Dev Tracker - Discussion

Oh look a wild troll appears.

Saevel use's Troll-be-gone, it's super effective!

On another note.

The current meta with SMN is

LS mercs Aeonics using SMN's. Uses profits to buy HQ gear and fund REMA's. Other players farm REMA materials and craft HQ gear to buy Aeonic wins from SMN LS. Neither is actually playing the game, the game is playing them.

A troll because you don't have a good answer?

Basically.

SE surely could realize that vast amount of Nirvana's being made either they don't take or don't want to look into it. It's like they don't play the game or something...

Honestly SMN isn't the problem but the support structure of the game itself. People have always been about efficiency (look how popular BLM was at so many stages of the game). Think back to Kirin, we used to kite for 15-30mins killing w/ BLMs, then the melee strat came out and we zergd it in sub 1min. But we were limited to farming pops & having CORs available to reset.

Now Ambu is free to enter with no lockout, and with the exception of WoC you can just buy whatever pops you need. Couple that with MMM/abyssea resets and it just trivializes the time commitment. Imo the problem isn't with the job but with how easy it is to just kill/reset/repeat. If you nerf SMN you will just have one other flavor the month/year job pop up.

If SE wants to fix it they need to change the mobs, not the jobs. Boost the base HP of the mobs so that mechanics have to be dealt with. Want to use SMNs, go ahead but better be able to deal with everything else as well. Maybe other strats will pop up.

A nice sentiment, but it just moves the goal posts. Good SMN setups can do triple the damage needed now, and if you start looking at tripling the HP you're just ruling out other groups.

The answer is to fix SMN, nothing else comes even close to that level of spike damage. If another job manages it, that job can be adjusted as well. Much easier to change damage output on a job than make meaningful tweaks to every meaningful fight in the game.

No surprise, this is coming from someone who just geared up SMN last month to hop on the bandwagon.

Just change which fights are meaningful.

i.e. create new content

The problem with changing jobs is that SE is historically terrible at it. Either they nerf something into the ground, or they make a buff that is too weak.

They think putting a new mob in Ambu is new content though...

Meanwhile at SE.... the team is hard at work making sure the new monthly mounts look right and the characters ride them without clipping through the mount.

Yes, if the game had limitless resources, adding vast amounts of new content that marginalizes AC until nobody cared about aeonics would be a great way to solve it. As is, they're struggling to create anything that people are interested in, and likely have a two man part-time developer team.

Just because they've done nerfs and buffs ineffectively in the past doesn't mean they should rule it out as an option. There are numerous simple ways to solve the problem using job adjustments and the resources they currently have, while we all know a spurt in content creation is not coming.

All they have to do is add a cumulative resistance to avatar damage, similar to the BLM patch. Done, fixed, SMN is still useful for drawn out fights.

Vast amounts of new content?

The entire game revolves around one zone, and 8 fights.

So basically one zone, and 8 fights and the problem is fixed.

Doesn't even need to be a new zone, reskin something like zi'tah and ru'ann.

Adding another gaes fete zone with 8 mobs won't be enough. It needs to have comparable usefulness to aeonics, needs to be balanced enough for people to be challenged yet able to complete it, and needs to not look like a thrown together piece of ***.

You drastically underestimate the difficulty involved in creating meaningful content. Adding a second set of HELMs by itself changes nothing. Adding much more powerful gear makes creep more of a problem and mandates new updates on a similar scale. Adding weak gear just means the content goes the way of master trials.

The solution is to nerf SMN, as much as we want more content.

Nerfing SMN at this point is not going to get more players playing, it'll do the reverse because unilaterally taking things away always gets people's backs up.

Take away conduit burns and those who've already used it will still retain every advantage from doing so, "pulling the ladder-up" after they've had their fun is just a giant FU to latecomers or hold-outs.

Penalizing those with the most left to do whilst leaving folks with virtually nothing to achieve in a position of greater advantage does not strike me as a good idea for a game in its twilight years.

I am oversimplifying, but it doesn't need to be overcomplicated.

I'd be fine with an adjustment to SMN, but I know they'll just completely destroy the job and we'll have another MNK.

I'm not pissed that they only update the ambu mobs as my expectation are really low at this point but the fact that they implement some *challenging gimmick (e.g. barspells this month or frog hammer based on buffs) to then have the option to completely prevent them with AC-burn. Their only development for the whole month is totally pointless and their devs just wasted time; may as well just have the ambu npc give you HM/gallantry after 30 secs of dialogue

They need to promote them to the XIV team, since maybe then cash shop Carby won't look so weird on non-potatoes and could even have something besides generic HW mount theme for the $24 it commands.


That would be the best the current team can do to make any meaningful impact, since all those Nirvanas can still have a place on the battlefield, but not bring about obscene stuff like Deathga or other rage-like mechanics to counter pets as a hard counter to current strats being employed.

Just wait till they put hallmarks and gallantry as logon on points....it's a matter of time !

The reason they use gimmicks is because that is lazy game design. They don't put any effort into Ambu. They spend as little time as possible. If they actually put thought and effort into Ambu you wouldn't have to use a gimmick to win.

For repeatable stuff like Ambu it should be accessible to all jobs. You shouldn't need SMN or BLU or whatever to do it on VD. It should just require a 6 competent people. There is nothing wrong with simple straight forward fights. Most people don't give a damn about the fight it is about the hallmarks/gallantry. If you are going to make people repeat it on any difficulty it shouldn't be a gimmick or trick to win fast.

What this game really needs is a round of server merges, because right now there are basically 2 games: Asura and everywhere else.

All I'm saying is if SMN gets nerfed your just gonna see shouts asking for AG'd WARs, which can average 40-50k reso's. Your solution is to just remove the viability of a job completely instead of fixing the root of the problem (fights don't last long enough to get to any real mechanics). You'll be replacing one zerg strat for another. I would love to have more job diversity, but that has never been the case in the entirety of this game. In my opinion if you can find a way to make the fights last long enough to deal with mechanics, you very well may still have the same group setups as now, but at the very least it will be more challenging and not faceroll.

And if your using my defense of SMN being a result of me having just geared it up to bandwagon, my gear is pretty trash tier, and in fact my group has used melee for quite a bit of content (Albu, WoC, Ou, etc).

They should have done this years ago. Certain servers average 300 that is just way too low.

Some of us have always wanted that AG'ed WAR, because it means there's a place for their BRD friend, a good WHM acquaintance, and another spectacular DD, in addition to the GEO, COR, and TANK that your SMN burn needs. Enjoy your SMN, and believe it or not most of us still want SMN to be a viable job, just not a win-button job.

And pretty sure I've seen Comeatmebro point out multiple times the in-game financial commitment that SMN requires is pittance compared to gearing a DD...I know if I see an appropriately geared melee with the various sets you need to function in today's world of HELM/etc (TP/high acc/high haste/DT/multiple WS sets to name a few)they have taken the time and truly care about the job. An AC-burn SMN can be geared effectively with a fraction of the sets, and I look at them like I look at people with a roll-only COR on their main- its just working with a fraction of the job's capability to abuse a mechanic, rather than developing the job and getting the most out of it. Only difference is what that half-assing SMN results in- burning down a vast majority of the remaining endgame content in under 2 minutes.

I disagree. While there will always be the best and such the margins are much smaller and can be variable on most the other DDs. On top of that people are quite willing to kill 5% slower because that makes no real difference. People are a lot less willing to kill 500% slower with buttloads more danger

The whole point is moot if you are on a time-zone/server like ours where shouts are rare as rocking-horse sh*t, and have been like that for months.

On low-population servers having a job as strong as SMN is a positive thing.

Wasn’t the last dev thread locked because of this smn talk spam?

You're missing my entire point. These fights need to be about completing the specific facets of each mob, not about changing which job kills it quickest. For example, my group completely destroys Albumen as PLD (or RUN) GEO BRD WAR SAM WHM. We kill it before the second round of adds spawn most of the time. WoC can be done the same way, you just try and kill it before it Benes.

Do you think that is how SE wanted these NM's dealt with? Rush to kill it so you don't have to deal with any of the challenging aspects of the fight? Replacing SMN with WAR changes nothing (and rest assured that's what it would be, why would a PUG take any other DD when they can just shout and find an AG WAR the same way they shout for Nir SMN), when an AG War averages double the WS dmg than an AG Sam. And good luck getting any thfs, dncs, blus, nins, etc involved when they get completely outshone.

They can nerf smn in to the ground and literally not change a thing because the fights will be handled the same exact way 90% of the time, kill it fast enough so that you don't have to deal with it.

And if they want to adjust the enemy's health or some other thing about it to make fights actually hard while simultaneously nerfing SMN I'm fine with that, but the underlying problem is with the enemies more than anything else.

Let's take this example into completion. If SE wants to stop zergs, all they have to do is add a strong cumulative damage resistance. For example, if the monster takes 5% damage in under 30 seconds, it will develop a 15 second damage immunity starting at the point it hit 5% taken. Thus, your fastest possible zerg time becomes like 7 minutes.




Great, no more zergs and tons of job variety.

As a result, nobody except the top notch most coordinated groups of each server can still kill WoC, Teles, Albumen, Vinipata, Kirin? Meanwhile, those groups still kill them easily.

I'd be fine with that, I don't think it'd be good for the game though. I know a lot of people wouldn't be fine with it.



Now, as is, every person who levels smn to 99 and grabs a specific set is able to complete an aeonic easily.

I don't think that's great either.




But wait, what if there were a middle ground? If you nerf SMN, but leave everything else the way it is:

Every person who has basic job variety, uses proper sets, takes the time to organize a good job spread, and coordinates their strategy effectively is able to complete an aeonic easily. Zerg strategies are doable with pickup groups, but still require you to select effective members and coordinate your strategy. Take that away, and PUGs are pretty much out of the running.

Still baffle me all this butthurting over how others play their payed game, look that guy clear ambush in 30sec while i wipe over and over, nerf him.

I feel played by Saevel :x but that's a whole different discussion. Carry on the 'why SE should nerf summoners' talk.

FFXI is a multiplayer game, meaning how others play directly impacts how you play. It's not a complicated concept.