Bored Druid Thread: The Next GenerationFollow

I don't know if it's because I'm using the XIV skin right now, but I only have the one box on the right.

Speaking of XIV, apparently they announced that the next job is a Dark Knight tank... and it has no class prerequisite.

That is beyond stupid.

Not the Dark Knight part. I'm a little miffed that it's a tank, because they don't have a "big weapon" dps class yet, warrior is a healing-centric tank (with an axe), and DK is traditionally dps.

But it's stupid it doesn't have a class connected to it. The whole thing of classes that "specialize" into jobs was always stupid and convoluted, but making it so that SOME jobs share class components and others don't just makes it confusing.

Like, both scholar and summoner use the base skills of the arcanist. They just have different summons and 5 unique skills each.

But then the DK is going to have 20 or so unique skills to every other class? Wuh?

And it also means that, if they want to add a greatsword dps class, they need to actually create a second item class of greatswords. Like, right now, there are cnj- and thaum- specific wands and staves.

I mean, I'd very happily see them get rid of the class system entirely. But mixing systems just sounds like a bad idea.

I don't think ARR is a bad game. I think the worst you can say about it is that the combat isn't that unique, the voice acting is rough, and the story uninspired.

I'm also inclined to critique the dungeon finder, the fact that they've yet to really do anything with crafting (despite crafting itself being way more fun than in any other game), and that stats scale too aggressively.

But these are pretty much universal critiques for MMOs. Some have switched up combat lately, but ARR is pretty much more traditional combat presented in a really clean, well-polished format.

And I don't really care that DK is a tank beyond the fact that they're doubling the "heavy weapon tank" niche without filling the "heavy weapon dps" one, and that the DK job is functionally different from all other jobs.

The game is gonna need more tanks, and there are only so many tanky jobs in FF lore that I can think of. And they introduced Nin as the more traditional melee+ninjutsu dps job, instead of the XI tank.

Honestly, I wish they had done the opposite - gone with Nin as a tank (even if that's an XI homage) and introduced DK more traditionally, but what can you do? The plus side of dps Nin is that it makes Dex a more valuable stat in-game (since only Archers use it right now).

Also, has Live View worked for anyone for more than ten minutes the past week?

In general, I'd agree that the impact on increasing tanks is WAY lower for each additional class. On the other hand, XIV's multi-job and content system really does affect that.

I would say that, if you're cap of players who WOULD main a tank is 10%, and the game has a wide diversity of job options, then 1 tank might get you 6%, 2 might get you 8%, 3 9%, etc. I mean, I always main tanks, but I didn't main a tank in WoW until they introduced DK, because I just didn't like Rage and, I mean, pre-wrath Pallies were pre-wrath Pallies.

But do I think monk had a huge affect on increasing tanking mains populations? Lol no.

But what it MIGHT have done is increase the population of people who had a sub role in tanking. And because tanks get faster queue times, and content (particularly in XIV) generally lets you gear an off- role fairly easily, having more tanking options probably does meaningfully increase tank population at lower content levels. Number of people main tanking the newest boss 1-2 months after the patch? Probably not. Number of people main tanking a boss much later in that content cycle? probably.

XIV is particularly sensitive to this, because people level one character in all the jobs. It's really easy to gear a second job to the point where it would be a perfectly acceptable choice for running your daily dungeons. But you still probably need to find the job fun for that to happen.

But I also think a lot of people play classes they like the theme of, more than any other consideration. Tanking/healing/dps is definitely a part of that theme, but I don't think it's just a decision tree where you decide your role THEN your class. I think it's part of the total package that makes you decide which is most worth your time.

Yeah, they're like that. I kind of like it myself, but I totally get why it's not for everyone

I missed this series:

Racism: Always wrong, often hilarious.

only a couple more days.

My phone and computer didn't change, so I guess so.

Like I could be assed to personally do it myself.

football starts at 8am for me this weekend

otherwise no change

daily light savings is dumb

It's making me particularly irritable. Waking up, pitch black. First 45 miles of my commute, pitch black.

I'm trying to muster the energy to go to the gym and all I want to do is fall into bed and wake up next weekend.

Drink a quart of water and pop a couple of Tylenols before bed. It might not directly give you more energy in the mornings to exercise, it'll make exercising less painful and you can eventually trick yourself into enjoying it more, which will in turn make it easier to convince yourself to get out of bed. After watching a pigeon murder another pigeon, I'm still a bit skittish around those winged rodents, and that's not even counting the paranoia. Never know how many of them they sent after me to assure my being quiet over the matter.

Edited, Oct 31st 2014 10:20am by lolgaxe