How can we get more in depth character customization?

[Melichoir]

Idk what to address first, but the ideas you have for "survive" and "protect" is literally the Tank and Healer roles in a nutshell while just removing DPS. And a fight a that's not driven by how much damage you're doing? What are you actually imagining people doing here? Does any game do this? Is this "so out of the box thinking" that I just dont understand?

No, no game that I can think of currently incorporates those systems for a few reasons. The main being is yes, it's "Outside of the box" of what players expect in MMOs. Most MMOs are designed aroudn the idea of beating up monsters, and with that is the inherent point of "Deal tons of damage to kill dudes or tons of dudes." This means that ultimately, boss fights are tailored around the end goal of dealing "x amount of damage" to win, where every mechanic is made as a means of slowing down or interrupting damage dealt.

Mechanics like Moving away from teh boss to avoid aoe? Thats to slow down damage dealt. Failing the mechanic strains healers, which strains tanks, which can cause you to wipe, etc etc. DPS Checks mid fight to kill a target (that isnt the boss itself) that if not met will wipe you? Slows down DPS on the boss itself. Any mechanic that stops you from attacking (Eye mechanics as an example), exist to slow down Damage. The end goal, however, ultimately remains the same: Do "x" amount of damage to win. So long as end goal is "Deal x damage to win", the min-maxing crowd will pretty say "Hey, this is the optimal build because htis build pushes out the most damage." You could see a pretty good example of this in any fight where if you DPS fast enough, you can skip mechanics. And broadly, the better you DPS, the less mechanics youll have to deal with (even if you cant phase skip) which makes the fights shorter/easier. Conversely, if your dps is poor, you hit enrage and die. It revolves around damage dealt.


Where as, what I proposed would change the conditions to win. Instead of "Deal x damage to win", a survival fight would be 8 Minutes long, no matter how much damage you deal. If you get to the end, you win. However, fight mechanics would be dedicated to straining your tanks and Healers, where some of that burden could be lifted based on DPS doing fight mechanics perhaps via role actions or other new mechanics made for the fight specifically. Not that DPS wouldnt be a factor, it just wouldnt be teh deciding factor. You could have DPS checks in teh fight that if failed, make it harder to survive, but the checks dont have to be as high and could be more mechanically driven to make it interesting rather than sit there and push out your DPS rotation. Thats just an idea, of course. I dont have a completely fleshed out version of how it would work.

In a Protect fight, it would focus on tanking, positionals, and support NPC targets in some capacity. Again, this fight could be duration based or a hybrid of two. Such as "Protect Targets for 5 minutes, then Damage down the boss." As like the Survive example, fights would be more mechanics heavy, and less focused on 'ideal' comps with maximum dps. You could bring any damage dealer so long as their good at mechanics and do reasonable damage.

These would be ways you could start getting rid of, or at the least, mitigating the "Illusion of Choice" issue. That choice is based on what damage comps work best. If damage isnt the key strat to winning, then so long as you have decent damage dealers who can do a difficult fight well, you have more options.