Why HP inflation is a valid concern

[SyzzleSpark]

Tank HP currently does scale further and further from the other classes HP

Again why is this a problem? They aren't tanking the boss, and they deal damage with a different stat. The stat they deal damage with is present in equal proportions on their gear as VIT is on ours.

Exactly. Now imagine they screwed up the scaling EVERY patch with new stuff by changing the AP multiplier. Would that be good? No. It's better they have a solid AP scaling principle and only tune the new gear to the new fight in order to not screw up the old stuff.

ARG. Why are we even saying this would be an excuse? "Oh, well, things have to scale THIS way because SE is going to change their minds about our DPS every patch" is a garbage argument.

History backs none of these arguments up. Did we have too much AP or HP for the entire 4 patches that the previous scaling was in effect? What was broken? How?

[BlackironTarkus]

No, stupid is blindly accepting something you are fed without questioning it, calling those that do stupid, and making excuses for a design choice that the customer base is viciously bucking against.
What you are describing has complete parity with simply removing STR from our gear and scaling VIT at whatever they would have scaled STR at, while not requiring an entire re-arrangement of the stat layout of our gear from the ground up. Any changes to the formula to STR through their non-rigid-modular game design could easily be made to the formula for VIT and would have no effect on our HP. Thrill and Defiance raise HP, they don't raise attack power. How am I stupid for pointing any of this out again? While we're on the topic, how are the ad-hominem's improving your argument?

If it scales off VIT they have to change the formula to make adjustments. Changing the formula changes all content done at all levels. Keeping it on STR and simply adding STR to our gear lets them pick and choose at which levels we get more or less attack power compared to our party members as a conscious design decision.

If it worked so well why haven't any of the other major MMOs tied attack power to the same stat that governs HP? It's harder to modify in general when damage and hp are intrinsically tied to one another.

Our runaway HP scaling is as much of a problem because eventually (hyperbole here to drive the point) we could end up with 5-6x more hp than anyone else which means tanks will never ever have to worry about getting blapped by anything intended to hurt a dps or healer. How do you tune solo content at that point? Hunt mobs? Should they do enough damage to warrant actually healing said massive hp pool? Do they introduce attacks that scale with how much VIT/HP their target has? It's problematic. The ranges need to be at least within the same ballpark. Tank HP needs to be higher but not necessarily so. They could keep our HP the same as a DPS but increase the effect defense/mdefense has on us instead, then use darkness damage type to penetrate the tank when they want to or other damage types to affect the rest of the raids.

[Kitfox]

snip

Riddle me this: How do you adjust tank HP, tank dps, non-tank hp and incoming damage separately without affecting each other if tanks dps and hp are linked on the same stat, also without screwing up the old content?

[TankHunter678]

Riddle me this: How do you adjust tank HP, tank dps, non-tank hp and incoming damage separately without affecting each other if tanks dps and hp are linked on the same stat, also without screwing up the old content?

By adjusting enemy mechanics and their potency for a given skill. Hence why many current tank busters inflict a damage taken debuff to force regular tank swaps (and also why many 270 STR acc wearing tanks get obliterated, because they do not have the expected HP value the attack was balanced around) and those tank busters are generally not going to be aimed at the DPS, who take attacks the tanks can more easily brush off.

Balance is manipulated on more then just the players side of the coin.

[SyzzleSpark]

adjust tank HP, tank dps, non-tank hp and incoming damage separately

You're presenting a quandary that has no precedent in the game we are discussing as they've never needed to change the HP scaling formula. It. Is. Not. Connected. To. AP. Its relationship with VIT is completely different.

Dragoons have had more HP than other melee jobs since ARR. By the logic this entire thread is using, the infamous runaway HP inflation should be such that, 2 expansions later, raid AoEs should be killing every melee DPS that isn't a DRG, or DRGs should be surviving said raid AoEs with thousands of HP to spare.

[Yorumi]

Riddle me this: How do you adjust tank HP, tank dps, non-tank hp and incoming damage separately without affecting each other if tanks dps and hp are linked on the same stat, also without screwing up the old content?

Since when is anyone, SE included, concerned with old content exactly? Level/item sync goes so far above what would be considered anything less than faceroll what does it even matter? When was the last time any ARR content posed even the tiniest threat to players? Pretty much back in 2.x was relevant and never again. Likewise what heavensward content is anything but trivial? Tweaking damage slightly higher or slightly lower on already faceroll trivial content really isn't going to make one bit of difference.

[Kitfox]

Except the separate scaling of VIT:AP vs VIT:HP is already modular. It seems far too many people think VIT being tied to both HP and AP MUST mean that HP is magically tied to AP.

Pretty sure VIT:AP and VIT:HP are not modular to level 70 though. Which means any adjustment at any level range would affect all content.

[GunnarBerwerf]

Pretty sure VIT:AP and VIT:HP are not modular to level 70 though. Which means any adjustment at any level range would affect all content.

But if theformula is based on percentages (which it should be, if not its a big flaw) and only do changes after all the calculations, a change for the 70 range would be the same on lv 10. But lets say thats a problem, they should work on balancing end content and not low level content that you out lv in a couple of hours.

[BlueYukiao]

Which means any adjustment at any level range would affect all content.

This is true for any stat adjustment. All talks of which stat should scale what are completely meaningless if the solution is to just tune the new gear to the new content. In such a case as that, no formulas have ever needed to change. Syz's original main point wass that there is no real tie to how taking AP off of VIT somehow spares us a runaway HP problem.

The only case where this is true would be that they plan to increment new VIT values much more slowly now, and they WANT their tanks to do worthwhile damage. However, this is going to cause us to favor any STR option we can get our hands on until they rip our i270 accessories from our cold dead (probably from a tank buster) hands.

[Kitfox]

I'm sorry, how does this explain why having our attack power scale at a fraction of our VIT is a problem?

The AP scaling factor is something that affects the entire level range, it doesn't change based on level. Some scale that works with gear at lvl70 might not work at lvl30 or 50. Changing the scaling factor has a chance to break something elsewhere. Changing VIT and STR on new gear only affects new fights and they can be tuned without affecting prior gear and scaling. Separating VIT from AP also doesn't affect incoming damage or non-tank VIT values when they want to tune tank dps, so it's better for balancing.