Genshin's Bond of Life Mechanic

[ty_taurus]

In Genshin Impact, we've recently been introduced to a new region in Fontaine, the France-inspired nation that represents the Hydro element--water. While the region is still pretty new, one of the qualities of new characters and weapons from this region is a lot more involvement with the process of losing and gaining HP. One of these new mechanics is called a "Bond of Life."

The Bond of Life is a effect that prevents the character from recovering HP by creating this sort of 'empty space' that must be healed to full before that character can be healed again. Here's a visual to help explain the mechanic:



EDIT: I just came across someone on Reddit who described the mechanic very aptly. They described it as "HP Debt." You accrue a debt of HP that must be healed through before the character can be healed again.

You can see that in the left image, there is a red outline around the character's HP bar. When trying to heal, a portion of that red outline is "filled" in the right image. Now, this sounds like a bad status condition, but it's also being used to the player's advantage. You see, some of the new weapons will actually inflict a Bond of Life on the user based on their Max HP and grant special benefits once the Bond of Life has been filled. The characters from this region generally have built-in ways to recover their own HP, but in general, this also adds more value to the healers in the game who can accelerate filling these Bonds of Life. Here are some examples:



Presumably, future characters from this region may also apply a Bond of Life to themselves, or other weapons might use this mechanic as well, and it's something quite interesting. But the reason why I bring this up is because I wonder if this is a concept that could also adapt to FFXIV to help give more reasons to heal the party.

Imagine if Warrior, for example, instead of just healing themselves, also created a Bond of Life that, when healed up, grants them bonus Beast Gauge. Or maybe it Dark Knight does this and their Bond of Life restores their MP. Or Reaper does this during their Enshroud and filling it extends the duration of their Enshroud window, or grants them additional charges on their Death Gauge. As long as the UI is very clear and strongly indicates when a player has this Bond of Life, I think it could do a lot in the way of creating more reasons to heal without necessarily increasing outgoing damage frequency. While that's still something I'd want to see anyway, I just say that because it's possible to see a lot more use of healing by creating reasons to heal these HP debts even when no one is taking damage.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[fulminating]

How would you have it interact with galvanise/catalyse - it sounds like the same concept but in the other direction, so cancelling out or instantly fulfilling the bond could work there?

Similarly would it proc excog or nah? Being able to instantly proc whatever effect sounds like a pretty cool interaction.

A downside would be that it might incentivise and reward medica2 spammers.

[ty_taurus]

How would you have it interact with galvanise/catalyse - it sounds like the same concept but in the other direction, so cancelling out or instantly fulfilling the bond could work there?

Similarly would it proc excog or nah? Being able to instantly proc whatever effect sounds like a pretty cool interaction.

A downside would be that it might incentivise and reward medica2 spammers.

You can have a barrier in Genshin as well. The barrier would protect your actual HP while you try and fill the Bond. Since we generate barriers through healing, I imagine the HP recovered would go toward the Bond, but the barrier would be applied independently and still protect you. It wouldn't proc Excog because as you can see in the example image, the bond is not actually a part of your HP. Your character still has full HP while the Bond exists.

As for Medica II... there isn't any more or less incentive to spamming Medica II since you ultimately lose out on a portion of your regen. Though I imagine if you fill the Bond with a regen, the remaining duration will go toward healing the target's actual HP.

[Sebazy]

IMO it'd be a super neat addition for more casual content for sure. Gives us something to feed all the excessive oGCDs into.

The only pain point for me is how it would potentially collide with the 2 minute meta's emphasis on stuffing every buff possible into the window coupled with SE's love of ensuring there's some kind of mechanic lined up right with said 2 minute window. On one side, we managed before with Blood for Blood, but on the other side, it could start being problematic if we get 'Top to 100% or Doom' style mechanics in these windows.

[ty_taurus]

IMO it'd be a super neat addition for more casual content for sure. Gives us something to feed all the excessive oGCDs into.

The only pain point for me is how it would potentially collide with the 2 minute meta's emphasis on stuffing every buff possible into the window coupled with SE's love of ensuring there's some kind of mechanic lined up right with said 2 minute window. On one side, we managed before with Blood for Blood, but on the other side, it could start being problematic if we get 'Top to 100% or Doom' style mechanics in these windows.

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.

[Sebazy]

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.

If the 2 minute meta evaporates, that only makes this mechanic better IMO++

[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.

[LilimoLimomo]

As much as I think healers need more to do, I don't think giving tanks the ability to explicitly create an additional need for healing is a good idea.

If it was a mechanic in a specific fight maybe, something the boss does to the players? Sure. But not something players do to themselves that then creates a need other players have to fill.