Genshin's Bond of Life Mechanic

[Aravell]

Quite an interesting read, I think the only issue I see with it is the same issue we had back when BLM's Convert ate their HP and DRG's B4B could kill them to raidwides when used at a bad time, probably not an issue now since every healer has a way of dealing with that problem.

I agree with Ty, friction is necessary, if you remove friction, you get a sterile environment. Players in the party should have to rely on each other to survive an encounter, otherwise you're not really playing with others, you'd merely be playing near others.

[Renathras]

While fair in a general sense, friction shouldn't be actively working against others.

Imagine, for example, if SAM had an ability they'd use on another party member, which had to be a DPS, and which suppressed that player's DPS by 10% in exchange for increasing the SAM's by 10%. Would it be an interesting ability? Yes. Would there be a lot of ways to optimize it? Yes.

...but in most parties, how many people would be pissed if they got the anti-Dance Partner slapped on them? Probably a lot.

Friction isn't always good. When it's acting directly against others, it's often bad.

[ty_taurus]

While fair in a general sense, friction shouldn't be actively working against others.

Imagine, for example, if SAM had an ability they'd use on another party member, which had to be a DPS, and which suppressed that player's DPS by 10% in exchange for increasing the SAM's by 10%. Would it be an interesting ability? Yes. Would there be a lot of ways to optimize it? Yes.

...but in most parties, how many people would be pissed if they got the anti-Dance Partner slapped on them? Probably a lot.

Friction isn't always good. When it's acting directly against others, it's often bad.

But I thought the problem was healers not having enough reasons to heal? How is giving healers more healing to do actively working against them if that's what they want to do in the first place? Especially when it doesn't actually come at the cost of another party member's HP? We're not allowed to add DPS buttons, and we're not allowed to add new ways to put healing to use... What are we allowed to have?

Your comparison of an Anti-Dance partner doesn't compare to this concept, both because you can still clear the healing debt with OGCD heals or free heals, and because people keep saying they want to heal more anyway.

[Renathras]

Well, one reason that jumps right out: How does it help having "more to heal" when it's ONLY if you have certain party comps?

Won't you still be bored in the cases you don't have those specific Jobs in the party?

EDIT:

Also, as far as "allowed" - to whom are you referring?

1) I always say encounter design is up for grabs, oddly that's the one thing you don't want to change. (Yes yes, "would have to retroactively for all the game's content", but no...)
2) I've never said no more DPS buttons, I've just said not for all the Healer Jobs. I fully support SOME Jobs getting more, namely SCH and SGE.
3) Nor have I held the position that healing requirements of encounters can't be increased or made more challenging through requiring GCDs instead of oGCDs. In fact, I've championed the notion.
4) I was only pointing out another user was correct. As always, this makes me the immediate target of what ire had been aimed at them. So I'm just going to bow out now instead of be more annoyed by it.

[ty_taurus]

I was speaking generally. It feels like no suggestion is good enough--that nothing will ever be good enough.

[Iscah]

Tell me you've never healed a random Duty Finder party without telling me you've never healed a random Duty Finder party.

Seriously, the current bread & butter existence of a healer in Duty Finder is waiting for some other player to do something to themselves (e.g., failing a mechanic, whether intentionally or by accident) that you then get to do something about.

The entire problem with healers in FFXIV is the lack of things that create a soul-fulfilling need for their healing kits.

In my experience, there is often very little need to be "waiting" for other players to get injured. They will get injured, and depending on the dungeon, un-injuring them can be a constant effort.

[ForsakenRoe]

...but in most parties, how many people would be pissed if they got the anti-Dance Partner slapped on them? Probably a lot.

The issue here is.. well, you picked one of the worst possible examples. You love to quote logical fallacies, I'm pretty sure this one's an example of one or another

The main reason that Dance Partner and your example are different is 'permission'. You don't need permission to Dance Partner somebody, as there is only upsides involved. The DNC gets more gauge generation, the partner gets Devilment's effects and the 5% buff. Your example doesn't have any 'permission' given by whoever's getting 'leeched' from, they just have to suck it up. They also don't get any upsides, apparently. It's just flat negatives for one half of the 'partner' equation in your example, which is what makes it so fallacious. If Dance Partner didn't give the DNC more gauge generation, and transferred the 5% and Devilment (instead of giving it to both members) maybe it'd be a better comparison

Well, one reason that jumps right out: How does it help having "more to heal" when it's ONLY if you have certain party comps?

Won't you still be bored in the cases you don't have those specific Jobs in the party?

The mechanic suggested is literally a healer-centric mechanic. It is 'heal to remove the anti-shield, so that your healing heals actual HP instead of being absorbed by the anti-shield'. The comp that is helped, in terms of gameplay engagement and 'fun' is, literally, 'any comp that has a healer in it', and it's the healer that derives the fun from the mechanic, given that it's a mechanic designed to test them in particular. No DPS finds a tankswap mechanic 'fun' because a tankswap is a tank mechanic, it's for the tanks to work out, the DPS don't have anything to do with that kind of stuff. But we still have tankswap mechanics, because that is something the devs can throw in for the tanks to have fun with (efficiency of 'fun derived' from a tankswap is debatable) Everyone can just ignore these heal absorb/bond of life/anti-shield whatevers, and say 'that's a healer thing, I don't need to care about that'

I find myself agreeing with Ty, that 'nothing will be good enough', because we can't have damage buttons (it apparently screws the casuals), we can't have more mit check (it actually screws the casuals), we can't have more flat HP damage to heal through (it definitely screws the casuals), and now we can't have this, because I guess it's too similar to 'flat HP damage to heal through' and will also screw the casuals. Effectively, every potential solution gets shot down and we're just stuck where we are, nothing changes, the same complaints will still be made. This is literally a thread of 'here is how we could implement 'you need to heal more' as a change to the game, to make healers potentially feel more like healers and less like DPS with a 2-3 button rotation', and you're asking 'how does it help having more to heal', I don't get it.

[fulminating]

There is territory between "playing itself" and "git gud casul". I'm sure the devs must be aware of this on some level.

[ty_taurus]

The mechanic suggested is literally a healer-centric mechanic. It is 'heal to remove the anti-shield, so that your healing heals actual HP instead of being absorbed by the anti-shield'. The comp that is helped, in terms of gameplay engagement and 'fun' is, literally, 'any comp that has a healer in it', and it's the healer that derives the fun from the mechanic, given that it's a mechanic designed to test them in particular. No DPS finds a tankswap mechanic 'fun' because a tankswap is a tank mechanic, it's for the tanks to work out, the DPS don't have anything to do with that kind of stuff. But we still have tankswap mechanics, because that is something the devs can throw in for the tanks to have fun with (efficiency of 'fun derived' from a tankswap is debatable) Everyone can just ignore these heal absorb/bond of life/anti-shield whatevers, and say 'that's a healer thing, I don't need to care about that'

I believe what Ren means in regards to the question of "How does it help having "more to heal" when it's ONLY if you have certain party comps?" is based on the idea that the jobs I name-dropped as potentially receiving this mechanic as a part of their kit, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Reaper, are the only jobs to get the mechanic. And even if not those specific three, unless an entire role has the mechanic, you run the chance of not engaging with that concept at all if your party does not have any job that utilizes it. And to be fair, I don't think every job within a role should be forced to have that mechanic for the sake of ensuring a healer can engage with it because then we're adding for the sake of adding.

I also want to mention that, like with the example in Genshin, the jobs that would utilize these mechanics would have the power to resolve their own HP Debt on their own. For example, let's imagine Reaper's Arcane Circle was reworked to have 20% of their max HP as a Bond of Life or HP Debt, but also grants them a personal regen that will resolve their own HP Debt after 15 seconds and rewarded them with additional Soul Gauge once its cleared. This means they could use it when solo and either let the regen do its job or even use Bloodbath or Second Wind to speed that up. In a party, however, I as a Sage could instead of wasting another Druochole on myself because I generate too damn many Addersgall that no normal content can keep up with it, I could instead throw it on the Reaper to clear their Bond of Life for them and give them that Soul Gauge bonus right away.

[ForsakenRoe]

I believe what Ren means in regards to the question of "How does it help having "more to heal" when it's ONLY if you have certain party comps?" is based on the idea that the jobs I name-dropped as potentially receiving this mechanic as a part of their kit, Warrior, Dark Knight, and Reaper, are the only jobs to get the mechanic.

Ohh I see, well then it might be a misunderstanding on my part, but I have (unlike some, it seems) played WOW in recent years, and as such I was under the impression that this mechanic would not be limited to just specific jobs using specific actions, but would be something that could be applied by bosses as part of the fight design/potential mechanics to draw from. Things like, instead of the current raidwide+bleed we have, a raidwide that must be mitigated as hard as now (eg it does 110% before any mit/shields), but ALSO applies a 'heal absorb' of 50% of everyone's max HP. The tanks would take less damage from the raidwide naturally, and have selfhealing to help clear their 'debt' faster, but it would mean needing to 'heal more' (which was what people wanted to have, wasn't it?) to clear the 'debt' AND top the party up in time for the next damage instance

Imagine like, instead of two stack markers that splits damage, a different kind of 'two markers on healers' that splits 'heal absorb applied'. So you could choose to either spread it across the party by doing the usual 2x4 splits, or you could let the healers eat the stack marks solo, they still live (because the actual damage doesn't split here), but now they have ALL of the HP debt that 4 people should have had, likely making said debt be like, 200% of their max HP. Maybe it's better to have fewer people take the debt for some reason (eg Benediction fully clears one of them). It's a design element that opens a lot of doors for 'new ways to challenge the players', so limiting it to just 'specific jobs have this as part of their moves and it's used nowhere else' seems pretty wasteful to me. It would be very on brand for SE though