Mechanic Design: Fun For One And All?

[Acidblood]

Most combat encounters in FFXIV contain what I would call 'avoidable mechanics', the current design of which tends to be high damage - including many potential 1-shots - and Vulnerability stacks (i.e. taking increased damage until eventually you die).

While this design worked OK in the early days of FFXIV, it is long outdated, and honestly now feels at odds with the rest of the game (especially in EW). The most notable issues include:

• The responsibility falls heavily on Healers to cover, and recover from, other players mistakes.
• Individual mechanics are often not a punishment (except maybe to the Healers); i.e. The player hit suffers little interruption or ill-effect and is simply healed.
• A large punishment is given to the player (and again the Healers) after multiples failures; i.e. death.

This has several implications:

• For all content: The frequency and potency of unavoidable outgoing damage must be limited due to the (potentially impossible) pressure it would put on Healers.
• For 'roulette' content: It is often not fun for new players to get repeatedly 1-shot and spend a significant part of an encounter on the ground... which also limits their ability to learn the fight.
• For 'savage' content: Most mechanics must be deadly (to avoid 'cheesing'), which helps enforce a RDM / SNM meta for progression - due to the extra availability of recovery (i.e. raise) - yet, these classes are then less desirable for 'farming' due to lower DPS... unless Raise isn't factored into balancing, in which case R.I.P. BLM (and other DPS); i.e. impossible class balance.

With FFXIVs class design and general philosophy having moved on significantly from launch, it is long past time that mechanic (and encounter) design was updated to match. Thus, I propose an updated design focused on allowing players to spend more time having fun and learning encounters and less time dead:

• Instead of 'avoidable mechanics' being the majority of outgoing damage, most mechanics would do only a small amount of damage (0-20% of HP) and have a small, but noticeable, 'punishment' effect. These effects would not be removable (i.e. via Esuna), would not have diminishing returns, and multiple hits would refresh the duration. Such effects could include:
  • A sort duration 'stun'; including Stun, Knock-Up, Freeze, Petrify, Stop, etc.
  • Mind Control; e.g. Forward March
  • Knock-Back
  • Slow
  • Ability Lock; i.e. PoTD style 'Abilities not available'
  • Other creative things... e.g. Weapon Drop - moderate duration Silence / Pacify, interact with your dropped weapon to remove.
• Each mechanic would also apply a stacking Damage Down debuff. Again, non-removable (even via death), no diminishing returns, and additional hits extend the duration. To keep things sane, different content types would have different limits, for example:
  • Dungeons: +10% per stack, +20s per hit, max 2 stacks, max 1 minute duration.
  • Alliance Raids: +10% per stack, +30s per hit, max 3 stacks, max 2 minute duration.
  • Normal Trails / Raids: +10% per stack, +30s per hit, max 4 stacks, max 3 minute duration.
  • Extreme / Savage: +15% per stack, 45s per hit, max 6 stacks, max 10 minute duration.

The benefits of such a design (compared to the current design) would be:

• The punishment, and responsibility, falls on the player who made the mistake.
• Individual mechanics are always noticeable and thus more of a learning experience.
• Less death, and time spent dead, especially for new players, allowing more opportunity to play and learn new encounters.
• Allows far more unavoidable outgoing damage, keeping Healers entertained by healing, even in good groups.
• Adjustable per content level; currently, (AFAIK) Res Sickness and Vuln stacks are not.
• Allows old content to maintain meaningful mechanics - general HP and outgoing damage can be lowered to make things easier (if desired) instead of mechanics having to be (essentially) removed.
• The fastest clears will always be those that do mechanics!

Note: The new design would not preclude the potential to have mechanics that do large amounts of damage, or apply Vulnerability stacks... they would just no longer be the default (and ideally would be well telegraphed, or have a long build-up).

[Risvertasashi]

I'm surprised SE doesn't use damage down stacks more - it's not like they're anything new or revolutionary and at times SE seemed to be moving that way. Also seems like the most fitting punishment for messing up, rather than adding extra work for healers... as the vuln stacks do, which we're back to seeing in the current EX trials.

[Brightamethyst]

Agreed. It's a little annoying that the default penalty for failing a mechanic is damage and a vuln stack. That's only a punishment for healers and teaches the other player nothing. Things like damage down, non esuna-able paralyze/blind, etc would give people or incentive to actually do mechanics rather than just dumping it all on the healers.

[Karatecatgrl]

]
.[*]For 'roulette' content: It is often not fun for new players to get repeatedly 1-shot and spend a significant part of an encounter on the ground... which also limits their ability to learn the fight.
[*]For 'savage' content: Most mechanics must be deadly (to avoid 'cheesing'), which helps enforce a RDM / SNM meta for progression - due to the extra availability of recovery (i.e. raise) - yet, these classes are then less desirable for 'farming' due to lower DPS... unless Raise isn't factored into balancing, in which case R.I.P. BLM (and other DPS); i.e. impossible class balance.[/LIST]

So I will say this.
There is absolutely nothing stopping a new comer from going into a dungeon prepared. They can look up guides to help them.

I've been in dungeons were I spent most of it on the floor, because I didn't know the fight. Serves me right, I went in blind and then never looked up a guide. I still die to it.
But as a veteran player and a previous expansions mentor you'd expect me to know mechanics by that point.

In Savage or Ultimates you are expected to know the fight, have read guides, know your class inside out and remain calm under pressure.


A single Vuln stack doesn't really interfere or punish a healer. Sure they will take more damage, but as a healer we get to choose whom we heal. This isn't wow where the heals are hard coded to heal the lowest health party member and give boosted healing to them. This is ffxiv, where if you get hit by a mechanic the healer decides if they heal you. The raisers will also decide if they will raise you. Die enough times and you might have to wait a bit as keeping seven players alive is easier than eight.

The point is that vuln stacks only punish the player that gets them. Not everyone else.



That said, I do my absolute best to keep people alive and have done some epic feats of healing. Between lb3s and having the tank and both DPS die and manage to raise them to not wipe is impressive to say the least. To be fair I was raising during animation mechanics and was a whm so bene tetra and solace were helpful.



All I'm saying is step back from your pov and look at the pic of those around you. People who are at all different points in this game and think about how they view this. Those that have been around forever and those that are just starting. Those who are jaded and those who have a fresh perspective, those who are hardcore and those who are just casual. All those perspectives are what define this game.

[Brightamethyst]

There is absolutely nothing stopping a new comer from going into a dungeon prepared. They can look up guides to help them.

There are plenty of things that stopping people from going in "prepared". What if it's day one and there are no guides yet? What if I'm trying to avoid spoilers? What if I like going in blind and figuring things out on my own? What if I just can't be bothered to watch a video of a random dungeon or normal mode trial? What if...?

No one knows everything the first time and spending half the fight on the floor is fine as long as you learn from it and do better next time. The problem is when people fail mechanics, don't die, and shrug it off as something they can just ignore. That shunts the failure punishment onto the healers and leaves the offending player mostly unaffected. A more personally detrimental effect like a damage down or non-cleansable paralyze, or something would give people a bigger incentive to learn and would prevent all the "just eat the mechanics and heal through the vuln stacks" situations.

[NeoDivinity]

i like some of points but i dont agree with the savages having so heavy punishment, damage down and vulnerability are already a thing in some fights and having those maybe last for the entirety of the fight making so that everyone plays 100% correctly and avoid every possible mechanics can make jobs where the strong points are the versatily on save a run with a clutch move even more rare, thats one of the reasons i love to prog as PLD and maybe switch to other tanks to speedkills.

But what got me to the tank role for exemple was the mechanics for job that allowed me to control the fight and interesting mechanics possibilities, i remember how cool it was for me ditching the boss to the OT and running getting the adds on T7(Melusine) or positioning the adds correctly on Helicarnassus. Things that only a tank could do, i wished that every job could fill a role in the fight, more usage of the role traits, silence, esuna, stunning bosses or adds, dealing with Preys, now that almost every class has defensive cds.

Not necessarily more punishing but more creative. moving away from every "Role is a DPS" Meta.