Genshin's Bond of Life Mechanic

[ty_taurus]

Ohh I see, well then it might be a misunderstanding on my part, but I have (unlike some, it seems) played WOW in recent years, and as such I was under the impression that this mechanic would not be limited to just specific jobs using specific actions, but would be something that could be applied by bosses as part of the fight design/potential mechanics to draw from. Things like, instead of the current raidwide+bleed we have, a raidwide that must be mitigated as hard as now (eg it does 110% before any mit/shields), but ALSO applies a 'heal absorb' of 50% of everyone's max HP. The tanks would take less damage from the raidwide naturally, and have selfhealing to help clear their 'debt' faster, but it would mean needing to 'heal more' (which was what people wanted to have, wasn't it?) to clear the 'debt' AND top the party up in time for the next damage instance

Imagine like, instead of two stack markers that splits damage, a different kind of 'two markers on healers' that splits 'heal absorb applied'. So you could choose to either spread it across the party by doing the usual 2x4 splits, or you could let the healers eat the stack marks solo, they still live (because the actual damage doesn't split here), but now they have ALL of the HP debt that 4 people should have had, likely making said debt be like, 200% of their max HP. Maybe it's better to have fewer people take the debt for some reason (eg Benediction fully clears one of them). It's a design element that opens a lot of doors for 'new ways to challenge the players', so limiting it to just 'specific jobs have this as part of their moves and it's used nowhere else' seems pretty wasteful to me. It would be very on brand for SE though

You can do that too. And that's how it goes in Genshin as well. Some enemies can just apply a Bond of Life that stops you from healing until its cleared, but if you take a look at the second image in my initial post, you'll see those weapons which you can give to certain characters (there are 5 weapon categories and each character can equip any weapon from 1 of those categories. Swords, Bows, Polearms, etc.). They have effects that apply a Bond of Life to the holder, but once cleared, provides a buff to their attack stat or their elemental damage (raw damage output basically). So it can be multipurpose. Since the characters from this new region all have gimmicks that involve managing their HP, most of them have built-in sustain so far that can be used to clear those weapon effects on their own. But like I said, having a healer makes that a lot easier.

[AmiableApkallu]

Living Dead was changed because it had this issue.

If anything, I might argue that the changes to Living Dead bring it closer to this "Bond of Life" mechanic thing. In very rough terms:

• The Living Dead condition + lethal damage is the trigger.
• The Walking Dead condition is the "HP debt." (Maybe more an "HP obligation" given that healing restores real HP.)
• Undead Rebirth is the buff.

The addition of the self-heal under Walking Dead is exactly the thing ty said makes it work well in Genshin.

As a healer, the problem with Living Dead is that the status icons can easily be missed in a sea of buffs and debuffs, not to mention having to know what they actually mean. Highlighting the entire HP bar in some universal-to-all-jobs manner would lessen or eliminate that problem.

(In fact, if we think about this UI-feature more broadly, imagine, for example, if the HP bar itself were used as to reinforce whether a particular Doom was Esunable vs. heal to full vs. go stand on the special cleanse pad.)

[Aldath]

I mean, I don't like talking as if the 2 minute meta will never or cannot ever change. We don't know what Dawntrail will do to the flow of combat, or any future expansion. And that's not to say it absolutely will change or go away either, I just don't like letting something that isn't set in stone control discussion about design ideas.

Haven't they already said that 2 Minute meta has made it easier for the dev team to "balance" and design stuff and thus it will be permanent?

[ForsakenRoe]

Haven't they already said that 2 Minute meta has made it easier for the dev team to "balance" and design stuff and thus it will be permanent?

cough Abyssos

cough Ranged Tax/Melee being 10% ahead for seemingly zero reason

I'd expect that if they had said it would be 'permanent', it'd be like how 'we cannot have a checkmark to say if you already obtained an item, the servers could not handle it'. That is, as soon as it becomes a PR issue of sorts (eg a plugin does the job for them and makes them look bad), the tune magically changes. If the 2min meta were directly linkable to a drop in player retention/too much bad PR/etc then it'd be gone, I'd assume

[ty_taurus]

cough Abyssos

cough Ranged Tax/Melee being 10% ahead for seemingly zero reason

I'd expect that if they had said it would be 'permanent', it'd be like how 'we cannot have a checkmark to say if you already obtained an item, the servers could not handle it'. That is, as soon as it becomes a PR issue of sorts (eg a plugin does the job for them and makes them look bad), the tune magically changes. If the 2min meta were directly linkable to a drop in player retention/too much bad PR/etc then it'd be gone, I'd assume

I can only imagine they'll get hounded about it during the media tour. There's too much negative discussion about it including in influencer circles that I can't imagine nothing will be done at all. Which isn't to say that they might completely change trajectory or anything, but that I find it hard to believe with the way its been talked about that it's something that will never change in any capacity. It might not be a complete removal of the meta, but maybe there will be cuts to raid buffs. There are a lot of jobs that have raid buffs that don't exactly need them thematically.

Personally, outside of Dancer, Bard, and Astrologian, I'd consider cutting most, if not all of the party buffs across the other jobs. Focus on giving different DPS different pieces of utility to help sell their unique advantages.

[Renathras]

In my experience, there is often very little need to be "waiting" for other players to get injured. They will get injured, and depending on the dungeon, un-injuring them can be a constant effort.

Yeah, this.

I don't know what DFs these people run, but I've yet to find one that the party wouldn't have wiped if I literally never healed anyone.

I was speaking generally. It feels like no suggestion is good enough--that nothing will ever be good enough.

The issue is more that most suggestions stick with a theme, in one of two forms, both of which people specifically have problems with. Namely, busywork for the sake of busywork that papers over an existing problem but steadfastly refuses to address the core problem, and does so in a way that's like to annoy a lot of people in the process who may prefer the current situation better.

As I said, what happens if you're in a party without the Jobs that require more healing? That doesn't fix the problem. Same as the more DPS buttons proposal, which also doesn't fix the problem and makes it worse for a lot of people (some are "less bored", but those who already don't like DPSing are even more annoyed) since it's merely distracting from/papering over the problem, not addressing it.

The core problem ultimately is encounter design, which includes damage output in both rate and quantity, and in Job design having too much access to non-GCD free healing that deals with every damage problem that comes at the party, which is also the reason for the Garoifiosis spam issue; since GCDs aren't used for healing, you end up with a lot more of them for...that.

Any true solution to the problem has to address those two issues. Solutions that skirt them aren't doing that, so such proposals, yes, won't be good enough, since they fail to address the key issues themselves, and thus perpetuate the problem, not solve it. And when they specifically make things worse, it's not a solution at all.

But...I also understand that's a harder sell, and a more deep seated thorn to dislodge.

.

And yeah, that was how I interpreted your post. Though I am reminded of things like WoW Warlocks having the ability to convert some of their HP into MP, but they also had the ability to drain HP from their voidsent-esque pets to heal themselves, too (and also to use Bandages in combat, which actually WAS a thing once upon a time...) So while they could kill themselves and often annoyed healers, they ALSO had the potential to heal themselves...

...but then if Jobs like RPR/etc work that way, it's not really a healer problem since it's (potentially) solved by the Job itself.

[ty_taurus]

The issue is more that most suggestions stick with a theme, in one of two forms, both of which people specifically have problems with. Namely, busywork for the sake of busywork that papers over an existing problem but steadfastly refuses to address the core problem, and does so in a way that's like to annoy a lot of people in the process who may prefer the current situation better.

Who exactly is "people" other than you and one other person who responded to this thread? Can you back up your claim with a healthy sample size of players? Your "Busywork" would be better known as playing the game. Half of the gameplay of FFXIV is your job's toolkit and what you do with it. I am tired of being told that my desire to actually play that half of the game is an "inconvenience" to some people. At this point, I really don't care what you do with your gameplay experience, just let me play the game I want to play with whatever healer I want. As long as I have that option, that will make me happy. However anyone else wants to play is their business, not mine.

As I said, what happens if you're in a party without the Jobs that require more healing? That doesn't fix the problem. Same as the more DPS buttons proposal, which also doesn't fix the problem and makes it worse for a lot of people (some are "less bored", but those who already don't like DPSing are even more annoyed) since it's merely distracting from/papering over the problem, not addressing it.

Me being turned away from the local food drive because my $20 donation isn't enough to feed the entire community.

...but then if Jobs like RPR/etc work that way, it's not really a healer problem since it's (potentially) solved by the Job itself.

So then don't worry about it and let me appreciate the opportunity to heal more.

[Lyth]

If this is implemented as a raid buff that triggers when you apply a certain amount of healing, then your team will demand that you use it on recast, even if it costs you GCDs. Not really a skill check, though. If it's applied as a raid mechanic, then it's only a slight variation on the standard Heartless Archangel mechanic that we every so often (current Ex Primal included), in the event that you're one of those healers who really misses manually cleansing Living Dead.

Honestly, the problem isn't that you don't get to do more GCD healing. It's like wanting to play goaltender when there are no shots on net. The problem is that resource management on healers is practically non-existent, and that you're playing a simplified version of Caster DPS, of all things, between heals.