If YOU Could Be A Developer For The Next Year...

That isn't what the discussion is. It basically is, why bring another DD? If you can bring two BLUs and not waste GEOs entrust on indi-haste.

Because other DD's do more damage. Just because people are stupid and will only bring the FOTM job doesn't mean nerfing it is going to fix anything. They'll just bandwagon onto the next FOTM job.

Make your own groups. Know which jobs can do good damage. Take them. Profit?

I think the problem is people have gotten so lazy at this point that they're unwilling to bring proper buffs. And on top of that nobody buffs up other melee, so if you don't have self buffs you're SOL.

The main reason to play BLU is because people are lazy and do not buff melee. Period. People are still going to take BLU even if you nerf MG because they're lazy, or they don't want to bring one of the gimp haste 2 jobs. How about we buff the jobs that can give haste 2 so that they aren't such a hinderance?

It has been that way for a long time. PUG mages generally are really bad.

Even if they nerfed BLU, it wouldn't change me playing it. Played it since it came out, no AF. Same with PUP, even when it was C H2H.

I think if they got rid of mass dispel spam it'd open the door for more melee jobs too. Like I said, people are too lazy to play properly, so they sure as hell are not going to continuously re-cast haste when it gets wiped every 15 secs. Pretty much all of endgame right now is incredibly unfriendly to melee, so the niche picks are obviously going to become meta. That is SE's fault for not tuning it in a way that is fair to all job types.

The reason there is little GEO nerf talk but lots of BLU nerf talk is very few people are career support players, and almost everyone is a career DD of some job. BRD absolutely needs a total reworking, they need to take out some of the 5-6 tiers of spells, offer 2 tiers and then a way to unlock Honor <song>. Say for example make there two Minuets, then Gjallarhorn can be Honor Minuet. Then make two Minne spells and make Dhaurblabla give Honor Minne, then make two Madrigal spells and make Carn give Honor Madrigal. A bard with all ultimates should be just as powerful, if not slightly moreso, than an Idris GEO.

GEO being so strong (and far more fun because it does have the DD potential as its side role as opposed to BRD which only sings) is seen as a good thing as it has more people playing support which allows others to play their desired jobs. In a way it's beyond perfect because it allows an easy role to jump into for new players.

GEO competes with RDM/BRD/COR, kinda, for party slots, and they make up 2-3 members of each party. BLU competes with WAR/MNK/THF/DRK/RNG/SAM/NIN/DRG/DNC and you generally only bring two of that role in a party, and the current setup makes it highly useful to bring a 2nd BLU if you have a 1st BLU.

Yes, GEO is OP, and they need to buff the other support jobs to match (BRD buffs as I said above, COR should get a 3rd roll, and RDM should get Haste scaling with enhancing so that they can give 45% magic haste with Haste 2) but BLU blocks a whole lot more jobs from content than GEO does, which is the bigger issue.

Again, a lot of people in this thread that brought up blu balance plays other dps job with good gears, or have friends play other dps job with good gears. The point that was made weren't about blu dps, but haste bubble configuration, accuracy and defense.

I've seen top end none blu dps outparse middle of the road blu several times, I've outparse bad blus on lolcor several times. I'm aware play blu doesn't suddenly make a player win every single parse, that doesn't mean Im going to pretend some advantage that blu has is pretty huge especially when making PUG. The extra acc means the gear requirement is lower. The extra DD bubble could be used for more DD or defense bubble, the list goes on.

Although it's true that a lot of blu onry shout shout for blu because they are biased, but IMO they are biased because blu has certain advantage for a while.


BST as a DD doesn't really matter in melee dd discussion. Some content favors melee and some content favors bst. The situations that favors melee bst can't compete with melee for a pt slot. A fully hasted REMA melee ws every 5 sec with massive white dmg and sc dmg, bst aren't going to ws as fast without sp. I don't see how bst setup can do SR or levi VD spam faster and more efficient than melees unless someone prove me wrong.

Dps in FFXI is more about strength and weakness, and use whatever setup works best depending on content. Mages don't get hit by aoe but needs someone to start SC and are useless against mobs that doesn't take magic dmg. Melee gets hit by aoe but they can ws faster than other type of dps when fully hasted and acc capped. Ranged dps doesn't get hit by aoe but they can't ws as fast as fully hasted melee. That is strength and weakness - certain type of dps excel at certain situations and vice versa.

Thus when discussing melee balance issues it only make more sense to discuss blu v.s other melees. Bst, rng, cor, blm, sch shouldn't be involved since they are NOT going to be preferred dps when content favors melee.

And when blu is competing with other melee, a middle of the road blu takes less dmg than middle of the road war while both doing same lv of dmg. A top end blu takes less dmg than top end DRG while doing same lv of dmg. IMHO, that's not exactly balanced because blu, drg and war shares same dps category, when content favors melee blu gets picked more often than other melee because the job itself negates melee dps's biggest weakness which is survivability.

What happened now is that people keep bringing up bst, rng, cor, sch and blm and use content that favors those job as an example to anti nerf, when those job aren't being used in melee friendly content as dps to begin with....when is the last time you see people shout for cor or bst x3 for levi VD spam?

Are people exaggerating the seriousness of blu balance issues? Maybe. Considered it's being mentioned more often than other job balance issues and blu having more advantage doesn't really break the game. I still think blu as a melee job has more advantage than other melee though and it's legit to discuss about it.

"People being lazy" doesn't justify certain jobs allows people to be lazy though. People will go for least resistance in MMO and jobs allow people to be lazy = unbalanced.

Also bringing haste buffs for other melee is dps lose considering that buff slot can be used on other dd buff.

When played properly, BLU is a hell of a job. With MG, Cocoon, White Wind for 1k+ to everyone. But, most BLUs just diffusion MG and spam CDC. So, sure BLU is OP in a career BLUs hands. A lot of jobs are like that. Hell, even RDM is a hell of a DD if geared correctly. Issue being more gear than job(same with COR).

Mostly, I think it is just overblown because what people are doing with melee now really is just Ambuscade and mostly irrelevant things where you can win with pretty much any job as a DD.

Probably not the right person to even discuss this anyway, even though I am a career BLU. Mostly refuse to join PUGs, and am on White Mage more than anything.

I definitely agree that blu as a melee doesn't break the game in melee friendly content. I think the issue is that for average geared player thats still gearing up, using blu as a dps makes ilv 135 stuff easier... it's easier to get required acc to hit stuff, especially with extra bubble when not using haste. It's easier to survive for people not comfortable with pdt- or hybrid tp sets, and less work for healers with avg skill at whm etc.

People that plays their job at top end lv that can comfortably hit everything and stay alive are minority, blu makes majority of players life easier that's why it's being bandwagoned.

Remember when you brought a job for the enfeebs it had rather than what buffs it had?



PEPPERIDGE FARM REMEMBERS!

Every thread always ends up being a discussion-debate about BLU.

Developer for a year >> Job adjustments >> nerf BLU.
September 2016 update >> changes to the game >> nerf BLU.
Random thoughts. What are you thinking? >> Couldn't get my DRG in a party >> nerf BLU.
Suggestions to improve FFXIAH >> admins make sure threads are on topic >> nerf BLU.
Politics Trillary >> MAKE MELEES GREAT AGAIN >> nerf BLU.

I would add evade animation
(as barrel rolls)

I wonder if that means there's an imbalance regarding a certain job.

What I think is that BLU is fine as it is, and GEO definitely op but it needs to be (to some extent) to make people want to play it.

So what i think is they should incorperate the far east tenzens homeland (which would be resienjima) to the game like a non escha version and then they should give certain jobs PVP based traits,
SAM NIN PLD and DRK, and basically make these jobs excel in this pvp like event where the far east battles aht urghan and or visa versa.
and likewise make it to where BLU and GEO is totally useless in this content, but there power level stays the same elsewhere.. really i think this would be a good way to make the community more diverse

really as a main brd I think SAM, 2 handers and NIN needs a buff more then BRD does,

Nobody does PVP so buffing 4 jobs around that content wouldn't make more people play them.

I'd throw one hell of an event with a good back story like something about impending doom then at the end of the event put in a twist and pull the plug on the servers.

Personally, I hate the idea of "Because a job performs well it needs to be nerfed" No, the ones that perform badly need to be buffed.

--

Anyways, I'd add a type of Job Mastery Which would require you to perform certain feats to gain permanent buffs for the said job, a few examples would be:

RED MAGE

Defeat Maat★ as RDM without using trust NPCs. 0/1
Reward: RDM: Merit Group 2 Max. Total +5

Defeat VD Ambuscade while playing as RDM. 0/5
Reward: Composure: Haste +1~5%

Buff allies 1000 times. 0/1
Reward: Enhancing Magic Duration +10%

WHITE MAGE

Defeat Maat★ as WHM without using trust NPCs. 0/1
Reward: WHM: Merit Group 2 Max. Total +5

Cast Regen on a party member 1000 times. 0/5
Reward: "Regen" +3~15

Heal allies 1000 times. 0/5
Reward: "Cure" Potency +1~5%

Dark Knight

Defeat Maat★ as DRK without using trust NPCs. 0/1
Reward: DRK: Merit Group 2 Max. Total +5

Deal 100,0000 DMG as DRK. 0/5
Reward: Double Attack +1~5%

Deal 10,000 Damage while under the effect of Scarlet Delirium. 0/5
Reward: Damage Taken -1~5%

Clearly everyone hates BLU.

Well, the options are:

Buff every single job individually in a way that will increase their damage and defenses without altering any other job.

or

Nerf BLU. If needed, buff all DD to compensate.

One is a whole lot easier to pull off than the other.

If we were in a balance scenario where 2 jobs were tops and 3 jobs were behind, then buffing those 3 jobs would be the better option for the most part. But we're in a scenario where 1 job is at the top and 9~+ jobs are left behind. Any sweeping buff for those 9 jobs would only serve to buff the 1 job in the lead, so you have to either target 9 jobs individually, or reduce one individually and buff for overall.

BLU has always had buffs over other DD, and once they got CDC they were on par with other DD as well since Abyssea. BLU has always been the job with some of the best defense while still maintaining offense. It has always had these benefits, always. It seems the issue comes from MG and the simple haste buff it gives when a GEO can do the same thing with entrust. Entrust spells are naturally just weak, it doesn't hurt much using indi-haste. The damage output of certain other jobs has already exceeded BLU in certain scenarios. People are just bandwagoning and parroting each other to get a nerf to BLU.

BST still puts out the same DMG it did before and they even low man certain high tier Escha NMs that BLU could not even touch (prior to nerfs.) Nobody talks about them anymore because everyone thought it was nerfed into oblivion after the last adjustment, which isn't the case. At this point I don't even care, hopefully SE doesn't listen to these retards. If they do nerf it then hopefully I'll get to see the ridiculous bandwagon die and still enjoy playing my BLU.

Since Abyssea there's been a lot more AOE damage to your general melee, of which BLU excels at reducing, and that's actually one of the major roadblocks to a lot of content, keeping the melee alive as you go. BLU makes this very easy, requires less from support and still outputs solid damage.

You're right in that bandwagons have taken this to an absurd extreme and the job isn't as OP as the community seems to perceive. But this happens to every job. When weapon skills got major buffs and everyone flocked to Rudra's I was not a fan but at least SE came in and nerfed things a month later. BLU was being called to be the bandwagon job in that thread I just linked and has basically been the melee bandwagon ever since that time...and I wasn't even on Asura at the time! That's way too long to have a single job at the top of the pile. Also interesting to note in that thread it claims the reason jobs get bandwagoned is survival as much as damage (Monk HP, SAM TE/Defense/whateverSAMdoes, etc.)

Another thing to note is one of the major reasons people are anti-nerf are because old school SE overnerfed. Well, I don't think the Rudra's retuning or BST change ruined those jobs, so that might be less of a concern than before.

This presents a huge problem. If they buff other jobs to match BLU, there is going to be 1 job that is inevitably better than the others. That job will end up as the new bandwagon. SE will then need to rebuff the other jobs to match the new bandwagon.

This will continue onwards and the game will start to experience massive power creep. It's far better to decide on an average strength they want for jobs and just balance to match that, whether it require jobs to be buffed or nerfed.

On another note, speaking as someone who works as a developer + programmer, It's very interesting to see the ideas people have come up with. Though I will say that there are a lot of things here that would either be impossible with FFXI's current infrastructure or would just take way too much time to actually implement. Fun to think about though.

Personally I would consider the following:
1. Continue QoL updates. (the first of which being allowing you to trade multiple of the same items for the new JSE cape augments).
2. Make adjustments to timed spawned abyssea nms which cause needless competition when farming for empyreans (possibly make them spawnable).
2a. Makes more sense to have players spend time accomplishing goals, rather than competing for a single 15 minute timed spawn for the sake of -maybe- getting a pop.
2b. i90 empyreans are weak now. Getting the weapon to a usable level still requires 1500 HMPs which means either alot of time, or 150mil (using Asuran prices).
2c. Add a new RNG weaponskill called "Asuran prices". Hits eight times. Damage varies with the amount of gil you've spent on ammo in the past week. HueHue.
2d. This would probably drive the price of HMPs up a little bit and possibly have people actually going out in groups to do VWNMs... thus partially revitalizing old content.
3. Address job balance. NOT ONLY BLU.
4. Officially endorse the use of windower. Define guidelines for the creation and use of third party tools.
5. Allow for more groups to be in ambuscade at once.
6. Balance certain REM weapons and weaponskills to be in-line with the strength of the other REM weapons. (Looking at you empyrean scythe).
7. Add Pluton/Beitetsu/Bolder as a reward from the SKCNM20 fights. (There needs to be more motivation for geared players to do these fights aside from just more Rem's tales they don't want/need).
8. Change the utsusemi icon to just be a big number showing the number of shadows you have left.
9. Other stuff.

I disagree here, the major roadblock isn't the AOE dmg(especially after the nerf and where people use tanks) but the aoe status effects that are crippling to ALL DD. Then you have the fact they weren't able to hit ***above 135 reliably and that is a major concern for any DD. SE recently patched this and people are testing the waters, it doesn't demand that you use BLU only due to their defensive benefits though. The group that has done it publicly has shown to be using other DD and not just BLU. There are other DD that deal MORE damage than BLU and can outparse them, a BLU wasting time casting cocoon when it isn't necessary is just a DPS loss.

I do agree with your other statements. The rabid bandwagon mostly stems from jealousy and misinformed parrots. BST is still in the same position it was before but a slight "nerf" caused it to fly under the radar due to the idiots. Hopefully something similar happens to BLU if they can't ignore the parrots any longer. I'd love to see everyone shove off BLU onto some other job that everyone will cry to nerf. I'm honestly annoyed that nobody ever complains about GEO or BLM(more so BLM due to damage dealing) when those reigned for a good year. DD meatheads will meathead.

Skjalf would make update to Unity gear that allowed the player to add 2~3 augment stats from massive stat pool.... yes! Let the player pick from any stat seen in the game previously and add it to any piece of Unity gear. ^^

I would work in a very limited F2P system, such as EVE is doing now with Alpha Clones, in order to bolster the active player count.

Perhaps the original six jobs, locked subjobs, and level 99 cap, but without the ability to use ilvl gear. Allow access to expansion areas, to promote sales from old returning players. Maybe even not allow them to use trusts, to keep competition against paid subs down, or severely limit it to where they start with the ability to only summon one, and gain +1 from RoV KIs. Oh, and also IP lock, to avoid people abusing multiboxing with free accounts.

This would bring new life to the game, but also grant incentives to keep paid accounts a thing, since there would be many perks. WoW has the "play to 20 for free forever!" to keep their lower content filled with cheap and curious players, which also allows them to still chat and interact with others, and EVE now has the Alpha Clones in order to help fill the game with similar players. Both systems are stacked to encourage subs, and as XI's major competition over the years, I think Vana'diel would benefit from such a system.

Seeing as that would take time to implement and work out the details, the immediate thing I would work on is job balance, since I'm not Blizzard, and feel buffing jobs like MNK and BRD back into use is never a bad thing, even if they are overbuffed and bandwagon status. That at least promotes diversity in play, on top of pleasing paying players, and not like any jobs they outshine are going to magically be unusable.

Server merge would also be a thing, but there is value with some worlds having less than 1k active players at any moment, meaning just smashing some of the least played together, while leaving ones like Asura / Bahamut alone. Still keeps the $18 a month hop fee enticing to unsatisfied players, while having options of "Do I want to be able to do things with minimal congestion and competition, or do I want to play with lots of players?", since choices are paramount in design.

I agree about having unity leaders having trust options beyond joining their unities, since that system has been horribly handled in practice, compared to what it was thought of in design.

Empyrean and Ergon weapons would also see some QoL adjustsments for obtainment, because even though they offer great power, there is clearly a larger time investment for those compared to Relic and Mythics with the current design of XI. For Emp, possibly increasing the amount of drops obtained, and for Ergon, bayld needs an increase in either ways to obtain HP Bayld, or just general bump in how much players can obtain. With the playerbase expected to thin over time, with the remaining players hitting a certain point of gear quality, E&e should be just as easy to obtain for dedicated players as the other options in the game. The underlying issue with E&e is that they were designed based around the playerbase, while R&M have been adjusted to be obtainable by a single person in a reasonable time period.

In April, I would release a patch note stating BLU has been nerfed, and leave it up to the player base to determine how. And every time someone complains about it being OP, I'll have the community managers direct them to the patch note stating BLU has been nerfed and perfectly in line with the balance of the game.
Oh, and because I can, I would have log in campaigns where different colored AF armor are options, and have them level 1. Stuff like maybe green RDM armor and black Paladin set, just harmless fluff for points.

Last bit would be pushing for some kind of media to generate attention for the game. Maybe a 12 month mini-series detailing a new adventurer's journey through the game with either comic or edited videos, concluding with the last one reaching RoV's finale / endgame, in order to remind players of their own growth, as well as that of the game, since this would be during the 15th anniversary from what I'm assuming. Maybe set it up with a quote or something along the lines of, "Even though Vana'diel was saved from complete destruction, our adventures never stopped!" and let people speculate.

Not as amazing as others, but I'd like to think that at least a few of these could be considered and implemented in some fashion with current XI.

I'd make the following adjustments to Monstrosity (since everyone seems to forget that it exists and it's content with massive potential):

1) Gradually implement the rest of the families, starting with Undead, Demon, Dragon and Arcana

2) Implement party mode. Monipulators can team up in the Bellingery zones at first. More zones to party in shall be added every consecutive update.

3) More zones to roam in:
- Quicksand Caves
- Attohwa Chasm
- Boyahda Tree
- Ro'Maeve
- Ru'aun Gardens
- Kuftal Tunnel
- Oldton and Newton Movalpolis
- Pso'Xia
- Arrapago Reef
- Grauberg [S]
- Vunkerl Inlet [S]
- La Vaule [S]
- Xarcabard [S]

4) Once a monipulator reaches level 90, you unlock UHNM (Ultra High Notorious Monster) status. Lame name but go with it :p
This gives you a massive boost in stats; more or less the jump from level 99 to 119ish that characters got. This also adds Adoulin zones to your list to fight in.

5) At 75+ you are able to earn Merit points and at 99 you are able to earn CP. If the monster is two jobs, it will only earn CP for it's main job. Traits and abilities earned with CP will be applied to all monsters that share the same job. (for example if you have tier VI nuke spells unlocked then all level 99 BLM main monsters get it)

6) Add a ton of material rewards to the monstrosity content. These can be bought with either infamy or prestige. So even if you don't engage in the PvP aspect of the content you can still get these. As for what these rewards can exactly be; I was thinking about rings, necklaces, earrings and ammo items you can enhance.

7) Add a new bellingery zone. This will only allow access to level 99 UHNM status monsters. Gladiators slain in this zone will earn you double infamy, while being slain will earn gladiators double prestige.

8) Add key items you can buy with infamy that will provide various bonusses:
- Infamy gained+
- Infamy lost when defeated in a PvP battle decreased
- Prestige gained+
- Increase the amount of HP gained with regen effects
- Increase the amount of MP gained with refresh effects

9) Various monster fixes:
- Make BRD monsters able to sing 2 spells. A third when the colibri instinct is equipped.
- Give SAM monsters the abilities Seigan, Sekkanoki and Hasso.
- Add two unique traits for Monipulators:
> Determination. Spells are less likely to be interrupted. Tiers are gained at level 25, 50, 75 and 99. About 50% natural resistance at level 99.
> Acceleration. Increases movement speed. Tiers gained at level 15, 45 and 80. About +20% movement speed at level 80.

I have even more ideas for Monstrosity but I think I typed enough for now.

I have aeonic, relic and empyrean daggers afterglowed. HQ lustratio and adhemar. When do I get to be OP like BLU's? At least at 75 cap I had my crazy evasion to give me some awesome survival. Evasion is dead now.

Well duh, even mobs have lowered evasion these days.

Announcing a new feature as dev for a year! Aging characters to complement the aging playerbase!

Paladins, remember how easy it was to swing that Almace around and block every physical attack with Ochain? Too bad, your character's back is suffering from all that gearswapping over the years. Good luck hobbling in time for an event! Enheavy is the kind of feature Tanaka would give a promotion for.

Also, everyone gets white hair. Already have it? I think we have a shade of white to make it look white.

So THF is somehow a support DPS, but BLU is not? A job that can AOE heal, AOE erase, AOE haste/defense/regen, AOE stoneskin, is not a support job worthy of the same gimpness THF is apparently plagued with? That's such a *** argument.

I am in no way unhappy with my THF, I'm pretty *** amazing at it and can accomplish a lot. But BLU is stupid OP, it's obvious to everyone, except maybe those career BLU's that magically come up with reasons for why it's not (none of which ever hold weight).

I do not hold issue with BLU because of my job, but because it's simply unbalanced. As I said in the other thread, I thought Rudra's should have been nerfed and I was happy when it did. When my job got too powerful, I wanted it toned down. The same should be done with BLU.

Part 2 for what I would add / change to Monstrosity:

10) Give each monster some emote commands. These aren't new animations, but just triggers for the various combat animations monsters can make. Think of weaponskills, attacking or casting spells. The commands would be simple, like /monemote1 through 5. Added to auto-translate at some point. This gives monipulators a little bit more immersion.

11) Fix the fact that every single monster is always a she. Monsters should always be the same gender as your character unless it's obvious that your monster is female. (sheep and lamiae for example)

12) Instincts that you unlock for a monster should be auto-equipped. It makes little sense to equip Buffalo III when you ARE a buffalo. These instincts are still equippable for all other monsters. The three unlocked instincts don't take up any slots; instead they will be highlighted a different color in your instinct list (gold or something) to indicate that you have the instinct(s) unlocked.