I hope that SE reads these...if not they should. How many companies get to hear what they customer base is saying on a daily basis.

Anyone who has any issues with the current changes and how it effects your game play, lets make some realistic solutions on how SE can fix them but still maintain the goal they origionally set out to accomplish.

The number one issue seem to be the difficulty to solo as bst master now, since you can not "leave" ou pet allow it to gain heath and then re-charm. The mobs will go away and return to spawn area.

There seem to be no logical soultion to stop these mobs from attacking other people on there way "home" other than recent changes SE has made.
However, there is a happy medium.
What if we were to make only the MOBs that aggro disapear and re-apear in there spawn but the non-aggro mobs will remain and slowly walk back to camp as before. This will allow BST to still use old methods of exping in certain area with certain types of pets.
Another solution, What if the job ability "Stay" would allow that MOB to regan heath while still under the BST control. It would be the responsibilty of the BST to keep his pet charmed and under control or it would vanish.
I am interest in hearing SE responces to these suggestions and any others that you may have.
Before this patch SE had a forum on the home page of this site to find our view on how to fix the MPK issue. Let us now have a forum for them to read, not for complaint, but for real constructive suggestion that will make game play better for everyone.

Yes indeed. BST make excellent DDs (and their pets too. Go Courier Carrie). I've partied with several. Just switch from solo charming gear to DD gear. Most high lvl BSTs have both anyway. At least all the ones I know do.

-Another pty job for Light SCs...wooohooo.
-A DD in the pty who can safely pull mobs w/o links. Can't think of another DD who can do this. SMNs can but their defense is about as solid as a wet noodle.
-BSTs have a variety weapons they can use like WARs (axe is their best weapon though) so SCs are not a problem.
-If a BST isn't pulling for the party then they are great for link management. <Charm>, run mob away from party, <Leave>, and then come back. Or if more than one links, <Charm>, send it to attack other while party kills main target. Yes XP will take a hit for that fight but a little XP gained is A LOT better than XP lost. Talk about a party saver.

At the very least, since jug pets don't kill xp anymore, team up and duo with a mage friend now. I've duod as RDM with my BST friend many times. It was always lots of fun but yes I could get better XP in a regular pty. If that isn't an issue anymore then let the fun begin. BST/WHM and RDM/whatever in a pty would rule. BST would get Refresh so no resting needed, Haste, Cures, better enfeebs on mobs, etc. With Blink and Stoneskin up RDM can even distract a mob long enough for BST to break out a new pet as needed. And since RDM won't have a whole party to worry about we can even equip what small variety of melee and DD gear we have available to us.

There are many many new possibilities for BST now. Instead of whining, telling ppl to quit whining, or making fun of ppl who are whining, why not help find new and exciting ways to use BST to our advantage and thus make the game more enjoyable for all.

So they're telling me that the seek member function is working properly but the help message is wrong? WTF! As a 38PLD I could give 2 sh*ts that there is a lvl 70 SMN looking for a party in the same place as me....

common guys its not that bad i mean yea your bread and butter is kind of taken away, but stop looking on the down side instead of pining over the change and trign to make SE bring back the old days
look to the future bst of the work you got your jug pet( i know some of you say its not good but hell looks you your jub pet can be a cheap version of a drg!)

i mean im a lv 14 bst and i wanted to take it to 75. so im in the hell lv stage but look at it this way. you got an axe and your axe skill is good no? START TAKING WARRIORS JOB IN PTS. lol now i know its kind of silly but if your sub war and have pet out so you still get 100% exp and get melee gear insted of charm/mind gear your a great dd idk bout higher lv but hell i did good dd with my bst

and you know when tere is no war lfg and we need a minstral axe thats you now.

BUCK UP BST your now pt materail welcome back the the hell we thf cal LFG.

im looking foward to parting with bst im sure it will be fun and good with them in the pt if we get a link that cant be sleeped BOOOYA charm 2hr it. lol you should be happy its time for a new type of fun you aint social loner bst ima start inviting bst asap PUT UP YOUR FLAGS!

i just started lvling bst...and its really fun...i ve partied from 9 to 15.....before the update...partying is fun with bst, and besides, i never even had leave and dont need it...so yea...BLAH! to the whiners, p.s. im currently leveling bst

Many people simpathized with Drg and rng when they got "fixed". However, the only people who seem to be upset about the bst change is bst. I would like to say that I feel bad, but the ability was abused. I am sorry that bsts can't see that, but it was. No one is agruing that fact.

So, I am curious to what bst would have thought might have been fair. SE changed your job so that you have to use a different strategy to fight solo. I am sure that it can still be done, and yes, my bst is 9, so it's not like I know or care. But I am curious what you think could have been done to stop bst from abusing the leave command. Bsts were given ample warning that something needed to change. They were given ample chance to act responsibly. However, (and I am sorry for the hundreds of bsts that did play responsibly that got drug into something they had no control over) people did not change. Issues still arose.

From a simple standpoint, SE is addressing what they consider their most important point of contact. You have to consider, from a business standpoint, technical support and GMs are expenses. The more money they invest in that the more money lost to them. If they can isolate a specific issue, identify and find a way to prevent users from having that issue, that means less calls pretaining to that issue, and thereby less cost to them. It is simply the responsible thing for them to do. Why expend all this money and resources on something that you can prevent.

So, now that they have stopped people from being MPKed by leave and zoned mobs, what next. Obviously they are going to get alot of calls and emails from bsts that don't like it. Which hits SE 2 ways. 1) Are the number of contacts by offended people greater then the number of contacts of people who were MPKed. 2) Will this continue to be an issue, and thereby being an unnecessary expense. The first question is most likely a yes. Initially they are probably getting hit by alot of people angery about the whole leave thing. However, much like drg and rng, in a matter of time, people will adjust and find ways of working around it.

This is not a bug, it is a fix. It is intended, and depending on SE's interruptation of how people take it, will (most likely) remain the same.

I do feel bad that you have to adjust to your job. I know how you feel, cause I had the same effect by players rather then SE. I wanted to be a nin/thf or nin/rdm. However, by the time that leveled my thf to 40 and my ninja to 10 I find out the only way I would get a pt invite is if I subbed war. And having spent weeks (literally) lfp because of the big rng craze as thf, I was not going to spend an eternity trying to lvl the one job I liked because other people wouldn't have me in their pt cause there was someone else who was "Better". I understand dynamics and adjusted to it. I solo as nin/rdm and pt as nin/war. It works for me, but that was not a nerf set down by SE, it was one set down by players. All the people who say that nin magic drops off at 60, all the people who say that nin is not a dd. All the people who go "My *** is better look at these parses..." It doesn't matter if it is SE or the mentality of other characters. You have to adjust your job to suit your needs as well as your abilities. Otherwise you will just be some poor grumpy ******* complaining about how things suck.

Such as the economy... Another thing people keep complaining about. I just made 300k off MH items I had laying around cause nobody farms low level ingredients and/or crafts them.

I think people have just got stuck in their multi-gillionaire ways and need alittle humbling.

And I am not refering to nerfing as the humbling event, I am talking about just (and not necessarily accepting) understanding things beyond yourself. Acknowledge them, and grow.

I see a lot of ppl telling BSTs "boohoo" with the above quote. I have noticed that a number of them r NINs or have a lvld NIN. Since they seem to be getting a lot of jollys throwing this quote at the BSTs who are taking exception to the job change, I have this to say to you.

Per many threads and information posted by SE a while back, NIN was not intended as a "tank" job. Look at the NIN AF gear. Aside from some nightime evasion bonus, you have ranged accuracy/attack, nightime movement speed, ninjutsu increase...Higher lvl gear with enmity and more evasion was not added til later. Lets face it NIN gear isn't high in defense. Does it seem kinda silly to make a "tank" job that is completely dependant on Utsusemi? Even a Galka or Elvaan NIN can get put in the red in a few hits when shadows are down.

NIN was originally supposed to be a utility job. Puller (AF boots at night good for pulling fast pursuit mobs), DD(NIN throwing tools + AF does ALOT of damage), Backup enfeebler(Ninjutsu spells use tools, they work better than MP spells on resistant mobs at times).

Utsusemi was intended to keep NIN safe when they pull mobs and when they pull hate (and if you use NIN the way its "supposed" to be, you will pull hate) while the "tank" reestablishes it on themselves. This is why SE updated shadows to shed hate a while back. Lets face it, how many THFs, RNGs, and WARs sub NIN for this very reason?

So don't flame or talk down to ppl because they don't like what has happened to their job cause remember...yours could be next.

P.S. Who is this "FFXI TSR Jereme" anyway? Is it a real person or just something someone made up to justify their putdowns?

Edited, Wed Dec 14 12:17:20 2005

Wow, I've never heard more complaining then I have on here lol. To the bsts out there, I'm sorry that they killed the power of the job. Bst had a great ability to do things alone, which doesn't seem to be something that Square Enix wanted to happen. By making it impossible to re-charm your left pets and having jug pets allowing you to lose no exp, It looks like they've made bst a job intended for partys like the rest of the game. I myself loved the bst job. It had its own flare that was set apart from the rest, and I see that SE has killed that for us.

For those of you who are happy that this has happened, and are telling these storys about getting links from bsts that get killed and the MPKing things. Learn to play the game. You obviously are {Too weak} to handle casting sleep on a mob. I understand that bats can be next to impossible to do this, but **** happens. STOP being little cry babies and learn to play the game. I know that myself and countless others have all experienced the same things you have, and yet we don't complain about it. We handle it. So if you honestly think that making this game easier and forcing bsts into partys is a "good thing", then you can think that. I know that you are n00bs and want to take the fun out of a great game. Your doing a fantastic job SE. Keep up the... work.

haha stupid me i cant read....

oh well

Edited, Wed Dec 14 11:37:59 2005

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/polnews/news6276.shtml

I experienced the Phuabo problem yesterday. We pulled one and it wasn't targettable, meaning my partner died pretty quick as it beat him up and we couldn't do anything about it. -1800 xp.

I'm an avid BST. At times I find it difficult and frustrating so I can sympathize with the typical complaints from other BSTs. I also realize that all that gear I was hindered from getting because of gilsellers MPKing me, is now more accessible.

Perhaps SE will devise some sort of delays for MOBs released from charm. Until then, I will just spend a little more Gil on jug familiars until something changes.

All other BSTs out there, yes I concur its a pain in the neck. Ever since the misprint in the first FFXI strategy guide about our pets affecting XP, we've had PR problems, lol. I just revel in my independance. I'll make it work...

43Bst/21Whm
43Bst-30Whm-21War-17Blm-(all other jobs lvl 15)

I love the rate-downs. Please do continue to hide your heads in the sand BST, pretending that this is all one big mistake. Some of the smart members among you will heed SEs word when they say:

My god >_>; Don't complain about BST being "Fixed" (In SE's eyes atleast).

Just think of it as a challenge. I'm sure you'll find out some new way to fight monsters oO;