Mechanics change ideas

[Set]

First before I post this I will say I play war and pld and prefer tanking. I love to tank for the challenge and the game isn't boring when tanking. So any comment I say here is coming from that perspective.

The thing that got me thinking about this is the recent post on the changes to try to get more tanks to play. Where this started with that thought some of the ideas are branched from that and will not only cover the topic of getting more tanks but an overall view that could be relative to this issue.

First I don't agree with the approach of throwing gil and exp at people to make them want to tank and I think it can cause some issues.
1. The pointer in the game is to play what you think is fun, not fill in the gaps with a class you don't enjoy.
2. This is stacking favour more and more into tanks favour which is making it where people like myself are getting more and more advantages while DPS still stick to the disadvantage of waiting and or not finding a group.
3. I don't think it will solve the issue of needing 25% of the game population to be a tank even with the tank jobs being 2/9(22%) of the jobs. Also in the future there will most likely be more DPS and not as many tanks so that ratio will most likely fall.

My thoughts on some mechanic changes are as follows. I would not put all of these in place but these are options to use in combination together.

1. increase party size to 5 or 6 making the ratios 1/5 (20%) or 1/6 (16.7%) of the population needing to be a tank.

2. Make DPS and Healing very much like tanking where they have to do more than a rotation. Here are some simple example

a. Bring back renkai from FF11

b. Add in damage reduction abilities that are required to bypass bosses and or groups. For example Titan EX have the DPS use an ability that will reduce earth damage by 20% for 3 seconds on a 15|20|30 second cooldown. They have to time their ability to prevent Mountain blast from killing the tank and increase the damage of mountain blast. This is strictly a theoretical example of how the mechanic could be used.

c. Give threat redirection abilities and force some scenarios to use them. For example make some mobs reset threat every 10 seconds so dps have to help make them go back to tank. This could end up being an issue where all the responsibility would lie on the tank to pick it back up if not done correct so it would have to be well planned. This also could be a general mechanic where the tanks can't hold hate unless the DPS help by using threat redirect abilities.

d. utilize stun and silence more in fights from the DPS to prevent wipes.

e. Set more obvious enrage timers that set the dependency of the fight on the DPS and not just the tank and healer outliving the damage.

f. add in a specific dodge type ability to each DPS class that has to be used to live in a lot of fights

g. make it so the tank can't tank more than 3 mobs at once. Either damage is too high or impossible to keep threat. In combination with this give DPS more CC like sleep, sap, knockdown, root, etc...

h. Make abilities more dynamic and not a simple rotation on DPS. Most classes get their core 3 abilities they spam with 1-2 buffs to rotate in. This is overly simple to do and makes it where classes become able to just macro'd.
- Abilities that only work on a % range 100-75%, 74-25%, 25-0%
- More abilities that proc off things like crits.
- The need to rotate DPS through mobs based on some identifier. For example you have to put a de-buff on all mobs then AOE on them that will do damage and add another de-buff that requires you to cycle back through the mobs to consume it.
- Large CD high damage abilities (20-60 second CDs)
- some fights that prevent abilities from being used, either boss is immune or he does a silence type removing some abilities but not all.
- Add elemental damage to everything and elemental resistance to everything so people have to use complimenting abilities
- make mobs dodge/block/nullify/etc... more breaking rotations

i. Add more debuffs that healers have to remove. A simple example Doom from Sunken Temple could be a healer job instead of running to the stone.

j. make over healing more of a big deal by increasing threat or putting stress on mana

k. give healers a rotation for healing.
- Cure makes Esuna now heal and Esuna makes the damage from holy HoT everyone.
- When Aero is on a target it heals the person they attack, after aero is cast stone now reduces the damage the target does, this combo gives a free Medica

3. Give the bonus for queue based on the queue time and not just to tanks. for example do time*basevalue/2+30 so it equals out for the rewards over time for everyone.

4. Make the tanks able to DPS more viable when not in tanking mode (ie sword oath / defiance off). This will allow people to play a tank and DPS giving some DPS people the want to play a tank and fill the tank role sometimes. This also doesn't just give the advantage to tank but the entire party.

5. This one is not directly related but it would reduce the bordom from some DPS and make even dungeon grining more enjoyable. Make the dungeons more dynamic. For example don't have a boss room, instead just let the boss wonder around and you run into him in random places. Make mob spawns change. Make some doors locked and other open. Have open world dungeons that can double as really long fates.

So after all of this I would like to see what other ideas can come from this. I know easier said than done from a development perspective but maybe something here will get picked up.

-Set

[Sagittarian]

FYI - edit your posts to bypass the 1000 character limit.

[Enkidoh]

If anyone says the awful words "blink tank" I will personally come to your house and... paint your room bright pink and force you to watch Justin Bieber concerts. j/k :P

Seriously though, blink tanking was one of the worst parts of FFXI, as the Job was never even designed as such - Utsusemi was a minor ability for NIN to allow them to get out of danger fast if they pulled to much hate, but of course players being what they are, abused the mechanic and made it a form of tanking - the fact SE took ages to adjust the Job to reflect how players were using it only shows it had not been their intention. I really hope SE never brings anything even remotely resembling blink tanking into FFXIV, as I will quit the game otherwise.

[Set]

Nothing about evasion or blink style tanking. The ideas where derived from the recent changes to allow tank to get a higher bonus because of the low counts. Some of it goes beyond this concept but it was all ideas derived from that.

[Set]

Thanks for the tip. I edited the post to reflect this...

[Enkidoh]

Nothing about evasion or blink style tanking. The ideas where derived from the recent changes to allow tank to get a higher bonus because of the low counts. Some of it goes beyond this concept but it was all ideas derived from that.

Yeah, in hindsight I guess I was a little too presumptive there, but 'new tank ideas' threads inevitably become derailed as 'introduce NIN into FFXIV as a new tank Job' threads, so I guess I was just trying to be preemptive for that. I'm sorry about that.

a. Bring back renkai from FF11

SE have been asked about bringing back FFXI-style skillchaining and magic bursting in the past, and always reply they have no plans to do so, as it just wouldn't work due to how weaponskills function in XIV. As they're not reliant on having to build up TP like FFXI weaponskills were, it would just be too overpowered to spam skillchains repeatedly - SE would have to add some kind of limitation to it (extra cooldowns and the like), or else add an extra gauge like the Limit gauge. However, another possibility would be bringing back the old 'Battle Regimen' function from version 1.0's original launch - it is similar to skillchaining except it was made to 'stack' and be activated automatically, however it just didn't work as well as it should have, hence it was removed when autoattack was added to 1.0 and has never returned since. Maybe have it that Battle Regimens can only be executed once or twice a battle or something to help control balance. But it's definitely an interesting idea to consider.

g. make it so the tank can't tank more than 3 mobs at once. Either damage is too high or impossible to keep threat. In combination with this give DPS more CC like sleep, sap, knockdown, root, etc...

Unfortunately, given the possibility of multiple links, this would just make things rapidly escalate out of control, leading to far more wipes - do you really want to wipe on six trash mobs that decided to link with the three maximum mobs you were already fighting for this reason? In a sense, the game already has this anyway - I find I can usually only handle three or four mobs at once, tops, assuming I have a decent healer covering me of course.

k. give healers a rotation for healing.
- Cure makes Esuna now heal and Esuna makes the damage from holy HoT everyone.
- When Aero is on a target it heals the person they attack, after aero is cast stone now reduces the damage the target does, this combo gives a free Medica

That's really discussion for the Healer section, but even so, as a WHM as well as a PLD I can easily see that's a bad idea. Not only is it ridicuously overpowered, Esuna is a status removing spell, that's all it's ever been and always ever will. As Esuna has a low cast time and low cooldown, what's stopping a CNJ/WHM spamming it over and over for the buff? And ignoring the ridiculous concept of casting attack magic on an ally, it would just be far too fiddly to bother with (Medica is usually only used in a dire emergency so if a WHM really had a dire need to cast a free AoE healing spell, they wouldn't waste what little MP they have casting Aero and Stone on an ally (after all, those two spells use more MP than Medica does on it's own, making it false economy MP wise.).

3. Give the bonus for queue based on the queue time and not just to tanks. for example do time*basevalue/2+30 so it equals out for the rewards over time for everyone.

The whole reason for the DR queue bonus for tanks is simply because there are too few people queuing as tanks at that time. From time to time the bonus shifts to healers - it all depends on how many people of that role are queuing at the time. Removing the bonus simply based on queue time would just have people deliberately holding off accepting duties just to drag the wait time out even further. No, keep the DR bonus based on amount of people of that role queuing as it is.

4. Make the tanks able to DPS more viable when not in tanking mode (ie sword oath / defiance off). This will allow people to play a tank and DPS giving some DPS people the want to play a tank and fill the tank role sometimes. This also doesn't just give the advantage to tank but the entire party.

Well, hopefully when second jobs are added, the ones for GLA and MRD will be DD Jobs (my money is on DRK of course, but nothing is known for certain at this stage), so this will actually be viable. And having said that, nothing is stopping you forming a party with three PLDs and a WHM, with one in Shield Oath and the rest DDing. You can easily get around the role-requirements in most cases by simply self-forming your party.

Anyway, I didn't want to criticize all your ideas, as I agree with most of them, it's just a few of them I could see problems with them as they were written.

[Set]

SE have been asked about bringing back FFXI-style skillchaining and magic bursting in the past, and always reply they have no plans to do so, as it just wouldn't work due to how weaponskills function in XIV. As they're not reliant on having to build up TP like FFXI weaponskills were, it would just be too overpowered to spam skillchains repeatedly - SE would have to add some kind of limitation to it (extra cooldowns and the like), or else add an extra gauge like the Limit gauge. However, another possibility would be bringing back the old 'Battle Regimen' function from version 1.0's original launch - it is similar to skillchaining except it was made to 'stack' and be activated automatically, however it just didn't work as well as it should have, hence it was removed when autoattack was added to 1.0 and has never returned since. Maybe have it that Battle Regimens can only be executed once or twice a battle or something to help control balance. But it's definitely an interesting idea to consider.

Just add the gauge back to the class and put a single ability on the gauge. Use the same exact concept of FFXI where you gain "TP" and at 100%+ you can use an ability. I understand they tried to replace this with limit break but I think limit break is highly under utilized and clumsy. Also it doesn't have to be renkai, it could be anything that forces the DPS to work together instead of doing their own 1,2,3 rotations

Unfortunately, given the possibility of multiple links, this would just make things rapidly escalate out of control, leading to far more wipes - do you really want to wipe on six trash mobs that decided to link with the three maximum mobs you were already fighting for this reason? In a sense, the game already has this anyway - I find I can usually only handle three or four mobs at once, tops, assuming I have a decent healer covering me of course.

Yes!, anything worth doing should be hard. I like wiping on things it makes me feel like I accomplished something when I complete it. Also a few things on this topic,
1. This is how we did it back in the early MMOs. We didn't have tanks pull 4 things and just hold them all, that wasn't possible.
2. the possibility for adds is part of it, force people to have to pay attention or wipe.
3. trash mobs are not meant to be time consumers just to get to the boss, they are supposed to be another part of the dungeon that adds it's own challenges. the idea of spamming through trash is pointless and might as well remove them and just have 3 boss rooms in a corridor.
4. Hakke Manor I can tank the entire hallway with all adds (7 large enemies) fairly easily on pld or war. Holding hate is easy and damage I just mitigate with CDs and hope DPS can burn through before all my CDs sure off.

That's really discussion for the Healer section, but even so, as a WHM as well as a PLD I can easily see that's a bad idea. Not only is it ridicuously overpowered, Esuna is a status removing spell, that's all it's ever been and always ever will. As Esuna has a low cast time and low cooldown, what's stopping a CNJ/WHM spamming it over and over for the buff? And ignoring the ridiculous concept of casting attack magic on an ally, it would just be far too fiddly to bother with (Medica is usually only used in a dire emergency so if a WHM really had a dire need to cast a free AoE healing spell, they wouldn't waste what little MP they have casting Aero and Stone on an ally (after all, those two spells use more MP than Medica does on it's own, making it false economy MP wise.).

Yes I understand this is a healer concept but it was part of the overall idea on change for this so I included it. So the idea of this is to remove the push 2 to win that healers always seem to get locked into with MMOs. most healers do right about same thing Cure Cure II and move out of damage items. I would like to see statistics about the most common abilities used by each class, healer would probably be 95% Cure.
So on the specifics Esuna is a status removing ability but coupled in a rotation such as what tanks have (Heavy Swing, Skull Sunder, Butcher's Block) -> (Cure, Esuna, Holy), it gives more to healing that cure. This same concept where tanks can't just spam butcher's block for threat and have to use it in order to get the additional effect is what prevents Esuna from being spammed.
You misunderstood the other (Aero->Stone->Medica) combo. You would cast the attack magic on the enemy where Aero would also make the next hit from enemy heal for X, stone reduces the damage the enemy does by Y, free medica to fill in the time laps of not healing and top everyone off.
Also understand these rotations are coming from a tank and things I came up with on the fly. Don't take the rotations literal but as examples of how they could be. There would need to be more testing on how to implement this than a simple forum post and theoretical ideas.

The whole reason for the DR queue bonus for tanks is simply because there are too few people queuing as tanks at that time. From time to time the bonus shifts to healers - it all depends on how many people of that role are queuing at the time. Removing the bonus simply based on queue time would just have people deliberately holding off accepting duties just to drag the wait time out even further. No, keep the DR bonus based on amount of people of that role queuing as it is.

Yes but the focus on this is lack of tanks and sometimes healers, but mostly tanks. It is never DPS and that screws DPS out of these bonuses and not only makes them wait longer but they get less giving an exponentially slower return from duty finder. Remember I only play tanks, the queue issue I never run into but I have FC members that complain about it and that is where I am getting my idea for this. I don't like giving advantages to those that already have an advantage, that is like trickle down economics.
You can't deliberately hold off queue, you either commence or withdraw from the queue, so the queue time is a reliable metric to be used in understanding bonus.

Well, hopefully when second jobs are added, the ones for GLA and MRD will be DD Jobs (my money is on DRK of course, but nothing is known for certain at this stage), so this will actually be viable. And having said that, nothing is stopping you forming a party with three PLDs and a WHM, with one in Shield Oath and the rest DDing. You can easily get around the role-requirements in most cases by simply self-forming your party.

As long as this happens that could fill in some of this but there are issues with gear. They would need to do something like make the alternative job convert vitality into strength or something of that sort or switching to a DPS won't be viable.
The concept is not about making parties of just tanks doing DPS, it is about more people rolling a tank class and giving them DPS in the mix so players can have the DPS job they wanted with a sub in tank sometimes or vice versa.
Also 3 tank party would be kind of OP on most dungeons because they would take almost no damage from AOE effects. I have not tested it but think about dungeons like The Praetorium where the 2nd tank just does DPS, if I am in this position I always take trivial damage and can usually keep myself topped off. The big thing would be the huge lack of dps so the trade off i don't think would be worth it but the dungeon would get completed, just slow.

Anyway, I didn't want to criticize all your ideas, as I agree with most of them, it's just a few of them I could see problems with them as they were written.

NP, I like open discussion and critique. Not many things get done right without peer review. Granted this is more conceptual review but in the science world this is how a lot of things start. I didn't give the numbers like the science world would have required but at least the ideas are out there.