felt nin/blm and nin/rng were effective enough not to be passed over in FFXI, to each his/her own, and we might just have to agree to disagree. However, I challenge you to many find LS leaders that would be ok with nin/rng or nin/blm, if there were other options that could do the same thing better. I don't know, maybe you guys had small LSs that would more easily allow it out of necessity. My 3 endgame LSs were rather large though, so nin/blm was easily outdone by any Nuker or nearly any other support particularly Corsair last I checked. Nin/rng was easily outdone by a proper ranger or even a DD corsair.

Besides there are entire jobs that most LS leaders would never consider no matter the build. Bst anyone? That is not to say that bst was completely ineffective. I had a couple of bst buddies that would do a bst/nin duel wield axe set up with a called pet crab in rare cases. Their damage wasn't horrible, it was actually decent. However, it was only decent. Not good, not great, not the best. I think the LS leaders would have been satisfied enough to let him be full time bst with just good damage. Again, its not about being the best, its about being effective enough that the rest of the LS does not see you as a leech.

^^I don't want to see cycles of any kind, single or party, it doesn't matter. No Refresh, no haste, and no Phalanx cycles.

@ Zackzry: Yea man, I hear ya. Being a LS leader probably gives ya fairly free rain. When LS politics and competitive effectiveness come into play, people start getting excluded. And I want Bst (if its in FFXIV) to get some love this time around. I never leveled it to cap, but I always felt bad that they got left out. Funny side story though: My CoP group consisted of a Bst leader, 2 rdm, 1 whm, 1 thf, and 1 nin. That bst would tear sh*t up/ do emergency tanking/ kite.... you name it. I also loved the fact that he would constantly call Amigo Sabotender, never seen it in action since CoP.

Anyways, Back on topic. Let me expand on the thing I do not want to see the most.
No useless/looked over/ineffective classes for endgame. If they can not find a way to make a class competitvely effective enough to be of use in end game, then they should probably not make the class honestly. In FFXI, most every job with the right attitude and build could be effective enough for leveling. I partied with bsts, drgs, pups, etc. They all performed just fine in my opinion. For those obsessed with super high xp/hr, it probably would't be. The point is all jobs could be leveled in parties, whether they were well received or not. However, SE seemed to drop the ball for a lot of endgame activities in this area.

Next is Blm: No more "lets throw 18 blms at it!" strategies easy button activities. No offense to the blms, I love what they do. But you can't call that a strategy, and it ends up being unfair and restrictive. Towards the end of my time in FFXI, about half the endgame LSs were progressing towards blm army builds. And in many cases people would not get recruited, if they did not have blm already.

In other words, you want SMN to have an A+ staff rating and Spirit Taker as a JA instead of a WS.

Oh, another thing. Thief pullers. Hopefully, by the way XIV is looking right now, this will be an unnecessary mechanic, however if there are "pulls" in the game, give the ranger class a damned tracking ability this time. And I don't mean widescan either, I mean something that'll make them appear on a mini map of sorts, so that you don't have to keep opening the damned map to find mobs. It will allow them to effectively fill that niche, as well as make it seem more archerish.

Edited, Oct 12th 2009 7:09pm by Zackary

Ha, PLD is pretty Borke'D overall, but just because of the constant trying to trump Ninja. Went too far, IMO.

For Ninja: I believe the main concept of Utsusemi, !Twin, etc should stay, with the same functionality, but with adjusted effectiveness. I think they will probably keep it similar, but balance it by changing the scope of the game itself, rather than nerfing the skill (more AOE, different mob abilities, less linear fighting, more mobs in general at a time). I won't play Ninja without some kind of Shadow mitigation skill, even if it is not the best for tanking in the XIV environment.

Also, staying on Ninja, I'd like to have more emphasis on throwing for damage dependency. Throwing actual weapons as an (expensive) option, of course and making shuriken and other supposedly 'common' throwing weaponry more realistic for general damage. Nothing like old ranger, but just respectable.

For Magic Damage Classes, If they are going to be outparsed by melee DPS vs. Spike later on(which is not wrong, IMO), give a bit more utilities outside of damage and/or battle to the job. Stuff like Warp, tractor etc.

For melee in general: I agree, WAR was perfect. Many probably wouldn't agree, but I would like the balancing to be something like a Ratio Tier for damage potential to damage mitigation. Nothing set in stone, as far as numbers/stats (or even abilities), but a general basis. What I mean by this is, have basically 3 types of front liners; Tank, Balance and Dedicated DPS. I think they meant to do something to that effect for XI, but just no.

Now, stuff like WAR and MNK (just examples) could be in the balanced. Do decent damage and share tanking, since WAR can switch between protector and berzerk mode and MNK has counter and high HP. BUT actually make those traits viable, even if it lowers over all dmg potential, I think its okay. I remember at some point (I quit in 07) MNK and WAR were best for DMG in most situations and more desired because they were more efficient, do to easier mitigation (but I guess thats cause of utsu lol but still, high HP).
The DPS tier can be yer usual AGI types and maybe Fellknight, however they encorperate it this time.. since it's hybrid, idk thats a different story. Let them do the most DMG and die like paper mache like they should (with the usual abilities to avoid dmg and the like, like Hide, Jump, Evasion etc). I feel like DRG/Lancer should be in this AGI/DMG/Whatever tier. Seems hard to jump with Hauberk lol Im rambling now. Forget this post haha~

1. MP regeneration- in XI its soooooooo damn slow! When spell costs start escalating as we level, our ability to get that mp back doesn't catch up as high. It's the slow mp regeneration that makes mages unpopular to group with.


2. Defense calculations- stacking defense is pretty meaningless in XI. If it actually meant something, we wouldn't have to worry so much about blinking everything away with utsusemi.


3. Elemental staves- Sure, the idea of them is fine, but the fact that for a huge chunk of your leveling career, they're mandatory to get your spells to actually stick really hurts hybrid mage classes.


4. Spamming WS > Calculating Skillchains- I thought I read skillchains are returning. If so, they need to actually provide a benefit worth the effort put into making them. It doesn't have to be pure dmg, it could be buffs, enfeebles, maybe even AoE since SE wants to fight multiple mobs more.

5. Pet jobs being treated like 2nd class jobs- Let them be able to be buffed and supported just like every other class, please? Leaving them out just creates the mess you've made in XI.

::nudge::
"Leaving them out" of being able to be buffed, not out of the game.


Hate Decay - is something I actually want to see repeated, I'm just not sure it's such a good idea.
I've never seen it done successfully in a battle system that stresses fighting multiple mobs at once.

Even if you have a provoke-ga, there's still the issue that the mobs your not actively engaged with are something you'll always have a tenuous, ever slipping, grasp on. Marrying Hate Decay to Many vs. Many fights usually results in fights that end up only being about tackling multiple opponents for the Healer and Tank, the Damage Dealers just end up fighting multiple Many vs. One fights in quick succession. In order to allow some kind of Many vs. Many dynamic for Damage Dealers, usually what you see in these systems is a lack of Hate Decay, so the whole thing ends up being less of a Balancing Act and more like a Race.

But, still, there's something interesting about working with an ever-fluctuating hate line. I think there's a bit of finesse' involved, that I'd hate to see brushed aside.

I'm curious to see if they can't have their cake and eat it too.




Edited, Oct 13th 2009 11:14pm by Zemzelette

I'm not talking about leaving them out of the game; I'm talking about leaving them out of potential support. All classes should have an equal opportunity to recieve helpful buffs. Anything else just isn't good game balance.

What? Just because someone recognizes that a job has an unnecessary handicap means they can't find the job fun to play?

Seriously, why are you griping about this particular point? You could even expand it so it applies to all jobs. Mages have faaaar fewer and less potent buffs than melees do. Mages and pet jobs get faaaaar fewer options for effective food buffs as well for that matter.

Whyyyyyy? I thought they were so great when I was a Dragoon. Granted, I wish there were more to them, such as getting to put in a custom name, changing the color, and it changing in size. Why get a wyvern when it never grows past the baby stage? But as a pet job it was pretty great, and I have no complaints about the way they made Dragoon.

Anyway, for what I wish will change... Jobs like Summoner that originally required you to get to 75 before you could enjoy the job should stay that way. Summoner used to be an AMAZING thing, but then when SE changed things around it became just another job that you could get whenever.

Beastmaster should not be nearly as stressful as it was in FFXI. If they bring in a similar type of job with the ability to tame pets, which I hope they do, they should definitely not do what they did with FFXI. As if soloing wasn't already hard, having the mobs uncharm at random times was just tedious. No matter what you did it was likely that you would die when fighting a mob and your pet uncharms, and with the death penalty being so... death-like, that sucked ass. Also, when it came to endgame, no one wanted a BST and there wasn't really much you could solo yourself, because RDM/NIN could always solo it a million times better. So all the stress of getting to level 75 for nothing. It was a fun job, and I loved soloing and hated parties, but there were too many problems for me to fully enjoy BST the way I wanted to.

I agree with Utsusemi being taken out or changed. It was fun and all and an interesting concept, but it shouldn't have become an alternative to tanking.

The rest of my problems with jobs revolve around the screwed up party system that FFXI had. There was the "perfect" party setup, and anyone who wanted to enjoy the jobs outside of that perfect party setup was screwed over. Warriors were screwed over. Black Mages were screwed over. Monks were screwed over. Dragoons were screwed over. The list goes on. Why make a job, make it useless when people end up loving the job, and then just accept its uselessness and not try to do anything about it? The perfect party shouldn't happen in FFXIV, period. Every job should be a fun job to play and be useful to other players.

It all sounded good until the last part >: I barely got to use my avatars in FFXI; in FFXIV, I want them to always be by my side! But I'm guessing that won't happen lol

For me; I don't mind buff "cycles", I think it's a decent way to keep the support jobs busy and active. But I do think most (if not all) buffs should be AoE.

As for SMN; like I said, I just love using the summoned avatars that I've beat in battle, as much as possible. I'd also like to do decent damage in comparison to other classes. I can't really offer a whole lot of specifics except that I'm hoping SE scraps the FFXI system completely. I do think there's a way to make pet jobs work in MMORPGs.

What I would like to see is not something like class mechanics from FFXI not coming again, but rather "more" versatile Jobs in general. 20+ Classes with 2 being able to Tank in FFXI was just horrible, despite 3/4 of them being DDs...All I want is more "balance" between the jobs but still uniqueness to each job as well, so not just anyone can replace you in a sec. It's ok for some jobs to have some advantages, as long as each job got his own "special" advantage who comes in handy in certaim situations.

I would prefer(when FFXIV launces) something like this

15 "battle oriented classes"(so not Disc. of Hand/Land included)

- 3 Tank classes
- 6 DD Classes
- 3 Supporter Classes
- 3 Healing Classes

And with more Jobs coming with Add ons etc, at least 1 Tank/Supporter/Healing Class along with 2 DD classes max per Add On.

I am curious about the Disc. of Magic classes though...need some serious info about them in the near future^^

It's not really the element's fault more than the way SE made the spells. Element would be more noticible if they didn't assign higher base damages to the Thunder line of spells than the Earth line of spells.

I really hope that mage classes are more active this time, more casting, less resting, it's kinda hard to balance, it really depends on how the game is and we have very little information right now. Overall, I wish the game is more fast paced than XI.