For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Shurrikhan]

Yes, we'll call them Criterion. Didn't I just say this?

Then which is it? Is it that 'We can't have multiple dungeon difficulties because Criterion Dungeons already exist!' (despite their being more distinct from other dungeons that Castrum Lacus Litore is to an Alliance Raid), or is that 'Criterion is literally a normal dungeon and therefore normal dungeons already have multiple difficulties!'?

The problem is you can't very well have a roulette that works that way.

We have multiple endgame dungeon roulettes, with the most rewarding of the two currently leaving the other dead despite their having the same difficulty. Why waste them in that fashion, instead of revising them as not to be so redundant, ideally while offering greater breadths of difficulty and reward?

Moreover, that an additional setting wouldn't fit into a roulette does not make it impossible or unlucrative to have that additional setting. Savage is not in a roulette. Does that make it inherently not worth having?

"Press X to Doubt..."

Doubt it all you like; managing DoTs is not uniquely difficult for most people. Not everyone is going to be as bad at it as you are.

It was literally just going in Tab or Enmity List order and then later refreshing them... in that same order. You got just over 7 GCDs (pre-SkS) per DoT duration. Counting to 7 is not particularly difficult, and you could just target an enemy briefly to see its remaining DoT duration anyways.

[Sebazy]

Forgive me, but it appears Sebazy is cherrypicking. Btw, I can show you some others from that fight or other fights, but the point will be similar. You CAN say it should be more than that, but that's hardly "dumpster fire" of no damage for entire fights other than 2 spikes. Even Nophica in that fight had more going on.

Lets look a little closer at your image:



Halone was one of the busier 24 man fights, but that's fine since I'll openly agree that I intentionally picked the worst to make my point.

So we get our customary opening AoE that SE is obliged to put into every boss fight these days to remind us that they know we exist. And then they promptly forget that we exist for a little over a minute, we get Doomspear, a 2 hit aoe that takes about half our HP bar and then again nothing for over a minute. Now I don't know about you, but 3 AoEs, each of which can be dealt with a single Medica II and natural HP regen from 1 of the healers across a 3 minute period is kind of my point. Far too many boss fights have gaps like these. Have you forgotten Rubicant-deal-damage already? We are inevitably going to get these sorts of periods of downtime at some point or another, it's almost as inevitable as you randomly claiming everyone is agreeing with you. We need *something* to do in said downtime that's not mashing Glare. It could be buffs, it could be dps, at this stage I don't really care what it is as long as it's something.

Suggesting that SE make us heal all the time is naive. Unless we go back to ARR/Coil style encounter design, that's just not going to work with the puzzle/dance/flashy animation centric fight design that we have now.

[Renathras]

Then which is it?

Each patch, add a dungeon, add 4 difficulties of it. I'm not sure how difficult this is to grasp...?

I'm not sure that Criterion could ever be "the normal dungeon" (though, personally, I DO wish our dungeon "crawls" were more than just 2x trash burns + Boss; repeat x3). But either one would work, honestly. I'd wager the roulette built one would just have a straight path.

I do think, at some point, we need to ask what the roulette system is for, since that informs design. 5x Experts across a week = cap (that's if you aren't doing anything else, of course), and they aren't useful for leveling since you already have to be at level cap to use them. But they also clearly aren't intended to be "challenging content". That doesn't seem to be the design purpose, no matter what some people might like instead. What would be better - since we're talking "capping tomestones for the week" - is to ensure that people that find them boring have an alternate method that isn't. In theory, there are many things that aren't. I DON'T find them boring but enjoy Hunts and so tend to meet my weekly cap only running 2, 1, or 0 Experts for the week. Frontline roulettes are another method, and Criterion and Deep Dungeons also provide them. So do Extremes, and when I'm farming a current mount, I often can cap tomes the week doing mainly just that. 8 Man raids also do it...but no one's running a Savage fight that many times in a week (or even a normal one while the drops are weekly).

Why waste them in that fashion, instead of revising them as not to be so redundant, ideally while offering greater breadths of difficulty and reward?

As I literally just said in the comment to which you replied - it wouldn't be a waste as it'd be no more effort than what they already do.

Doubt it all you like; managing DoTs is not uniquely difficult for most people. Not everyone is going to be as bad at it as you are.

Personal insults - because that's all you guys have these days - aside, there are other forms of engagement that are good.

Tell me something, how many instruments can you play, and play well? I can play three decently. Can you play them all, and all the same ones? How good are you at art? Can you draw and sculpt and paint and do digital, both pixel and 3D? Are you a good cook? Can you bake and broil and fry and grill with equal proficiency?

This may be a SHOCK to you, but normal people have limits. They're good at some things and not at others and have marginal proficiency at still others. And what people like will often (but not always) reflect their skillsets; for example, I'm good at tanking in games and leading parties/raid groups, but I REALLY don't enjoy it and so avoid it.

And your example isn't a single target fight maintenance. It's going through a target list and pressing Aero over and over instead of targeting one enemy and pressing Stone over and over. That's not "DoT tracking" since you're just rolling through them with no attention to the timer. I already do that in AOE fights (well, up until Dia/etc isn't a DPS gain over just spamming the single target spell, I think it's 6 targets where Holy 3 becomes the better DPS use of a given GCD...5.something)

Lets look a little closer at your image:

As I said, you can argue it still isn't enough - that, I think, is a valid argument - but is distinct from "dumpster fire".

Personally, I do think that Savage fights should be ARR/Coil style design. Do with that what you want. I think 24 mans should be more like Crystal Tower. 24 mans have never been designed to be Coils level of difficulty. The only times this has happened have led to mass complaints and eventual nerfs.

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

1. You mean what the difference is? I'm not sure I understand the question.
...
3. Not sure which thing you're referring to here. "Not really, no" or "Every Job..." or "That's...questionable"? I'm also not sure that the goal should be "make things that appeal to DPS players", especially when it comes to entire other roles. Take Tanking. GNB was pretty much unofficially (and maybe officially) made to appeal to DPS players. But they didn't take the three existing Tanks and ALSO convert them to doing so. The Devs were satisfied with just GNB filling that niche of "the Tank for DPS players when they want to Tank". Note that my own "4 Healers Model" proposal already satisfies this, anyway, between SCH being a "DoT Mage" and SGE being a "Caster with heals" - which, frankly, is what I THOUGHT it was going to be when Yoshi P first announced it.
...
6. Then your proposal is more limited than mine, as I'd probably include SCH in that just with a less rigid rotation and a bit more free flowing. But yes, SGE was basically billed as the GNB for Healers, the DPS-appealing Job of the Healer role. And there's no reason not to make it that other than...well...I honestly can't think of any...

1. "Hm...somewhat, yes. Not sure that's exactly right, but it's a start." this tells nothing. I can't understand your position with this.

3. I'm talking about complexity, not appealing to DPS. Not the same thing. I still don't understand your 4 healer model, it appears... I don't think you even can make healing appealing to DPS players.

6. Not really. It just means complete rework and thinking over what the job does.

I'm more interested in the idea, not the details. This is not something I can dive deep.

[Shurrikhan]

By my count, 31. So assuming that 32 is the number to aim for I'd only need to consolidate/remove one more skill, to make room for both Banish and BOTE.

Just some food for thought to play with if interested in consolidation.

Step 1: [Background Change] Add charge tech (cast times broken down into n parts, with each able to add or even subtract resource cost) to the game. Perhaps also add "Techniques," which would simply be abilities that can be used in the middle of other actions. (Almost all pet actions would be added here.)

Step 2: Consolidate WHM GCD heals down to Regen, Cure, and Medica. Cure has 3 stages at 1s, 2s, and 3s. Medica has 2 stages at 2s and 3s.

Step 3: Lilies via a new Technique (can be used even in the middle of another action / disregards both the GCD and animation-lock) that automatically adds 2s cast-time and completes the cast. If this skill is not added to your hotbars, this is instead done automatically upon interrupting your cast without a manual cancel.

Cure
I - 1s - 500p for 400 MP.
II - 2s - 800p for 800 MP.
III - 3s - 800sp + 500np for 1200 MP. (sp = split potency; np = AoE potency / potency to each of n recipients).

Medica
I - 2s - 400p for 600 MP.
II - 3s - 250p + 5 ticks at 100p each for 1200 MP.

Again, you have two options: In the first, if you put the Lily-spending button on your bars, you said button to spend Lilies to accelerate your cast by 2 seconds and automatically complete it. In the second, if you do not put the button on your bars, if a healing spell is non-manually cancelled (e.g., via movement), it spends a Lily to automatically complete as if it had 2 seconds' more cast time.

Let's say for now that additional MP is consumed for the cast time added (Cure III for 400 MP; Medica I for 0 MP or Medica II after 1 second cast time for 600 MP); we can deal with MP economy later.

And there you go. While retaining the very same amount of control and gaining two new gameplay options*, you've saved 4-5 buttons (Cure II, Cure III, Medica II, Solace, and Rapture).
* (Though, in this spitball, incidentally making Cure III and Medica II preferably be used only via Lilies. But, that's separate/arbitrary.)

You could then do something similar with the offensive options, too, of course, or even just adding a dynamic oGCD (say... Flourish/Invoke, which spends MP to follow-up on your most recent action). Etc., etc.

[AnotherPerson]

Lets look a little closer at your image:



Halone was one of the busier 24 man fights, but that's fine since I'll openly agree that I intentionally picked the worst to make my point.

So we get our customary opening AoE that SE is obliged to put into every boss fight these days to remind us that they know we exist. And then they promptly forget that we exist for a little over a minute, we get Doomspear, a 2 hit aoe that takes about half our HP bar and then again nothing for over a minute. Now I don't know about you, but 3 AoEs, each of which can be dealt with a single Medica II and natural HP regen from 1 of the healers across a 3 minute period is kind of my point. Far too many boss fights have gaps like these. Have you forgotten Rubicant-deal-damage already? We are inevitably going to get these sorts of periods of downtime at some point or another, it's almost as inevitable as you randomly claiming everyone is agreeing with you. We need *something* to do in said downtime that's not mashing Glare. It could be buffs, it could be dps, at this stage I don't really care what it is as long as it's something.

Suggesting that SE make us heal all the time is naive. Unless we go back to ARR/Coil style encounter design, that's just not going to work with the puzzle/dance/flashy animation centric fight design that we have now.

Yeah... that damage chart in particular also raised my eyebrows even for being one of the "more busier 24 man fights". The amount of downtime usually ranges from 30 seconds to possibly a minute. 30 seconds is enough to get 1 Dia + 11x Glare. Look at the amount of downtime in that fight and the amount of instant cast healing actions we have / regen duration before the next downtime. It's pretty insane when you think about how basically every portion of the fight can be basically filled up with Dia and Glare as a result due to how spaced out those intervals are. It's pretty much equivalent to a dumpster fire with how much downtime we have because we're basically DPSing majority of the time.

Byregot having THAT much downtime is no longer a dumpster fire but a burning building.

[Shurrikhan]

Each patch, add a dungeon, add 4 difficulties of it. I'm not sure how difficult this is to grasp...?

Then why tf did you argue against adding additional difficulties to dungeons? That was literally the suggestion this conversation started from.

Personal insults - because that's all you guys have these days - aside, there are other forms of engagement that are good.

Tell me something, how many instruments can you play, and play well? I can play three decently. Can you play them all, and all the same ones?

You were making the claim that an entire basic type of mechanic does not work / is crippled because of the UI as it is now, all while most people managed just fine despite the UI and the UI itself is capable of change.

Yes, you can be bad at something; that is fine. But why must your being bad at it demand that no one have any further access to it than the droplet-deep amount we have now?

[ForsakenRoe]

And your example isn't a single target fight maintenance. It's going through a target list and pressing Aero over and over instead of targeting one enemy and pressing Stone over and over. That's not "DoT tracking" since you're just rolling through them with no attention to the timer. I already do that in AOE fights (well, up until Dia/etc isn't a DPS gain over just spamming the single target spell, I think it's 6 targets where Holy 3 becomes the better DPS use of a given GCD...5.something)

And under my pitch where Dia is 430 and Holy is 450, it becomes a gain to 'just use Holy' at just 3 targets, not 6. So why argue so much against it, when I am asking for you to have to bother with multi-dotting in less scenarios? Also it's currently at 5 targets, 5x150 is 750, Dia's total is 715. Besides that though, I don't actually multi DOT everything in a pull even if it's more optimal damage to do so, because I'm lazy/the mobs won't actually live for 30s/I have Misery ready to make the pull a lot faster. Never got in trouble for 'where is your DOT WHM'. Weird, huh

[Renathras]

Then why tf did you argue against adding additional difficulties to dungeons? That was literally the suggestion this conversation started from.

This is why I often say "are you for real"?

I didn't.

I argued against RAISING THE DIFFICULTY OF the one dungeon we get. That is, the MSQ/Expert Roulette dungeon that we get every major patch.

I'm fine with there being FOUR DIFFICULTY VERSIONS of the SAME DUNGEON. Your suggestion seemed to be to keep only one difficulty, just raising it. I'm arguing against that. I'm arguing instead for still having the difficulty and roulettes we have now, just offering the same dungeon in multiple difficulties. I would IMAGINE that the people saying they want harder ones would just que for the easy one because it'd be faster/easier, but hey, the option being there is the important thing.

Yes, you can be bad at something; that is fine. But why must your being bad at it demand that no one have any further access to it than the droplet-deep amount we have now?

Imagine a person being bad at guitar saying "I would like it if we had a piano in the band". This is me. And someone yells at them instead "Pianos are for lazy/bad people! Everyone can play a guitar just fine and if you can't, sucks to be you!". And our band is a classical music recital for children.

And under my pitch...

You're asking me to do something I already dislike more often. Think of something you dislike about the current gameplay. Now imagine someone asking you to do it 3x as much as you do right now. Would you find that appealing at all? "We heard you dislike Glarespam and do 70% of your casts as Glare. So how about we propose making that 95% instead?"

...

1. I suppose ask me more specif questions, then?

2. Perhaps so. I disagree with the last provision. GNB seems to have appealed to DPS minded players while still being a Tank. "Heals by doing damage" models, like the RIFT Chloromancer seem to do that as well. The trick is that the healing component has to be NEARLY automatic. Basically you take a DPS Job and give it something that does a Cure 1's worth of healing to the lowest health party member every time you cast one of your damage spells. Well, that's an oversimplification (there are other ways to do it), but the point is that you can make what is effectively a DPS Job and make it heal through doing its DPS rotation. That would generally appeal to some DPS players. It wouldn't appeal to all of them...but what does? We have Caster, Ranged, and Melee because many people only find one of those sub-roles appealing, and within each, we have at least 3 options because, again, DPS players are...well...notoriously picky? For lack of a better way of putting it.

6. I didn't mean that in a bad way. I meant mine already has 3 of the healers changing to what some people want the role changed to while yours seemed to only indicate 2 doing so.

And yeah, I agree it's more of an overall idea. I give a few more detailed examples because people here in the Healer forum typically bash anything that isn't "Moar damage buttons!!!" and pounce on ideas that don't specify such.

[Shurrikhan]

I didn't.

>> Expert roulette / level-cap dungeons aren't worth addressing as an avenue of increasing availability of midcore difficulty content.

<< Why not? We already tripled the number of difficulty levels available to raids and level-cap dungeons themselves started off as that exact progressive midcore content? So why would it be inappropriate to add additional difficulties to dungeons to help provide midcore content?

Which, in early ARR was increasingly... the 4-man level-cap dungeons. On release, Amdapor Keep absolutely was harder than WP, which was harder than CM. Pharos Sirius was then harder than AK (maybe a little too large a step, but still).

And each directly and indirectly (most efficient way to gather the 300 mythic tomes per week) gave gear that would help one get into what was at the time the game's most difficult content (as ARR Savage 6-9 hadn't yet released yet as Title-reward content, similar to today's Ultimate).

Raids didn't originally have an explicit casual mode, but we added it. Why can't we do the same for dungeons, but as an option bringing back that culled difficulty span? Why would it be a bad thing to (again) offer some midcore content within 4-mans in that 18-40 minute range in run length that actually feel more cohesive and varied (and less finnicky/"gotcha") than Criterions and actually fill that midcore spot gear-wise instead of being tuned seemingly around the tier's near-BiS?

Here. Bolded it for you.

>> "Because Criterion exists."

???

Your suggestion seemed to be to keep only one difficulty, just raising it.

Then actually read the suggestion? Why would I bring up the difficulties added to raid before asking to do similar for dungeons if the difficulty levels to be added were irrelevant?