Is TP interesting as a mechanic?

[Shurrikhan]

Yes, TP, that bar alongside HP and MP.

Is it interesting? Could you imagine it being more interesting? How so?
What does it accomplish? Is there something more it could accomplish that it currently does not?
Is there something else you'd rather see done with TP, a new resource in its place, etc.?

In poll form.

1. It's fine. I can't imagine any significant improvements that can be made to it, nor any need to make them.

2. It needs improvements to how TP-users can interact with the mechanic, such as by making different rotations that vary in TP-efficiency each more viable in their own way. This could also come with fixing how TP is gained, smoothing out certain oversights.

3. The mechanic itself should be more interesting, such as by having different effects because of how much TP you currently have, or scaling damage with %TP.

4. It should be scrapped and/or replaced, such as with a new resource, be that something for accelerated movement, or burst, or evasion, or something generateable, are even an individual LB gauge of sorts.

5. Other.


(Yes, this is largely for my own reference, as I've seen few focused thoughts on the subject, but many bits and pieces scattered through tangential subjects.)

[garret_hawke]

Personally, I think the mechanic is fine could be better but i would prefer if SE would spend dev time on bigger isssue eg the tanks balancing (drk tools sapping each other, pld been has tough as the other while focusing on def and war been god tier).

[Rufalus]

TP doesn't seem important to exist. Just a bar that drains slowly then gets restored by yourself or a party member. I don't really see why sprint need to cost it all either. They gave sprint no TP cost in pvp but not in pve.

At least MP has more impact on gameplay rotations such as controlling how often BLM needs to switch from astral fire to umbral ice and causing DRK to use attacks to maintain their MP.

[Ceasaria]

TP doesn't seem important to exist. Just a bar that drains slowly then gets restored by yourself or a party member. I don't really see why sprint need to cost it all either. They gave sprint no TP cost in pvp but not in pve.

At least MP has more impact on gameplay rotations such as controlling how often BLM needs to switch from astral fire to umbral ice and causing DRK to use attacks to maintain their MP.

I think, gameplay which involve MP are more interesting because it's not really static as gameplay TP and there are more various rotations. Furthermore, it's maybe me, but the rotation for each job related to mana are different from others in the way of thinking.

If SE can do changes in the overall gameplay, it should be the rework of TP.
For me, like Piety --> MP, TP need to be dependent of a secondary stat : Bravery --> TP.
It mean, we could have more than 1000 TP.
In fact, Tank have Parry, Healer have Piety, so Dps will have Bravery.
In that case, their gameplay should change drastically.

For me, Sprint should cost 500 TP and Healer should have skills which cost TP.
Tank would keep the same system (just need to rework Parry).
DPS would have a new type of rotation or new skills which would cost a huge amount of TP.

And in the end, bye bye Accuracy.

[Alistaire]

And in the end, bye bye Accuracy.

We need more stats, not less. You might not like dealing with acc, but removing it at this point would be bad. And nobody would want bravery as a stat as you describe it. Would be the same reason tanks never cared about vit accessories before the change; a higher max doesn't do much when most of what you use in a long fight comes from recovery, not your starting reserves. Except in this case it'd be worse, nothing is going to one-shot your tp, unless they also nerfed invigorate badly you wouldn't need a higher tp base.

[Shurrikhan]

And in the end, bye bye Accuracy.

We need more stats, not less. You might not like dealing with acc, but removing it at this point would be bad. And nobody would want bravery as a stat as you describe it. Would be the same reason tanks never cared about vit accessories before the change; a higher max doesn't do much when most of what you use in a long fight comes from recovery, not your starting reserves. Except in this case it'd be worse, nothing is going to one-shot your tp, unless they also nerfed invigorate badly you wouldn't need a higher tp base.

Just my own two cents on accuracy:
*My apologies if I use melee and physical interchangeably here. I always mean physical, including ranged dps, as are all bound to higher accuracy requirements than casters and healers.

As long as a stat brings in a gearing decision that allows you (and/or your raid) to play in a new way, it can be interesting. Accuracy is definitionally one of those stats... for physical* DPS. The idea that you can stack with the MT or defend yourself against a locked-on add without a punishing chance to drop your combos, short your key skills, etc., is individually pretty neat. What isn't interesting in my opinion is that of the some 380 bonus accuracy you'd need for a raid fight to stack there or defend yourself at full hit chance, only some 20 of that stat actually made that difference. The rest was obligatory. At that point, it does nothing more than curtail output growth when the numbers themselves could have done that anyways. Final result: where possible you have two sets for the same ilvl, one casual (low-acc) and one raider (raid-acc). The closest things to advantages to come out of all this is that people may have to spend time (to many an annoyance) trying to keep their accuracy as close as possible to the raid requirements while making space for potential drops and a very, very weak form of horizontal progression. (And that's not even going into the issue wherein casters only needing back-capping (rather than flank-capping) gives them a small, but in those situations noticeable enough increase to their secondary stat pool. Whereas melee would always be at a large DPS loss going from flank-capped to back-cap, and a noticeable loss going from front-capped to flank-capped when mechanics call for a frontal cap, they also take no advantage from sticking with only a back-cap and taking other secondary stats instead relative to a caster.)

My personal preferences would be to scrap those latter two. Accuracy requirements should only increase in so far as the damage they save, in terms of the damage produceable by other secondary stats. Roughly. That means that, for starters, as long as we stick with the idea that melee dps should never be tanking anyways and therefore have no regular use for frontal-capping, that the transition from back cap to flank cap should be larger than for flank to front. Tanks can get that bonus amount for free with their tank stances as before, and spend into that extra Accuracy to ensure accuracy in OT stances as well.

But the real issue is everything leading up to back-cap. As it stands, the gameplay-producing range of Accuracy quickly falls under 10% of the total Accuracy expenditure. In my opinion, at least 40% of Accuracy expenditure should be its effective range, regardless of depth into an expansion. As the Accuracy floor increases, so too should the flank and frontal steps, in direct proportion. I imagine that this would be done by first reducing the total amount you have to spend on accuracy by about 50%. Next, of the remaining amount, only ~60% is needed to reach back-cap. ~86% reaches flank cap. 100% reaches frontal cap. In this way, Accuracy should be a real decision, potentially, against other stats within the confines of a given encounter. Casters now use the flank-cap instead of the back-cap, removing their tiny but universal bonus

As for TP starvation and the Bravery (TP pool-enlarging stat) idea:

There's simply very little reason to TP starve in recent raid design unless using a high Skill Speed build. Ideally, I'd like to remove that uneven disadvantage, even. And with the recent Bard buffs such that they only lose about 10% DPS depending on CD lineup (MCHs about 13%, iirc) to keep a raid going infinitely (unless, again, high Skill Speed), there's no real thought involved in the solutions. That said, extending the TP pool via a stat like Bravery, or even a stat granting greater TP restoration directly (assuming the TP tick might increase as the pool size increases, at the same 6% of max TP per 3 seconds instead of just a flat 60 TP per 3s, though this would give some really funky TP values), all this would really do is create a new stat similar to accuracy, but without the mathematical advantage to compel its use. A fight lasting X minutes of uptime would demand X Bravery. Any shorter, and that Bravery is wasted. And at a mere 10% of the Bard's dps for a mere part of the fight, you could have avoided that stat entirely (much like using Rain of Death to avoid 10% of the accuracy requirement). Worse yet, this becomes a stat that, atop Accuracy, only physical dps have to deal with, while BLMs and SMNs have no absolute need for Piety. It either becomes a gearing cluster**** for all physical dps, or just a dead stat.

Please don't feel like I'm trying to put down anyone's ideas. I very much appreciate them. I'm just trying to extend the ideas to a envisioned result, as best I can, as to provide useful feedback for your further consideration.

[Alaltus]

TP mattered in XI and 1.23, ARR not so much. I'm not sure theres any hurry in changing it but.. Maybe they could re-work the tp system as like a pseudo xi tp build up system? AA build small tp, weaponskills build more tp, combos having a tp build bonus. Then TP consuming finishers that can only be used once you have enough tp and consume all tp. You would be doing the exact same thing you do now just with some instant weaponskills/abilities that you would throw in to consume your built up tp (maybe even the 100-300% bonus if done right). If balancing mages against that was too difficult i don't see any reason other than tradition for why mages can't gain tp from spellcasting.

[Shurrikhan]

Maybe they could re-work the tp system as like a pseudo xi tp build up system? AA build small tp, weaponskills build more tp, combos having a tp build bonus. Then TP consuming finishers that can only be used once you have enough tp and consume all tp. You would be doing the exact same thing you do now just with some instant weaponskills/abilities that you would throw in to consume your built up tp (maybe even the 100-300% bonus if done right). If balancing mages against that was too difficult i don't see any reason other than tradition for why mages can't gain tp from spellcasting.

To be clear:
You'd be adding additional oGCDs (all weaponskills are instant, so I'm assuming you meant off-global cooldown, or essentially abilities in every case?) that you can spent TP on?
Or would certain current weaponskills/abilities be capable of consuming TP for bonus effect? (Possibly spells and caster abilities as well, if we decided to make TP universal?)

Set TP costs, or just a minimum TP cost, and then scaling bonuses with the additional TP consumed when using up all of it at once?

Any particular gameplay goals for this system, however vague they may be? I could try to whip up something to see if it's anywhere close to what you're looking for if you'd like a second take.

[KitingGenbu]

The thing that people do not realize about tp is that it worked both ways for the player and the mob, at least in XI, which added an extra element of challenge. Since I do not have any experience with 1.0, would I want a tp system like XI in the current game? No. Why? Because, in all honesty, XI was a niche game, so people liking the main stream aspect of this game like either wow or some wow clone which is very present in this game. Personally, I have gotten used to current system and would just prefer that skill speed get a rework to increase resource gain like it actually does in wow. In wow, the more haste you have the faster your resources on certain classes tended to build (or at least before the legion pre-patch, haven't tried all the classes to verify). So its not unreasonable to want skill speed having a soft cap the restores extra tp per tick in combat.

Going back to mob difficulty increased due to XI's tp system. Of course many mobs already had scripted moves; however, overloading the mob with too much dps allowed it to spam extra moves due to the excessive tp gain (this was true for most, but not every single one, some had native regain etc). One interesting fight I recall from wow that kind of replicated this was the Nazgrim fight in Seige of Orgrimmar. Pretty much, the boss was a warrior and had various stances he would switch to throughout the fight. When it would switch to defensive stance, it would allow him to build rage at an accelerated rate, which would allow him to go ape pretty much and spam. However, I suppose it works in that sense since that is how the class's role actually works within the confines of the game and XI's tp system worked to create 'artificial' difficulty because the system worked within the confines of that game. With our current system in XIV, there's not real way to 'easily' create believable difficulty levels outside of patterns. Maybe adding more things you have to silence like ADS in coil (I bring that up and also chimera because people used to wipe on those for the longest time).

I also agree sprint shouldn't be tied to tp. It should have a cool down that doesn't cost anything at the very least, like 1 min.

[Shurrikhan]

The thing that people do not realize about tp is that it worked both ways for the player and the mob, at least in XI, which added an extra element of challenge. Since I do not have any experience with 1.0.

Just an FYI, TP existed for monsters also in 1.23. I would imagine in the same way it did for XI. Starving a monster of both damage done and taken could cripple their skill output. I cannot, however, recall if different mobs gained different amounts of TP from different sources, such as some having higher scalings from damage received or damage dealt. There were also originally skills specifically to reduce enemy TP generation (e.g. Lancer's level 8 weaponskill, Moonrise). These were removed when Yoshida implemented the 1.20 system.

In wow, the more haste you have the faster your resources on certain classes tended to build (or at least before the legion pre-patch, haven't tried all the classes to verify).

And the WoW paradigm of other spec elements being accelerated to match the flat output increase of Haste continues into the Legion pre-patch. I've tried every DPS spec within the last couple weeks, so unless one's lost that within a very recent build, no change on that front.

Personally, I have gotten used to current system and would just prefer that skill speed get a rework to increase resource gain... having a soft cap [that] restores extra tp per tick in combat.

One thing I've been advocating since ARR was switching TP refreshes to a player tick rate of 50 TP per GCD (wherein reduced TP-cost classes like Monk just use normal TP costs) or per base GCD (then affected only by Skill Speed). Bonus TP ticks would similarly be reduced by 20% and be given as a bonus at the receiving player's own TP tick rate. This would mean, if I haven't forgotten something since earlier calculations way back when, that generally there is no TP-starvation disadvantage to a typical single-target rotation, but abilities with a higher TP cost (Fracture, ToD, AoE) do remain a bit more punishing to the TP pool. (Technically, Fracture and ToD's rotational use would make no difference in single-target, since their frequency is limited unless target swapping, and therefore their relative frequency would be reduced by the amount of a given TP tick they are increased.) Inversely, they'd also regain TP more quickly from bonus sources. In other words, if a party of physical DPS, half skill speed-heavy and half of other secondary stats, were to all AoE spam, they'd deal the same modified potency within a TP pool. The speedy DPS would run out first, but if a Bard were to then sing for them after they've all run out, the speedy DPS would also recover first.

I imagine, take or keep the increase to bonus TP received, there'd be a similar effect from bonus TP gained. I just preferred a potential decimal-ly precise rate of receiving TP over getting, say, a 68.36 TP tick.

I don't mean to ignore any of your post; I'm digesting the rest of it as I can. I'm just not sure what I can say in response, especially as would be relevant to TP systems or its alternatives.