10k Universal MP Is Boring.

Every class having exactly 10k MP and standardized costs for spending it removes complexity and does nothing but contribute to the dumbing-down of gameplay across the board in this game.

Having a reason to build for max MP was good, and felt good, because you could squeeze out exactly enough to fit that one more spell cast in a rotation.

The removal of TP and functionally turning MP into TP was a terrible change and there has been nothing added to compensate for this catastrophic loss of depth. TP's existence and variability in MP maximums led to resource management and skills that could aid in it. It gave a purpose to Bard and Machinist utility, it meant AST had a reason to have multiple cards, it meant there was variety in what to press when rather than mindlessly hitting the exact same rotation forever with zero deviation or adjustment.

Either bring back the old way TP and MP worked, or add something else that increases complexity in a way that's similar. This gives multiple jobs room for more depth, adds interesting gameplay across the board, and means jobs functionally being identical from 60 to 100 is not as much a problem. When there's actually something to learn and optimize there's actually a reason to care.

Don't look at it as 10,000 mana points.
Looks at it as a 100% full mana pool.

Still infinitely more boring than what we used to have, which involved MP management and conservation, MP party support, and as a result, more scrappy based gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Still infinitely more boring than what we used to have, which involved MP management and conservation, MP party support, and as a result, more scrappy based gameplay.

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Agree because the 'normalized' MP, paired with the 3154734 MP-free healing ogcds, subtracts an important layer of Healer complexity that we often see in most MMOs following XIV's model. And that's to the role that is thirstiest for engagement.

And let support do support things again like refresh?

Also think they should add TP back, but treat it the opposite where it builds up a gauge to unleash an ability vs a resource pool. Otherwise call it stamina.

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Originally Posted by Sensui

And let support do support things again like refresh?

Also think they should add TP back, but treat it the opposite where it builds up a gauge to unleash an ability vs a resource pool. Otherwise call it stamina.

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On mobile so can't edit.

But never bring back the MP transfer from casters to healers. That was some BS.

Honestly I prefer the way MP originally worked to the pure % style we have now. It just feels extremely weird to me that like, a Warrior or a Dragoon has the same amount of MP as a Black Mage or Summoner (despite never using it lol). Plus having different MP totals gives them extra ways to diversify jobs, especially within the same role.

Bringing back tp and tying it to abilities would piss off so many ppl it be funny to see

TP could have been handled better back then, most notably on how it used to get 100% consumed into sprint, and how you running out of it was rarely due to your own actions on single target scenari but just because your rotation was TP negative and just ran dry by a lack of support, unlike MP classes that also had to manage how they spent their resources (MP tied to raise, MP tied to Ruin 3 outside of Dreadwyrm for SMN, MP tied to too much GCD healing especially AoE, etc). The way MP behaved made sense, while TP felt punishing for reasons outside of your control as a player. And MP could also be raised from materia, as well as its regen speed, unlike TP.

Not that reasons outside of your control is bad mind you (if you don't get healed and die to damage for example, that's also outside of your control), but the main issue was also that you couldn't use any GCD anymore until it sporadically regened from the server tick, which felt very ass to say the least. Perhaps just reducing the potency/power of the attack when for example only 40 TP were consumed instead of the required 60 would have been better. Oh well, I don't know either way. Still a shame.

If we could specifically use something like materia to increase MP, that could potentially be an interesting form of customization. Like for BLM, having a bit more MP might mean that when things get wild, you'd be able to cast Fire an additional time without sacrificing your ability to hit Flare Star. Deciding whether that was worth the materia to have that flexibility might be an interesting choice.

But that said, I don't see anything like that happening, unless they get really wild in 8.0.

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Originally Posted by LilimoLimomo

If we could specifically use something like materia to increase MP, that could potentially be an interesting form of customization. Like for BLM, having a bit more MP might mean that when things get wild, you'd be able to cast Fire an additional time without sacrificing your ability to hit Flare Star. Deciding whether that was worth the materia to have that flexibility might be an interesting choice.

But that said, I don't see anything like that happening, unless they get really wild in 8.0.

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It may blow your mind that raising MP pools by using Mind Materia on BLM back in HW was actually a thing to ensure 6 Fire 4 in astral on some species (notably highlanders), and that reaching certain thresholds above on every species was strongly suggested to prevent bad tick rates making you unable to regen MP fully under umbral or just falling dry of MP and being left unable to cast anything.

Not saying that it was good execution of the system, but it sure was something. You could customize a lot more back then.

Actually, it was problematic because anyway people would follow the same meta models and builds, and all it was doing was making casuals or new players left behind because they just didn't know or cared, that's what was bad in execution. But for example if you take doh/dol even today with their stat thresholds, it's interesting somewhat that as the expansion progresses and gear goes up it unlocks more possibilities and thresholds for them to reach, potentially changing rotations, gameplay, etc.

ya know that we have a 10k pool but at no point we you the first zero so it could be legit removed without impacting that game

MP do not exist with melee dps

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Originally Posted by Valence

Actually, it was problematic because anyway people would follow the same meta models and builds, and all it was doing was making casuals or new players left behind because they just didn't know or cared, that's what was bad in execution. But for example if you take doh/dol even today with their stat thresholds, it's interesting somewhat that as the expansion progresses and gear goes up it unlocks more possibilities and thresholds for them to reach, potentially changing rotations, gameplay, etc.

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This can always be a problem.

It's in fact a solid argument to remove such systems entirely: If all players just copy the one optimally-mathed variant from The Balance anyways, why complicate the entire process so much. Just remove all secondary stats and all Materia, and bake the extra expected damage performance into the skill system itself. It's the expected outcome for every player anyways, might as well save the space in the item database and the GUI files and so on.

It's very difficult to design a system of player choice - be it talents, gear, materia, whatever - that allows for actual player expression without it just coming down to 1 optimal solution that someone has to puzzle out.

WoW briefly had this when they replaced talents entirely with 6 choices of 3 options, but by and large these were always "non-performative". So for example a damage dealer would have no damage options, so there is no tier where you can even talk about an optimal performance choice. Rather they were all defensive or supportive in nature. You could pick between 3 ways of healing people as a damage dealer, for example. This got dropped later as while it was bautifuly on a design and balance level, it also just felt weak. Damage dealers want the illusion of influencing their own damage, even if they just copy "the optimal spec". It's just basic human nature.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

It's in fact a solid argument to remove such systems entirely: If all players just copy the one optimally-mathed variant from The Balance anyways, why complicate the entire process so much.

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Does this mean that Piety is one of the better-designed stats? :p

Because whenever I've looked at The Balance for inspiration, there have always been low/medium/high piety sets in the recommendations. And this tier, there are even max eHP (vitality) vs. max damage sets in the recommendations.

My take away is that even when the goal of (almost) every encounter is to reduce the boss's HP to zero, there can still be an interesting and real choice between maximizing damage and maximizing the probability that you clear. (See also: Strats that sacrifice uptime for ease of execution.)

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Originally Posted by Carighan

This can always be a problem.

It's in fact a solid argument to remove such systems entirely: If all players just copy the one optimally-mathed variant from The Balance anyways, why complicate the entire process so much. Just remove all secondary stats and all Materia, and bake the extra expected damage performance into the skill system itself. It's the expected outcome for every player anyways, might as well save the space in the item database and the GUI files and so on.

It's very difficult to design a system of player choice - be it talents, gear, materia, whatever - that allows for actual player expression without it just coming down to 1 optimal solution that someone has to puzzle out.

WoW briefly had this when they replaced talents entirely with 6 choices of 3 options, but by and large these were always "non-performative". So for example a damage dealer would have no damage options, so there is no tier where you can even talk about an optimal performance choice. Rather they were all defensive or supportive in nature. You could pick between 3 ways of healing people as a damage dealer, for example. This got dropped later as while it was bautifuly on a design and balance level, it also just felt weak. Damage dealers want the illusion of influencing their own damage, even if they just copy "the optimal spec". It's just basic human nature.

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That's why even if we can't find creative systems where you can customize and express yourself through different options, the doh/dol example is interesting to me. Gated by stats at each tier, and having different thresholds being unreachable at lower tiers but suddenly becoming viable at later tiers, offering more or different options and changing the gameplay as players progress through the expansion, is a way to shake things up, even if everybody goes for the same builds like for doh/dol.

And even then, we do still see different options even on the balance, be it for doh/dol or some pve jobs that have speed builds, and non speed builds, or even various speed thresholds (notably old BLM), so I do believe that variant builds aren't a dead idea if executed properly.

And frankly? Make MP negative rotations again. It's not gonna matter in casual because fights are too short anyway. And then you'd have a lot more value put behind different builds with different amounts of piety for example, and the whole game would be reducing it as you go and gear up, and as you get better at each fight. If the fear is to see popping a lot of players thinking with the current damage focused rot brain mentality that just run out of MP and complain, then I'd consider this 1) hilarious and 2) part of the course correction syndrome evoked by Yoshida on difficulty.

Could work for other stats as well, like tenacity, etc. Make tanks without any like slightly more buff physical DPS roles, and tie half of tank actual additional defense to tenacity and see how it goes.

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

My take away is that even when the goal of (almost) every encounter is to reduce the boss's HP to zero, there can still be an interesting and real choice between maximizing damage and maximizing the probability that you clear. (See also: Strats that sacrifice uptime for ease of execution.)

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I like this framing, and I appreciate your having given me the chance to read it.