A summary of healer issues

[WaxSw]

I would simply consider "limited range" to be part of the difficulty and it certainly didn't need to be removed.

Curtain Call in P4S for example would've been an utter joke if it weren't for that limited range, limited range on melee attacks was something we previously had to consider as well, it's what made optimizing fights fun.
If everything can be done from any position in the arena it turns into a target dummy fight.

The problem is that the "limited range" isn't always part of the intended difficulty and it started to create problems. Fights like P4S have Curtain call where the limited range is part of the intended difficulty as it gives consistent time lapses where players can play around buff application and using mitigation to reach everyone, which is nice because during uptime the 2m meta and mechanics wait for no one, but in other recent fights, like TOP, that is not the case and have some phases that may ask players to randomly go away without them having much agency to play around that limitation. These changes are made to solve that problem which was pretty clear an unintended difficulty.

There is also the whole issue of the hitbox of the bosses which may cause tanks to miss dps buffs or mit if there is any mechanic that force the players to not enter the hitbox and the boss is big enough

[Absurdity]

The problem is that the "limited range" isn't always part of the intended difficulty and it started to create problems. Fights like P4S have Curtain call where the limited range is part of the intended difficulty as it gives consistent time lapses where players can play around buff application and using mitigation to reach everyone, which is nice because during uptime the 2m meta and mechanics wait for no one, but in other recent fights, like TOP, that is not the case and have some phases that may ask players to randomly go away without them having much agency to play around that limitation. These changes are made to solve that problem which was pretty clear an unintended difficulty.

There is also the whole issue of the hitbox of the bosses which may cause tanks to miss dps buffs or mit if there is any mechanic that force the players to not enter the hitbox and the boss is big enough

Those are problems entirely of SE's own making. They made the mechanics for TOP, they made gigantic hitboxes and they made the 2 minute meta, I don't need to be sold a solution to a problem they themselves created.

[WaxSw]

Those are problems entirely of SE's own making. They made the mechanics for TOP, they made gigantic hitboxes and they made the 2 minute meta, I don't need to be sold a solution to a problem they themselves created.

All the problems in the end are SE's own making. The thing is, these are problems that are happening at the hardest fights and can't be solved without massive reworks that are not realistically happening this late into the expansion, so I'd rather have a blunt solution that letting the problem fester and ignore it.

Let alone how out of all the things healers have lost over the years dying on the hill of range limitation is a weird one.

[Shurrikhan]

Those are problems entirely of SE's own making. They made the mechanics for TOP, they made gigantic hitboxes and they made the 2 minute meta, I don't need to be sold a solution to a problem they themselves created.

This... mostly.

I wouldn't mind if the "solutions" were something that helped players for whom such "clicks" less to then more easily engage with complexity. And often that can even be something relatively subtle.

Let's take the recent raid buff range increases. It's a solution to a problem of "It's annoying when randoms won't get in range of buffs," but it's not the only solution. An alternative, for instance, would be a raid buff display, with noticeable timers for when those raid buffs are coming up. At the most extreme, maybe even a visually-integrated macro-warning and/or ping system (similar to how the countdown is a visual indicator of something otherwise found only in chat). It still eases up players getting into range, but in a way that eases engagement with that point of engagement, rather than simply removing it outright.

Similarly, let's take frequent positionals, as per Monk. Cutting its positionals down to a third of what they were an expansion ago is a solution to "Having chosen the iconically positional-heavy class, I'm getting overwhelmed by positionals, especially since I feel tuned around getting 100% positional accuracy, but due to fight design I must often rely on a Role Action gimmick to even do that." But, again, it's not the only such solution. We could have instead, for instance, just revised positionals and their interactions with bosses suddenly turning or affixing themselves to the edge of the arena where positionals would be impossible regardless of what the tank does. We could, for instance, have positionals re-check for positional success a half-second later, such that so long as the positional was correct either before or having predicted the boss spin, the attack still succeeds. And rather than making certain fights rely on True North, we could also just have the boss temporarily become successfully attackable from any/all sides, or convert the front into a 'rear' (e.g., as per original Demon Wall), when they affix themselves to the edge. Etc., etc.

Either way, though, we'd need to roll back the more recent "solutions" already given, and change that route to reduced annoyance from reduction to, instead, polish and facilitated engagement.



:: To be clear, though, I don't think the "2-minute meta" is a problem, or at least certainly not a new one. It just does what we were obliged to do previously in HW and StB anyways: to stack a single CD template. It merely removes that chance of playing basically without raid buffs when we're somehow allowed into the Savage party despite being the odd one out (and not even being a BLM/SkS-SAM). I'll agree that having no competing reasons to hold CDs, etc., beyond boss jumps or phase-shift cutscenes makes things more dull, but that's more an issue with fight design (e.g., lack of short-term checks) and, just as importantly, how quickly we could out-gear competing challenges anyways.

[Deceptus]

There is also the whole issue of the hitbox of the bosses which may cause tanks to miss dps buffs or mit if there is any mechanic that force the players to not enter the hitbox and the boss is big enough

And in typical CBU3 fashion, instead of simply reducing the boss hitbox they made it more convoluted by increasing every single job aoe to 30y Except Asylum and Sacred Soil for some stupid reason. . .

[WaxSw]

And in typical CBU3 fashion, instead of simply reducing the boss hitbox they made it more convoluted by increasing every single job aoe to 30y Except Asylum and Sacred Soil for some stupid reason. . .

You do realize that reducing the hitbox of already existing content is not as simple as moving a slider, right? For example in some of the content this fix is aimed for, like TOP, it would affect melee uptime and dps checks would have to be reevaluated, as well as mechanics and aoe ranges, to make up for that change in every single phase of the fight. DSR would have to be reevaluated too and even some savage fights with tight dps checks at min ilv would have to go through a process of reevaluation, it's not trivial stuff.

[Katish]

You do realize that reducing the hitbox of already existing content is not as simple as moving a slider, right? For example in some of the content this fix is aimed for, like TOP, it would affect melee uptime and dps checks would have to be reevaluated, as well as mechanics and aoe ranges, to make up for that change in every single phase of the fight. DSR would have to be reevaluated too and even some savage fights with tight dps checks at min ilv would have to go through a process of reevaluation, it's not trivial stuff.

You do realize that reducing the hitbox of already existing content is not as simple as moving a slider, right?

Actually this depends in how it's implemented in some games it's even easier to declare than a slider by filling a range of hit parameter in which you just fill in one number in adjacent to a monster id in a markup language such as xml or Json. A lot of older games do this in fact that you would be surprised. You first develop the bare bones and then utilize that code to make your life easier. Game development nowadays isn't rocket science if you have the knowledge to do so, although it does take time to learn, I have already finished developing two games of my own in fact.

[WaxSw]

Actually this depends in how it's implemented in some games it's even easier to declare than a slider by filling a range of hit parameter in which you just fill in one number in adjacent to a monster id in a markup language such as xml or Json. A lot of older games do this in fact that you would be surprised. You first develop the bare bones and then utilize that code to make your life easier. Game development nowadays isn't rocket science if you have the knowledge to do so, although it does take time to learn, I have already finished developing two games of my own in fact.

I'm not refering to the technical side but the gameplay design side. Something like a hitbox reduction implies that players may lose uptime during a mechanic that they previously didn't, creating imbalances across jobs and making the dps checks even harder and in some fights, like TOP as I mentioned, dps checks are tight enough that a change like that would require a rebalance of almost all phases. There are also mechanics whose safe spot are based on the boss hitbox and that would also create problems. While maybe in the technical side it is as easy as moving a slider the impact that has in gameplay would be deep enough to make that change a non trivial one.

[Katish]

Something like a hitbox reduction implies that players may lose uptime during a mechanic that they previously didn't, creating imbalances

Ah, thats what you meant. Well I kind of agree with you but at the same time I don't, hitbox expansion is one of the sole reasons this is meleewalker...and it's hard to balance around that because the end of the day question is should ranged be able to do as much damage as melee, with the hitboxes as they are I'd argue yes or at least close enough. That would be the decrepency in damage. I'd rather them increase melee potency during burst phase and lower the hitbox range as it makes moving a little more difficult and actually starts differianting dps (and of course I'd want less homogenizing but that is a pipe dream). Now that doesn't mean I want hitboxes to be impossible of course there is an extreme to everything but that is not what I'm advocating for.

[ForsakenRoe]

And in typical CBU3 fashion, instead of simply reducing the boss hitbox they made it more convoluted by increasing every single job aoe to 30y Except Asylum and Sacred Soil for some stupid reason. . .

If it's any consolation (hehe), Whispering Dawn remains at 15y. Which is funny, because the analog on SGE, Physis 2, IS 30y. But Physis 1 isnt. Does SE really think that the 10% healing boost is why Physis 2 should have more range? That would almost imply it's the heal boost people hit Physis 2 for, and not the extremely potent HOT effect, which is silly to even think about

Actually, looking at it, the fairy skill ranges are now all over the place. WD and the Seraph version are 15y. Everything else is 30y. Oh wait, there's one exception! Fey Blessing is 20 for some reason. And whatever that reason IS, it's not to mirror Indom's range, cos that is 15 too!