Damage Number Bloat and Boss Enrage

[KageTokage]

I do kind of prefer enrages like AS8's where the boss just spams ever stronger AoEs until you die as opposed to the more common type where they just instakill you after a few ramping-up AoEs.

[HyoMinPark]

I would rather see more soft enrages where the boss just starts to overwhelm the party with increased amounts of AOE damage after a certain point as opposed to either of these. Especially the 50% boss heal whatever thing.

[Xlantaa]

Defense already reduces the damage by percent. Just we cannot see that percent, only the defense value. A defense of 6000 it is around 27% damage mitigation.

[LeoLupinos]

Defense already reduces the damage by percent. Just we cannot see that percent, only the defense value. A defense of 6000 it is around 27% damage mitigation.

Yes. But do monsters have it?
I fail to see that since the damage I do to a Lv 1 monster is the same as a Lv 80 monster.

[LeoLupinos]

I can think of nothing more boring then seeing my numbers go down, then go back to where they were as I gear, at the start of a new tier. Like, what worse feeling is there then going backwards and working hard to... Deal the exact same damage you were dealing a few months ago.

It's basically the antithesis of the feeling of progression.

Yes, indeed. What do you suggest then to counter this problem?

I was still thinking overnight. But If they balance this by only affecting Bosses and not monsters we will get the feeling that the bosses are getting stronger,, and monsters weaker instead that we are being just the same. And even so, Bosses can have different Defenses and Max HP to avoid this feeling of "the same formula". So, for bosses is the "tier" damage with some variation, and monster/overworld big numbers.

[LeoLupinos]

By re-balancing stat values to have a much more gradual increase instead of the current increase rate.

Which just happens to be what Square is doing. The purpose of the change is 2-fold: First, likely because their system can't handle larger numbers. Second, clarity. Adding an entirely new, entirely background system doesn't do the latter. It's over-solving a simple issue.

By reducing the increase to a more gradual one wouldn't it affect the feeling of "reward" of upgrading ilvl, resulting in a bad thing? For example, tanks are already complaining about their damage, reducing the increase even more would be bad.

Other FF games have this type of system, and there is Jobs that have the role of reducing it to increase the damage for everyone. Since it worked there, could work here, as I suggested for Healer Jobs.

It's indeed a simple issue, but carries a complicated feeling into it, because the feeling of progression needs to stay there, while the numbers need to stop increasing indefinitely.

So, by suggesting that only bosses get Defense atribute we can still feel progression dealing with monsters that have none to low Defense until the boss, and get to it having a feeling that the boss have a huge Defense Stat, or just some.

[Jaelommiss]

I would rather see more soft enrages where the boss just starts to overwhelm the party with increased amounts of AOE damage after a certain point as opposed to either of these. Especially the 50% boss heal whatever thing.

This would be a nice change from the current "long cast bar for instant death" that we have everywhere.

If it's implemented similarly to Voidwalker's Quietus phase (lethal hits every 9 seconds) then the determining factor becomes how the party coordinates mitigation. Surviving an additional hit or two means an extra 9-18 seconds. If it is akin to Titan's Tumult (small hit every 0.8 seconds) then healer performance and efficiency becomes more important. With how spiky damage and healing is I'm not sure if it would be possible to implement it as something that builds up at a constant rate over an entire fight to gradually exceed healing output.

While they're at it maybe add phases could be changed so that lethal damage occurs at 70% and sufficient mitigation allows the party to survive if they're a little bit slower. As currently, 99% on the gauge deals irrelevant damage and 100% is instant death with nothing in between. I'm a fan of the continuous damage spectrum we get from the tiger in Byakko and Nabriales in Hades Ex. A hard limit isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does get very repetitive.

[LauraAdalena]

When they announced for ShB that they were revising the damage calculations, mentioning that big number are starting to be a problem, I seriously thought that they were going to introduce Defense as a new stat, to reduce the damage received by a %.

Why would they? there already is. It's at the very top of the tooltip right under "(Total:#)".

[Stepjam]

I can think of nothing more boring then seeing my numbers go down, then go back to where they were as I gear, at the start of a new tier. Like, what worse feeling is there then going backwards and working hard to... Deal the exact same damage you were dealing a few months ago.

It's basically the antithesis of the feeling of progression.

I believe they did say that a number crunch was in the works. Not this expansion but perhaps 6.0 or 7.0.