Dear Square Enix..Follow

It is different because the "laws" of the game are literally mathematical functions that are constantly being adjusted by the game developers, and if the laws aren't having their intended affect, then they need to be changed.

Imagine if you could have a dial that controlled gravity. And for some reason you accidentally set it so that it was extremely hard to even stand up. You wouldn't just leave it that way and say "let's just crawl around instead of walking". No, you'd adjust the dial so gravity had its intended affect.

This is how video game laws work. If the function doesn't work right, you tweak it or change it. The hate system used to work very well (or at least way better than it does currently). Changes to the game over the years have thrown this system out of balance and they tried to account for this by updating jobs and creating new gear attributes etc. But the system has just gotten way out of whack, kind of like an engine with a bad timing belt. It runs, but not very efficiently. Rather than leave it broken, why not fix it?




Edited, Jan 4th 2013 12:22pm by ChaChaJaJa

The thing is Enmity has always been broken. It is just way more pronounced now. DD's have always been taking hate, but instead of needing 6-7 minutes to do so, it is happening in the first 2-3 minutes, or even less in some cases. The overall difference really between then and now is how the content works.

Back in sky we could get away with having some DD /THF to help boost the tanks enmity early on and give them a large buffer that took a long time to close otherwise, we could do this because our overall damage output wasn't required to be optimized to complete the content and progress. If a fight took half an hour because you had to keep turning DD's away from the mob, or allow tanks to establish hate leads (such as RDM building CE for a few minutes before everyone engaged), but that was ok because we didn't get booted from sky if it took us a long time to kill stuff, we just were slow. As we progressed we killed things faster, we changed tanks from PLD's to NIN's because NIN didn't bleed enmity like a PLD and could provide stronger DD.

Like I said above in todays events everything is challenged by time, not content. You aren't fighting a mob in legion, you are fighting a clock. It is why we optimize our DD, we have to maximize output in order to complete the content within the arbitrary time frame. We don't have the luxury of progressing through the content and becoming faster as we complete it more often, we have to start at optimal. This is bad for tanks as we can no longer balance the fine line of enmity caps and generation. We can't bring the /THF DD's because we need that extra 20-25% capacity that /WAR or /SAM provide.

The way the top end events are designed limits our opportunity to progress and removes and real possibility for any tank to be effective. As long as we continue to be challenged by time limits and not content the effectiveness of tanking will be minimal at best. Outside of perhaps holding mobs.

But the problems have always persisted, the larges difference is not the damage increase, but the fact that we can't use our old tricks to help tanks out. Until we are actually fighting against content and not timers the glaring enmity issue will be right in our face. We had the same problems in Sky, hell even in EXP parties, but without time restrictions we could side step those problems to an extent, and the issue didn't seem to be an issue.

The enmity system has always been flawed, but game design really brings it out into the open now.

I agree with this 100%,perhaps then its the time extension that needs to be done away with?

Back when tanks were effective I used a rule no one else in the pt WS until after the 2nd voke, this allowed me to at least feel my cup first of hate before anyone else. It was VERY effective in holding hate. Not saying by doing this is a fix, just throwing it out there. You also have to understand WS in the game were meant to be used as a WS chain doing even more damage when combined with a MB, also balancing the hate in the PT. Now we all just go balls to the wall and its just chaos instead of party harmony.

Perhaps in the end Im just dreaming of the way the game used to be played, perhaps now we are governed by different laws than we used to be. I can not help but to think if we fix the no time and go back to the way we used to play it would help, if not fix the problem.

You have a awesome post btw, very well thought out.

And lazy game designers the world over just found their spokesperson.



You are referencing the meta-game; it used to be the way you say, but it changed, both due to players "figuring out" how to be more efficient, and due to devs in turn catering to this. Basically what you're suggesting will never realistically happen, since players aren't going to suddenly decide en masse to re-embrace the old meta-game.



Edited, Jan 4th 2013 9:14pm by Llester

Enmity has always been broken, on the simple fact that damage is the dominant basis of maintaining hate on a catastrophic level, meaning other methods such as curing or JAs just aren't as attractive as doing the most damage possible. This is major problem, considering that PLD shouldn't be outputting damage on the level of our top-tier DDs, yet their other methods of gaining CE (Flash, Cure cheating) is extremely inferior.

rdmcandie has a point when parties had "old tricks" to allow a PLD to tank, but PLD would've never gotten that far if it weren't for Atonement and Shield Mastery. Atonement was essentially free spike damage which allowed PLD to maintain control of the mob for longer periods of time. Joytoy and Shield Mastery allowed for PLD to gain TP really fast, especially since during that time, SE got rather excessive with Double/Triple attack mobs.

And even then, PLD wasn't exactly a requirement for any of the old content. It acted more of a safety net for alliances that weren't at the top-end and couldn't zerg down NMs. So even when PLD was at it's prime, it wasn't a top-tier job.

I do not really believe the designers are lazy, I mean after all through out the years they have did nothing but give us what we wanted. Seems to me they have to tailor to 2 different players. In fact I believe players are the lazy ones, first they hated grinding & wanted everything handed to them on a platter. I understand there are those who cant grind all day due to real life & I am not talking about those. I am talking about the AFKers who want everyone else to do the work for them. They wanted to deal out tons of damage and kill super fast, cause other wise it would cause them to think to much. Then you had those who love the challenge and like to work for what they have, so that everyone in Jeuno was not wearing the same Uber gear.

I do not want to speak as a whole, but no one works together in the game anymore, zero strategy. I feel the mechanics are there its just no one uses them anymore. Not saying the game can not use some tweaks for tanks, after all I have played tank job for close to 9 years. I am just telling what I have witnessed & that is the players are playing different, zero strategy. Have you even tried to set up a SC in a party these days, half of them have no idea what a SC even is and they are level 99.

Like you said tho, it will prob never happen again like it used to be or at least blending the two styles of play. For me I would like to blend the two styles, I love both styles of high damage and strategy. In the end tho i love this game and I love the community here.

Show me where I said "The XI designers are lazy". Also, the second part of your statement is funny.



Hey look, its 2004, back when people thought MMOs should be work. Its a game. Furthermore, its a service. We PAY for it. You aren't going to understand this I can already tell. If you're talking about just AFKers, idk what to tell you. Kick them?

Actually, its not much of a game or a service anymore. Its more a series of tedious, repetitive chores that people pay to do.



"I don't want to make broad sweeping generalizations but I'm going to follow that statement with a broad sweeping generalization" Also, you seem to be asking players to invent and execute complex strategy for scenarios where little to no strategy is required to win. Why should players do this, and how is this the players' fault again?



No one uses them because by and large they aren't implemented correctly. Players figured out years ago that there was a more efficient way of dealing damage, and stuck with it. Guess whose fault that is?

Seriously did you fall through a wormhole from 2004? I feel like i'm being trolled.

No they didn't. For years, in typical Asian design, they gave us what they wanted.

Watch The Hobbit.