Random Ideas: What Abilities, Traits, and/or Rework you want?

[Aluja89]

The only idea I have is that they're going to make tanking even worse than it already is and I'm terrified because of it.

All everyone does is keep giving suggestions when we should be asking for a reform, people designing things they have no clue of is never going to work doesn't matter how many years of suggestions and feedback you give.

[Shin96]

The only idea I have is that they're going to make tanking even worse than it already is and I'm terrified because of it.

All everyone does is keep giving suggestions when we should be asking for a reform, people designing things they have no clue of is never going to work doesn't matter how many years of suggestions and feedback you give.

It's probably going to happen wether we like it or not. They're trying to reach a broader audience of players, and that naturally includes simplifcations. They'd rather have a small minority of tanks unsubscribe than risk the potential of preventing growth. I wouldn't necessarily leverage these changes due to their inability of designing tanks, but rather them removing any potential of making mistakes. Braindead and easy to play, they won't go wrong if money is all that matters.

As for suggestions, that's all people can do here really. Even then I'd say the developers don't even care about the western forums so it might be just a waste of time. Though I have to say I think the people in the Tank Forums are very sophisticated and mature when it comes to criticism. All we can hope for is they don't ruin tanking even more.

[Shurrikhan]

Alternatively, could we learn to embrace the fact that the entire point of having critical hits is to add in an element of luck and randomness, and stop designing abilities with 100% Crit/DH? Someone once correctly pointed out that these are actually just extremely high potency abilities that cannot Crit, to keep them in check. Certain players didn't like Crit's randomness because it messes up your 'perfect run', so the devs took it out of the equation.

Tank damage in particular has been the most evenly balanced that it's ever been. I'm pretty sure that they don't want to preferentially buff WAR's damage. I think the solution to encourage players to diversify stats by giving them all diminishing returns, rather than letting Crit be the one stat to rule them all.

As long the stats are themselves balanced and no stat scales quadratically with itself, optimal gearing already ends up almost identical to what you'd see with diminishing returns, just due to basic rules of multiplicity, while adding diminish returns to everything could end up preventing more creative or distinct builds, especially those seen through very high SkS.

If you have three different, perfectly balanced scalars among which to allot your stats, the highest product would come from allotting those stats evenly. Needless to say, none are going to be perfectly balanced--

No more than some 80% of one's damage will scale with Haste (i.e., SkS and SpS combined) and its stat per % contribution must be balanced around an average % of throughput affected by Haste, compared to which some jobs will then scale better or worse with it, and while that could be addressed to some degree (such as by Haste increasing the damage of any oGCD abilities whose CDs are not affected by the GCD and having MP ticks scale with the GCD), the remainder and the matter of GCD thresholds will still make it a varied stat.

--but they could be brought close enough to make gearing, on the whole, prefer a medium among each without making players feel like the choice is increasingly taken out of their hands through auxiliary systems like stat-DRs.


...That said, I'd certainly take Crit-DRs over yet more expansions of Crit-is-King. Or just, y'know, removing its quadratic scaling, taking Chakra off Crit-procs (or putting a similarly valuable Crit-proc system on every DPS), and actually balancing the stat...

[Aluja89]

It's probably going to happen wether we like it or not. They're trying to reach a broader audience of players, and that naturally includes simplifcations. They'd rather have a small minority of tanks unsubscribe than risk the potential of preventing growth. I wouldn't necessarily leverage these changes due to their inability of designing tanks, but rather them removing any potential of making mistakes. Braindead and easy to play, they won't go wrong if money is all that matters.

As for suggestions, that's all people can do here really. Even then I'd say the developers don't even care about the western forums so it might be just a waste of time. Though I have to say I think the people in the Tank Forums are very sophisticated and mature when it comes to criticism. All we can hope for is they don't ruin tanking even more.

I agree with you, I doubt any of these suggestions reach them.

But your assessment that they're simplifying for the masses doesn't hold up, it's just the tanks and healers who are getting the short end of the stick while the DPS jobs(most of them) are quite intricate in their design and gameplay. It's just too obvious that they don't play any other roles. I mean look at GNB, it's just a glorified DPS.

[shao32]

Forced simplification or the act of making stuff brain dead has never been healthy for any game bcs tend to makes the gameplay get poor specially on games where you can't choose dificulty like MMOs.
One thing is in the case of MMOs you can add more simple jobs to each role so players with less capabilitys could enjoy the role more easily and comfy wich is something i find not only acceptable but necesary and FFxiv was like this until ShB, lowering the skill ceiling so is totally brain dead kills the engagement and fun factor for many players bcs removes the skill progresion, basically makes the player have nothing to archive anymore, nothing to take care bcs all is automatic or require minimun player focus, that's lowers the gameplay quality and doesn't make the playerbase get better at the game, at contrary tends to enchance mediocrity on many levels most of the time.

I really hope SE change his mind on what they did with ShB and return to the design certain jobs on each role to make the role accesible and enjoable for less involved players while respecting those who love more involving and complex experiences, basically like it was before ShB where PLD and WHM was more straight forward jobs and the others jobs more complex and advanced gameplay wise and rise the skill ceiling again, basically how the DPS role is.
ShB has done to much damage to tanks and healers i hope it gets better.

[Ralt21]

So how about we drop DRK blood gauge!?
- We make Bloodspiller and Quietus cost mp. they will cost more mp than edge and flood of shadows but will do more dmg.
- we also make living shadow, salted eath and abyssal drain cost mp
- because of all the extra mp skills we'll need adjust the mp cost, in a way that all them arent just 3000mp

now we add some extra effect on dark arts.
- make Dark arts stack to 2 or 3
- dark arts still makes mp skills cost no mp and it add some new effects to the mp skills aswell as a small potency boost
- change delirium so that it cost mp and gives you Dark arts stack.
also adjust CD. if it were to give 1 stack. it is better to have it around 45 to 60 sec. if it were to stay 90 sec might aswell make it give 2 stacks of Dark arts

so now the added effects of dark arts
- Bloodspiller and Quietus: increase in potency, heal mp
- Salted earth: either increase in potency or longer duration, and reduce dmg taken while you and party member are inside.
- Abyssal drain: increase potency and adds mp gain
Also change abyssal drain CD to 10 sec or something and salted earth CD between 30-60 sec.
- living shadow: i have absolutely no idea.
- flood and edge of shadow: increase in potency and change darkside to enhaced darkside.
enhaced darkside: needs a better name. now buffs your dmg by 25% but last 20 or 30 sec. can be reaplied.

So now DRK identity would be Dark arts and mp management.
i have been on these forums alot lately. which is how even if i have gotten DRK just yesterday to lvl 50, i still had an idea on what is wrong with DRK.

even tho i know that the chances of the devs reading this is slim. i still feeld like posting it. at the very least other people could look at my idea and tell me that i am stupid xD

[Shin96]

Forced simplification or the act of making stuff brain dead has never been healthy for any game bcs tend to makes the gameplay get poor specially on games where you can't choose dificulty like MMOs.
One thing is in the case of MMOs you can add more simple jobs to each role so players with less capabilitys could enjoy the role more easily and comfy wich is something i find not only acceptable but necesary and FFxiv was like this until ShB, lowering the skill ceiling so is totally brain dead kills the engagement and fun factor for many players bcs removes the skill progresion, basically makes the player have nothing to archive anymore, nothing to take care bcs all is automatic or require minimun player focus, that's lowers the gameplay quality and doesn't make the playerbase get better at the game, at contrary tends to enchance mediocrity on many levels most of the time.

I really hope SE change his mind on what they did with ShB and return to the design certain jobs on each role to make the role accesible and enjoable for less involved players while respecting those who love more involving and complex experiences, basically like it was before ShB where PLD and WHM was more straight forward jobs and the others jobs more complex and advanced gameplay wise and rise the skill ceiling again, basically how the DPS role is.
ShB has done to much damage to tanks and healers i hope it gets better.

I agree with your points. Mediocrity never benefits anyone. At best, it's a low bar that might benefit newer players with accessibility, however as you progressively get better, there's no sustainable growth. I feel the skill curve hits the plateu too quickly. I noticed this very quickly not even a year into ShB. There is no adjustement for difficulty in FFXIV, resulting in a dead end playstyle and you're screwed for 2 years until another expansion is released.

I want to be challenged. That's why I picked up tanking. If I wanted to play a damn DPS I'd play one. Give me more responsibility. No matter how complex, I will learn it. That's where I feel satisfaction comes from, it's the meaning attached to responsibility and to see yourself grow. Right now that's not the case, it's just too damn easy and unsatisfying.

[Kabooa]

...That said, I'd certainly take Crit-DRs over yet more expansions of Crit-is-King. Or just, y'know, removing its quadratic scaling, taking Chakra off Crit-procs (or putting a similarly valuable Crit-proc system on every DPS), and actually balancing the stat...

I'd like to move away from "rating". Rating exists so you can make older armor less relevant as you increase level caps. We saw the same conversion from Vanilla to BC, because on equipment where raw stats didn't scale as hard, it was way better to have the +3% critical than the +1% on the new item - Thus converting it to rating so that by the time you hit the new level cap, the +3% was less than 1%.

I think Monster Hunter exhibits a system conducive both to horizontal progression and vertical.

Using Critical as an example, we'll say there are six sub-stats (3 offense, 3 utility/defense) and they all have a soft cap of 20 ranks.

1-10 scales less than 11-15, which is less than 16-20.

At Critical +20, we'll say you have +30% critical rate (35% total) and we revert scaling of damage to 150% base.

Any ranks you push beyond 20 give you the 1-10 scaling.

At ranks 10, 15, and 20 we add milestone bonuses. Ideally they emphasize gameplay alterations with micro decisions, where as encounters deal with macro decisions.

Examples
10: Grants Expose, a 60s recast Ability granting the next action +50% potency.
15: Expose enhanced actions automatically crit, gaining additional% potency equal to native critical chance.
20: Every fifth critical strike hits twice.

Materia is a flat +1 to ranking.

Every 10 levels you are above your equipment reduces the rank provided by 50%.

So we'd set some expectations with itemization.

Weapons would be Materia slots only, letting you customize what they bring around the rest of your armor. Weapons are treated as capstone rewards, so we avoid feelbad scenarios by letting their Stat budget be entirely within player control.

Armor would grant a mixture of offense and utility stats. "Progression" armor such as tome and crafted would have higher budgets to utility. Raid would have higher budgets to offense. "Catch up" armor from 24mans and dungeons would come with additional materia. If we design our milestones well enough, BIS should still vary.

Accessories would no longer have a classification, instead utilizing their Primary sync we see on pre order jewelry. Accessories come with more materia slots based on tier, and +1 to a chosen stat, usable by any class.

Basic (Level cap AF)
Weapon: 2 materia slots
Armor: 1 offense, 1 utility (+2)
Accessory: 1 flex (+1)

Total: 2 Materia slots, 5 offense, 5 utility, 5 flex. 17 total ranks.

Tier 1
Weapon: 3 Materia
Armor: +3
Accessory: 1 Materia slot, 1 Flex
Total: 8 materia slots, +20. (28)

Tier 2
Weapon: 4 Materia
Armor: +4
Accessory: 2 Materia, 1 Flex
Total: 14 Materia, +25 (39)

Tier 3
Weapon: +5 Materia
Armor: +5
Accessory: 3 Materia, 1 Flex
Total: 20 materia, +30 (50)

This also gives us a few more tuning levers to work around.

We can have it so milestones are determined by weapon materia and armor selected, while accessories are purely for fine tuning your final stat tiers, such as how some people would only want specific amounts of haste. Doing so makes individual milestones more important, and makes relatively minor gains less important.

As an example, weapon materia and armor provide "blue" ranks and accessories provide "orange" ranks. Orange ranks push up Blue Ranks, and in order to unlock a milestone, you must have had some Blue already invested.

We can have Utility milestones be much more potent than equivalent Offense milestones. While this will in no way overthrow "durmage is king", it creates more compelling gear choices. Maybe it -is- worth using the +1 Crit, +3 Tenacity tome chest piece, because you can still hit your Crit 20 milestone but now you can grab Tenacity 10 as well.

This also effectively replaces the idea of talent trees among jobs. Our character customization instead comes from gear, and while not all milestones will be good or great for everyone, if they are designed well, there's at least incentive to try.

By nature of armor being immutable, if one particular "stat build" is too prevalent, the next line of itemization can be constructed to favor trying something else instead. You can brute force back to what you had, but you might miss something along the way.

[Mikey_R]

So how about we drop DRK blood gauge!?
...

Going by what you have said, you have just levelled DRK to 50, you have no experience in using DRK at the endgame and going by character name, you have no jobs at 80, so I suspect you are unaware how the endgame shapes up, especially when endgame savage raids are concerned.

To put it simply, you want to maximise your DPS as much as possible.

With that said, how much of what you have said will contribute to the DPS gain overall? By giving other skills MP costs, how do they factor into the MP -> potency formula? As an example, current Edge is 500 potency for 3000 MP, this is essentially 6 MP per potency. However, if Bloodspiller cost 4000 MP and done 600 potency, then you have 6.6 MP per potency, which means, in the long run Edge will be a higher DPS gain if it is used over Bloodspiller, and that doesn't take into account Darkside, which is an extra 10% potency on everything from then on. If you factor in your Enhanced Edge giving Darkside 25% damage gain (that is way too high FYI) then the potency potential for Edge gets even higher.

This is currently why TBN gives a free Edge or Flood, it is effectively giving back the MP it cost to use, making it DPS neutral, as long as it pops. If it did not give any benefits when popped, I doubt you would see it be as prevalent, with DRKs preferring to use other defensive means rather than reducing their potential damage output.

(Slight tangent, however, this is also why you have to be careful with gauges in general if you want them to have a DPS and a defensive skill attached. DPS will win out in 99% of cases, so the gauge will be used for that and not the defensive aspect.)

Getting back onto the post I am commenting on, The more you try and add into the single target combo with the interactions, the more likely you are to have actions that will just not be utilised. You can see this with Ninja, Fuma Shuriken if the first Mudra you get, but it is immediately replaced at level 35 by Raiton. You now will have no use for Fuma Shurriken at all. There will be a best one to use and the others will be left behind and not used.

[Ralt21]

Going by what you have said, you have just levelled DRK to 50, you have no experience in using DRK at the endgame and going by character name, you have no jobs at 80, so I suspect you are unaware how the endgame shapes up, especially when endgame savage raids are concerned.

To put it simply, you want to maximise your DPS as much as possible.

Thx.
these are certainly thing i didnt think about

i didnt really think about mp economy and as you said i am still behind. so i mainly just read what people say. (that doesnt mean i cant see what makes DRK similair to WAR to some extened when reading all the skills)

thinking of what you said, it is probably a better idea to atleast drop the Enhanced effect of Dark arts. I still would make it so that dark arts and mp is the way of DRK. so potency of some skills would have to be thought out more.

I also had a sudden brainstorm before this post.
So what if we were to keep the blood gauge but now it uses are to generate dark arts.
making bloodspiller and Quietus into high mp cost blood generators.
giving DRK the image of 'using the blood of your enemies to use dark arts'

it certainly sound stupid when i start thinking about the stuff you mentioned.
but would love to hear your thought and anybody else if they like to jump in.