Global Countdown Timer - My big concern for the future on FFXIV.

[carraway]

Because individualized cooldowns no longer affect WS prioritization, there must be some kind of incentive to diversify your skill usage -- otherwise, the skill ceiling becomes dramatically lower if you are no longer tasked to make intelligent decisions at different points during combat.

I am hopeful that combo bonuses and limit breaks will be designed in such a way as to encourage constant decision-making; the part of combat that we've been exposed to is at the very beginning of the leveling and mechanic curve.

What is more worrisome to me is the hefty 3-second GCD and the slow rate of TP regen, but if haste/store TP can ameliorate those, then I'm okay with that.

[Reika]

What you are talking about kinda sounds like the old stamina bar which I really didn't like

It wont be like the old stamina system unless they add the stamina bar back as a 2nd resource used for every action.

[NadienKirisame]

Because individualized cooldowns no longer affect WS prioritization, there must be some kind of incentive to diversify your skill usage -- otherwise, the skill ceiling becomes dramatically lower if you are no longer tasked to make intelligent decisions at different points during combat.

I am hopeful that combo bonuses and limit breaks will be designed in such a way as to encourage constant decision-making; the part of combat that we've been exposed to is at the very beginning of the leveling and mechanic curve.

What is more worrisome to me is the hefty 3-second GCD and the slow rate of TP regen, but if haste/store TP can ameliorate those, then I'm okay with that.

The have stated that a haste stat will not be added into this game because it can cause issues... though not sure if they will ever add the spell in or not...

As for how this system will work... sure you could fire off all your abilities and run out of TP and have to wait... and while you wait for it to come back your overall DPS will be hurting like crazy... you will need to find the best flow and rotation in combos and abilities to get the most out of your TP to push the best damage you can for the length of the fight...

This also goes for soloing... if you cannot kill the mob in one full burst of moves and there is a chance the mob will kill you before you can push out another burst to finish it then you have failed. Resource management will become the biggest thing with this... and if you cannot grasp that then you will not be able to perform your job...

The cat is bemused =-.-=

[carraway]

The fundamental system of TP as a regenerating resource doesn't bother me. The actual rate of regeneration is what is cause for concern, because, as I stated, with stock 3-second GCD and 50/tick TP regeneration, combat will feel very slow, whether you're blowing your TP wad or budgeting it over the course of however many minutes. And the tactile feel of combat is incredibly important in maintaining a dedicated userbase.

[ejiboo]

don't worry OP, i'm worried about the high level battles too. very, very worried...

[Rex]

I think the issue is with yoshi and the dev's. It is possibly that the devs are taking the easy route instead of actually sitting down and working out something that is not too fast and not too slow. Even in 1.o with all the changes yoshi couldnt find a balance and it seem this issue will continue into 2.0.

The speed with which they're pumping this game out...I don't see it as an "issue" but more of a time crunch.....If people really see issues with this..they will surely patch and continue to fix. As XI goes on, since they upped the level cap, they still to this day continue to rebalance jobs, recast times, abilities..

[Shurrikhan]

True, I should have posted it in the Battle mechanics section, but no one looks there remember? :P

I look there, specifically, about every time I come on for exactly stuff like this.

To be honest, a 3-second GCD really sounds a bit long to me. Without the actual time-costly animations we had before, we'll basically be jogging in place or super-breathing while we wait for our next high-speed attack to be available. It's not a long delay, but it certainly doesn't feel fluid either.

The reason I bring this up is because it's about the only thing that seems close to set about the combat system thus far-- high-reaction, while still running about the same speed of attack as 1.x. (When tp-dumping/chaining, movement for combos aside, you're attacking roughly once per 3 seconds already, and as fast as per 2 seconds with certain attacks [Pounce, Demolish, Howling Fist is probably the fastest I regularly use, along with some Lancer strings].)

Even if there are no solid individual ability cooldowns, there are numerous alternatives that can be implemented to carry the same idea of sparse usage without a hard number being given to it. Gliding TP costs for example, would cause an ability to cost more tp when reused immediately. Gliding damage/effect modifiers -- takes a (likely stat-factored) amount of time to reach 100% damage/effect potential again. Conditions can be added, such as these costs being wavered or reduced when a status effect fails to afflict the target, the attack misses, crits, whatever makes sense for that particular attack, attack stratum/string/niche.

I can only hope that something of this sort will find its way into the combat system so we aren't merely spamming abilities conditionally. (Blunt bonus damage taken ailment -- Simian Thrash x 99...)

I prefer things to be less exact, less preset. Having the idea of combos carry through without the 'hit the next highlighted ability' (do not stray from order!) system sounds refreshing to say the least. This can help with that, if done right.

It's a bit annoying that they went through all the 'trouble' to remove the stamina bar only to re-implement it under TP, but hopefully they'll find what they're looking for soon.

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My vague hopes:
- Start off with a fair amount of TP, but rise with successful combat, and not just auto-attacks.
- Various categories also build up with combat
- While using the same system, its feel varies from resource-managing to opportunistically oppressive to chain-complementary, etc, depending naturally (rather than through ruleset changes) on class and/or role.
- Applies personal and group long-term and short-term strategy.

If anyone has any ideas of their own imagined system that gets those points ^, I would really, really love to hear it. : )