Skill Branching: "Everyone Wins" Concept

[AnotherPerson]

Honestly, I don't think "There will always be a meta" is justification for balancing the fun out of the game. So what if some jobs are bad in a fight? Maybe they excel in another. Like your proposed materia, sure, they're unlikely to all be useful, but there could be cases where a niche choice excels for once, that alone, to me, is a good enough reason for having interesting niche choices.

Would be cool to have materia on your main weapon apply a skill buff but considering how often SE changes skills and introduce more jobs I'm sure while it's doable, it's probably a lot more resource intensive to replace old skills. I can see at most skills like sprint duration/cd or role skills like Bloodbath/Second Wind get a buff, but then materia can be applied to every gear rather than just the weapon and modify the skills in different ways. In that case, we have a decent breadth of selection on what kind of effect the materia can provide other than substats itself. I figure a lot of these are either applicable to most battle content or will be designed for specific exploratory content / solo mode.

Sprint - cd reduced / duration in combat increased
Bloodbath - maximum heal percentage increased / duration increased / cooldown reduced
Second Wind - Max potency increased / Cooldown reduced / 2 charges / Apply heal over time effect / Damage taken reduced for x Duration
True North - Duration increased / Cooldown reduced / 3 charges
Esuna - Effective Radius (increasing AOE effect) increased
Rescue - Cooldown Reduced / 2 Charges / Apply invuln when pulling target until reaching destination
Lucid Dreaming - Potency increased / 2 charges / Duration increased
Surecast - Duration increased / cooldown decreased / 2 charges
Swiftcast - Cooldown decreased / 2 charges
Arms Length - Duration increased / cooldown decreased / 2 charges
Rampart - Duration increased / cooldown decreased
Reprisal - Duration increased / 2 charges

Leg Graze - Effect increased / Duration increased
Foot Graze - Duration increased / Cooldown decreased
Peloton - Greatly increase out of combat movement speed
Repose - Effect Duration increase / Effective Radius (increasing AOE effect) increased
Sleep - Effect Duration increase / Reduced cast time

That being said, I'd honestly prefer more RPG elements that puts less emphasis on parsing and more emphasis on individuality considering this is a RPG, but I guess people will try to find meta in everything even though all choices can be really good when designed well enough.

[ty_taurus]

Out of curiosity, what are anyone's thoughts on the right side path concept?

Without considering anything else yet, you'd have a "Diacloud" trait that has been talked about here and there, you'd have a new AoE spell in Tempest (an upgrade to Water at the same time as Glare and Dia are obtained) which is now a ranged cased similar to Gravity and can be cast at triple the potency based on your lilies, and the reworked Holy.

When I was looking at that really early iteration of Holy that was initially stronger than Stone II at having a higher cast, it gave me the idea of dialing that concept up to 11 as something meant to be more than just your AoE spam. Because it has a higher cast time and MP cost, there's a lot more to think about regarding when you want to try and use it. There are a lot of ways you would approach it. Do you hardcast it because it's still a small damage gain because you think you're fine to stand still for 6 seconds? Do you spend Swiftcast on it for the damage because you're not concerned about needing Raise? And since you can also spend your Diacloud procs on it, do you chance spending that proc on Holy because you still have 24 seconds left on your DoT and you think you might get another proc before the duration ends?

[Shurrikhan]

Who am I kidding everyone and their mum's gonna go on IcyVeins and ask 'what is best HighMateria Reaper K3S Savage Ultimate Savage 2024' and what little 'player choice' will be instantly removed by optimizers, and by people who parrot about the meta things but don't actually know why something is meta.

Aye. True. But...

People already play jobs that aren't necessarily the best in role, sometimes with GCD speeds that don't have the theoretical best output just because they prefer how the job plays at that other speed. That's 2 out of the 2 forms of gameplay-affecting customization we have now, with both seeing actual choice.

Yes, the actual portion of players the "best" option tends to possess decreases with however many other options are competitive*, so ensuring that the choices we have already aren't fundamentally hamstrung or the like (see Skill Speed outside of SAM or especially MNK, and Spell Speed outside of BLM) is definitely worthwhile, but that there is a best means nothing; it's the portion of all else that's near enough to it that matters.

* (Increasingly tightly, with the content's stringency... not that even Ultimate is really enough to sacrifice a player not getting bored and whiffing a mechanic over a that player doing 2% more DPS, since a single extra death would outweigh it even if it doesn't cascade into a wipe.)

Would be cool to have materia on your main weapon apply a skill buff but considering how often SE changes skills and introduce more jobs I'm sure while it's doable, it's probably a lot more resource intensive to replace old skills. I can see at most skills like sprint duration/cd or role skills like Bloodbath/Second Wind get a buff, but then materia can be applied to every gear rather than just the weapon and modify the skills in different ways. In that case, we have a decent breadth of selection on what kind of effect the materia can provide other than substats itself. I figure a lot of these are either applicable to most battle content or will be designed for specific exploratory content / solo mode.

<Examples of buffs to Role Actions>

That being said, I'd honestly prefer more RPG elements that puts less emphasis on parsing and more emphasis on individuality considering this is a RPG, but I guess people will try to find meta in everything even though all choices can be really good when designed well enough.

I'm not sure that buffing a skill causes it to be replaced. I could have sworn the old pre-traited version of actions (e.g., 9s Venomous Bite) shared a skill ID with their later traited versions (e.g., 18s Venomous Bite).

All that being said, I am not a big fan of having a ton of minutial options over just having fewer, more impactful, and more thematic ones. I'd much rather just have, say, 1 or 2 slots that, when filled, provide dynamic changes/additions to one's kit.

And I wouldn't want a single one of those options to lack a tangeable gameplay effect (and perhaps utility without a direct impact on rDPS). If it's just bonus damage and/or a visual rehaul, that should just come from item level or skill/aura glamours, respectively.

[ForsakenRoe]

Would be cool to have materia on your main weapon apply a skill buff but considering how often SE changes skills and introduce more jobs I'm sure while it's doable, it's probably a lot more resource intensive to replace old skills. I can see at most skills like sprint duration/cd or role skills like Bloodbath/Second Wind get a buff, but then materia can be applied to every gear rather than just the weapon and modify the skills in different ways.

IDK how others have it, but I'd limit it to 'these High Materia (name wip) can only be melded to weapons, and only one can be melded per job' for two reasons. One, so you have to choose which effect you want instead of just having several/all of them, and two, to force the materia to be used only on the job it's intended for, to avoid the 'remeld gear' issue that WAR used to face due to it's non-participation in the DHit meld loadout that the other tanks used. Alternatively, melding it to the Soul Crystal itself, or creating a new menu that lets you choose from the different effects that is attached to the Soul Crystal. Idk how the job-rock works though, if it's possible to give it a materia slot or anything

Role actions are a good idea too. Like, I'd make Peloton get 'you can use it in combat, and it lasts 10s, but now has a 3min CD'. This doesn't stamp on SCH's toes, because SCH has that effect natively, it doesn't have to sacrifice it's 'High Materia' slot to get it. But a BRD using that effect would have to make the decision to use that, over other effects like, idk, 'Warden's Esuna effect is now AOE' or 'Minne now heals upon application for 300p', or 'Troubadour now applies a barrier upon application equal to 250p' or whatever. Maybe the speed is good for safety getting to positions faster, maybe you'd prefer to have the AOE Esuna for P12S P2 to save some healer GCDs, maybe you'd rather have the extra defensiveness of the Troubadour because the damage from Caloric being cast kinda hurts

And I wouldn't want a single one of those options to lack a tangeable gameplay effect (and perhaps utility without a direct impact on rDPS). If it's just bonus damage and/or a visual rehaul, that should just come from item level or skill/aura glamours, respectively.

I wouldn't be entirely against it if it were a VFX change and effect change combined. Like, for DRK, an effect that says 'Rampart is upgraded to Shadowskin, increasing it's mitigation to 25%, and also applying a barrier upon use equal to 10% of the DRK's maximum HP'. Just changing the animation would be bleh, but changing it while also making it look different feels a bit more justified

Choosing a 'skill set' from the Soul Crystal by melding a special materia to it could be a way to implement 'skill glamour sets' I guess. Like, melding a 'Umbral-tainted Materia' allows DRK to have all it's skills be recolored to be umbral/holy looking, all whites and light blues instead of blacks and reds

[Renathras]

If you want an EX with a lot of movement, Golbez borders on the ridiculous

lol, this I very much agree with.

Though I'll note Red Choco isn't an Ex and is generally hated. If Red Choctober was an Ex, it would be the most hated/feared in the game's history, lol

I disagree on GCD healing style, though. The point of Casters is to have to Cast. This is what people say all the time is the problem with SMN (and to a much lesser extent, RDM; which is ironic since BLM is more mobile than RDM is...). Healers are an extension of that until such time as they make a Ranged or Melee healer, which is...unlikely with this Dev team. SGE (lasers) or Chemist (which was apparently one of the options they were mulling for EW instead) would have been excellent options if they were going for a more MCH type gameplay.

I will say yet again, "the fight design of current year" is the problem, not cast times on heals. The fight design is what has significantly changed, married with an overabundance of oGCDs, since the ARR/HW days that everyone praises (in retrospect). I don't think Slidecasting - which is an artifact of a bad game engine, not good game design, which players have merely learned to work around in the "mastering clunk" sort of way - is something that should be enshrined even more than it is now. Though I DO agree that if they want to keep the "current year" fight design, they do need to reduce all cast times to 1.5 sec or less at this point.

I just don't think that's the real way we should be going.

We talk all the time about how "the dance" as a design is bad.

[AmiableApkallu]

I disagree on GCD healing style, though. The point of Casters is to have to Cast. This is what people say all the time is the problem with SMN (and to a much lesser extent, RDM; which is ironic since BLM is more mobile than RDM is...). Healers are an extension of that until such time as they make a Ranged or Melee healer, which is...unlikely with this Dev team. SGE (lasers) or Chemist (which was apparently one of the options they were mulling for EW instead) would have been excellent options if they were going for a more MCH type gameplay.

So, something that's been bugging me, especially after looking at threads heavy on comments about SMN...

In the English version of this game, there is no "Caster" role. What we actually have are "Healer" and "Magical Ranged DPS." Maybe someone doesn't think that SGE is a Caster or that SMN is a Caster, but they are most definitely a Healer and a Magical Ranged DPS, respectively.

[Shurrikhan]

I wouldn't be entirely against it if it were a VFX change and effect change combined. Like, for DRK, an effect that says 'Rampart is upgraded to Shadowskin, increasing it's mitigation to 25%, and also applying a barrier upon use equal to 10% of the DRK's maximum HP'. Just changing the animation would be bleh, but changing it while also making it look different feels a bit more justified

Choosing a 'skill set' from the Soul Crystal by melding a special materia to it could be a way to implement 'skill glamour sets' I guess. Like, melding a 'Umbral-tainted Materia' allows DRK to have all it's skills be recolored to be umbral/holy looking, all whites and light blues instead of blacks and reds

Again, emphasis on "just" being a visual overhaul or "just" damage. Honestly, I think visual rehauls/modifiers should be their own thing if extending across multiple (sorts of) actions, but the biggest thing is that I just don't want an option without any sort of favorable gameplay impact to noticeably outperform the options with such.

A Shadowskin buff, though (rehaul Rampart and buff it)? Sure. Would probably give it some retributive (e.g., via resource-generating) power so it could more broadly compete with the likes of Shadowbringer or Living Shadow augmentations, but sounds good.