Lets Rework Limit Break

Limit Break has always been kind of weird imo. It's a party wide mechanic that slowly charges over time during a fight depending on a multitude of factors such as damage taken, healing, etc. But the use of it has been very narrow and actually has seen nerfs overtime to the damage side and outside of mandatory tank LB requirements as well as animation's of LB3, i think this mechanic overall has become very outdated with the current game and could use an overhaul.

With the introduction and confirmation of Dynamis in the story that fuels the LB, i think even from a story perspective a rework could do wonders for each job and also enhance job identity across the board.

I will not be listing any potencies or specific job effects (outside of some suggestions as a starting point) as i want this to be a more open ended discussion and give people freedom to put out their own ideas and to give the dev team more freedom to come up with their own ideas.

Splitting Limit Break between Personal and Party

Party: This will remain relatively the same but with some changes to make it more dynamic while its function will be the same. LB charge will be a single bar now and will always effectively be LB3 but Potency will be heavily tied to party size. In addition to that change, the LB bar will not reset if someone DC's during a fight, instead its potency will dynamically scale giving you more chances to stay in the fight should anything go wrong which should be a big QoL improvement over how LB currently works.

Personal: This is where the rework comes into play. Every job will be given a completely unique LB that is a fully separate UI that is tailored to each job. This LB will work sort of more similarly to how PVP LB Gauge is filled and will fill much faster than the Party LB. By performing your job actions the bar will fill faster or slower depending on how well your job is being performed.

This Personal LB should be designed to make each job feel unique by giving them self focused buffs that you cant get anywhere else. Things like Haste, Enhanced Resource Generation, Damage Reflection, Souleater (Hp to Damage enhancement), etc. as some examples of what a personal LB would do. Bringing back old mechanics from earlier in the games life or even from other games entirely to bring way more unique identity to each job would be a breath of fresh air to how each job plays and would also increase the depth of combat a bit.

I think this outdated mechanic would benefit heavily from a rework since its been kind of left off to the side for a long while now and hopefully this post will encourage more open discussion and ideas on how we can make it better and more fun.

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Originally Posted by Arcflare

This Personal LB should be designed to make each job feel unique by giving them self focused buffs that you cant get anywhere else. Things like Haste, Enhanced Resource Generation, Damage Reflection, Souleater (Hp to Damage enhancement), etc. as some examples of what a personal LB would do. Bringing back old mechanics from earlier in the games life or even from other games entirely to bring way more unique identity to each job would be a breath of fresh air to how each job plays and would also increase the depth of combat a bit.

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Isn't that just plain old skills and spells? How is "limit bar that fills every 90ish seconds" different from "skill with a 90 second CD"? Being party wide is literally the only thing that makes the limit system unique.

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Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

Isn't that just plain old skills and spells? How is "limit bar that fills every 90ish seconds" different from "skill with a 90 second CD"? Being party wide is literally the only thing that makes the limit system unique.

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Thats the point of the discussion. Theres going to be ways to improve it to make it more unique feeling and id love for others to put ideas out there. No ones going to have all of the ideas and this is more of a discussion of how we can take an old mechanic and refresh it to make it more fun and interesting while potentially contributing to job identity. Im not gonna sit here and say its a good idea. But just an idea that others might be able to give more insight and ideas on is all. As for balance (since it was heavily brought up on the reddit) that wasnt really on my mind either when i made the post since there's a point where trying to perfectly balance everything will rip the fun and enjoyment out of individual jobs (which has been a heavy point of contention for a while as well.)

My idea in particular might be bad as it stands which is totally fine but if it gives more ideas for people to play around with and make the game more fun thats all that matters to me.

if you unbalance things then you start excluding certain things and thus start excluding people. balance keeps everything in check and participation universal.

I'd like to see fights incorporate the use of them being necessary for like Tank or Healer LB or some kind of stack of adds that a ranged LB could wipe out, but outside of that the LB itself is fine. I don't really see the need to change it and a personal LB would just be a nightmare to balance.

You would have to rework fights that require tank LB for certain mechanics which would be unecessary work. A personal LB is just the job gauge and we already have that.

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Originally Posted by Derio

You would have to rework fights that require tank LB for certain mechanics which would be unecessary work. A personal LB is just the job gauge and we already have that.

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What are you talking about? Fights already exist that requires a tank LB. Its rare, but there's a couple.

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Originally Posted by Ransu

I'd like to see fights incorporate the use of them being necessary for like Tank or Healer LB or some kind of stack of adds that a ranged LB could wipe out, but outside of that the LB itself is fine. I don't really see the need to change it and a personal LB would just be a nightmare to balance.

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Honestly, I'd be down for a fight with a moment that requires an attacking LB, especially since LBs have their own damage type, so they could easily make it so that the only thing that pierces certain defences is LB damage. Unfortunately, requiring a particular type of damaging LB would be against the current design philosophy, since that would mean particular content would be impossible to clear with certain party configurations (i.e. only melee, or only ranged) by design.

A fight with a required healer LB would be neat in a cinematic sense, fill up LB3, inflict Doom or Death on everyone but the healers or whatever, bring everyone back to the fight in a story relevant moment, etc.

The personal limit break concept isn't really functionally different than any other gauge mechanic. It works well in PVP, but there's really not a need to have it as a separate system in PVE.

As for the existing party limit break, it does need a rework. I don't know the specifics, but I do know that DPS limit breaks suffer from the DPS value not actually being worth it in some cases. Additionally, as mentioned, some limit breaks never get used. Here are some thoughts of my own on how to address the issue.

Firstly, I'd remove the concept of LB1 and LB2. This helps address the issue of LBs being too weak, not just the potency of DPS limit breaks often not being worth the animations, but also healer LBs which are literally worse than using Medica until you hit LB3. The rate at which LB is gained can be adjusted. Now, every LB just uses 1 bar, and the rate at which LB is charged can be adjusted slightly, though I don't think it needs to be 1/3rd of the speed. DPS dealt with LB3 is not that powerful that it would be game breaking in weaker content. Next, when LB is used, that role cannot use LB again for 5 minutes. So if you use the melee LB for example, you can't use the melee LB again, but you can use the ranged LB, the caster LB, or the Tank or the Healer LB. The further helps support the concept of bringing one of each role, as you could spend all 3 LBs in a savage fight, for example, on 3 DPS LBs.

Can we please rework Healer LB1 and LB2? like is there ever a reason to use those? They're literally worse than some GCD heals

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

The personal limit break concept isn't really functionally different than any other gauge mechanic. It works well in PVP, but there's really not a need to have it as a separate system in PVE.

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Outside of it being thematic to Final Fantasy and just looking cool, you have a point there. As for some other things I would like to see for a rework would be to make LB1 and 2 have job-specific animations as opposed to role-specific animations, while I understand that this won't make any sense for using them during early game content when new players might not have their jobs and are still classes, I still feel as though this would be the best case scenario.

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Originally Posted by Elizasylen

Can we please rework Healer LB1 and LB2? like is there ever a reason to use those? They're literally worse than some GCD heals

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at the very least it should be like, LB1 gives 50% MP back to everyone, and LB2 gives 100% MP back. Maybe some mitigation too (though not as much as tanks LB1/2), like 10% at LB1 (tank is 20%) and 25% at LB2 (tank is 50%), since barrier healers are also healers, as much of a surprise as that might be to SE

Alternatively, maybe make the Healer LBs have some sort of a buffing effect on people's damage to compensate? For example, LB1 increases the party's damage by 20% for 20 seconds, and LB2 increases it by 40% for 20 seconds, allowing for some crazy burst windows. IDK how the maths would work out to compare using one of these to a melee LB of the same rank, but I do know 'forbidden website' would be able to filter that additional damage off and credit it to 'LB' so there's no need to panic about padding parses (sorry, badding barses) or whatever

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Originally Posted by Elizasylen

Can we please rework Healer LB1 and LB2? like is there ever a reason to use those? They're literally worse than some GCD heals

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would be so easy too
LB 1 heals 80-100% HP
LB 2 aoe res with weakness