Emergent gameplay design(Food for thought)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/the-p.../2300-6426981/

Quotes by Danny O'Dwyer from above video:

Emergent gameplay are engines of perpetual novelty.

Emergent gameplay: What happens when simple rules and mechanisms are combined together to perform unexpected results.

Two forms of emergent gameplay:

Intentional emergence: Set rules or mechanisms allows you to find creative means of utilizing them to complete an objective.

Unintentional emergence: When players find ways to do things developers did not intend.

The best intentional emergent gameplay is when developers actually create worlds that react to clever ideas.

Most games are about getting high scores, unlocking all the stuff, killing all the dudes, these games reward you for being skillful.
But emergent gameplay systems rewards you for being clever.

When you come up with a solution it feels far more satisfying than any test the game has exculsively given you. It feels like your moment and your solution and that is the power of emergent gameplay.

A decade ago many game designers said emergent gameplay was the future of game design. These kinds of games are hard to make. Not neccessarily in terms of cost, time or people power but in terms of thought.
Emergent systems are difficult to design which is why they require talented designers to create them. They take risk,care,and love to create, but when they work out they result in games we continue to talk about decades later.

These emerging systems aren't just about completing a task. These games encourage you to do task in the way you see fit. They reward experimentation and take your actions into consideration.

Compare emergent games to recent less popular open world games,Take Arkham knight, assassin's creed untiy, watch dogs, maybe even mad max. They are similiar due to the open world freedom they allow. Many of these games have excellent combat and large beautiful worlds. But ultimately everyone plays these games mission in the same linnear way. Or at least the type of variety they employ has become commonplace.

I mean when exactly is the last time AC required us to think on our feet.In fact of many of these non emergent games do alot of reminding you of how exactly to complete the mission than encouraging you to explore the gameplay yourself.

Now this doesn't make the non emergent games bad.Many of these games have great combat and interesting environments to explore.

But in a world with more emergent gameplay the standard non emergent games become less and less interesting.

I see thread after thread with unease about the direction of FFXIV. These range from the high grind and lockouts associated with endgame, repetitive endgame design, horizontal vs vertical progression debates, item bloat, skill bloat, dislike of jump rope/memory only in dungeons,methodically reused dungeons mechanics design,etc,etc.

The real want here is emergent gameplay systems. A system where players by performance can change the outcome of content by using provided tools to either progress faster, smarter, or smoother.

1.A lockout- There is no player input here to change that outcome other than not doing content.
2.High grind- This is an mmo by design. What the player wants is some way to make the progress more interesting, smoother, or faster via player input.
3.Repetitive endgame dungeons- Se can add branching paths or random enemies, but imo that still don't make it emergent only adds flavor. The solution imo is different types of unique endgame such as solo,duo,4man,8man,16man,24man open world, instanced, public, or mixed.
4.horizontal vs vertical, item bloat, skill bloat,memorized repeated fight mechanics-It's not about how many items or skills you have. The answer is how useful and how good/situational each item or skill is. Can I as the player use a tool to change the dynamics of a fight on a situation by situation basis.

Combat:
A healer can heal and increase defenses globally. But an emergent element would be a counter for a specific thing requiring a specific set of rules.
Example: Casting a barspell during the casting of an enemies elemental spell.

A DPS can deal damage and increase offenses globally. But an emergent element would be a certain skill being useful in the best possible time to counter an enemy.
Example: Stunning an enemy skill or a skill dealing extra damage depening on situautional enemy parameters.

A tank can tank and increase defenses globally. But an emergent elemen would be the ability to cast a skill at the most appropriate time to minimize a particular skill set of an enemy.

There could also be moments when things in the world are interactive such as:
Electrifying a body of water to do random stun or additional damage, casting fire on a gas to ignite enemies,etc.
I admit there is some of this to an extent but it needs to be explored further and not just in dungeons.

Thought on why global cooldown should die. It takes emergence out of gameplay.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3261005

Gathering:
Gathering got emergent gameplay down pat. The only problem is that with abilities costing so much and gp regening so slowly. You get to alter things the way you want then get resigned to waiting on slow GP regen.

I compared my 40blm to my 35 miner.

BLM regen: 1min from 0 to 2kmp.
MNR regen: 3min from 0 to 500GP.

Imagine if on blm your best crit spells cost 80% of your mp and the only way to cast again after depleting mp was to wait 3min on regen or pop a potion on a 4 min cooldown...
They should:
1.Raise GP returns on hits lvl1=5gp,lvl30=10gp,lvl60=15gp.
2.Raise GP regen rate higher than it is or closer to the rate of mp regen.

So If I decide not to buy gp fill potion. I am resigned to to non emergence for 4min whil trying to crit HQ.
Basically swinging with no ability input, it's like playing dps with only auto attack.

None of your examples are of emergent gameplay they are all intentional designed mechanics, in fact nearly all of them are in the game already.

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Combat:
A healer can heal and increase defenses globally. But an emergent element would be a counter for a specific thing requiring a specific set of rules.
Example: Casting a barspell during the casting of an enemies elemental spell.

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Virus.

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A DPS can deal damage and increase offenses globally. But an emergent element would be a certain skill being useful in the best possible time to counter an enemy.
Example: Stunning an enemy skill or a skill dealing extra damage depening on situautional enemy parameters.

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Stuns are already in the game?

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A tank can tank and increase defenses globally. But an emergent elemen would be the ability to cast a skill at the most appropriate time to minimize a particular skill set of an enemy.

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Defensive cooldowns.

MMO's like FFXIV are too tightly designed to offer real emergent gameplay, its much more suited to games like WarZ, Ark etc that allow players to manipulate the systems in ways that are unintended and unexpected.

I don't really think any of those examples are really emergent gameplay, and as Kitano pointed out, are already in the game. Its just they are in the game in such a way that if you don't stun the mob at the proper time you wipe.

However, one of the cool things about subbing into another group is seeing how the other group solved the fight, and there are quite a few variations for some of these. Just looking at T9 there were at least 4 major strategies for dealing with meteors. That comes closer to the emergent gameplay you are talking about, but with these fights, most people look up strategies and pick one they like.

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Originally Posted by Kitano123

None of your examples are of emergent gameplay they are all intentional designed mechanics.

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Virus does not adhere to my example because it can be used anytime and is. Emergent would be if it was only good to counter a move real time.

While you can apply things before hand. There are not many things that are done to counter something in the moment.

Yes stuns,heavy and other debuffs are in game. Unfortunately, anything worthwhile fighting resist it like the plague, so combat resorts to just dodge and attack.

Take most dungeons, people say dodge the red, almost never do you hear stun the monster right before or as the red comes.

Defensive cooldowns.
There a few mmos out there that handle real time stuff just fine.

My examples are emergent gameplay because you are given tools to solve problems on a one for one basis as opposed to how it is now which is X skill works in most all circumstances regardless of what the enemy is doing.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

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The reason why most mmos don't have fully emergent gameplay is because of balance.

Let's say, that you have open-world bosses that wonder, and their skills, abilities, and tactics change according to environment and other conditions. Emergent? Yes. Fun? Definitely. Fair? Absolutely not.

In one situation, the boss can be defeated easily and players will be able to get rare loot without much effort, as where another situation players have to work really hard to beat this boss, and there is a chance that the group may not even be good enough to beat it and they won't get their loot that time around.

Now this would be fine IF the entire game is centralized on emergent progression. If at any point that players feel like they are on a gear treadmill, while the methods of obtaining gear is unpredictable as hell, then the result is industrial volumes of nerdrage.

The way you are describing it sounds more like the way the steam from the legs works in A4 (immune until they start steaming then you can stun them to reduce damage). It doesn't really feel any different than stunning a slime as it casts its sprint. Just a different tell for when you are supposed to hit it.

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Originally Posted by dejavutwo

The way you are describing it sounds more like the way the steam from the legs works in A4 (immune until they start steaming then you can stun them to reduce damage). It doesn't really feel any different than stunning a slime as it casts its sprint. Just a different tell for when you are supposed to hit it.

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That describes binary gameplay, yeah. You only want to stun the legs in A4 at a specific time (in order to interrupt the laser); it's not really "emergent."

"Emergent" gameplay is gameplay that develops unintentionally, typically involving the novel use of mechanics or programming peculiarities. A lot of stuff in DotA, for example, is emergent gameplay: the way creep camps can be blocked by wards; how Tiny's Avalanche hit twice; how denying became a mechanic at all; etc. In FF14, emergent gameplay is mostly restricted to circumventing or making certain mechanics easier: the Twintania Trench, single tank strat for Nael, soaking double Prey on Ravana Ex with a beefed-up Adlo, or the recent stuff Lucrezia did during their AS4 clear.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Virus does not adhere to my example because it can be used anytime and is. Emergent would be if it was only good to counter a move real time.

While you can apply things before hand. There are not many things that are done to counter something in the moment.

Yes stuns,heavy and other debuffs are in game. Unfortunately, anything worthwhile fighting resist it like the plague, so combat resorts to just dodge and attack.

Take most dungeons, people say dodge the red, almost never do you hear stun the monster right before or as the red comes.

Defensive cooldowns.
There a few mmos out there that handle real time stuff just fine.

My examples are emergent gameplay because you are given tools to solve problems on a one for one basis as opposed to how it is now which is X skill works in most all circumstances regardless of what the enemy is doing.

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Virus is always used for specific abilitys (tank busters etc), people dont throw it up for no reason.

I stun aoe's in dungeons all the time, most people do.

Real time stuff? This game is all in real time, im not exactly sure what you're talking about.

None of your examples are emergent gameplay, I think you should read your own links to get a better idea of what it actually means.

What you seem to be asking for is skills that can only be used in very specific circumstances, which would only create massive bloat to our available skills without changing gameplay much at all. It would be a hassle to swap out skills for every single fight.

What you are asking for is more RNG to battles, which ultimately there are only so many abilities they can program in before it gets ridiculous and if a few of those attacks prove to be detrimental if they are not stopped the classes with the ability to do so will be favored thus tipping class balance for that particular instance. FFXI suffers from this to this day, a constant back and forth teetering of class balance and bandwaggoners.

Eventually people will figure out all of the particular of a fight and sit on the cooldowns for the abilities that prevent said attacks from going off and use them whenever said ability crops up. This means for some groups the fight could go spectacularly easy depending on what the boss decided to use and for others could be a nightmare. As there is no true AI you cannot possibly program infinite scenarios, just more random attacks/abilities to fire off.

Sounds obnoxious from a raider point of view.

Part of learning the fight is learning the script.

And your complaint about Virus? Ok. Disable, then.

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Originally Posted by Kitano123

I stun aoe's in dungeons all the time, most people do.

None of your examples are emergent gameplay, I think you should read your own links to get a better idea of what it actually means.

Which would only create massive bloat to our available skills without changing gameplay much at all. It would be a hassle to swap out skills for every single fight.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay

I said stun isn't used on harder things because it gets resisted. Or do people choose not to so everyone can dodge things? The very idea of emergence is the ability to do something to prevent that in a moment.

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Virus
It's an enfeeblement with attributes down which weakens everything a mob does. Why wouldn't you keep it on at all times?

You probably have the stun skill on your hotbar most times. Do you swap it in and out of hotbar often?

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Originally Posted by Wobi

Eventually people will figure out all of the particular of a fight and sit on the cooldowns for the abilities that prevent said attacks from going off and use them whenever said ability crops up. This means for some groups the fight could go spectacularly easy depending on what the boss decided to use and for others could be a nightmare. As there is no true AI you cannot possibly program infinite scenarios, just more random attacks/abilities to fire off.

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Currently since the only option is dodge for most difficult fights. The main measure of skill is dodge which the video above describes. It brings no cleverness to the foray only twitch reflex.

"This means for some groups the fight could go spectacularly easy depending on what the boss decided to use and for others could be a nightmare."
This is exactly what I am getting at.

If they made stun work more reliably on bosses it'd break the damn game balance.

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Originally Posted by Nadirah

If they made stun work more reliably on bosses it'd break the damn game balance.

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Ifrit HM eruptions come to mind pre-stun resist buff.

I like buzzwords.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay

I said stun isn't used on harder things because it gets resisted. Or do people choose not to so everyone can dodge things? The very idea of emergence is the ability to do something to prevent that in a moment.

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Stun/silences has it's uses. For most classes, the abiltity is oGCD so it can ve weaved. On the other hand, if you needed the stun for something, then you wouldn't use it for the damage part and instead be reactive on a cast time for an ability that requires it to be interrupted. The only exception to this is paladin who has their stun as a weaponskill (which actually works against time in the grand scheme of things in current content)

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Virus
It's an enfeeblement with attributes down which weakens everything a mob does. Why wouldn't you keep it on at all times?

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You can't keep it on at all times because of antibody. If you decided to use virus when it comes off cooldown, or have the hilarious idea to use it non-traited on select bosses/fights, you've effectively shut the door on using it for the next minute or so (where most tank busters or unavoidable damage happens on set intervals)

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

You probably have the stun skill on your hotbar most times. Do you swap it in and out of hotbar often?

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As mentioned before, most jobs have their stun skill as an oGCD which works as free damage, so they keep it on anyway. If they take away the damage aspect and it's only good for a stun, then yes, I'd probably take it off the bar if I was crunching for room (I'm not but its pretty damn close), and that's what you want to avoid with button bloating.

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Currently since the only option is dodge for most difficult fights. The main measure of skill is dodge which the video above describes. It brings no cleverness to the foray only twitch reflex.

"This means for some groups the fight could go spectacularly easy depending on what the boss decided to use and for others could be a nightmare."
This is exactly what I am getting at.

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Honestly, that sounds pretty damn stupid from a raiding standpoint. You can already get variables in regards to where incidental AoEs get placed. Using titan EX as an example, his landslide covers a 5-way AoE, but the center is randomized on a targetted player. You can randomize that, but you don't want to randomize his abilties which have a secondary effect, or how abilties work together. Him doing landslide at a particular time after Boulder Bombs is an utter nightmare, and can get you kileld if it's in a terrible placement (which at times won't be helped if those abilties are used at random). Or tank is fucked upside the head if he decides to table flip twice in succession. And as much as I hate the fight, T8 savage is another example, no two attempts are ever the same because of the randomized tower placements on top allagan fields and landmine placements, to the point that it drives me nuts because of how randomized it is that you'd need contingency plans on top of contingency plans for your contingency plans.

@RiceIsNice
But why is antibody even in effect? You don't get resistance to something when a boss does it to you over and over. There is no hard solo content inside dungeons, so it would not be broken to remove antibody.

So you would take a stun(almost unresistable) only skill off your hotbar to be replaced with a damage only skill?
Ok you do more damage taking it off, but the enemy gets to spam AoE 5-20 times more a fight while you're in DPS frenzy.

Control of Titans AoE would be more manageable if certain bits of it could be silenced, stunned, slowed, or barspelled.

I motion to remove the GCD, add more emergent gameplay, with some ideas in the link in my OP.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3261005

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

But why is antibody even in effect? You don't get resistance to something when a boss does it to you over and over. There is no hard solo content inside dungeons, so it would not be broken to remove antibody.

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It didn't use to be but all of the DoM classes can equip Virus so you could basically keep it up full time, as such they added the Antibody effect to prevent this.

I'm not sure why you want the devs to spend twice as much time coding a fight for minimal gains, this will either frustrate the hell out of people and appease the masochistic players who love being screwed over by RNG in a battle. At either rate people will move on once the next thing comes out, this really comes down to a cost/benefit analysis and I'm not seeing the upside for the cost.

It would be a far better use of their time to spend more time on horizontal progression and different types of content that produce similar awards to the current endgame. I'd love to see them pull over a few of the better concepts from FFXI. 8 man instances but without the circle arena would be awesome, Limbus was probably my favorite endgame in FFXI because you could always figure out a new way to clear it (though some were admittedly much better than others).

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

But why is antibody even in effect? You don't get resistance to something when a boss does it to you over and over. There is no hard solo content inside dungeons, so it would not be broken to remove antibody.

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Again, this is coming from a raiding environment. Virus can be used by BLMs, SMN, SCH and WHM. Antibody is in effect because they don't want you stacking something as powerful as 15% reduction output and maintain full uptime on it. It's supposed to be used as a reactive tool for tank busters or otherwise unavoidable raid damage.[/QUOTE]

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

So you would take a stun(almost unresistable) only skill off your hotbar to be replaced with a damage only skill?
Ok you do more damage taking it off, but the enemy gets to spam AoE 5-20 times more a fight while you're in DPS frenzy.

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What? I'm saying the skill functions both as a stun and oGCD damage, to be used as either or depending on what you need from it. If you had a skill that does only stun, then as a skill that only does damage, it causes button bloating because you still have the stun skill that's only used in key instances, while athte same time oyu'd still have the oGCD damage skill taking up another slot for no reason other than just because.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Control of Titans AoE would be more manageable if certain bits of it could be silenced, stunned, slowed, or barspelled.

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Which now favors certain group compositions because not all classes have access to such skills, and something like this would go beyond dps checks (which is a reason why paladin currently fails at alexander savage). Not to mention it still comes back to the same problem; what can and cant be interrupted? What if two skills that can't be interrupted come in tantum with each other?

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

I motion to remove the GCD, add more emergent gameplay, with some ideas in the link in my OP.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post3261005

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You haven't come up with any good reasoning for GCD to be removed other than making for a dynamic gameplay. The game's latency issue here is worse than that of most MMOs I've seen, so they're practically making it work with what we can. Resource mangement does not come into play for BLM (or really, the casters in general because their cast times are longer than the GCD we have now, so removing it literally does nothing for them), while for melee, it'd break the game toward having an astrologian and ninja to keep their TP up to maximize damage. If TP is the only constraint in damage, the meta heavily shifts toward classes who can provide TP or has the best time managing it.

I understand where OP is coming from, but the mechanical expression of every job is unlikely to change. Everything is tuned in a way to preserve balance--or attempt to preserve balance--among roles. True emergent play would necessarily throw balance out the window, or subject us to an endless barrage of "fixes" in a vain attempt to strike a balance.

While all our cookies may be cut from the same dough, this doesn't mean there is no room for creativity:

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Originally Posted by Adrasteia

In FF14, emergent gameplay is mostly restricted to circumventing or making certain mechanics easier: the Twintania Trench, single tank strat for Nael, soaking double Prey on Ravana Ex with a beefed-up Adlo, or the recent stuff Lucrezia did during their AS4 clear.

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These are only a few examples - FFXIV is quite rich with creative solutions to game challenges that don't necessarily depend on job abilities. I would say almost every dungeon boss has some "trick" that only reveals itself through manipulation of their gimmick or environment.

The closest we could come to OP's version of emergent gameplay would be PvP.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Again, this is coming from a raiding environment. Virus can be used by BLMs, SMN, SCH and WHM. Antibody is in effect because they don't want you stacking something as powerful as 15% reduction output and maintain full uptime on it. It's supposed to be used as a reactive tool for tank busters or otherwise unavoidable raid damage.

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Then antibody shouldn't be stackable, & have a diminished reduction output on repeated use not be resigned to a 1-2 time thing a fight.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

What? I'm saying the skill functions both as a stun and oGCD damage, to be used as either or depending on what you need from it. If you had a skill that does only stun, then as a skill that only does damage, it causes button bloating because you still have the stun skill that's only used in key instances, while at the same time oyu'd still have the oGCD damage skill taking up another slot for no reason other than just because.

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Not necessarily. Look at this game's combat. Stuns/Interrupts take no extra button, they just appear on screen when you are able to initiate one. And you earn stun/interrupt from finesse which is how good you play your job.
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Combat

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

Which now favors certain group compositions because not all classes have access to such skills, and something like this would go beyond dps checks (which is a reason why paladin currently fails at alexander savage). Not to mention it still comes back to the same problem; what can and cant be interrupted? What if two skills that can't be interrupted come in tantum with each other?

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Ok, if all jobs don't have some form of control or damage reduction skill. They could easily be assigned one since no true support or control classes are planned and we have the hybrids.

If two skills can't be stunned in tandem, then they could be silenced, slowed, weakened,etc.

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

You haven't come up with any good reasoning for GCD to be removed other than making for a dynamic gameplay. The game's latency issue here is worse than that of most MMOs I've seen, so they're practically making it work with what we can. Resource mangement does not come into play for BLM (or really, the casters in general because their cast times are longer than the GCD we have now, so removing it literally does nothing for them), while for melee, it'd break the game toward having an astrologian and ninja to keep their TP up to maximize damage. If TP is the only constraint in damage, the meta heavily shifts toward classes who can provide TP or has the best time managing it.

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GCD doesn't help latency imo, because it requires extra graphics to highlight avaiable GCD, and requires skills to be used in certain order.

Well obviously if the GCD was removed, some things would need re-balanced. The TP booster classes would need a slight nerf, tp cost of weaponskills or spells would have to be rebalanced so the big skills cost the most.

Every comment I made on that link had good reason.
-Global Cooldowns change combat from being dynamic and fluid to a game of watching UI and waiting.
-Global Cooldown itself is what overly complicates things by not letting you cast certain things out of order. It places you on rails or non emergence.
-The purpose of character stat resources already tackles the point(they don't want you able to spam skills anytime you want)trying to be applied here.Well TP,HP, and MP should solve that. Sure you could spam your most powerful skills in quick succession, but if the TP/HP/MP cost are appropriately applied, this would result in you being out of resources which would cause players to manage their resources better. If your DPS falls off in this situation, due to missing a combo. No biggie if global cooldown was not in the mix.

Battles would be freed of it's chains which would inherently make the game more dynamic and fluid versus whack a mole. What is the hardest thing about managing a ton of skills besides finger dexterity and memory? Trying to remember when skills can be used or not. It overly complicates things and is complicating hotbar usage.

The only cooldown that are game breaking if not tied to a global cooldown are the abilities that augment other skills to do more potency or control skills. Changing the games overt reliance on GCD and a simple rework of hotbars would make the game a lot more dynamic.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

GCD doesn't help latency imo, because it requires extra graphics to highlight available GCD, and requires skills to be used in certain order.

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The GCD absolutely does mitigate the player output-differentiating effects of latency. Why? Because there is a queuing period over which the game can detect outgoing commands from the client before the next actuon is available. It obligatorially slows down combat (give or take oGCDs), and incidentally allows higher ping connections to sort of "catch up". Try any of various Korean MMOs that use spammable abilities without a GCD. Over a minute, the same player at 120 ms ping may only be able to produce two thirds of the same spammed attacks that he could produce at 40 ms. That doesn't end up a factor for XIV until you start adding in oGCDs, or even until attempting to double-weave without clipping. At a 2.4 GCD or less, I typically need under 90 ms latency to double-weave most oGCDs. Some are impossible to double-weave even then (none even so notorious as Jump, but still faintly longer than most), or until as low as 60 ms. By 30 ms, the true limiter is basically the animation lock itself. Which brings us to the true limiter:

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Every comment I made on that link had good reason.
-Global Cooldowns change combat from being dynamic and fluid to a game of watching UI and waiting.
-Global Cooldown itself is what overly complicates things by not letting you cast certain things out of order. It places you on rails or non emergence.
-The purpose of character stat resources already tackles the point(they don't want you able to spam skills anytime you want)trying to be applied here.Well TP,HP, and MP should solve that. Sure you could spam your most powerful skills in quick succession, but if the TP/HP/MP cost are appropriately applied, this would result in you being out of resources which would cause players to manage their resources better. If your DPS falls off in this situation, due to missing a combo. No biggie if global cooldown was not in the mix.

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As long as the game has reliable queuing, there is no reason at all to look down at your bar just to track the GCD. Even if there is not, your reflexes as a human aren't much more reliable in looking down and attempting to time your next single keystroke to what you see than simply very quickly mashing the button you want to use next. There is simply no real advantage to tracking the GCD. What you do look at are CDs, and if experienced, only when you have to. For very particular jobs, or those with superhuman sense of timing and incredibly unwavering pings, you might also track the global tick to get more out of your DoTs. (The mythical extra DoT tick isn't just myth, but it requires a unique combination of latency, server poling, and timing to the global tick.)

The Global Cooldown is not what prevents you from casting things out of order. The simply temporal matter of order, or simply speaking the idea that your character cannot output two abilities, skills, etc. at once, is what creates order. If abilities had no animation lock to prevent another from being used at the same time, which is effectively saying 'if abilities had no animations', then you could use them in any order because no matter what, they won't be in any order—they'll be simultaneous. Anything short of that will cause order prioritization, whether you use a GCD system, or animation locks only and/or a limiting resource (as in 1.0's stamina bar - skills in which could consecutively go off faster than now, for a time).

All that a GCD does compared to a simple limiting resource (e.g. Stamina) and animation locks only is that they remove the disadvantage of longer animation locks where resource regeneration is quick enough to otherwise cap over the animation, and force a more consistent action rate, almost identically to consuming Stamina always as soon as possible or only to stay short of capping. Our oGCDs are our way of reintroducing dynamics back into that otherwise consistent pace, while also providing a distinctly low-time-penalty tier of abilities, usually able to clip slightly into main skill's animations and generally usable without detracting any uptime from the main tier. This is impossible in an effectively time-locked system (animation locked, where the limiting resource is not presently being a real limitation; you'll see this at immense amounts of Haste and a free-resource CD in WoW; you'll see it in Blade and Soul, Black Desert, Dragon's Nest, etc. But neither the GCD nor oGCDs themselves influence order. Buff windows and the animation locks themselves do. The closest thing to a seemingly unique limitation is trying to line up a GCD (weaponskill) buff/vuln with a oGCD (ability) buff. But, that's actually ubiquitous; you run into the same issue trying to time two oGCDs or 'unbound/free' actions, or whatever label you prefer, together. As long as there is a limited amount of action possible over their durations and one may lose effective duration because you stacked the abilities, there will be order. The only way to avoid that is, again, to remove their animations or animation locks and make them simultaneous.

Now, I'll agree with your last point that it'd be "no biggie if the global cooldown was not in the mix". Things would go more or less the same, except that utility oGCDs would be more costly to burst strings. Utility oGCDs carry only minor damage compared to your combos, but would now run in the same time-locked system of only animation locks and long-term resource (TP). They would, essentially, be no-TP weaponskills. That in itself isn't a problem. Even its implications—that you'd be wasting damage to use (previously oGCD) utility during a CD window—aren't necessarily problematic. But it is a change.

What I would personally consider a problem is burst capability, in PvE and especially PvP. With only long-term limiting resources to hold us back, we would be solely time-locked in burst, and those with lower ping connections could issue more commands within that time than higher ping players. This is already technically the case (in double-weaving, etc.), but as I said, the GCD and its mandatory slowing mitigates it substantially, to where it's basically a non-issue past the openers or unload-all attacks compared to positioning (one of the things that kills playing base movement speed melee for me in XIV PvP). But in a solely time-locked system, I could pull off two additional skills over an Aussie player or similarly less connection-supported region in my battlegroup, while someone with a faster connection still could pull off a skill more than I could.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

Battles would be freed of it's chains which would inherently make the game more dynamic and fluid versus whack a mole. What is the hardest thing about managing a ton of skills besides finger dexterity and memory? Trying to remember when skills can be used or not. It overly complicates things and is complicating hotbar usage.

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For me, perhaps the only thing bringing this game to an acceptable level complexity for my tastes, is preferable skill order. Take that away, and there's not much left.

Granted, I prefer it when things get chaotic and I have to renegotiate those CD rotations, etc. I like to be forced out of that monotonous comfort zone, and I wish the game had more ways to approach our rotations. But such extra options generally require intentional, math-first, craftsmanship. Paradigms aren't thrown out a generality at a time. They form from minutia.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

The only cooldown that are game breaking if not tied to a global cooldown are the abilities that augment other skills to do more potency or control skills. Changing the games overt reliance on GCD and a simple rework of hotbars would make the game a lot more dynamic.

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You realize, this would include all of our CDs, historically oGCD, in addition to every buff/vuln weaponskill and ability, like Dragon Kick, Twin Snakes, Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, Straight Shot, Rain of Death, Storm's Eye, Dancing Edge, and now Hot Shot, Darkside, Dark Arts, and even to some extent both Bard DoTs? That is going to feel like a really weird collective to not allow to be used too closely to each other, separated by a given shared cooldown. Some will be entirely unaffected, of course, such as Heavy Thrust and Disembowel as long as the latter can still only be used in combo. But if the GCD is longer than the animation time of Dragon Kick, which would be the only way a GCD or any other shared cooldown would be notice, you'd be forcing every Monk to either wait until Twin Snakes is off GCD or plug onward with True Strike, wasting Twin Snakes buff uptime until the next cycle. Bards would now be forced to blow their CDs, assuming those even remain, one at a time. And I can't even guess what would be done with WM now that that's a thing.

Anyways, to get back on topic, I'd very much like to see "emergent gameplay" in whatever ways that buzzword could actually be made applicable to this game. Because right now, emergent gameplay is solely optimization.

(One it could argue it always is; the only difference is the focus, or feel, of that optimization and the expected longevity or count of a particular instance of decision making.)

My question for you and anyone else reading this, is how do you make optimization feel creative, responsive, or fun — those things we associate with emergent gameplay.

It's a damn big question, and I'm struggling with it over here as well. I wouldn't expect to hit gold right away; that's what feedback is for.

My only clear impression right now is that is a matter entirely divorced from the GCD or most similar systems of pace control. I may yet be persuaded otherwise, but if what I've written above sounds cogent to you, I'd like to hear your thoughts as they'd apply to other possible solutions or interactions instead.

Emergant gameplay = metagames

Another form of emergent gameplay would be the Little Big Planet games.

Emergant gameplay is very much in the eye of the beholder. If you pay carful attention, there are examples of emegant gameplay in Eorzea already.

14 doesn't really allow much of free reign of situations like battles and story. As much as I'd want it, "balance" is always a word they'd use. Though if the "balance" was the amount of PvE content in contrast with PvP content then they'd would know a lot less about that. Fairness in this game is similar to Life is Strange. You can change as many variables as you want, but the end will always be the same and you'd have to choose 1 of 2 options. Choices and skill are limited in the designs of our character. We're Warriors of Light.

The story calls us The Warrior of Light as if we're one entity where that's way far from the truth, as we're defenseless when placed in any situation on our own. We can't plan success where the game doesn't want to be completed in only one way. Items don't help much because the game wants you to rely on others leaving strategy to your teammates, in which there is no problem with that, but when players themselves are stuck in roles with predetermined stats, in situations involving no environmental interactions that was NOT scripted for immediate use or otherwise death, in battle mechanics guaranteeing death unless specific actions or needed but not in any way clear until the player(s) solve mostly cryptic mechanics till a strategy develops in which it is only one specific way to deal with them, the player is limited to what they are allowed to do. I call it psuedo freedom since your still doing it within very set rules.

People say you can do fights with different strats. Well in relation to this game, if I told someone they can make a dance performance on a stage with they're group but only allowed to use 3 dance moves and the entire stage. You can do plenty of patterns though each movement will look the same and eventually it becomes point A to point B.

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Originally Posted by Kurogaea

14 doesn't really allow much of free reign of situations like battles and story. As much as I'd want it, "balance" is always a word they'd use.

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Sorry to take this tangentially, but just a pet-peeve, so please allow me this one rant.

Balance isn't a limiter for breadth or depth of gameplay. It's what lets it actually happen.

The sad thing is when a company lacks ambition, and avoids depth purely so that the latter half of conceptualization, balance, is easier. (In which case, the question often comes to mind "why bother with any of it?") Balance doesn't kill specs, or modes, or content types. Lacking quality of development does, and the way it most often shows is by an inability to keep in mind the gritty mathematical realities that produce a concept even while developing it. It's far faster to craft new gameplay from the intricacies of current optomization, tweaking its bits for a result that feels quite different, or even to lay out various changes that would concretely work towards the new paradigm you want, than to throw out a new idea and only afterwards math it out, likely finding parts of the plan fundamentally flawed due to oversights. Working with balance in mind does not hamper development; it merely reduces wasted time. It's working with an overly narrow view of what balance should be that constricts concepts.

When you want a reason to save a given CD, buff, or environmental tool, there's a computation for that, such that the choice becomes optimal. If you still want the other option as well, you run the equation to result in only a slight advantage to the the new playstyle, leaving both viable until you're, say, attempting to clear a pre-nerf A4S in i190 gear.

/rant

....
In all other ways I agree with your above post.

@Shurrikhan
For me, a pre-designed best skill order might be a complexity from the developer stance. But to a player that is known as on rails. The best combat systems aren't about what order you do something but when and how you do something. Look no further than the best rpg combat game this decade which is Dark Souls. People wanted an off rails massive multiplayer space combat in Swtor, and what they got was the on rails single player. That is how games with GCD feel when I play them. The focus is more on working your own magic and not so much interacting with other people. Sure the tank and healer might have a bit more interaction, but they have to watch their UI more, and for the DPS, not so much multiplayer interaction, it's even more prevalent when there is no muliplayer synergy combos.

The entire premise of an mmo combat should be how can I combine my skills with other people in the moment not how complex can I make it to pertain to myself. A good combat UI should have you looking at the environment 95% of the times with no need to glance at it all to know when a cooldown is ready.

With a weighty combat system, with momentum, physics, and high cost for skill usage. The more difficult in terms of thought content can become. An article once called this combat cerebral vs others as visceral in the action combat mmo. I could care less about visceral, but cerebral in the sense that I can make things happen alone or with others to do things not necessarily intended by design to be done a certain way. A common phrase used to describe content that has to be done a certain way with strict mechanics is called a gimmick, jump rope. It exist not only on evasive maneuvers here but jump rope with rotations. Because there is not emergence in that.

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

@Shurrikhan
For me, a pre-designed best skill order might be a complexity from the developer stance. But to a player that is known as on rails. The best combat systems aren't about what order you do something but when and how you do something. Look no further than the best rpg combat game this decade which is Dark Souls. People wanted an off rails massive multiplayer space combat in Swtor, and what they got was the on rails single player. That is how games with GCD feel when I play them. The focus is more on working your own magic and not so much interacting with other people. Sure the tank and healer might have a bit more interaction, but they have to watch their UI more, and for the DPS, not so much multiplayer interaction, it's even more prevalent when there is no muliplayer synergy combos.

The entire premise of an mmo combat should be how can I combine my skills with other people in the moment not how complex can I make it to pertain to myself.

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What I'm trying to prove for you is that (1) the GCD is irrelevant to pretty much any and all broader gameplay paradigms — it may connect certain bad experiences for you, but that is purely incidental — and (2) the idea of "how can I combine my skills with other people in the moment" IS still the concept of optimization. Your group is a part of it, you are a part of it, and you try to perfect the equation. The real problem you're perceiving isn't that rotations and ability order and the like stand opposite against raid awareness, multiplayer synergy, and the like, but simply that FFXIV doesn't give many ways in which the group enters that equation. Simplifying or adjusting rotations will have little to no effect on that. Making adjustments to the GCD system will have zero effect on that, because the two are absolutely irrelevant to each other. At present, effects by composition enter the equation in such ways as:

• A Ninja using Dancing Edge for his Warrior only every other time, allowing the Warrior to use a SE-BB-BB-SP-BB: combo at a such a GCD that he can reapply Maim on Maim but would otherwise be able to maintain SE onto the following Maim or Storm. Line-up issues due to the Ninja's own rotation, and difference in GCD speeds, along with the sheer potency difference between Dancing Edge and Aeolian Edge keeps this from being viable in optimal settings.
• One WAR using one Storm debuff after having seen that the other has used the other Storm debuff. They will usually end up sticking to one or the other to reduce difficulty. Convention may eventually set who should use which in which position (MT may use SE until exceeding X enmity margin, unless the OT could otherwise beat him to the first usage, but will certainly swap thereafter to SP for the extra health regen while the OT uses SE for the extra damage).
• A Ninja using Dancing Edge as an emergency when a tank is struggling to both mitigate and hold threat even after Shadewalker (and perhaps Smokescreen) has been used. Not likely to be seen in optomized content.
• A caster using Virus when the tank blew one too many CDs earlier, or is short a shield. More likely to be used at a set time, rather than conditionally.
• Players skipping DoTs/Vulns/Buffs or using only the shortest duration thereof because the given enemy will die too quickly under combined fire their durations to pay off. This is where most of the thought involved in PotD goes beyond "am I far enough away from him not to die when he combat-loots that trapped chest?" or, "This looks bad. Should I Witching Pom?"

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Originally Posted by Sandpark

An article once called this combat cerebral vs others as visceral in the action combat mmo. I could care less about visceral, but cerebral in the sense that I can make things happen alone or with others to do things not necessarily intended by designed to be done a certain way. A common phrase used to describe content that has to be done a certain way with strict mechanics is called a gimmick. Because there is not emergence in that.

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Sorry to say it, but anything that allows player choice, creating gameplay out of established rules, is emergence. And quite often, the singularity of XIV's emergent gameplay was unintended. The developers didn't math things out as thoroughly as involved players have. That content that must "be done in a certain ways with strict mechanics" is not a gimmick. It's not nearly so kind or optional or intentional or humorous... not once community-accepted, -expected, or -enforced. It's emergence.