Hmm, where to begin. Perhaps it best to point out that as before, I have a distinct aversion of anything seemingly arbitrary or with tiered effects that cannot be intuitively explained. Instead I prefer smooth scalars, whether linear, exponential, logarithmic, or any quadratic mixture of the like. Consider it like variance in scripts: some scripts prefer only straight lines, others only curves. For whatever reason, be it complexity driven by extent within otherwise individually simple factors or mere underlying aesthetics, I prefer to have very few, but pervasive, scalars, each congruent and/or symmetric to each other.
Or to put it more simply, I am looking for the fewest possible distinct factors, from which to create the largest possible product, or, available permutations.
The entire underworking is little more than "potency" and curves manipulating it -- by spell type or weapon type, as you will see later. I will later use terms such as synergies, status effects, combos, and the like, but these merely describe essentially at-random interactions between given points along either curve: they have no mechanics in and of themselves, but are a simply a handy way of talking about a frequently seen computation between the factors available to a player (e.g. cast time vs. mana per potency) or priorities thereby pursuable (mana efficiency, vs. burst). Just as DPS is not an inherently different mechanic than damage dealt or the time spent doing such, neither are any factors in this system beyond "potency" and "pierce" distinct mechanics.
Because of this intended simplicity and lack of otherwise arbitrary breakpoints, something like B&S-style CC armor is automatically out -- maybe not in practice or effect (where a given number of strikes generally equates to breaking through for a stun), but in underlying code -- as you'll see later. Heck, even the difference between Fire I and Fire III, or the Astral Fire or Umbral Ice ranks, are out.
The other, and similar, tenant is that "all is potency". Every status effect, positive or negative, has potency, and its effect depends on that potency in its context of relevant stats or other effects. This is the other reason something like CC armor would be out. There are no skills that merely stun. There are only skills that deal a lot more 'suppressive' potency than others, and what fails to reduce an enemy's rate of action to 0 (a stun), simply reduces it to that x% value it did reach (reducing rate of action to, say, 50%), or that which fails to affect 100% of the enemy's dynamic range of skills, affects only the x percent is did reach (say, 75%, which may happen to cover all but its strongest 25% of skills, which may merely include two special attacks). You might call the result a slow or a pacify or a silence, but in the end it's just a calculation from a smooth scalar based on an exchange of potency in context. There are no hard durations either. Effect potency is simply split between duration and effect.
Though casting is one of the least relevant areas of this change in design philosophy, I mentioned Fire I and III before, so we may as well start there. Casts, too, rarely have a rigid length. Rather, one simply channels or charges a given spell type, which lies upon a particular curve such as to increase relative power (per second of charge) or efficiency (by mana or in terms of mechanical growth) with longer casts within the spell type. This spell type can be augmented by extending the maximum pre-scaling charge time of its casts, but essentially, even as, say, Fire increases from a maximum cast time of 2 seconds to 3.5 seconds, it's doing the same thing: it's just pushing more more deeply towards a given priority based on its release point in the curve. This creates, admittedly, a much more lenient realm of play for casters, as although their efficiency may be penalized for movement, they need not lose a cast outright just because they had committed to a 3-second cast of the exact same mana, element, and focus as two other spells they'd had at quicker cast times, but were forced to move before reaching that charge duration. Mana, likewise, is drained, from one's now-continuous (rather than per 3 seconds on global tick) and Speed-scaled mana recharge rate first and the excess from one's standing mana thereafter, over the cast. Moreover, the cast can be held beyond its maximum duration, continuing to pump mana in in preparation for a new enemy's appearance or the like to release it upon them; it simply maintains the same drain rate and therefore comes at accordant cost. That's all there is to it: simple curves per spell type. Channeled skills require targets, if any, to start spending and doing anything, but all other spells can be given a target, or even have their target exchanged, any time before release. If a certain spell type "jumps" up to (or "pre-allocates") a certain mana cost and output instantly, simply stacking extra power over the cast time, that's shown in the curve and is the basis for an "instant cast" spell, and provides as much downtime as is listed for that curve; there is no fixed GCD. Other spell types, still, may allow themselves to be charged while moving, or to cast instantly and channel whilst mobile thereafter. It's all in the curve. The only factors of variance -- and this is already cutting hairs -- are their floors, their slopes, and what portion is charge vs. channel. No GCD. No fixed tiers. No complicating factors beyond that.
I've already mentioned the "stagger" system idea to you before, but I have since simplified it. It, too, now can hardly be called a "system" in its own right. It is simply the sum of factors already embedded within individual attacks. The basic idea here is that physical skills, too, have a sort of "cast", "anticipatory frames", or "wind-up time" to them. This is not a cast in the sense of immobility, lest one waste all prior progress. Nor is this animation lock; though in some cases one may sacrifice potency if they do not remain realistically grounded, one can never be held in place, not even over a Dragoon's Jump. But, just as magical power is continuously generated--with not-quite-exceptions in spell types that pre-allocate mana via a raised floor for an "instant" cast--so, too, do physical attacks continuously generate force to be transfered upon impact, accelerating those strikes to the what you see through their animations.
And that wound-up force plays a part not only at the intended point of transfer (when the attack connects), but during any interaction where it's up (e.g. when struck). It doesn't arbitrarily change from a non-factor to a factor when a fixed animation time expires, as might make sense for "damage" in a turn-based system, but never for force; rather, it is a simple curve, and it interacts with anything it would naturally interact with. It's as simple as that. The closest this comes to having a second, complicating factor is the fact that not everything on which a unit might spend time is necessarily an attack; to use the analog of "weaponskills", tanks, especially, and enemies may now consume that time (and force) to merely guard themselves rather than necessarily attacking. TP (renamed SP, for Stamina Points, hereafter) is spent just the same, continuously over any exertion according to its curves.
This, therefore, works dually: not only can damage (or, force) chip away at an incoming force, but a force can be levied to defend oneself. The latter may or may not be an attack in itself, but this means that damage has both additional offensive and defensive benefits.
I mentioned before that there was one other system in place, "pierce", and it's from this that Stagger takes on its visible variance. "Pierce" applies to all attacks, but is most prominantly differentiated by weapon types or elements. All attacks fall on a spectrum--per actual strike, as a given skill may have multiple strikes within -- of "piercing". Though in the case of dealing Fire damage, where all but the explosive shockwave naturally "pierces", this may seem a misnomer, in cases such as magically throwing giant boulders vs. sharpened icicles or in noting the by-curve effects of spears vs. blunt fist weapons, it should feel rather intuitive.
In either case -- whether a given attack, by element or weapon type, falls above or below, say, 50% Piercing -- there is a certain amount of "waste" involved as to the attacks' direct damage. Unless something pierces perfectly, it will always waste some damage towards impact, or force, applied to the enemy that works to suppress its later actions. Inversely, the piercing portion has no impact, but deals damage over time. Armor works by pushing the piercing curve downwards, exchanging would-be additional damage taken over time into mere impact. And that's all any of this real is: a single curve. There's no slashing, piercing, or blunt, per se. There's just your weapon type, which has piercing modifiers over certain parts (at most the point, top (false edge), and bottom (true edge), if the weapon even has that many points of distinction), and the strikes of the attack itself, which would hit with different parts of the weapon (those long-spike fist weapons would deal piercing damage until a late cliff of force applied to the strike (e.g. until having impaled the enemy up to the very gauntlet itself), but a backhand strike would be almost entirely "blunt"). Each weapon has its curves, and each strike strikes with a given part of the weapon, while elements or spell types likewise have their curves and modifiers. That's it. Realistic, but simple.
This effects Stagger primarily in a manner of trying to deal enough force at once -- wherein lesser pierce is advantageous -- to get by or complete short-term goals, such as mitigating a strike to survivable levels, while investing ahead through effect dealt over time -- wherein higher pierce is advantageous -- to succeed on the whole or in one's longer-term goals.
How delayed do you want the effect to be? How much should be frontloaded? That's the only question, but its available interactions are immense, especially once considering enemy stats. And between this question and the mere fact that everything is continuous and conflictable force, everyone is now involved in the duties of survival.
The only other factor is that skills now land as they would appear to. If they appear to cleave, they cleave just so. If they appear to launch enemies upwards, that's what that impact is doing (and distance from the enemy upon attempt, causing the top of one's spear to be used instead of its point, for instance, may well make a difference). They knock back in the direction they would appear to. They reach as far as they would appear to. They strike as many separate times as they appear to. More more importantly, they strike spaces, not merely targets. One can target an enemy and direct their every strike appropriately to that enemy's space, but you cannot have your greatsword pass through five enemy models and only strike the one intended. If you wish to do that, you must choose the appropriate skill, the animation for which would likewise only stab through that particular enemy. Simple enough, but since everything that would affect you also affects your enemies, it has one very large consequence: everything is interceptable. Now, all skills are, to a degree, inherently cleaves, but since everyone has some manner of passive defense, and forces generated will counteract each other if they interact, and skills only have as much reach as they appear, one can intercept a strike in order to save someone else, without having ever been the intended target. This is the new world of tanking. A tank does not merely hold the lead value for an arbitrary and invisible system. Rather, their job is to thwart enemy aggressions in their every form. That job is not unique to them, but they are in an ideal position and carry ideal toolkits for that job.
Note: this is also the solution to AoE inflation. One strikes with a given amount of force. Some of that force may have otherwise been wasted or redundant, and thus has amounts to spare, but every interaction chips away at it. Thus a cleave deals cumulatively with each instance of counteracting defenses or forces against it. All cleaves are, roughly speaking, alike to the Neo Exdeath or T10 linear AoE mechanics, both enemies' and our own.
Now, all that revision or, in a way, simplification, or whatever you want to call it, is but part of the picture, but that's virtually everything directly related to combat systems as a whole that will be changed beneath the game.
In summary: (- removed | + added | = adjusted)
- GCD
- AoE
- single-target
- "instant casts"
- "combos" (more on this latter)
- tiered spells
- slashing
- piercing
- blunt
- tiered multipliers
+ "pierce"
+ curves
= all skills as drawn; all cleave; all can be intercepted
Apart from these core components:
Obviously animations would have to be totally reworked: there are no fixed animation times, after all, because everything is continuously generated. If one is slowed, so too is the generation of force that creates the animations, and therefore the animations themselves. Having one's time warped or their body nearly paralyzed doesn't merely increase downtime between strikes: it slows those strikes, and therefore makes them less effective.
Since MP and TP are both drained continuously -- via "exertion", or, in accordance with their used skills' curves -- a global tick will no longer work for either. Instead, they will scale with Speed, while Critical Strike and Determination will have similar and balanced efficiency-increasing effects. Though not particularly relevant to this package of ideas in itself, I also plan to cause one's potencies to be gradually penalized when approaching MP or TP (now SP, or Stamina Points) starvation. Personal MP and SP-regenerating skills will be removed, but base rates increased where necessary to compensate. Stranger still, all jobs now make some use of both MP and SP: Dragoon makes use of MP for Dragon skills, Monk for its elemental fists and releases, Ninja for its Mudra and Ninjutsu, while SMN makes use of it for its Trance, SCH for its Acumen, WHM for its Soulfont, and BLM for its Enochian, etc. Thus raid support abilities remain augmentative at virtually all durations and compositions, but timing and conservation plays out a greater emphasis in combat, especially as continuous encounter uptime increases. Rotations are still a thing, but the need to keep one's own or one's party's defense in mind lends far more variance to the micro-play involved, while the need for conservation forces attention to macro-play.
A similar effect is given also through the removal of the majority of cooldown skills as cooldowns. Instead, these are covered through versatile uses of specific resources. The remainder, save for a couple exceptions kept at fixed cooldowns for thematic sake, are now what can be called "flexible cooldowns". They gradually generate up to 100% of cooldown's power over its recast timer, but can continue charging thereafter, are available for use prior to completion of the recast time; they instead sacrifice efficiency, as a 50% charge may only amount to some 33% power, and 133% charge to some 125% power, or the like. While, if there were truly no extra factors to be considered, these two could be timed for greatest multiplicity and therefore damage rate over a fight of estimatable duration, just as currently the case, this promotes far more attention to the actual needs at the particular moment and allows for greatly increased adaptation.
The last major shift is the removal of Role Actions in favor of choosable Traits, which should mark a drastic shift in the way classes compare to jobs, and what the point of a job is. But these will take a long while to explain, and their impacts would probably be better shown through a contextual revision of a given job. I plan, to keep form, to make my own version of Paladin to share, along with perhaps Samurai and/or Black Mage.
Edit: I worry that -- nay, am sure that -- I wasn't clear enough about this point before: jobs still have DoTs and buffs of varying lengths around which to rotate. Even with the revisions to "combos" that I've only hinted at here, skills will still feel distinct from one another. At worst they face a bit of reorganization as it tends to be that skills which appear to bleed their enemies are generally going to be your skills that bleed out their targets, while those that simply smash them abruptly with a heavy object tend not to be DoTs. Higanbana, despite having only one Sen's worth of... Sen, plays into a curving mechanic therein, whereby Higanbana ends up as perfect pierce damage despite having tremendous potency behind it (far more so than the near-perfect pierce factors of fire spells, for instance). All that's really adjusted is that things tend to scale more closely with each other. Since damage is continuous, there are no individual crit ticks, so a Critically applied skill with a noticeable DoT factor (high pierce through its either direct damage or appended systems, the latter including such job mechanics as Sen or Chi or Windform or whatnot) instead will not only strike harder but also last longer, splitting that influx between both potency and duration just like any other status effect. Speed controls that continuous rate, shortening duration for heightened rate (to the same total). And determination is a flat increase, just as Crit, but with proportionately less effect seeing as it has no dependence on chance. I'll get into how, on a job by job level, rotations have been made more adaptable and nuanced, especially for tanks who now have active mitigation to spend time and TP (SP) on, but rest assured that rotational complexity is not being lost, only gained by new means of control on one side and slightly greater randomness on the other (though not in the likeness of MCH or BRD RNG mechanics; those have actually been softened and made far more bankable... though that is a story for a very distant day, if ever).
Originally Posted by KaldeaSahaline
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