So let me preface. This is a fairly long post that goes over a FICTITIOUS combat revamp that I've been toying with over the past month. It touches on GCDs, oGCDs, how tanking/healing could work differently and be more active and less punishing, and how encounter design could stand to be less pass/fail and binary. As a bonus, to help put some of the ideas into perspective I even design a complete from the ground up redesign of the PLD job. In that redesign I tackled some elements like incredibly boring low level gameplay (IMO a HUGE drag on FF14 as a game) as well as more interesting abilities and mitigating button bloat.
All I am asking is read it, try to understand and envision what I going for and talk about it. Tell me things you like. Tell me things you don't. Offer your own suggestions/ideas, etc. Have fun with it. This concept originated because I had seen a lot of discussion on reddit about the healing/tanking design paradigm that SQEX has been employing and how its detrimental to the longevity of the game.
Personally I agree, the reason being how can they possibly add any new tank/healing jobs without there being a staggering amount of overlap with the existing 3. I mean hell, just adding the third, kind of caused a bit of an issue.
That said, I do not want to get into that discussion in this post. We can do that in another if anyone would like. I merely wanted to set the stage for WHY I created the re-work and some context into the design philosophies I'm employing therein.
GCD:
I know that most people like the slower 2.5s base GCD. I am going to propose some changes here and am splitting it up between casters and weaponskill based jobs.
Weaponskill based jobs changes: (Tanks, Melee, & Phys Ranged)
I like faster gameplay. So it should come to no surprise to anyone here that my concept accommodates that. Please analyze under the assumption that all jobs will be re-worked to follow the paradigm (so stuff like MNK/NIN would be redesigned to retain their faster playstyle, but still fit this).
One main reason I want faster gameplay is because the concept of "combo" feels very off in this game and I'd like to shorten interim combo presses to a 1.5s GCD while leaving 2.5s between full combos.
An Example: You hit Fast Blade -> incurs 1.5s GCD -> You hit Riot Blade -> incurs 1.5s GCD -> You hit Judgment of Azeyma (see PLD rework) -> incurs 2.5s GCD as combo is finished.
I think this is a fair compromise of both styles. Combo's FEEL more like combo's now, but when finishing one there is a delay that is familiar.
Caster based jobs: (Casters/Healers)
I don't think spells should be subject to a GCD system. I think the cast time aspect should be able to handle that on its own or have GCD match the spell cast (thus basically hiding it entirely). I'm very open to ideas as to if/why this would be bad as I am not an expert on it.
An example: You cast Cure -> 2s cast goes by -> Cure resolves -> You cast Cure -> etc.
The idea behind this iteration would be faster healing gameplay, that would be supplemented with less incoming burst damage, but steadier varied damage. More on this later.
oGCDs:
I really want to really prop up the oGCD as a core system. Right now IMO oGCDs are insanely binary and boring. 99.x% of the time they're mindless press on cooldown abilities. I want to shift these away from that and into our more situational and "job gauge" spending abilities.
An example for PLD (based on re-work):
Shield Swipe
Type: Offensive oGCD
Potency: 140
Range: Melee
Cost: 20 Oath
Condition: Usable after a successful Block.
Effect: Deals damage and allows a weapon-skill to be cast for free as if it was an oGCD. This use does not interrupt the current combo and must be used immediately after the Shield Swipe.
An example: You cast Fast Blade -> You block an attack triggering the availability of oGCD Shield Swipe-> Incur 1.5s GCD -> You cast Riot Blade -> Incur 1.5s GCD -> You cast Shield Swipe -> You cast FREE Royal Authority -> You cast Judgment of Azeyma -> Incur 2.5s GCD.
This gives a small bit of insight into the bonus Paladin re-work. The idea here is a reactionary ability that triggers a decision making process. Do I need threat, damage, or defense. Keep in mind I am aware that double weaving oGCDs inside a 1.5s GCD is "bad" as it delays next GCD, but given the power of the ability and the fact that the finisher is treated as an oGCD and not a GCD it only pushes it back slightly I'm ok with that. Always open to better implementations if you have one.
Hopefully the point I was trying to make is to make oGCDs more interesting than bland buffs and things that actually impact or change your approach to the encounter.
Crowd Control:
I want crowd control back. Interrupts, slows, stuns, etc. Tie most crowd control to oGCDs, not cross role nonsense. Give certain roles/jobs better versions. For instance, Tanks likely have the best stuns. Best being defined as a measure of cooldown/cost (if any), duration, range, AOE vs. ST, power, etc. Melee probably get best interrupts, ranged get best snares/roots/slows, etc.
Interrupts:
Have bosses that cast things that can be interrupted. Tie these mechanics to less scripted timers forcing people to adapt and be aware and also have failure to interrupt not be instant death. I.e. damage spikes on a tank, they react by shifting to more defense and healers focus on more triage to stabilize. Maybe missing an interrupt spawns an add, creates a dangerous void zone, destroys part of room, causes enraged status for a brief period, spikes burst damage, drains resources, heals adds/boss (less strict hard enrage timers, but much more soft enrage design), etc.
Slows:
Enemies that need to be slowed to better control flow of incoming damage. Maybe allow bosses to be slowed and let a tank kite to give healers time to catch up/drop stacks, etc.
Stuns:
I want to bring in this concept of "CC armor" here. Have bosses do special attacks, again on not strictly coded timers, that require coordinated CC from the team to delay/prevent. B&S/Wildstar used this system to great effect IMO. Enemies and bosses would have varying levels of CC armor for their attacks and each job/role would have varying degrees of effectiveness in those stuns. CC would only be available during the boss' attack.
Think of it like this:
Boss has 5 different basic abilities with varying "CC armor":
Tankbuster (4)
Raid AOE pulse (5)
Persistent Voidzone (2)
Self Buff that grants damage buff and vuln down buff. (6)
Resource Drain (4)
Lets say every 45s or so the boss cycles through these 5 100% of the time, but possibly up to like 6 or 7 times. You'd never have enough CC to stop them all. Missing one wouldn't be a wipe, it would just make things harder and change how you recover/adapt.
The idea would be as a team you'd decide which of these are the most dangerous to you at any given time. Imagine your tank is out of cooldowns, and is at 26% HP. You see a tankbuster casting. By time it finishes the healer might be able to get tank up to 55% HP. It might be safer to CC that, ignoring the tankbuster, and eat the persistent voidzone that makes the room smaller/makes follow up mechanics harder.
What happens is the encounter becomes dynamic. You now have a smaller room, but safer health pools. What happens if you do this strat 5 times? Now you have very little room. That's dangerous. Imagine if over the course of the fight, you're close to killing, but the boss has gained 6 stacks of damage up. That means any raid wide damage or tankbuster going off could be a wipe. You prioritize those and push the DPS and try and clear. Failing a CC isn't a wipe. It's a choice that impacts how to approach the fight and lets you work around your comps. Imagine one raid night you're stuck with 4 melee. That means raid wide damage isn't hard to heal (everyones stacked), but space is paramount, so you focus on interrupting those abilities and eat the damage taken ones.
Tanking Paradigm:
Tanks have 4 main responsibilities. That is Threat, DPS, Mitigation, and Positioning. Currently I feel that NONE of these responsibilities are captured well. Threat is irrelevant, DPS is passive, Mitigation is one and done, and bosses RARELY move. Under my proposed paradigm A tank has to spend its resources on which of categories it needs at any time and that will shift multiple times over the course of the encounter.
The other bit of design I'm interested in capturing is that a tank can adapt to his group. If his healers are weak and his DPS are strong, he can focus on covering for the healers. Alternatively, if DPS is bad, threat is less important, but damage checks might need help getting through allowing a tank to shift his resources to DPS expenditures.
Tank Swaps:
Ideally I'd like to see tank swaps be less taunt at X stacks or taunt to invuln Y. I honestly don't think that's good design. Better design would be a system that allows swaps to be more organic/dynamic as well as more defined roles.
Example mechanics:
- Boss hits hard and frequently. You would alternate based on the inability for a healer to stabilize a tank's health pool, this would give time to let the other tank recover slowly over time.
- Boss hits a tank with a debuff that enables them to do XYZ mechanic. I.e. Clear void zones, kill certain adds, survive XYZ. Maybe the debuff causes a rapid HP drain on the tank, thus having them tank and soak the debuff simultaneously, would be incredibly difficult to deal with.
- Periodic add spawns during boss fight (not intermission style that is commonly used) that give a reason to swap tanks or pull a tank off normal duty.
Threat:
Threat should not be a one aggro combo one and done. It should be dynamic throughout the fight. I.e. add spawns need snap threat, boss DPS check phases might need more threat, threat resets/drops, etc.
Mitigation:
Much like threat, mitigation should be a choice. Ideally because damage would be retooled to be more frequent and less bursty, you'd have an active mitigation in addition to sustained mitigation. If a tankbuster is coming through you'd want to have some mitigation up for it be it active (i.e. current mitigation), or sustained, which is where you use your rotational abilities to provide defensive benefit.
Paladin examples:
Sheltron
Type: Defensive oGCD
Duration: 10s
Cost: 30 Oath
Effect: Blocks a single attack reducing x% of incoming damage.
Royal Authority:
Royal Authority generates a shield equal to x% of its damage dealt that lasts for 6s. Any additional shield generated from Royal Authority that occurs during those 6s adds the shield values, and refreshes the duration to 6s.
This is to offer some synergy with Shield Swipe. In that you could rapidly dump your Oath on Sheltrons/Shield Swipe for blocks to hit back to back Royal Authority's and build a large shield to mitigate a huge hit. I like that kind of gameplay.
DPS:
The idea here is that you can push DPS as a tank, but doing so directly influences how much damage you take and how much threat you generate. There are parts of encounter design where DPS is incredibly valuable and sacrificing mitigation/threat is intended/viable. If you're spending Oath on DPS related abilities, you do not have that Oath to use on defensive/threat skills.
Positioning:
FF14 forces a lot of stand still type of encounters. I don't enjoy that (granted I completely understand given the games horrendous netcode how painful movement based stuff can be, let's assume it's fixed prior to a redesign of this caliber).
Space control is an amazing part of encounter design that frankly isn't used really at all or very well in FF14. The idea that as mechanics occur, parts of the room become volatile or problematic forcing an adjustment of strategies dynamically to succeed. That means tanks move bosses, tanks move away from bosses to do X, etc. That also helps build some tank niches, where maybe one tank has better AOE DPS, another has better AOE threat, and another has better mobility.
Let's look at Neverwhere from O4S. Instead of being a stand still DPS check for a minute and a half or whatever, it could have been a straight soft enrage with ever increasing damage and each big punch obliterates the part of the platform he's on. This forces the tank to move, the DPS/healers to be aware and position well and to clear him before you run out of space, or the damage is unhealable. Mechanics prior to Neverwhere could have impacted your existing space, thus forcing you to adapt. Imagine if because you had bad healers, but good DPS, you sacrificed some room to get more damage on the boss earlier. You go into last phase with not a lot of room, but also not a lot of boss HP left. This way you don't stress the healers, but instead shift that responsibility on the DPS.
Alternatively, imagine if you had bad DPS and good healers. You could go into last phase with a lot of room, and boss at a higher HP%. This allows you to take your time in the last phase and push it down safely assuming healers can handle the damage output.
That kind of decision making and encounter design sounds way more fun to me.
DPS Paradigms:
The DPS paradigm would stay similar, but I'd like to see different jobs be retooled for different niches. I.e. let some DPS jobs have good burst DPS making them very valuable for add phases/burn phases, and let others be strong at ST/AOE, or cleave (cleave usually refers to like 2 or 3 target damage output simultaneously).
Healing Paradigms:
Ideally my goal is to shift healing from the concept of reactionary burst healing to a more proactive triage style of healing. That means damage incoming faster and not nearly as scripted. To offset this it'd be balanced based on less bursty damage.
Healers would have skills that offered choices in triage:
WHM example:
- Cure: which is a moderate cast, moderate power, and moderate cost heal. This is your balanced heal most likely used on frequent damage receiving targets like tanks.
- Cure II: which is a fast cast, moderate power, expensive cost heal. You'd use this in more emergency related situations.
- Regen: would be your low cost, moderate power over time, and fast cast. Would be valuable to ensure high uptime given its low cost and solid power over time.
- Cure III: would fill a powerful AOE heal with limited range, fast cast, and expensive cost. This is your AOE stabilization spell. You couldn't sustain a raid very long with frequent casts of this, but its useful in its speed and burst healing.
- Medica I: would fill the niche of moderate power AOE heal, slow cast, and low cost. The opposite of Cure III. You'd use this when you are ahead of the curve and to offset obvious incoming burst damage. Not strong for stabilizing parties rapidly.
- Medica II: would provide very low power AOE heal, fast cast, moderate cost, and offers moderate healing of time effect with a large range. This would be the tool to help prepare and recover from big damage over a period of time. It doesn't do a significant amount of healing up front, but helpful in slowly recovering the entire party.
The idea would be that healers have different archetypes and differing efficiency within those archetypes. You'd have the ability to stabilize HP values very quickly, at a significant resource (MP) cost. Each job would have differing strengths and weaknesses, much like current FF14, but still allowing room for additional healing playstyles and healers to shine in different aspects of encounter design which is good IMO.
Paladin Job Re-Work:
The Paladin to me is still that sword and board tank who specializes in mitigating damage, lacking mobility, and offering some unique magic gameplay.
No more tank stances. Now the Job gauge is based off just the term "Oath". It has a max of 100, and is generated rapidly and spent rapidly with cooldowns that boost its generation and effects. This is also assuming that they get rid of "classes" and just do jobs from level 1. I tried to make the low level stuff more interesting by front-loading more abilities/traits earlier on.
Direct Link to image incase quality sucks ass. https://i.imgur.com/RTJxJQR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/RTJxJQR.jpg
Quick notes: I am utilizing the PVP combo sequence (1 button changes throughout the combo) for PVE. I created a few new weaponskills to fill functions that were lacking and I consolidated and re-purposed several skills. A few examples:
Shield Swipe now functions differently. Flash is retooled as a burst resource generator, Stances have been retooled as DPS and defensive cooldowns respectively. They work as good resource burning abilities to try and keep up. Bulwark re-purposed as a smaller passage of arms. Royal Authority is changed to be a shield generator (sustained mitigation tool) instead of flat DPS.
You may notice some weaponskills are no longer 3 button combos, but are 2 button combos. This is intended. You could expect to see WAR/DRK have shorter DPS chains, but maybe longer threat/defensive chains. Then they would have varying oGCD potencies, cooldowns, and costs to help differentiate their strengths and weaknesses.
This rework cuts the current Paladin toolkit of roughly 32 abilities down to 22, while IMO (and please discuss) giving a much more engaging standard of play.
In Summary
The idea here is that I wanted to shift to a more active playstyle for all roles. To supplement this we needed more active encounter design. Less 1 shot mechanics. Less bursty damage. More decision making. More frequency and variation of mechanics and lastly job designs to support all of it.
Try to envision all the changes simultaneously when commenting and please share your feelings/thoughts/likes/dislikes and your own ideas.
I even had a pretty robust Materia system created (with over 30 unique materia created for this iteration of PLD alone that impact how skills work and interact with each other (imagine like set bonuses/talents in WoW), but unfortunately it's not ready and I've been sitting on this for longer than I'd like so i'd rather not hold it up. Please try not to hold the numerical balance at too high of a standard. I winged it. If something seems abnormally off let me know though.
Combat Revamp - Healing/Tanking Paradigm, Encounter Design, + bonus PLD rework (LONG)
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01-19-2018, 03:27 AMKaldeaSahalineCombat Revamp - Healing/Tanking Paradigm, Encounter Design, + bonus PLD rework (LONG)
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01-19-2018, 06:59 AMDerio
All content would have to be reconfigured for this.
This would make healing and tanking more difficult while making dpsing easier.
This would make entry to healing and tanking even more difficult for new players and could possibly increase average queue times.
Also balancing, readjusting the balance for this would be a developer's nightmare.
Not saying its a bad idea, but it would take a considerable amount of dev work and the biggest problem is would the community accept this or not. -
01-19-2018, 12:17 PMGalactimus
I wouldn't say "shut down." It's just....
I've mained PLD from 2.0 to 4.2. Completing all the raids while they are relevant; even the dreaded AS4. And after this many years of PLD abuse, lolPLD cults, and endless emotional trauma all I can say at this point is "Do whatever you want with the hostages. Take my housing and all of my gil. You can even have the women, the children, and the glamour. But please, I beseech you, just leave 4.1 PLD alone. We are finally happy." -
01-19-2018, 01:53 PMShurrikhanWell, I'm sold on the idea. See you in an hour when I'm done reading.Quote:
So let me preface. This is a fairly long post that goes over a FICTITIOUS combat revamp that I've been toying with over the past month. It touches on GCDs, oGCDs, how tanking/healing could work differently and be more active and less punishing, and how encounter design could stand to be less pass/fail and binary. As a bonus, to help put some of the ideas into perspective I even design a complete from the ground up redesign of the PLD job. In that redesign I tackled some elements like incredibly boring low level gameplay (IMO a HUGE drag on FF14 as a game) as well as more interesting abilities and mitigating button bloat.
Running Thoughts:
My thoughts on this would be largely the same if not for the therefore uneven ability to weave oGCDs. Hope to see what you do with them?Quote:
I think this is a fair compromise of both styles. Combo's FEEL more like combo's now, but when finishing one there is a delay that is familiar.
Removing GCD systems from casters, however, accomplishes only three things, imo:Quote:
I don't think spells should be subject to a GCD system. I think the cast time aspect should be able to handle that on its own or have GCD match the spell cast (thus basically hiding it entirely). I'm very open to ideas as to if/why this would be bad as I am not an expert on it.
1. The removal of variation in benefit of instant casts relative to cast time (shortened GCD, effectively, if the cast was longer than a GCD, but not if equal or less than the GCD). (A negligible negative.)
2. The removal of guaranteed mobile downtime (whenever a cast time is less than the GCD). (A noticeable negative, imo.)
3. The allowance of quicker, more expensive cast choices (useful to healer toolkits). (A toolkit-allowing positive.)
Oh, there they (3) are, albeit in the opposite of the usual order of acquisition.Quote:
Cure: which is a fast cast, moderate power, expensive cost heal. You'd use this in more emergency related situations.
Cure II: which is a moderate cast, moderate power, and moderate cost heal. This is your balanced heal most likely used on frequent damage receiving targets like tanks.
Still though, if you're going to go so far as removing the GCD as it would affect casters, I recommend you go further, approaching a new system that accomplishes what you feel a cast system should do, rather than simply removing it on principle and letting the cards fall where they will.
Neat. While I like the rhythm and sense of arsenal they bring, I, too, often feel like they're just obligatory button-presses that are more like mile-markers in our rotations rather than decisions.Quote:
I really want to really prop up the oGCD as a core system. Right now IMO oGCDs are insanely binary and boring. 99.x% of the time they're mindless press on cooldown abilities. I want to shift these away from that and into our more situational and "job gauge" spending abilities.
Food for thought: if GCDs were to be removed entirely, in favor of animation-stream combos and the like, this concern would be void anyways.Quote:
Keep in mind I am aware that double weaving oGCDs inside a 1.5s GCD is "bad" as it delays next GCD, but...
As you know, and are doubtless annoyed with by now, I tend to prefer one scalar over multiple set values, such as an enemy simply having a Determination stat that determines how much damage potential is lost to incoming damage atop whatever particular buffs he may choose to cast, and from there the "CC armor" is a simply matter of damage and effect potency being split among both the enemy and his incoming attack. Think of it like someone charging at you or winding up for a powerful attack: at that point your efforts against him are dual purposed, but you're also dealing with proportionately more force--and since your own hasn't changed, your potencies seem less effective between trying to keep, say, a behemoth from moving when it's still stationary, compared to when it's already in full sprint.Quote:
I want to bring in this concept of "CC armor" here...
...Boss has 5 different basic abilities with varying "CC armor":
Tankbuster (4)
Raid AOE pulse (5)...
What are the factors behind these dynamics, I wonder?Quote:
Threat should not be a one aggro combo one and done. It should be dynamic throughout the fight. I.e. add spawns need snap threat, boss DPS check phases might need more threat, threat resets/drops, etc.
How much a part do resource systems play in this...Quote:
Much like threat, mitigation should be a choice. Ideally because damage would be retooled to be more frequent and less bursty, you'd have an active mitigation in addition to sustained mitigation.
So long as that doesn't end up / remain a brain-dead rotational process, awesome.Quote:
The idea here is that you can push DPS as a tank, but doing so directly influences how much damage you take and how much threat you generate. There are parts of encounter design where DPS is incredibly valuable and sacrificing mitigation/threat is intended/viable. If you're spending Oath on DPS related abilities, you do not have that Oath to use on defensive/threat skills.
Agreed, but I'm not readily able to imagine the difference in execution available to the situations and accordant strategies you mention beneath these lines. If the DPS is low, wouldn't the mechanical advantage catch up proportionately quickly? Unless the fight is undertuned or the parties overgeared, I'm not seeing how the two styles would ultimately make a difference, as they would intersect almost precisely at boss death, while the varying advantage lend more to the ability to deal with mechanics or the lack of such abilities more than the throughput of healers or DPS. Perhaps I'm misreading. I probably am.Quote:
FF14 forces a lot of stand still type of encounters. I don't enjoy that (granted I completely understand given the games horrendous netcode how painful movement based stuff can be, let's assume it's fixed prior to a redesign of this caliber).
Space control is an amazing part of encounter design that frankly isn't used really at all or very well in FF14.
I'd have to caution against this. Different niches, rather than different flavors, obligates job choice for each and every encounter outside of dungeons, where they're still largely obligated within the best compromise between encounters (assuming anything more than casual difficulty *and* pace).Quote:
The DPS paradigm would stay similar, but I'd like to see different jobs be retooled for different niches. I.e. let some DPS jobs have good burst DPS making them very valuable for add phases/burn phases, and let others be strong at ST/AOE, or cleave (cleave usually refers to like 2 or 3 target damage output simultaneously).
I have to admit, I would have assumed the opposite, given your stated purposes. Longer chains on mitigation and threat means less reactive interactions with active mitigation and threat generation, which in turn means less control, and therefore less available engagement to your average player -- more becoming rote scripting or margin-building rather than active adaptation.Quote:
You could expect to see WAR/DRK have shorter DPS chains, but maybe longer threat/defensive chains. Then they would have varying oGCD potencies, cooldowns, and costs to help differentiate their strengths and weaknesses.
Perfect. If you're not going to allow for free combos, I see no reason not to build around the QoL features optimal play would already fit into with mere ability spread adjustment.Quote:
Quick notes: I am utilizing the PVP combo sequence (1 button changes throughout the combo) for PVE. I created a few new weaponskills to fill functions that were lacking and I consolidated and re-purposed several skills
I love the direction you've taken the ability growth curve in, even if I do think it may have slightly overshot. I suspect it may be more engaging per button, though I feel like the idea could actually go far further, accomplishing even greater engagement despite having even fewer keys. I'll pass on a spitball sample soon, if you like.Quote:
This rework cuts the current Paladin toolkit of roughly 32 abilities down to 22, while IMO (and please discuss) giving a much more engaging standard of play.
To be honest, I don't see why you would need to. You can just as easily run these functions off of various other factors or resources, or simply "upgrade" the original Gladiator-specific resource into "Oath", thereby attaching additional passive effects upon its generation and/or expense that could yet further increase engagement through the depth tactics involved in Paladin play, either all at 30 with subtle stimulation through abilities thereafter, or as step-by-step augmentations through Traits.Quote:
This is also assuming that they get rid of "classes" and just do jobs from level 1.
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01-20-2018, 01:32 AMKaldeaSahalineI want to avoid the meta discussions on "balance" and "dev workload" and focus strictly on the ideas I've proposed therein.Quote:
Originally Posted by Derio
If you don't mind, provide specific examples and insight into why do you think it would be more difficult for tanks and healers and also why you think it'd be easier for DPS.
Tell me some things you liked. Some things you didn't. Perhaps some ideas that popped into your mind as better alternatives?
To be fair though, you didn't really contribute either so... :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Kassiekane
Any insight into the actual content of the post? Likes? Dislikes?
While PLD for sure is finally in a good spot, do you have any actual insight into the content of the post or specifically the PLD rework? I've love to hear another PLD's thoughts on the design.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galactimus
Going to tackle your statements in reverse order because I think after seeing the PLD rework it kind of answered a few of your own questions (if my excel formatting made ANY sense to you at all). I didn't respond to everything I apologize :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
The reason why I state jobs is because some abilities pre 30, would not fit thematically with a GLAD. That's the main reason why.
The reason I didn't take the concept even further is because I was planning on a full page materia concept, but unfortunately it's going to take me a while to find time to do it.
The idea is that a PLD would definitely have more control over its defensive capabilities. That's it's niche. Not that's it necessarily "stronger", but that it operates more efficiently in that niche. A WAR might need 3 GCDs to get a slightly more powerful defensive buff, and a buff activated via resource expenditure might cost say 40 instead of 30. Alternatively though, the WAR might generate say 40 resource from its combo whereas PLD generates 30 thus granting it flexibility to translate that resource into damage reduction and balancing them out.
That's the "idea" though, but without me creating a full blown other tank workup it's hard to quantify.
As far as other niche's go, I think it's ok to have some DPS variance because encounters would have more than one niche. If you look at O1S right now, mobility is irrelevant, Burst damage is irrelevant, defensive capability is irrelevant, AOE damage is irrelevant, interrupts/CC are irrelevant.
The idea would be that encounter design would be filled with areas for numerous jobs to excel.
The styles should absolutely intersect at the end and that's fine. The idea is that every single pull is not identical because factors and timing change slightly causing decisions to be made on the fly. Somewhere somehow a tank got spiked hard and is at 20% HP. In order to prevent him going down, interrupts/CC are used to stop a tankbuster, thus letting the boss use an ability that destroyed part of the platform (say 1/5 of the room). This makes subsequent mechanics more difficult because you have less room. Maybe this causes people to take more raid wide damage than necessary forcing us to have to interrupt/cc raidwide damage based abilities to allow healers to stabilize the party.
The end goal of this paradigm is to get away from people memorizing boss fights and having them be a wipe the second something goes wrong to actually fighting the bosses. -
01-20-2018, 02:02 AMVstarstruckno.Quote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
when you made this did you even consider you will not have all abilities ? (i/e leveling up, not being 70, etc?)
what if you are in content where you are only able to use the first cure and he first medica?
cast? or casting? Way I read this or being suggested is this:Quote:
An example: You cast Cure -> 2s cast goes by -> Cure resolves -> You cast Cure -> etc.
casting cure > cast cure > 2s goes by (animation I am guessing) > cure resolves> you cast cure.
This is suggesting to have a worse system then now and more dragged down by animation lock while not being able to cast skate? You need to cast skate to dodge moves. The healing in this game is overall slow because of the slow response servers have and this seems to make it worse. -
01-20-2018, 02:21 AMLord_ZlatanRight, which makes considering he is talking about a game going through a complete overhaul, which has already gone through a complete overhaul.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kassiekane
It is a completely ridiculous notion to expect the director of FFXIV to say "wow, interesting forum post, lets revamp the entire game! Come on, everyone!" -
01-20-2018, 02:25 AMLord_Zlatan
Also, as to the OP: Dont want to quote the OP as it is very long but the one thing I would completely and utterly love to see is more negative status effects that we can add to enemies apart from DoTs and resistance down effects.
Paralyze, Slow, Blind, etc etc that actually EFFECT enemies in a meaningful way would mean that some things would need to be rebalanced to require the negative status effects to be vital to the encounter but i think it could be done -
01-20-2018, 02:38 AMLegion88
Just some questions.
Why is it in your PLD example that you give alle 5 levels a bunch of skills?
The only reason i could see behind this is the locking of skills completely behind the class/job quests
Also your WHM example seems "strange". I don't have a lvl table so i can't see when WHM would learn Cure II, but wouldn't it be more logicaly if the spell without numbering would be the basic from which the other evolve?
All in all ithink there can't be a limit to suggestions and ideas to combat systems as long as it is not like a "you have to do this or worlds end!" rambling.
I'm waiting for the full version with the complete redesign of the jobs and a way deeper explenation of the system in your mind. -
01-20-2018, 03:48 AMMoroMurasaki
I haven't finished reading this and my phone is about to die but I didn't want to wait to tell you omg I love it and I love your brain.
Seriously amazing stuff. I will have a more indepth review later today but for now just wanted to say it was looking great. -
01-20-2018, 06:12 AMKazrahExcept when you come up with an idea like this, you kinda have to take this stuff in mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
Interesting read, but a bit hard to take you seriously talking about combat jobs when you clearly haven't played them all. -
01-20-2018, 07:15 AMKaldeaSahalineYou will be fine. Obviously if the content is designed for x level, it will be fairly balanced based on every jobs kit and abilities they have at that current time. Did you think like Sastasha was going to be Neo Exdeath?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vstarstruck
Because I didn't build a full healing kit it probably isn't as clear as it should be. The idea is that you would press cure, it's a 2s cast. At the end of it, the heal resolves healing the player. No lag, no animation delay, etc. Responsive healing is the goal.Quote:
cast? or casting? Way I read this or being suggested is this:
casting cure > cast cure > 2s goes by (animation I am guessing) > cure resolves> you cast cure.
This is suggesting to have a worse system then now and more dragged down by animation lock while not being able to cast skate? You need to cast skate to dodge moves. The healing in this game is overall slow because of the slow response servers have and this seems to make it worse.
I personally believe slide casting is stupid so its natural that I'd remove it in my design . It's an unintended side effect of bad netcode. I also was very clear in my post that you I assumed the netcode would be remedied thus removing this effect anyway.
I did use the fictitious in bold underline and italic in like the first sentence. Not sure why people are getting so upset over this lol. It's merely for fun to help slow work days go by.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan
If you look closely at the PLD toolkit you'll see that I accounted for that and I agree with you. I gave PLD a way to cleanse some debuffs (as I believe thematically that fits, and would be a nice niche tool).Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan
Any other insights?
In the wall of text somewhere I covered that I wanted to re-purpose the leveling curve. IN that I wanted to make low level more engaging and fun. I simply chose 5 level intervals for fun. No real intent behind it. That is why I front loaded more skills at low level, and shifted getting multiple skills together.Quote:
Originally Posted by Legion88
I agree, the WHM example was an oversight (you can imagine there are probably several given the length and depth of the topics). If I took the time to build out an actual WHM it'd make a little more sense. I could easily shift the 'type' of healing efficieny to other skills and it'd fit. I'll probably fix it later.
Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by MoroMurasaki
In the very first line, in bold, underline, and italic CAPS I said this was fictitious. This is merely a post for fun as something that I wanted to do to make slow work days go by a bit quicker.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
So, to be clear, instead of actually discussing any of the content therein, you've chosen to go after my character in an effort to... What exactly? Undermine my fun post? Make my ideas seem less valid/viable? I didn't post a job design of some job I haven't leveled lol. I specifically chose Paladin because that is the job I have the most experience on.
I strongly welcome you to discuss the actual ideas and content of the OP, rather than this stuff. I'm much more interested in that :) -
01-20-2018, 10:55 AMNedkel
You would need to remake entire netcode on the SE servers if you want to implement faster cooldowns.
You need also to consider the 0.5 global cooldown on all abilities, there is a time gap between you could press buttons for the reason of the SE server managing and even struggling to keep up with 500 ms latency between players and servers.
With the current ogcd and gcd between them you have a chance to active cooldown ability, with 1.5 sec between the ogcd - skills speed, it will be problematic from the technical point of view to let players use a GCD > OGCD > GCD
And yes i believe we need much more CC in this game, especially the AOE CC on tanks that would help them managing the pulls. -
01-20-2018, 12:19 PMShurrikhanWhich is probably why it says that it's "FICTITIOUS" (i.e. a hypothetical, food-for-thought, see what you do and don't like about this unrealizable situation to hone your own tastes) situation in the first two lines?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan
Technically, that much would be irrelevant. The only part of import is how many ms prior to the animation lock's end is the skill queue-able, exactly the same as now. Ping controls how fast you can move between oGCDs, not just GCD, precisely because there is little server-queued time as is. GCDs themselves don't make it any easier to queue skills. The lack of very short animations do, and that's it. If you can skate between 2.5 (1 GCD)-second casts, you can skate between casts in a GCD-less system. The polling rate of this game will still be too poor and the webcode too lenient to stop you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vstarstruck
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01-22-2018, 06:49 AMShurrikhan
I want to write up a full review, but have no idea where to start!
Murasaki, how's yours coming along? -
01-22-2018, 11:13 PMKaldeaSahalineI believe I did cover the netcode would be updated prior to re-design of this nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nedkel
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01-23-2018, 12:14 AMLord_Zlatanmy post was a response to the poster who said "This is the FFXIV forums, where everything gets shot down or ignored". Why would we ignore something that says its fictitious? Your snarkiness is unnecessary. I even go on to say that I agree with his ideas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
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01-23-2018, 10:59 PMVstarstruckyou did not answer my question. Way you worded things is you make healing way too difficult in low levels leading healers to constant oom.Quote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
correct, thank you, i do not get why ffxi is more responsive then this game is. I agree that at least needs addressing but gl in your endeavors.Quote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
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01-23-2018, 11:06 PMKaldeaSahalineMind showing me where you got that idea from? What text specifically. That isn't my intent so if it's being gleaned from somewhere I will fix it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vstarstruck
The idea is that if the content only allows Cure and Medica, the healing requirements will be more than capable of supporting that without being "too difficult" or leading healers to be constantly OOM. It wouldn't be like expecting someone to heal a level 70 Exdeath with a level 15 Sastasha toolkit. -
01-23-2018, 11:20 PMVstarstruckoriginally you said expensive i believe, but i was talking about this. I still think you are trying to propose these changes with no regards as you level up (i?e not having the full set of spellsQuote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
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01-24-2018, 06:45 AMKaldeaSahaline
Correct - I believe you or someone else pointed out my healing spell designations were not very intuitive and I agreed and fixed that.
I need to find a better way to stress the idea that yes leveling up will be just fine. While it is true I did not create a job example for WHM or any other healer, you can see my PLD example and see the decisions I made to have certain skills/abilities by certain levels to ensure a fluid experience. I'm asking that you extend that courtesy to the rest of the game that I don't have time to map out.
The point of the post was to have some fun discussion over if my ideas would be fun to others and if the PLD re-work I designed would be fun to play, etc. -
01-24-2018, 06:58 AMVstarstruckI am actually not understanding the PLD stuff and what it would mean to play with it, it is just the healing really stuck out so i commented on itQuote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
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01-24-2018, 07:09 AMAirget
In terms of battle content, we will most likely never see a change to the Extreme/Savage content Role Dynamic. It's clean cut and allows a vast majority of people to jump into it without having to micro to much.
In terms of battle content, Deep Dungeon is the first taste we got of something that changes the status quo to the game, Diadem had the opportunity to do the same but it fell flat. Eureka from what info we've received seems to be a unique form of battle content that will have it's own lving system(ability system) similar to how POTD weapon/armor works.
Then of course we have the unknown system for the next Deep Dungeon which is said to be different from POTD so we most likely won't just see a carbon copy system with new floors.
I just think the best way to suggest new type of "battle content" is to consider how it could work as it's own unique system away from the establish core system of the game. -
01-25-2018, 02:04 AMKaldeaSahalineYou misunderstand. I am not trying to suggest a new type of battle content. I am merely, for fun, throwing out alternative design schemas that I thought would be fun to discuss in the pre-patch lull.Quote:
Originally Posted by Airget
I was hoping to hear some actual insight into some of the elements in my post. It's been surprisingly light which saddens me. -
01-26-2018, 08:03 AMShurrikhanMy apologies for my late reply; I was attempting to come up with more to say directly on what you'd written that I hadn't covered already in the running thoughts section before, but came up empty-handed. All I can really conclude with is that I again like the direction you're going in.Quote:
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
If bored enough, with yet 5 days until the patch, here is my take on designing for a similar effect, but in my own style:
Hmm, where to begin. Perhaps it best to point out that as before, I have a distinct aversion of anything seemingly arbitrary or with tiered effects that cannot be intuitively explained. Instead I prefer smooth scalars, whether linear, exponential, logarithmic, or any quadratic mixture of the like. Consider it like variance in scripts: some scripts prefer only straight lines, others only curves. For whatever reason, be it complexity driven by extent within otherwise individually simple factors or mere underlying aesthetics, I prefer to have very few, but pervasive, scalars, each congruent and/or symmetric to each other.
Or to put it more simply, I am looking for the fewest possible distinct factors, from which to create the largest possible product, or, available permutations.
The entire underworking is little more than "potency" and curves manipulating it -- by spell type or weapon type, as you will see later. I will later use terms such as synergies, status effects, combos, and the like, but these merely describe essentially at-random interactions between given points along either curve: they have no mechanics in and of themselves, but are a simply a handy way of talking about a frequently seen computation between the factors available to a player (e.g. cast time vs. mana per potency) or priorities thereby pursuable (mana efficiency, vs. burst). Just as DPS is not an inherently different mechanic than damage dealt or the time spent doing such, neither are any factors in this system beyond "potency" and "pierce" distinct mechanics.
Because of this intended simplicity and lack of otherwise arbitrary breakpoints, something like B&S-style CC armor is automatically out -- maybe not in practice or effect (where a given number of strikes generally equates to breaking through for a stun), but in underlying code -- as you'll see later. Heck, even the difference between Fire I and Fire III, or the Astral Fire or Umbral Ice ranks, are out.
The other, and similar, tenant is that "all is potency". Every status effect, positive or negative, has potency, and its effect depends on that potency in its context of relevant stats or other effects. This is the other reason something like CC armor would be out. There are no skills that merely stun. There are only skills that deal a lot more 'suppressive' potency than others, and what fails to reduce an enemy's rate of action to 0 (a stun), simply reduces it to that x% value it did reach (reducing rate of action to, say, 50%), or that which fails to affect 100% of the enemy's dynamic range of skills, affects only the x percent is did reach (say, 75%, which may happen to cover all but its strongest 25% of skills, which may merely include two special attacks). You might call the result a slow or a pacify or a silence, but in the end it's just a calculation from a smooth scalar based on an exchange of potency in context. There are no hard durations either. Effect potency is simply split between duration and effect.
Though casting is one of the least relevant areas of this change in design philosophy, I mentioned Fire I and III before, so we may as well start there. Casts, too, rarely have a rigid length. Rather, one simply channels or charges a given spell type, which lies upon a particular curve such as to increase relative power (per second of charge) or efficiency (by mana or in terms of mechanical growth) with longer casts within the spell type. This spell type can be augmented by extending the maximum pre-scaling charge time of its casts, but essentially, even as, say, Fire increases from a maximum cast time of 2 seconds to 3.5 seconds, it's doing the same thing: it's just pushing more more deeply towards a given priority based on its release point in the curve. This creates, admittedly, a much more lenient realm of play for casters, as although their efficiency may be penalized for movement, they need not lose a cast outright just because they had committed to a 3-second cast of the exact same mana, element, and focus as two other spells they'd had at quicker cast times, but were forced to move before reaching that charge duration. Mana, likewise, is drained, from one's now-continuous (rather than per 3 seconds on global tick) and Speed-scaled mana recharge rate first and the excess from one's standing mana thereafter, over the cast. Moreover, the cast can be held beyond its maximum duration, continuing to pump mana in in preparation for a new enemy's appearance or the like to release it upon them; it simply maintains the same drain rate and therefore comes at accordant cost. That's all there is to it: simple curves per spell type. Channeled skills require targets, if any, to start spending and doing anything, but all other spells can be given a target, or even have their target exchanged, any time before release. If a certain spell type "jumps" up to (or "pre-allocates") a certain mana cost and output instantly, simply stacking extra power over the cast time, that's shown in the curve and is the basis for an "instant cast" spell, and provides as much downtime as is listed for that curve; there is no fixed GCD. Other spell types, still, may allow themselves to be charged while moving, or to cast instantly and channel whilst mobile thereafter. It's all in the curve. The only factors of variance -- and this is already cutting hairs -- are their floors, their slopes, and what portion is charge vs. channel. No GCD. No fixed tiers. No complicating factors beyond that.
I've already mentioned the "stagger" system idea to you before, but I have since simplified it. It, too, now can hardly be called a "system" in its own right. It is simply the sum of factors already embedded within individual attacks. The basic idea here is that physical skills, too, have a sort of "cast", "anticipatory frames", or "wind-up time" to them. This is not a cast in the sense of immobility, lest one waste all prior progress. Nor is this animation lock; though in some cases one may sacrifice potency if they do not remain realistically grounded, one can never be held in place, not even over a Dragoon's Jump. But, just as magical power is continuously generated--with not-quite-exceptions in spell types that pre-allocate mana via a raised floor for an "instant" cast--so, too, do physical attacks continuously generate force to be transfered upon impact, accelerating those strikes to the what you see through their animations.
And that wound-up force plays a part not only at the intended point of transfer (when the attack connects), but during any interaction where it's up (e.g. when struck). It doesn't arbitrarily change from a non-factor to a factor when a fixed animation time expires, as might make sense for "damage" in a turn-based system, but never for force; rather, it is a simple curve, and it interacts with anything it would naturally interact with. It's as simple as that. The closest this comes to having a second, complicating factor is the fact that not everything on which a unit might spend time is necessarily an attack; to use the analog of "weaponskills", tanks, especially, and enemies may now consume that time (and force) to merely guard themselves rather than necessarily attacking. TP (renamed SP, for Stamina Points, hereafter) is spent just the same, continuously over any exertion according to its curves.
This, therefore, works dually: not only can damage (or, force) chip away at an incoming force, but a force can be levied to defend oneself. The latter may or may not be an attack in itself, but this means that damage has both additional offensive and defensive benefits.
I mentioned before that there was one other system in place, "pierce", and it's from this that Stagger takes on its visible variance. "Pierce" applies to all attacks, but is most prominantly differentiated by weapon types or elements. All attacks fall on a spectrum--per actual strike, as a given skill may have multiple strikes within -- of "piercing". Though in the case of dealing Fire damage, where all but the explosive shockwave naturally "pierces", this may seem a misnomer, in cases such as magically throwing giant boulders vs. sharpened icicles or in noting the by-curve effects of spears vs. blunt fist weapons, it should feel rather intuitive.
In either case -- whether a given attack, by element or weapon type, falls above or below, say, 50% Piercing -- there is a certain amount of "waste" involved as to the attacks' direct damage. Unless something pierces perfectly, it will always waste some damage towards impact, or force, applied to the enemy that works to suppress its later actions. Inversely, the piercing portion has no impact, but deals damage over time. Armor works by pushing the piercing curve downwards, exchanging would-be additional damage taken over time into mere impact. And that's all any of this real is: a single curve. There's no slashing, piercing, or blunt, per se. There's just your weapon type, which has piercing modifiers over certain parts (at most the point, top (false edge), and bottom (true edge), if the weapon even has that many points of distinction), and the strikes of the attack itself, which would hit with different parts of the weapon (those long-spike fist weapons would deal piercing damage until a late cliff of force applied to the strike (e.g. until having impaled the enemy up to the very gauntlet itself), but a backhand strike would be almost entirely "blunt"). Each weapon has its curves, and each strike strikes with a given part of the weapon, while elements or spell types likewise have their curves and modifiers. That's it. Realistic, but simple.
This effects Stagger primarily in a manner of trying to deal enough force at once -- wherein lesser pierce is advantageous -- to get by or complete short-term goals, such as mitigating a strike to survivable levels, while investing ahead through effect dealt over time -- wherein higher pierce is advantageous -- to succeed on the whole or in one's longer-term goals.
How delayed do you want the effect to be? How much should be frontloaded? That's the only question, but its available interactions are immense, especially once considering enemy stats. And between this question and the mere fact that everything is continuous and conflictable force, everyone is now involved in the duties of survival.
The only other factor is that skills now land as they would appear to. If they appear to cleave, they cleave just so. If they appear to launch enemies upwards, that's what that impact is doing (and distance from the enemy upon attempt, causing the top of one's spear to be used instead of its point, for instance, may well make a difference). They knock back in the direction they would appear to. They reach as far as they would appear to. They strike as many separate times as they appear to. More more importantly, they strike spaces, not merely targets. One can target an enemy and direct their every strike appropriately to that enemy's space, but you cannot have your greatsword pass through five enemy models and only strike the one intended. If you wish to do that, you must choose the appropriate skill, the animation for which would likewise only stab through that particular enemy. Simple enough, but since everything that would affect you also affects your enemies, it has one very large consequence: everything is interceptable. Now, all skills are, to a degree, inherently cleaves, but since everyone has some manner of passive defense, and forces generated will counteract each other if they interact, and skills only have as much reach as they appear, one can intercept a strike in order to save someone else, without having ever been the intended target. This is the new world of tanking. A tank does not merely hold the lead value for an arbitrary and invisible system. Rather, their job is to thwart enemy aggressions in their every form. That job is not unique to them, but they are in an ideal position and carry ideal toolkits for that job.
Note: this is also the solution to AoE inflation. One strikes with a given amount of force. Some of that force may have otherwise been wasted or redundant, and thus has amounts to spare, but every interaction chips away at it. Thus a cleave deals cumulatively with each instance of counteracting defenses or forces against it. All cleaves are, roughly speaking, alike to the Neo Exdeath or T10 linear AoE mechanics, both enemies' and our own.
Now, all that revision or, in a way, simplification, or whatever you want to call it, is but part of the picture, but that's virtually everything directly related to combat systems as a whole that will be changed beneath the game.
In summary: (- removed | + added | = adjusted)
- GCD
- AoE
- single-target
- "instant casts"
- "combos" (more on this latter)
- tiered spells
- slashing
- piercing
- blunt
- tiered multipliers
+ "pierce"
+ curves
= all skills as drawn; all cleave; all can be intercepted
Apart from these core components:
Obviously animations would have to be totally reworked: there are no fixed animation times, after all, because everything is continuously generated. If one is slowed, so too is the generation of force that creates the animations, and therefore the animations themselves. Having one's time warped or their body nearly paralyzed doesn't merely increase downtime between strikes: it slows those strikes, and therefore makes them less effective.
Since MP and TP are both drained continuously -- via "exertion", or, in accordance with their used skills' curves -- a global tick will no longer work for either. Instead, they will scale with Speed, while Critical Strike and Determination will have similar and balanced efficiency-increasing effects. Though not particularly relevant to this package of ideas in itself, I also plan to cause one's potencies to be gradually penalized when approaching MP or TP (now SP, or Stamina Points) starvation. Personal MP and SP-regenerating skills will be removed, but base rates increased where necessary to compensate. Stranger still, all jobs now make some use of both MP and SP: Dragoon makes use of MP for Dragon skills, Monk for its elemental fists and releases, Ninja for its Mudra and Ninjutsu, while SMN makes use of it for its Trance, SCH for its Acumen, WHM for its Soulfont, and BLM for its Enochian, etc. Thus raid support abilities remain augmentative at virtually all durations and compositions, but timing and conservation plays out a greater emphasis in combat, especially as continuous encounter uptime increases. Rotations are still a thing, but the need to keep one's own or one's party's defense in mind lends far more variance to the micro-play involved, while the need for conservation forces attention to macro-play.
A similar effect is given also through the removal of the majority of cooldown skills as cooldowns. Instead, these are covered through versatile uses of specific resources. The remainder, save for a couple exceptions kept at fixed cooldowns for thematic sake, are now what can be called "flexible cooldowns". They gradually generate up to 100% of cooldown's power over its recast timer, but can continue charging thereafter, are available for use prior to completion of the recast time; they instead sacrifice efficiency, as a 50% charge may only amount to some 33% power, and 133% charge to some 125% power, or the like. While, if there were truly no extra factors to be considered, these two could be timed for greatest multiplicity and therefore damage rate over a fight of estimatable duration, just as currently the case, this promotes far more attention to the actual needs at the particular moment and allows for greatly increased adaptation.
The last major shift is the removal of Role Actions in favor of choosable Traits, which should mark a drastic shift in the way classes compare to jobs, and what the point of a job is. But these will take a long while to explain, and their impacts would probably be better shown through a contextual revision of a given job. I plan, to keep form, to make my own version of Paladin to share, along with perhaps Samurai and/or Black Mage.
Edit: I worry that -- nay, am sure that -- I wasn't clear enough about this point before: jobs still have DoTs and buffs of varying lengths around which to rotate. Even with the revisions to "combos" that I've only hinted at here, skills will still feel distinct from one another. At worst they face a bit of reorganization as it tends to be that skills which appear to bleed their enemies are generally going to be your skills that bleed out their targets, while those that simply smash them abruptly with a heavy object tend not to be DoTs. Higanbana, despite having only one Sen's worth of... Sen, plays into a curving mechanic therein, whereby Higanbana ends up as perfect pierce damage despite having tremendous potency behind it (far more so than the near-perfect pierce factors of fire spells, for instance). All that's really adjusted is that things tend to scale more closely with each other. Since damage is continuous, there are no individual crit ticks, so a Critically applied skill with a noticeable DoT factor (high pierce through its either direct damage or appended systems, the latter including such job mechanics as Sen or Chi or Windform or whatnot) instead will not only strike harder but also last longer, splitting that influx between both potency and duration just like any other status effect. Speed controls that continuous rate, shortening duration for heightened rate (to the same total). And determination is a flat increase, just as Crit, but with proportionately less effect seeing as it has no dependence on chance. I'll get into how, on a job by job level, rotations have been made more adaptable and nuanced, especially for tanks who now have active mitigation to spend time and TP (SP) on, but rest assured that rotational complexity is not being lost, only gained by new means of control on one side and slightly greater randomness on the other (though not in the likeness of MCH or BRD RNG mechanics; those have actually been softened and made far more bankable... though that is a story for a very distant day, if ever). -
01-26-2018, 02:38 PMSavageCipher
Its a great post, but its a post that's ignoring one major element;
The game has been selling like hot cakes, the current design works, more importantly, people like it...a majority of the people.
I get what you're saying OP, but plenty of people like you, have made this kind of post before, mainly on the WoW forums.
Here's the most realistic thing that could happen; less GCD's in general, and more combo's put in. -
01-26-2018, 04:41 PMLegion88I knew I heared something like this before and i‘m right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
12-button-challenge
I like the ideas while i‘m not a fan of action-RPGs and more a fan of the tab targeting/turn based system especially for MMOs.
I also like how you put in some deep thoughts for logical complexity and logical simplicity at the same time.