How can tanking and healing be made more broadly useful in more "role-specific" ways?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

And to me, what you're intending is wholly a good aim; I just think it's going to require more than universal adjustment to damage rates or the design philosophy for future fights (and potentially revision to that of old ones). Because I haven't seen all the concrete suggestions intended to surround this idea, I can't say whether it will fall short, but I suspect it will end up feeling like it needs additional axis of control even after the tank changes for combat to meet the intended result.

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At the least, we'd need full job redesigns and encounter designs. It'd be almost a complete redesign of the combat system. I will make a post one day when I get some time, with a full mock up rework of the system I am proposing and the Paladin job rework simultaneously to give some additional context as well as an example dungeon/raid encounter. it'll be super long, but a fun read I think.

While I am at it I'd scrap positionals too (or fix the netcode to be as smooth as wows). Positionals coupled with the awful netcode is why they don't have a lot of boss movement, which I think is bad. Boss movement and space control are 2 incredibly important aspects of modern encounter design that FF14 just fails to utilize consistently or well. You can make DPS kits more interesting if you fix either of these issues.

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My own ideas on improving breadth and depth of role, however counter-intuitive it might first seem, was to actually put the effective tools of each role into the hands of anyone and everyone. That means that DPS have tools for mitigation on other's behalf and survival in their own rights. However, these would not be slotted skills; rather, they were given through universal undermechanics, tied into how damage and enmity would work.

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I'm 100% on board with putting more utility on DPS. It sounds like you're recommending what we call "personals" in WoW. These are cooldowns that you use on yourself be it for mitigation/utility, etc. I main a Retribution Paladin which is a melee DPS, but I have the ability to share some of my defensive utility with other raid members in addition to my own personals. It's one of the reasons I like the class so much.

I'm not familiar with the term "undermechanics" or how that relates to the discussion. More clarification needed here.

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What I'd suggest instead, therefore, is a revision to mob AI that allows for manipulation of enmity. Not only would AI be able to have non-standard modifiers, adjusting the way they react to throughputs over the course and conditions of a fight, but players could manipulate who receives that attention. Moreover, a mob needn't be limited to a single target or focus; a tanking player could potentially throw in additional threat at a well timed moment to distract a tail-swiping mob away from allies forced to move through its tail section when that swipe could be lethal, whether directly or indirectly. But moreover, enmity could be shifted between players through angular stacking, well-timed burst enmity during positional swaps, etc. I realize I'm not being terribly concrete, here, but while the patterns or total number of mechanics necessary make up only a short list (table, mode, conditions, focus), their implications and likely variance have filled up more than a page of my notes.

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To make sure I understand this correctly you'r advocating AI that reacts in game to various inputs. I.e. If a DPS pops a big cooldown and does a lot of burst, he "snaps" aggro, forcing the tank to respond by re-picking it back up?

Another example, could be, player is low on HP boss "recognizes" this and focus' attacks to try and kill the player, or maybe is granted a haste buff (attacks more frequently) until that player is healed over x%?

Am I understanding the core concept accurately? If so I would gladly support this (this lends gameplay credence towards Tanks, which I main).

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In addition to this, for damage to be raised without obligating a tank to a point that they feel like a gimmick requirement, there would need to be a way to distinguish between immediate and effectively cumulative damage intake.

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I felt that my tank paradigm covered this idea well. A DPS could theoretically soak damage for a period of time and a healer could even keep them up by rotating cooldowns, but the MP drain to sustain a DPS' HP would be very noticeable when compared to a tank. Not to mention DPS would lack the tools to sustain mitigation over time or threat which would make it a temporary solution at best.

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Ideally, I also wanted to tie this system into tools universally usable for external (suppressive) mitigation. To this extent, I would suggest a Stagger system, a percentile throughput system by which damage dealt reduces target outputs and/or increases intake via a continuously and dynamically fading penalty. Technically, this would be broken into applications of Force* and Pain* (*tentative terms), whereby Stagger is dealt via Force, which is a modifier off of damage, and fades at a rate determined by Pain, also a modifier determined by damage. This allows for synergy and coordination, increasing the need for focused and tactically spread pressure.

What this would mean on the player's end is that damage received would make it easier for yet more damage to be received, while also reducing the afflicted player's throughput produceable. This means that enemy attacks can be impactful without outright one- or two-shotting non-tanks, while tanks in turn see advantage simply due to the formulas for Stagger shared by both mobs and players, and because of their large HP pools and stacking ability for self-mitigation (rather than being limited typically to just suppression and avoidance).

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I'm somewhat opposed to this concept. I'm much more on board with the concept of wounded increases damage taken than I am with the concept of being wounded reduces throughput, but rather than a universal mechanic, I'd posit that'd be better suited as encounter specific (or even an "affix" a la WoW's Mythic+ system).

The reason I feel this way is that it wouldn't feel fun to the healer. You're in the hole and it's getting increasingly harder to get out of it. It should feel that way organically (which I think simply being low HP while still taking incoming damage does a good job of being fair, but engaging). Like I said though, I'm not 100% opposed to it and would definitely support a SEMBLANCE of this mechanic.

Regarding the throughput example though I'm not sold on that. It would feel very unfun much like old weakness did. It punished you so harshly that it wasn't fun.

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Consider what would happen if: (1) virtually all attacks were AoE, though still only the strongest were necessarily zone-marked, and (2) all AoEs faced cumulative mitigation — meaning that the damage absorbed by a first player reduces the damage done to the next, and then cumulatively to the third, and so on — or only struck the first in line, and (3) one (generally just tanks) could have a secondary, larger hitbox by which they intercept attacks that would otherwise hit any allied hitbox within.

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1) I'd need specific examples here as to why this relevant and what it represents. If the goal you're suggesting is to have the tank in front always while everyone is behind them how would melee DPS work or would they be expected to circle the boss and just soak the damage and be healed more often?

2) This mechanic currently exists in O4S. I would not be opposed to making it more readily used as well as tanks having more "Passage of Arms" styled abilities on shorter CD's that incentivized the notion of taking the brunt of an attack for a party.

3) Rather than tuning the tanks hitbox specifically, I think a better opportunity would be to tie the abilities to the hitbox.

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This doesn't yet begin to go into revisions to RNG mitigation (dodge, block, parry), new mechanisms like Guard or Cleave, or combo revisions, but this should at least summarize the relevant bits.[/HB]

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Blade and Soul did this extremely well (it's also hands down the best MMO combat I personally have ever experienced).

You had to time blocks and evades. You needed to time CC's and coordinate the type with other players to lock a boss down and interrupt a key attack or to do a mechanic (for instance one boss needed to be stunned during an attack, then launched into the air and combo'd up there while a wave of fire washed across the ground. if he gets hit he gets a damage buff as well as healed a decent bit. Everyone else on the ground needs to evade/dodge the fire wave.

As a tank main I would 100% support manual block (but I know A HUGE subset of the playerbase would be against this though.

I would also support a complete CC rework where you had to as a team interrupt/CC a boss.

Here's some detail on the CC rework:

1) Regular mobs can be CC'd as normal via DR.

2) Boss mobs have CC armor (similar to BNS/WS). You can't CC a boss whenever you want, only during specific attacks. If a boss has 2 CC armor they'll need to be CC'd twice in the time window or a job with more powerful CC will be tasked with doing it solo. A boss could have 6 or 7 or 8 CC armor, requiring multiple people to CC.

Every job has CC. Tanks have the best CC. Melee second best. Ranged physical third, and ranged caster/healer last.

Best CC could mean shorter cooldowns, more powerful (i.e. takes off multiple hits of armor) AOE, or have range. For instance tanks have very powerful short CD CC's. Melee would probably have short cooldown, weaker CC's. Ranged Physical might have long cooldown powerful CC's, and Ranged Caster/Healer might have long cooldown ranged AOE CCs. Just spitballing here.

You wouldn't be able to CC every attack. You'd have to pick and choose which ones where the most dangerous at a given moment which would then change how the encounter played out.

I.e. you could interrupt more tankbusters, which would smooth damage out on the tank letting them push DPS, but not interrupting a ranged AOE attack that destroys a part of a platform could be bad, unless you were close to killing the boss, tank was low and you didn't want to risk them going down.

I feel like it would be a boon to more organic/dynamic gameplay. If tank is low and healers are low on MP, tankbusters could be a bigger threat than a single add spawn/voidzone. Alternatively, if the boss is almost dead, but you're running out of room really quickly due to mechanics, interrupting that type of ability would better serve you.

I'll put this here. I love FF14. I really do. I love the world, the lore, the characters, and the style, but honestly, the gameplay just isn't that good. It's very pretty for sure, and the encounter design is pretty clever and fun, but like going on a rollercoaster. They're all pretty fun, but SOME just do it so much better. If I could remake the entire combat system I'd support it.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

I'm actually surprised I've not dug into this thread sooner tbh, it's a pretty important topic all told.

It could definitely (and probably already has) be argued that part of the blame of this lies in the combo of heals being incredibly potent and non tanks being incredibly squishy vs boss attacks. However, I wonder if this could be mitigated if SE were willing to shake up their encounter design somewhat.

To simplify what we have now, your typical garden variety FFXIV boss will usually consistently autoattack whilst following a scripted sequence of special abilities with little variance. Key points of damage are usually rather predictable leaving healers and tanks free to stretch themselves thin in safety whilst spamming DPS to fill in the very large gaps.

IMHO this often leads to rather tedious encounters if the designer doesn't force a bunch of movement in with the scripted abilities (Compare A9S with A10S for example) and I also feel that plain jane auto attacks are also a bit of a wasted opportunity as well. Having auto attacks proc additional cleaves and aoes would do wonders for preventing us from simply throwing a medica II up and ignoring the fact that the raid as at 20% for the next 20 seconds as is frequently the case now.

It doesn't even have to end there. Everquest had a rampage mechanic where the boss would have a secondary target and randomly pummel them as well as the MT. FFXI had a wonderful gimmick where large 4 legged mobs and bosses were able to attack with any limb without the need to spin on the spot. Dragons didn't visibly spin around when someone pulled agro, they simply and subtly kicked away at them. Given that SE had that 10 years ago, it has me wondering why we don't have Dragon's hacking and kicking away at the raid around them in 2017?

There's so much potential to make bosses both mechanically and visually more exciting that's wasted every time we get some goliath thing that simply sits there firing laser beams and parping a rocket out every 30 seconds (</3 A4S).

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I'd have loved to seen your input on my thoughts on the post. They can be found a page or two back or on page 2.

I don't have much insight on yours because I largely agree with everything said.

Going to move through this bit by bit and edit progressively.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

At the least, we'd need full job redesigns and encounter designs. It'd be almost a complete redesign of the combat system. I will make a post one day when I get some time, with a full mock up rework of the system I am proposing and the Paladin job rework simultaneously to give some additional context as well as an example dungeon/raid encounter. it'll be super long, but a fun read I think.

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I look forward to reading it!

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While I am at it I'd scrap positionals too (or fix the netcode to be as smooth as wows). Positionals coupled with the awful netcode is why they don't have a lot of boss movement, which I think is bad. Boss movement and space control are 2 incredibly important aspects of modern encounter design that FF14 just fails to utilize consistently or well. You can make DPS kits more interesting if you fix either of these issues.

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I'd be fine with seeing positionals scrapped, and even happier to see them reworked, but I don't want to create any precedent by which to ignore the issue of the game's occasionally poor netcode or inconsistent implementations that would feel like netcode issues. Now that the server hub is a mere 200 miles away (though somehow still higher ping than any of my other MMOs, at 35-55, up from 15-35), I can finally play at a point where if I was out of an AoE just before the circle disappeared, I'm not going to be hit, but there are a number of oddities in our net code, as arbitrarily early snapshotting by bosses, or how ridiculously slow Galvanize is to take effect, or varying release points within animations across abilities of seemingly identical purpose (Benediction at the tail of its animation, for instance), that continually throw off a sense of intuitive timing. Positioning in particular seems to be an oddity, as I've had times where I've been dead certain I timed a skill right, only to see, very clearly, that I did not receive the positional bonus, as if the boss had not snapshotted/checked its position immediately before the queue, queue-release, animation-start, damage-release, animation-completion, or anywhere else you'd typically expect.

I feel like a lot of these issues with positioning in particular though, can be saved by adding a secondary "best of" check, and revising mob turning to look more natural, though, and I'd very much like to see such attempts before entirely condemning the possibilities for positionals and their future uses.

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I'm 100% on board with putting more utility on DPS. It sounds like you're recommending what we call "personals" in WoW. These are cooldowns that you use on yourself be it for mitigation/utility, etc. I main a Retribution Paladin which is a melee DPS, but I have the ability to share some of my defensive utility with other raid members in addition to my own personals. It's one of the reasons I like the class so much.

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I actually kind of meant the opposite in this case. While I don't mind the idea of giving out more personals, provided they can be used integrally and satisfyingly enough, I want ultimately to give them more axis to interact with these things through mechanics to which anyone and everyone has access.

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I'm not familiar with the term "undermechanics" or how that relates to the discussion. More clarification needed here.

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Undermechanics are those mechanics that basically just don't pop up in tooltips. They're not buffs, or debuffs, or damage types (though they can be assigned to a given damage type). Positionals, for instance wouldn't be an undermechanic per se, but the division of a hitbox into separately checkable elements of front, flanks, and back would be. They're the framework, upon which other mechanics or strategies can be built. For instance, someone else mentioned a (under)mechanic by which you take and deal less damage when distancing yourself from your target/attacker, but deal and take more damage when charging them. That range and direction-checking system would be an undermechanic, and it's things like those that I feel XIV could hugely benefit from.

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To make sure I understand this correctly you'r advocating AI that reacts in game to various inputs. I.e. If a DPS pops a big cooldown and does a lot of burst, he "snaps" aggro, forcing the tank to respond by re-picking it back up?

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To a degree. I remember writing out a framework to Sandpark for every undermechanic I think would be necessary to generate interesting and diverse mob scripting / AI, but I haven't been able to dig it up as of yet. Let it suffice to say that you simply have a table determined by mob type that assigns multipliers to various throughputs (similar to how healing usually sub-multiplied to generate less threat/enmity relative to damage), but wherein additional throughput types have been added, such as mitigation (personal, external, sabotage, intercepting, or theoretical), where those types may vary based on whom they were applied to (saved the guy I most wanted to kill = you're next, or maybe even the new first), and the current enmity table or certain other triggers (e.g. %HP or %target HP or average enmity-to%HP) can adjust those multipliers. It would require a fairly robust set of undermechanics, but if made modularly, it could be reduced for the majority of mobs while still allowing for a comprehensive spectrum of behaviors.

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Another example, could be, player is low on HP boss "recognizes" this and focus' attacks to try and kill the player, or maybe is granted a haste buff (attacks more frequently) until that player is healed over x%?

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In this case it'd be more like they'd adjust resource expenditure rather than receiving an actual buff, unless that's something unique to the mob type, but yes, in effect, very much like that.

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Am I understanding the core concept accurately? If so I would gladly support this (this lends gameplay credence towards Tanks, which I main).

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Seems so. Let me know if you have any more questions.

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I felt that my tank paradigm covered this idea well. A DPS could theoretically soak damage for a period of time and a healer could even keep them up by rotating cooldowns, but the MP drain to sustain a DPS' HP would be very noticeable when compared to a tank. Not to mention DPS would lack the tools to sustain mitigation over time or threat which would make it a temporary solution at best.

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The effects should be similar. I just prefer universal mechanics where possible. Right now I feel as if the main issue is that DPS are nearly all-sustain-no-control in their mitigation, simply because they lack the tools. The suggestions below were meant to create a way by which burst mitigation is passive in as sense, but limited, such that non-tanks can tank without making the incoming damage then being negligible to actual tanks. They'd remain a very temporary solution, but now there's a reason to rotate them out, soaking and recovering (from Stagger), and the actual damage doesn't have to be down-tuned to make these interactions possible (and therefore it doesn't come at the cost of their true punishment dealt over time).

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I'm somewhat opposed to this concept. I'm much more on board with the concept of wounded increases damage taken than I am with the concept of being wounded reduces throughput, but rather than a universal mechanic, I'd posit that'd be better suited as encounter specific (or even an "affix" a la WoW's Mythic+ system).

The reason I feel this way is that it wouldn't feel fun to the healer. You're in the hole and it's getting increasingly harder to get out of it. It should feel that way organically (which I think simply being low HP while still taking incoming damage does a good job of being fair, but engaging). Like I said though, I'm not 100% opposed to it and would definitely support a SEMBLANCE of this mechanic.

Regarding the throughput example though I'm not sold on that. It would feel very unfun much like old weakness did. It punished you so harshly that it wasn't fun.

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Again, my wholly personal preference is just to have as much developed from the start as may be necessary for later interactions. I'd love to see a XIV Mythic+ then say "enemies deal doubled Stagger" or "Stagger is doubly effective", but I wouldn't want it to be coming up with a whole new system that isn't necessarily thematically tied-in for a specific piece of content or variant thereof. And clearly I do at least think this has solid potential to be beneficial to the game... as much as my explanations above may rightly leave that in doubt to others.

I see what you mean about this potentially inviting a gameplay "hole that you can't dig yourself out of" — easy to fall in but a bitch to get out of — which is something I've always tried to avoid in the past. I've considered as much when creating it, but ultimately it always seemed to come down to understanding of the mechanic and to tuning as to whether the pitfall was large enough to make the system unfun, and (just in the few calculations I've run in my head) that pitfall doesn't seem like it ought to be a problem -- not to say I'm not worried about it, nor that I'm not rechecking it constantly. The idea therefore is pretty spitball thus far, especially in terms of the offensive vs. defensive penalties of Stagger.

Again, though, the idea here is that the same mechanic by which DPS can suppress and aid in mitigation and focus down key enemies in a much-increasedly coordinated manner, those mobs can use on them if they're not careful. I don't wish this just to be a way to keep enemies scary while allowing non-tanks to contribute; I want it to feel like two-sides of the same coin, such that when you face well- or interestingly scripted enemies, it feels like a real fight, where the smarter and more coordinated team wins.

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1) I'd need specific examples here as to why this relevant and what it represents. If the goal you're suggesting is to have the tank in front always while everyone is behind them how would melee DPS work or would they be expected to circle the boss and just soak the damage and be healed more often?

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Without the package deal, it's not relevant. With the package, it allows for something we don't see often in this game — active dodging, outside of just particular telegraphed AoEs, albeit at cost to uptime. E.g. effective kiting/fleeing.

As for what it'd look like, just think of any attack from a non-tab-target game. They have to be AoEs, or at least (more clearly stated) angular attacks. Now, they may still only hit one enemy, but they always cover a specific angle relative to the user. That's what I meant here. As such, if you get in the way, you get hit. That makes mis-aimed tanking a bigger threat, but when something can still only strike a single target, it also makes interception a potentially huge deal.

To be clear, the suggestion isn't for tanks to always be between the enemies and their party-mates; it's simply to allow for tanking, by anymore, even when not one of the targets being directly interacted with (main target in most cases...), or where there are more targets being interacted with than you want to have be interacted with (...but potentially targets 1-3 when facing a three-headed dragon, etc.).

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2) This mechanic currently exists in O4S. I would not be opposed to making it more readily used as well as tanks having more "Passage of Arms" styled abilities on shorter CD's that incentivized the notion of taking the brunt of an attack for a party.

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Yep, and T10, I want to say(?), before that. I'm just hoping that if it can become a universal mechanic, then we can really play with the idea of interception, and possibly even fix SE's "AoE issues" just through its flip-side (so long as mobs can eventually have Defense, which then adds in the possibilities for Meltdown, Armor Breaks, etc. At that point we could just face the same progressive mitigation as they do, and that would pretty well solve the "mass-AoE issues" currently covered only by arbitrary and mismatched diminution tiers with a shared cumulative mitigation mechanic.) And hopefully we can make it respond a bit less laggily / wonkily / not need to snapshot so early.

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3) Rather than tuning the tanks hitbox specifically, I think a better opportunity would be to tie the abilities to the hitbox.

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I've gone like 4 different ways on this. My favorite idea was to include it in such abilities as Bulwark, Shadow Wall, or any other that sounds like you'd be doing something like that, but were that the case, I'd also want to pare down those CDs a fair bit. And, of course you can work from the reverse and have enemy abilities have hidden enlarged projectile boxes that take the "best of" (your perspective) hit. And you can have some attacks be affected by the hitbox enlargement and some not, or only be affected during those tank abilities (so long as it remains intuitive). It's all still very rough.

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Blade and Soul did this extremely well (it's also hands down the best MMO combat I personally have ever experienced).

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I agree. If only it didn't slow my movement speed unnaturally, I'd probably be playing it right now instead of any WoW/GW2/XIV. The Chinese-B-Movie-esque Main Questline did wonders for leveling, but the combat itself is what kept it so damn fun. It's also been a solid model, imo, for button-efficiency, but that's a later, merely tangential topic...

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Here's some detail on the CC rework:

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Running out of time, so I'm just going to throw out my own ideas on CC real quick. I apologize that I won't be responding to your technicals, here, but know at least that I've read them wholly.

I tend to try to work CCs into sets which naturally downgrade into each other in series.

Imagine that each CC effect (stun, silence, pacify, sleep, etc., etc.) has a natural downgrade. If you can't sleep an enemy with Repose, then at least you can calm it, reducing its total Enmity and dropping it out of an Enraged state. If you can't stun an enemy with a particular skill, then at least you can pacify it, or slow it. Even if the boss itself is immune to loss of control effects, loss of control effects can still at least affects it attacks, and if immune to skill-loss, then at least those rates can be affected. The effect converts, made less impactful in the moment, but potentially given expanded duration. Immunities cap rate of effect, or effectiveness, but not so much total effect, or effect over time.

Moreover, I'd prefer that these effects be given not in fixed percentiles and durations per ability, but by potency. This allows not only allows for a non-arbitrary system of exchange in that downgrading and allows a more visible effect to one's damage CDs and increases to relative potency elsewhere, but also means that status effects have to be dynamic values, similar to HP... which means they can stack. Player#1 tries to Stun Elite Mob#1, but lacks the potency to activate it through their resistance. That potency is then downgraded and gradually fades, indirectly giving a particular percentage and duration in Pacify or Slow (still considered latent stun even while sourcing the downgraded effect). But now Player#2 does the same thing, stacking his CC atop what potency remains before it's faded too far, and uses it to break through the resistance and stun Elite Mob#2.

(In my head, this all plays off the same backing code as Stagger, insofar as how resistance determines x % effect over y duration, etc.)

Additionally, though, I'd also like to allow for creative indirect stacking, which in turn allows for creative error.

For instance, let's say XIV could eventually take on the Launch and Smite (Knockdown) mechanics of FFXIII or B&S. What would determine one's resistance to Launch? Essentially, whatever's opposite to what outside factors would determine their resistance to Smite (Knockdown) — Weight — with Slow towards either end of latent potential. If they're Snared, that's pulling them down, meaning greater effective Weight. If you manipulate their Weight directly with Gravity, that'll Slow them and make them easier to Smite. If you enclose them in a giant, reinforced(?) bubble of water, making them bouyant, that'll Slow them and make it easier to Launch them. Aero III, Full Thrust, Inner Beast, The Forbidden Chakra, Shadow Fang... these skills would all have increased Launch modifiers (or rather, would convert very high portions of their damaging potency to Launch potency) to match their animations, while an outward-ing skill like Holy or Flare would source Launch if they're already airborne beneath them. In turn, skills like Skull Sunder, Power Slash, Butcher's Block, Rage of Halone, Tornado Kick, Whirling Thrust, etc., would be especially useful for Smite. More than that though, what about true Mass? Saturate the poor bastard, and then freeze that over to add Weight via Ice. Launch the guy skyward with Aero 3, Fire 3, FT, IB, SF, TFC, have your DRG jump up after him to F&C him a little higher while the BLM Triple-casts Flare, then let the Fists-of-Wind Monk join the Dragoon via a second ally-assisting Aero III and join his Whirling Thrust and the BLM's Blizzard IV with his Tornado Kick while the AST casts Gravity to send the poor bastard crashing towards the ground as quickly as possible for Relative Weight-based damage.

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...Short of all that, this is what I, too, would most want to see:

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2) Boss mobs have CC armor (similar to BNS/WS). You can't CC a boss whenever you want, only during specific attacks. If a boss has 2 CC armor they'll need to be CC'd twice in the time window or a job with more powerful CC will be tasked with doing it solo. A boss could have 6 or 7 or 8 CC armor, requiring multiple people to CC.

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If this had just been given earlier, CC waste couldn't have been given as an excuse for pruning so many skills. You can't particularly screw things up for others — because, say, stun DR is only affectable (stuns only doable) when stuns are relevant — but you still still have that feeling of coordination when you pair two stuns together. You get the calculations of "Can I use this for damage? Will it be back up in time?" without the "Stop f'ing stunning. You're not the OT."


EDIT: My god, there are only two posts on this page, and yet...

Like someone said about 2-3 pages in, Fights that aren't just make the boss die. Made me think of one of the encounters in ICC, which is a heal check.

I would make cleric stance were if used it stays applied at the cost of a gradual mp drain so you have to manage your mp more or other party members help out by refreshing effects to help keep effects up. Once applied all party member receive a buff aura if member hp is 100% they get a buff like auto attack increased by 2% just an example. If members hp is not 100% you get a small percentage of healing and the only way members receive the benefit is if you using your healers attack spells.

The effect for like auto att would also be on a very short effect like 8 seconds and wear off if disable or stop dpsing having to focus on healing more if taking big hits on party hp. /Shrug just a idea

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Originally Posted by Ayer2015

I'm sure it would end the 'healers must dps' threads

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All it would promote is wiping if people die. The only way to impact the healer dps meta is by making bosses actually hit harder and/or nerfing healing potencies. Since the devs seem terrified of ever making things "too hard" outside Ultimate, we'll never see that sort of change. They even tried to arbitrarily force it when Stormblood released and the community's response was "PLD/DRK until you fix that stupid WAR penalty."

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Originally Posted by Enla

This. The problem here is bad players, not a flawed system. If everyone is down or dying and the boss is almost dead, how is a debuff on the healer's DPS going to do anything to help? Even if you do implement it the bad healers will still try to eek out as much DPS as possible and leave you stranded because there's a fundamental disconnect in their minds between what's good for the party and what they themselves want to do. A debuff will only hurt the healers who can juggle both.

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Epitomizing this is the AST Hyomin and I had last week in Rabanastre. She outright refused to switch over to Diurnal despite having a SCH co-healer. She even claimed her shields wouldn't overlap because that isn't how "she plays." Ironically, when the DPS didn't immediately use LB3 on Mateus she wouldn't shut up about it. Basically, she couldn't care less about the party but just her own preferences. Now imagine this type of person in a system that punishes letting HP drop...

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I'd be fine with seeing positionals scrapped, (snip)

I feel like a lot of these issues with positioning in particular though, can be saved by adding a secondary "best of" check, and revising mob turning to look more natural, though, and I'd very much like to see such attempts before entirely condemning the possibilities for positionals and their future uses.

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Agreed.

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I actually kind of meant the opposite in this case. While I don't mind the idea of giving out more personals, provided they can be used integrally and satisfyingly enough, I want ultimately to give them more axis to interact with these things through mechanics to which anyone and everyone has access.

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I still think you can word this more intuitively, because I'm struggling to follow this.

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Undermechanics are those mechanics that basically just don't pop up in tooltips. They're not buffs, or debuffs, or damage types (though they can be assigned to a given damage type). Positionals, for instance wouldn't be an undermechanic per se, but the division of a hitbox into separately checkable elements of front, flanks, and back would be. They're the framework, upon which other mechanics or strategies can be built. For instance, someone else mentioned a (under)mechanic by which you take and deal less damage when distancing yourself from your target/attacker, but deal and take more damage when charging them. That range and direction-checking system would be an undermechanic, and it's things like those that I feel XIV could hugely benefit from.

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Ah alright, that explains it quite well, it's surprisingly intuitive when you think about it. While undermechanics are super important (and I'd be curious what line of work you are in IRL) you'll notice that I tend to focus on the "gameplay experience" rather than the underlying system design. The reason I do this is I feel that it's significantly easier for people to relate too, but in no way is meant to undermine your statements. I do agree with you wholeheartedly that more dynamic elements (aka more robust undermechanics) would go far for FF14 as a game.

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To a degree. I remember writing out a framework to Sandpark for every undermechanic I think would be necessary to generate interesting and diverse mob scripting / AI, but I haven't been able to dig it up as of yet. Let it suffice to say that you simply have a table determined by mob type that assigns multipliers to various throughputs (similar to how healing usually sub-multiplied to generate less threat/enmity relative to damage), but wherein additional throughput types have been added, such as mitigation (personal, external, sabotage, intercepting, or theoretical), where those types may vary based on whom they were applied to (saved the guy I most wanted to kill = you're next, or maybe even the new first), and the current enmity table or certain other triggers (e.g. %HP or %target HP or average enmity-to%HP) can adjust those multipliers. It would require a fairly robust set of undermechanics, but if made modularly, it could be reduced for the majority of mobs while still allowing for a comprehensive spectrum of behaviors.

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We're saying the same thing here so I think we're in agreement. Again I think you're focusing more on the actual design of the sub-systems where I am focusing on the experience that those systems subject a player too.

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In this case it'd be more like they'd adjust resource expenditure rather than receiving an actual buff, unless that's something unique to the mob type, but yes, in effect, very much like that.

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When I said buff I could have been more clear. I don't mean a literal buff visible on the bar. It could easily be a measure at which the enemy simply attacks/cast bar speeds up that we never see on the surface.

That said, there is something to be said about feedback. No visible buff/debuff would be somewhat confusing to the average player, BUT I firmly believe that 'figuring' things out, can be fun. I.e. That faster attack/cast speed triggering off anyone's HP being low. You'd have to be blind to not see the boss literally pounding away 3x as fast or dropping threat and targeting a low HP teammate. I don't see anything wrong with trying to figure out WHY a mob is doing that rather than reading a tooltip.

I'm out of time as well for today, I'll follow up sometime tomorrow. It's been fun discussing these ideas with you.

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Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline

I still think you can word this more intuitively, because I'm struggling to follow this.

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In WoW, DPS utility mostly comes down to CD skills like Cloak of Shadows in obligatory soaking situations, Blessing of Freedom when not GCD-locked (which is why you almost never see it in the new Legion rotations, especially in situations ST-heavy enough to take Fires of Justice), Stampeding Roar, and maybe Touch of Karma, Die by the Sword / Enraged Regeneration, in the few cases where interception is possible, but this leaves a couple extra design issues I'd rather not have to deal with:

For one, their value is highly situational, and for that not to disrupt their balance, the unique opportunity has to come at equal opportunity cost to more standard opportunities or throughput (such as Feint coming at cost of Energy, or Aspect of the Turtle / Deterrence / Iceblock to uptime, or Defensive Stance to damage multipliers), which limits their usability and therefore contribution to identity. It ends up a pretty sticky issue from either a point of view of satisfying class play or encounter balance.

Moreover, anything short of those particulars of toolkit, or between their CDs, is then disregarded, rather than one person's CD being able to cover for the lack of another's — not just because he's swapping in to fill the need directly, which his toolkit may or may not allow, but because his toolkit allows the other player to fill it even without the security of his personal CD, etc.

I don't mind the idea of players having limited access to defensive skills, such as previously through Featherfoot, Keen Flurry, etc., but I don't want that to be the only times they feel like they can even interact. If they're made too strong compared to typical opportunities, or if the task is left too daunting or inefficient because it's tuned only around having those CDs at the ready, then the processes of party survival will remain tunnel visioned into just the tank and/or healer's purview. I'd rather these CDs merely be a way to really push those interactions—swapping in like half-tanks to cover chained blows that would otherwise capitalize upon the stagger dealt to the tank just before, or distracting the mob to draw it into traps, confusing it, enraging it, pacifying it, whatever—atop whatever means of interaction are provided through increased depth to and breadth of undermechanics (derivational enmity tables, mob focus system (allowing for enmity to be transferred or deferred through positioning), more than a single mob focus target (three heads = up to 3 targets), sub-targets (the legs of a mech, for instance), mob behavioral sets, the stagger system, etc.

So, rather than just having a taunt CD or a defensive CD on a DPS, I'd rather they have axis of control like timing and positioning where either of those, through undermechanics, can effect burst enmity-generation or increased personal, allied, or enemy-based (suppressive) mitigation. The icing is still good, too, so long as there's first a sufficient cake.

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When I said buff I could have been more clear. I don't mean a literal buff visible on the bar. It could easily be a measure at which the enemy simply attacks/cast bar speeds up that we never see on the surface.

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Likewise, I could have been more clear about what precedent or underlying hopes I was aiming for with my answer. A hidden effect that would seem to benefit the mob is perfectly fine. It could even be visible, though I'd rather it not be. But that should, imo, then be something very unique, fairly rare.

Essentially, I don't want these systems to just turn into something like enmity is right now—a sort of overheat mechanic—where you should go as close to hitting that enrage threshold without actually passing it (much like the tank being able to prioritize damage as much as still keeps him on top): instead, I want there always to be way to try to creatively exploit it. And these ways shouldn't need to rely on additional gimmicks; rather, simply the stats of the mob, one's team, and/or the conditions of the battlefield should be enough to say, with practice and a knack for the gamble, whether a particular strategy for manipulation should work.

If the mob is already really dangerous, then naturally you can't afford to send it into a berserk rage, whatever the conditions for that may be, and you may even need to hold off or assign someone with relevant utility to pacify it (at least until it catch on to what they're doing and enrages on them, specifically) because it will overwhelm you. But alternatively, a dangerous mob that you can kite while enraged such that it tires itself out (limited TP, as per 1.x design, albeit reversed) can actually be the safest option yet. Most of the time, neither may side may really come into play, but generally I want it to be a matter of the "mob is strong and irritable; don't make it use up too much at once, or it'll crush the tank" rather than "don't enrage the mob, because it has enrage bonuses".

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While undermechanics are super important (and I'd be curious what line of work you are in IRL) you'll notice that I tend to focus on the "gameplay experience" rather than the underlying system design.

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Pretty much everything I've come up with has come from an in-game thought of "wouldn't it be cool if we could do..." this or that, and it's only after looking carefully at the very simplest way to account for that huge collective of thoughts (those that have no conflict with each other or other parts of the existent game I enjoy or appear to be popularly enjoyed) that the system is developed.

(My line of work is day-jobs at this point, but since graduation has been centered mostly around teaching, tutoring, or acting as a research or instructional aide — speed-learning new things and then trying to teach them concisely, or developing study plans and providing more holistic insights. I realize my language here might not represent that well.)

Remove automatic self regeneration and make enemy death start short duration mp regeneration chains.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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I read everything you said and rather than multi-respond I'll just echo we're pretty much on the same page and would like the same level of engagement from our gameplay.

It's been a blast discussing these notions with you (and unfortunately it looks like we scared others away with our analysis). Below is a link to a Eureka Concept I built back in Oct. I should have put it here to get a little more visibility. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Eureka-Concept

Pretty much everything I would say has been said. I dps as a whm, but it's not my choice to. I am limited in what is necessary in a fight, and more and more I am losing my role identity as dps take on tasks that should be my responsibility. The scripted nature of fights makes them boring and predictable. And the fact that the fights do not require tackling all mechanics, but dps can be used to avoid actually doing the fight, contributes to the overly-dps-centric mindset.