Honest idea for 8.0 rework: Trance gauges

[Queen-Mog]

Kinda, but kinda different. TP was closer to what MP is today ironically. MP used to work a bit differently, with very slow regen but potentially big and variable pools unless you were playing PLD/DRK and physical classes where MP was very low.
TP was more about stamina and your job could be TP positive, neutral or negative (a lot were negative, just some faster than others). A bit like today's MP except today everybody is MP positive.
MP used to be more about management not to run dry of it, with the exceptions of jobs like BLM or DRK. You also had gear and materia options to regen faster or increase the pool, and it also went naturally up in post expansion tiers.

Yeah i remember trying to play a melee job, but running out of TP and not having enough for Sprint was one of the other reasons why the magic jobs were more favorable.

[Queen-Mog]

I'm all for a personal limit break/trance type system for every job
Normal lb's are so boring cause if you're not a melee dps or healer you never get to use them much

Aye, often times you end up beating the boss before you can even charge it to lvl 2-3 and it goes unused.
Same goes for tanks, the only real times you use it is when the trial specifically requires it, but then it doesnt feel as "Clutch" as it should be.
I remember in Rabanastra (Or whichever the one was that had Roflcopter lies and truth demon guy), the large aoe with two crosses set on players and 9 squares, before it was almost guaranteed to kill you if you were in the aoe. But I told the tank to pop the LB3, popped it and clutch saved everyone in the party from wiping to it.
Nowadays though, that attack doesnt even hurt as much so it can pretty much be ignored.

[Shurrikhan]

Trance skills would just be a CD that isn't available at the start of combat and therefore doesn't even get seen in short fights. Pass.

That's hardly worth spending an extra gauge on. We already have that in the form of Bahamut, Shoha, etc., and then saw fit to add CDs just to CD-ify those gauges back more nearly to actual CDs. Why add more UI bloat in doing the same again?

Well TP iirc was just the melee job's "MP" bar, and when you used your weaponskills like a mage used their spells, you would run out and be left with just your auto attacks which made some jobs less effective as they would burn through their TP too quickly. It made tanking a bit more difficult as you would run out of TP to keep aggro as well.

The game started with a TP system that worked like Kenki/Ninki/etc., but without CDs to suddenly generate far more of it. Weaponskills then spent it. We also had Stamina, which worked like Rogue energy, which afforded only basic attacks (lesser than weapon skills, between a heavy hit, light hit, and some 10 to 30s CDs that offered moderate extra gains but nothing too special) that built up said TP. So, MP but recovered fully over 5s or so.

In 1.7, Yoshida gutted that along with 90% of customization and the whole idea of "build your own job", making it wholly unnecessary to track TP since 75% to 83.3% of its costs were made free anyways via the combo system, which in turn replaced any contextual play with just A1-A2-A3 B1-B2-B3 alternation. He also made a huge deal out of freeing players from the confines of Stamina by replacing all basic skills with that number one obligatory MMO staple... auto-attacks. So, for that time melee had effectively no bars worth tracking apart from HP (and, if Monk, somewhat MP, since Fists of ~ consumed MP over time).

In 2.0, they then reintroduced TP in place of Stamina, doing everything that Stamina did except now as a more exact mirror of MP and no longer used by casters at all outside of Sprint (whereas Stamina was used for instant-casts like Scourge), in turn punishing the mobility of the Discipline that most needed mobility.

They then reintroduced old-TP in the form of job gauge in 4.0.

And then, by 5.0 they realized that new-Stamina ("TP") provided absolutely nothing beyond hitting Invigorate per 2 minutes since they'd removed all meaningful agency over Support actions anyways and got rid of Stamina(v.2) again.

[Queen-Mog]

Trance skills would just be a CD that isn't available at the start of combat and therefore doesn't even get seen in short fights. Pass.

That's hardly worth spending an extra gauge on. We already have that in the form of Bahamut, Shoha, etc., and then saw fit to add CDs just to CD-ify those gauges back more nearly to actual CDs. Why add more UI bloat in doing the same again?

Fights dont last long enough outside of dungeons and raids yes, however, even when in a party in the overworld, charging the limit break takes far too long. There is also those moments where someone d/cs in the dungeon and when they rejoin, you lose the entire LB because 1 person d/c for a moment.
Trances wouldn't be drained due to other players and bring similar power and strengths of a normal limit break, which gives every player, solo or not, their own fancy limit breaks to turn the tides of battles.

It wouldn't bloat the UI as it would just be a bar similar to the limit break gauge and upon using it, would change your main hotbar into the Trance hotbar of 4-6 skills.
They could make it have a special UI for players who like to use the detailed job gauge instead of the simplified one for more flair such as removing all hotbars to have a unique UI of their skills or an overlay on the screen.

[Shurrikhan]

Fights dont last long enough outside of dungeons and raids yes, however, even when in a party in the overworld, charging the limit break takes far too long. There is also those moments where someone d/cs in the dungeon and when they rejoin, you lose the entire LB because 1 person d/c for a moment.

Then just fix Limit Breaks?

• That they're unusable while solo instead of immediately available up to LB1 is entirely arbitrary.
• That it takes 4 people for an LB3 instead of just 2+ is entirely arbitrary.
• That it takes 8 people for an LB3 instead of just 5+ is entirely arbitrary.
• That they're lost when a player d/cs instead of basing the max charge off party size including offline players (the only "exploitability" of which would be in situations that don't remotely matter anyways) and not disrupting charge to lower ranks at all... is entirely arbitrary.

Just flip the switch on each the other way. Done. No need for a second muddled version of LB. Just have one actually decent one instead.

It wouldn't bloat the UI as it would just be a bar similar to the limit break gauge and upon using it, would change your main hotbar into the Trance hotbar of 4-6 skills.

An extra action. Being briefly reduced to a mini-kit as it puts you into vehicle mode. Needing to order the replacement skills hotbar to fit in at all with your original button-flow, assuming they're even customizable at all.

The first sounds like bloat. The rest sounds like pure annoyance unless extremely well leveraged, which this --as a mere extra gimmick-- does not seem likely to be.

That seems, yes, like bloat to me. It seems most likely to be convolution for at best something only almost net-neutral.

[Queen-Mog]

Then just fix Limit Breaks?

• That they're unusable while solo instead of immediately available up to LB1 is entirely arbitrary.
• That it takes 4 people for an LB2 instead of just 2+ is entirely arbitrary.
• That it takes 8 people for an LB3 instead of just 5+ is entirely arbitrary.
• That they're lost when a player d/cs instead of basing the max charge off party size including offline players (the only "exploitability" of which would be in situations that don't remotely matter anyways) and not disrupting charge to lower ranks at all... is entirely arbitrary.

Just flip the switch on each the other way. Done. No need for a second muddled version of LB. Just have one actually decent one instead.

So you'd rather the current LB be usable with less party members and doesnt get fully drained once a person rejoins? Although that works, what else would you do to make it less homogenized of every melee using Braver and healers getting a very weak aoe heal that they already have on their hotbar?

An extra action. Being briefly reduced to a mini-kit as it puts you into vehicle mode. Needing to order the replacement skills hotbar to fit in at all with your original button-flow, assuming they're even customizable at all.
The first sounds like bloat. The rest sounds like pure annoyance unless extremely well leveraged, which this --as a mere extra gimmick-- does not seem likely to be.
That seems, yes, like bloat to me. It seems most likely to be convolution for at best something only almost net-neutral.

Most jobs already have a lot of button bloat that require 3 hotbars to use all their skills. Having the Trance hotbar be similar to the vehicle hotbar (That you can rearrange and change their hotkeys) and replacing the main hotbar for the duration is to prevent said button bloat and making you have to use a 4th hotbar.
There are already several things in game currently that are similar to this, such as the PvP limit breaks that charge on your own play and dungeons/areas (Praetorum with magitek armor or the G-Warrior) that are both very well implemented and quite fun for the short times they both granted.

[Valence]

As soon as 6.1 pvp landed with its shiny and flavorful LBs, my immediate thought was "what if we got those in pve too at the individual level?"

But just thinking a little, how would you make them flavorful and unique in pve? Like for real? How do you make them different beyond all being a nuke on cooldown that just happens to have a different visual depending on the job you use?

[Feronar]

I like OP's idea, but I would make a change: Lose the charge meter, and make the trance effect available once to each player per encounter (Or have a ten minute cooldown that resets if you wipe), much like WoW's Bloodlust (but as a personal ability, not a group buff). Each job would have its own trance effect, and making it once per fight would make players figure out the optimal time to use it (Typically when a large DPS burst is needed, or at the beginning of the fight otherwise).

[Queen-Mog]

As soon as 6.1 pvp landed with its shiny and flavorful LBs, my immediate thought was "what if we got those in pve too at the individual level?"

But just thinking a little, how would you make them flavorful and unique in pve? Like for real? How do you make them different beyond all being a nuke on cooldown that just happens to have a different visual depending on the job you use?

Each job between roles (Tank, melee dps, ranged dps, etc) would have their own specifics to bring to the table.
Paladin would give the party 30% damage reduction, Warrior would just be nigh unkillable with innate bloodwhetting and holmgang, Dark Knight would gain a big damage increase and Gunbreaker would have a variety of healing and DoT.
White mage gets partywide regen, Astro inflicts time delay heavy hits (Think wildfire charge from MCH) and flat damage increases to party(+120 flat potency to any attack that isnt a DoT), Scholar inflicts chain stratagem on all enemies and expedience on all allies and Sage can switch between doing more damage or protecting the party.

Boiling down the DPS though, they would be similar in that they are dealing much more damage, but each one would have their own way of doing it I suppose.
Bard would become the spirit of Oschon with similar moves, Dancer would be granting regen while essentially doing DDR of 10-15 steps for unfathomable damage, Machinist would gain swift sprint, 100% shield that drains by 10% every 3 seconds and become melee focused.
Monk has a flat 1 second GCD while using their pvp main attack (6 attacks with a finishing 7th), Samurai has charged strikes (Press to charge and slow movement, press again to attack) and essentially a parry (80% reduced damage for 1 second)
Reaper transforms into the boss at the end of Skalla with similar moves and DoTs, Dragoon transforms like Nidhogg transformed Estinien and having a ton of AoE damage.
Ninja would use the forbidden mudras and have essentially a 6 charge Ten Chi Jin, Viper would have a red Awakening, further increasing their damage potential and movement speed.
Picto would get iridescent paints and grant them Astral muse for creature, Sharp muse (sword instead of hammer) for weapon and Calamity muse for Landscape.
Summoner would summon and mount up on Bahamut, controlling them directly with instant casts and shields.
Red mage converges their gauges and has a full Red gauge to spend on heals, DoT, damage, buffs, etc.
Black mage creates the ley lines on their bodies, gaining all its benefits while being able to move and cast at the same time.

So yeah, while each Trance makes the job do more damage, some would deal more damage than others, while other jobs have more safety, DoT effects, buffs and other unique effects.

[NecroprincessCleo]

I support this as an addition 100%, i mean on tanks you almost touch lb, same with healers (unless its lb3 for wipe preventions), and tanks, there are what 5 fights you get to use lb in, but I would like to personalize my "trance" somehow if they do it