Thread: Very concerned about 4.0 gameplay having no strategy

Originally Posted by KaiSunstrider

I agree. We are all likely jaded at this point. I think Square is wanting to move into a more dynamic raiding system where its not necessarily about bringing the right comps and offensive stacking mechanics but a focus on bring the correct roles and having those role abilities help with combating increased level of mechanics. The dps rotations are just a side product.

See, as a general concept that doesn't sound all that disappointing. Having compositional balance considered first and then building the rotations as a side-product doesn't necessarily sound like a bad thing. I'm just 95% certain its execution would be, because the more design fixates on something, the more they tend to magnify and narrow it, making it all the more likely that the simple factor of "is it fun?" may drop by the side-lines. Aesthetics can only hold interest for so long, when individual gameplay itself is not a focal point.

To me compositional balance hinges around the idea of quite simply having more to worry about than just DPS, which (quickly overgeared windows aside) tends to be purely a long-term metric. Give us reason for other utilities or priorities than pure damage and give everyone some degree by which they contribute to those, and we not only get to see more affecting combat, but feel like we have more sway over it, that combat itself can play out in many more ways, and a much more concrete (shorter-term) effect from our actions. Giving both the challenge and ability to make use of indirect contribution is what most allows for player input and reward, and also gives grounds by which fights can feel like the beating down of columnic hitboxes.

Now, that might well require new undermechanics. So be it. The more, individual and/or combined, while contributing to the goal of our actions having real weight, the better.

That could be something like dynamic-percentile status effects, wherein a spell provides a certain potency of x effect, where that potency equates to a given %, fading at y rate over z duration given the caster's and target's stats, which can then stack as a general target-attached resource with any other contribution and resistance increases at whatever flat or percentile—or, heck, logarithmic?—rate over time and with whatever degeneration based on the particular mob or its type. There, now everyone can contribute to a particular status effect; some better than others. Formulas by which the mob tapers the effectiveness of recalculations of that resource may determine whether it's better to spread out the party's attempts to make the effect or stack them in a single overwhelming spike. You can even make the target more vulnerable to certain (yes, even insofar as favoring a particular class) source of the effect, so long as there's another meaningful effect which some other source outperforms the first.

That could be something like influencing mob behavior, though that would likely be limited more to premade teams.

That could be something like making use of environmental effects. That could be something like friendly fire. This could be something like having an enemy charge into a geyser to be sent flying at a much more troublesome airborne enemy.

That could be something like element as a resource, with its means and rates of consumption varying from class to class according to their actions, stats, and other resources—where you may make use of the current spawned or the wind blown by an enemy intending to kill you to strike it back, or use an element something's resistant to, albeit with great effort, melt through its fireproofing and erase its armor in the process, or throw off a wind-based enemies aim by actually sourcing its power (although to the side you're baiting an attack, and not the one you actually intend to stand on).

Whatever it all may entail, give us more to do, more ways to manipulate the fight, more distinct means of fighting for a faster clear time, and the meta at least will take longer to settle and will do so much less narrowly.

But instead, it feels like "streamlining" strikes again to give less, under the promise of more easily designable content, when it could instead make a far greater portion of gameplay worthy of being called "content".

All this is why when I hear instead that we're, on an individual basis at least, having our thought requirements reduced (to whatever degree) with nothing being readily presented in its place, I get annoyed. v.v

/rant Sorry_about_that.