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

[kikix12]

This is the same mentality as "killing ennemies is the best mitgation" and would probably still end with tanks and healers having to do the most DPS available to quickly kill each wave.

You have read a single example Shurrikhan made, while ignoring the examples made by me in the original post.

There are many ways to deal with these issues. Have the boss do major cleaves, so no, the tank or healer couldn't deal with the adds, cause tank trying to do that would get the DPS killed. Healer trying to do that would get the tank killed. Another part is separating the tank and healer with DPS. There are already parts where groups are separated, mainly in raids. What is the problem of making an encounter here or there where DPS have to do actual mechanics, and end up being separated as a result? For example, a floodgate would be open with Sahagin boss. Either close the floodgates or boss goes into enrage once the water rises, being in his environment. Whoever goes however ends up trapped and have to deal with the adds. They die, the adds will be "free" and go after the healer. They kill the adds, good for them, no need to die and extend the battle.

Then there is a battle where widely-understood mitigation matters. At that point, DPS's role would be largely avoiding the AoE's (a form of mitigation) and probably triggering mechanics, like turning off turrets, which would give X points towards the win.

Another example is a battle where mitigation matters instead of survival, with adds, hence the team would need to balance between killing adds and keeping them alive. Kill too many and the battle will take ages. Kill too few and you will be overwhelmed. Tank exits tank stance or uses cooldowns poorly (like using them with few adds to deal with a single tank-buster instead of waiting for a long-term, sustained damage with more adds), the battle will go slower. Healer will have to focus on healing, because the more adds there are, the more damage, the higher mitigation accumulates, the sooner the battle ends. And DPS'ing when the party decides the magnitude of incoming damage is just nonsensical. And DPS?! They kill the adds to control their amount and try not to get killed themselves.

All of our stats are designed for killing or not be killed, all of our skills are designed with for killing or not be killed. If you want winning without killing to be a major part, you'd have to change a lot of things in the game to adjust to this new goal. There is currently a gameplay where your skills are not used to kill, it's called "crafting".

In case you didn't notice, this thread is about ideas that COULD be in the game, not about what is in it.
And what I am talking about is using those "not be killed" stats to determine the winner, instead of those "to kill". There is nothing wrong with it. Nothing unusual, lore-wise or technically. It would just switch the focus from one stat that already exists to another stat that already exists. NO CHANGE is needed for the system at all, just adding a counter for damage mitigated/avoided/dodged and a flag that calls the players the victors once a certain threshold is reached. As for battles based on time, there are already quests where you go against unending waves of enemies and need to survive for a certain time. The only change necessary would be adding a penalty (adding time to the counter) on someone's death. Trifling matter.

Since you seem to like that word : Irrelevant. Even if we don't "kill" them lorewise, the goal is still to deplete their HP bar. Especially with Fordola, in case you didn't realize we were at war.

This is just ridiculous. The goal is to deplete their HP bar...but that's the very reason why I suggested changing that goal...Again, this is not about what IS in the game, it's about what COULD be in game.
And being at war means NOTHING. Most soldiers on the battlefield surrender once they know they have no chance of winning. That's the very essence of what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about changing a wild beast on a rampage to suddenly up and stop. I'm talking about SOME bosses, usually intelligent, but also use arguments that something else comes and scares the boss away after a while, like a bigger beast that have little interest in the party.

And if we remove that goal of "Depleting the HP bar", suddenly, DPS jobs lose their purpose.

You having little will to think about options, or poor imagination, doesn't mean there is no way to make DPS have a purpose, as examples above show.

The gameplay is made like that, the story is made like that. To change all of this, you'd have to make real core modifications far above what could make tanking and healing more interesting.

The story is not made like that, and suggestions and ideas are usually for things that are not present in gameplay, so it's obvious it is different than what we currently have. And there is no need for any core modification. It's nearly entirely a design-based "problem". Making Palace of the Dead or a new PvP mode requires far more effort and change than what I brought up.

[Reynhart]

There are many ways to deal with these issues. Have the boss do major cleaves, so no, the tank or healer couldn't deal with the adds, cause tank trying to do that would get the DPS killed. Healer trying to do that would get the tank killed.

So, I guess the "boss" doesn't need to be killed, then, otherwise the tank could still require to do high DPS ? How many "bosses that can't be killed" could they design before it feels like something that is forced down our throat ?

What is the problem of making an encounter here or there where DPS have to do actual mechanics, and end up being separated as a result?

That's not a problem. We had this in A12, but, while DPS were busy with their adds, tanks and healers still had to deal damage.

Another example is a battle where mitigation matters instead of survival, with adds, hence the team would need to balance between killing adds and keeping them alive.

Seems convoluted, but why not. On a sidenote, I think designing such fights would take lots of dev time, and it might reduce how much content we get.

In case you didn't notice, this thread is about ideas that COULD be in the game, not about what is in it.

Yes, ideas that could. If it requires to change the whole gameplay to include a whole new set of metrics, you can be sure it won't be done.

This is just ridiculous. The goal is to deplete their HP bar...but that's the very reason why I suggested changing that goal...

Easy there. You mentionned these fights to explain how "we don't need to kill everything, since these characters didn't die lorewise". These examples are irrelevant, because, even if they didn't die, they lost by losing their HP bar.

You having little will to think about options, or poor imagination, doesn't mean there is no way to make DPS have a purpose, as examples above show.

Again, that would require a complete overhaul of DPS jobs, so this won't be done in this game.

[Shurrikhan]

Yes, ideas that could. If it requires to change the whole gameplay to include a whole new set of metrics, you can be sure it won't be done.

This is starting to get ridiculous. None of Kikix's suggestions have required anything on the scope your suggesting. It is as simple as changing an Objective line from "Kill Alta Roite" to "Defend Fluffles" or "Survive Villainous III's Attacks" and adding a time limit and failure condition as already present in our FATEs.

Again, that would require a complete overhaul of DPS jobs, so this won't be done in this game.

The examples being referred to are right up there, between your quotes, and on the previous page, and none of them require a complete overhaul of -- or even the slightest change to -- DPS jobs to maintain their purpose while still allowing for the same variation in objectives in Trials or Raids that we already see in FATEs, or across other MMO's raid encounters. Zero. None.

You can adjust the clear condition of the fight to indirectly bring something new to tanking or healing's place in a fight without having to adjust any of the separate roles.

[Reynhart]

This is starting to get ridiculous. None of Kikix's suggestions have required anything on the scope your suggesting. It is as simple as changing an Objective line from "Kill Alta Roite" to "Defend Fluffles" or "Survive Villainous III's Attacks" and adding a time limit and failure condition as already present in our FATEs.

You keep going back and forth...if you say "just survive", I say "then DPS are useless", then you say "but we need to kill too so we won't be overwhelmed", and we're back to "dead monsters don't do damage, so you will survive". Please make up your mind.

The examples being referred to are right up there, between your quotes, and on the previous page, and none of them require a complete overhaul of -- or even the slightest change to -- DPS jobs to maintain their purpose while still allowing for the same variation in objectives in Trials or Raids that we already see in FATEs, or across other MMO's raid encounters. Zero. None.

And none of them change the fact that you will win by killing ennemies, unless ennemies can't be killed, making DPS useless.

The sad part is that one Kikix example has already been done in A12, and it didn't change anything to DPSing...

[Deathgiver]

The sad part is that one Kikix example has already been done in A12, and it didn't change anything to DPSing...

Which mechanic in a12 are you referring too? Both your posts are so full of quotes and rhetoric that I can't find what you're referring to

[Reynhart]

Which mechanic in a12 are you referring too? Both your posts are so full of quotes and rhetoric that I can't find what you're referring to

The part where the four DPS goes into portals and are separated from tanks and healers...while tanks and healers still do what damage they can on Alexander.

[Ultimatecalibur]

And none of them change the fact that you will win by killing ennemies, unless ennemies can't be killed, making DPS useless.

The objective isn't to make DpS and killing enemies useless but more to make "ability to survive" and "ability to keep others alive" more important for tanks and healers respectively.

Imagine a 10 minute add wave fight that you win if the party survives through the full 10 minutes and that dealing good dps will make the fight easier but not win it.

Which mechanic in a12 are you referring too? Both your posts are so full of quotes and rhetoric that I can't find what you're referring to

I'm pretty certain Reynhart is referring to the 2nd of A12S' add phases (the one where half the party leaves to kill adds while the rest of the party is focused on placing crystals for the next phase).

The part where the four DPS goes into portals and are separated from tanks and healers...while tanks and healers still do what damage they can on Alexander.

The Savage version of that section does much better to illustrate what this thread is trying to ask for.

2 of the adds are fairly easily dpsed down.
1 of the adds hits very hard and slowly and either needs to be tanked or quick killed with an lb.
1 of the adds doesn't hit hard but attacks quickly and needs a healer to heal through it until the rest of the party doing adds kills their adds and comes to kill the healer's.

Meanwhile the rest of the party outside with Alexander Prime are more focused on trying to survive and properly place the crystals.

[Kazrah]

So I have an idea for this that probably won't be that popular, but will solve at least one half of the problem: have dps stances for tanks increase their damage taken by 20% or so. That way, either the healer can keep more to healing the tank who is now taking far more damage, or the tank can keep up tank stance while the healer's dealing damage.

With DRK, it'd be tricky, but probably tie in a bigger increase to damage taken when Blood Weapon is up.

[Shurrikhan]

So I have an idea for this that probably won't be that popular, but will solve at least one half of the problem: have dps stances for tanks increase their damage taken by 20% or so. That way, either the healer can keep more to healing the tank who is now taking far more damage, or the tank can keep up tank stance while the healer's dealing damage.

With DRK, it'd be tricky, but probably tie in a bigger increase to damage taken when Blood Weapon is up.

Alternatively, would simply reducing the passive mitigation and HP bonuses of being a tank, regardless of stance, have a similar effect, such that tanks are more reliant on active and stance-based mitigation?

This can be done by, say, giving each armor class merely a 25% bonus over the previous, such that tanks have merely 50% more defense than leather, down from 84%, reducing their left side Vitality to normal amounts, and making Fending accessories simply half Vitality and half Strength, rather than full Vitality and then additional Strength.

I'm not sure there'd be any effect on how tanks then fit into the picture in either case, though. That seems more like a nerf around which to simply rescript fights very slightly, still spending as little time in tank stance as possible, or else a much worse removal of viable breadth in tank toolkits.

[Hyperia]

After dying half a dozen times in the 24 player raid due to healers doing dps over healing the MT (me) I would like to propose a health based dps buff / debuff for healer dps. How it works is that if everybody in the group is 90% or higher they get a +20% dps buff, if their at 80 then 10%, 70/0, 60 / -10%, 50 / -20%, 40 / -30% ... etc. This way it encourages healers to keep their group healed so people don’t die, aka, do their primary job first. If somebody is dead, their dps takes the max penalty, aka, hardly any dps output till the group is back up.